From fake and nonexistent in their eyes to alive

At Café Devine, God used all of us in the most incredible ways! Meg shared the word and she did awesome, Inhye shared her testimony and she did really great also. Toward the end of the service we had some little kid’s running around outside trying to create a ruckus, trying to open the door to the café and shout in and disturb the service. Mpumi acted quick on it though, he went outside and started playing a questioning game with them. He first created order, an answer game where only one young person could answer at a time. He then said state the very first word that comes to your mind when I say the name of a person. He then started listing the names of some famous people. The kids were having fun with it; they were answering awful, crude answers though. Eventually he said God, and Jesus. A majority of the answers were “fake, not real, made up, a lie, but some of the answers were right they were just stated in a mocking way.” When he mentioned God and Jesus though the kids started mocking and making fun of and goofing off, they just redirected their attention to once again making a ruckus. When this happened I stepped and said “hey you guys, can I share one thing with you?, Guess what, I actually used to think the same way as you. When people asked me about Jesus I thought they were lame. But I got in a really bad accident a year ago and I should have died, the doctors told me I was going to die, but I prayed and God saved me. I used to think Jesus was fake, that he wasn’t real too, but in the middle of this accident, in the middle of my suffering, it was my last resort, my only resort was to pray. I was in the middle of nowhere and I was told that I wasn’t going to get any help because of where I was at, But I prayed and Jesus saved me, he gave me three miracles and I know that without every single one of them I would be dead, and there’s no doubt about that, that’s a fact. But that’s how I know God is real, because I would be dead right now if he wasn’t.” haha I looked down at them and their jaws were dropped, they were just sitting there staring at me. I told them to take a seat and I would explain the whole story to them. The calmed down and suddenly looked so serious and intent. That in itself was a miraculous transformation. I got to share with them how freaking awesome and incredible and real our God is, and I got to challenge them, I got to help them see that even though the religions here in Ireland sometimes turn people away from God create tension, that that isn’t what our God does. They said they hated religion and I got to share that accepting Jesus isn’t about religion it’s about having a personal relationship with a living God. A god who made you, a God who knows you better than you know yourself, and because of that he is the only one who can really give you and show you what’s best for you, what you really want in life. It was amazing, I praise God for creating that opportunity, and calming those kid’s hearts, for teamwork because I could have never connected with those kids without Mpumi first intriguing them, questioning them, and finding out where they stood in their perspectives, and for the miracles, because without those I would be dead and unable to share anything with anyone. But most of all those are God’s miracles and that is the exact reason why they are so fascinating.

Gods Ministry In Cafe Devine

Wow, today was incredible, God did so much with us today. Today was the first time that we really got to see our team in action. God split us all up and threw different tasks in each of our paths. As more and more people sporadically showed up at the café, we each found ourselves caught up in conversations that were most indubitably divinely appointed. Kirsty and I found ourselves at a table with two kind women whom had never actually taken part in one of Dario’s church events. They ended up there by sheer chance, or so it seemed. It was actually a God thing, he wanted them there and so they were there. They are from a different part of Ireland, but they had been in town for an Irish language course. And they were sporadically sent to our café. We got to encourage one another’s faith and God answered so many prayers by bringing those two ladies to our Christian fellowship. God told Inhye that she had to share her testimony so Inhye was anticipating that she would be sharing it with the entire café, but it turned out that God had entirely different plans, he wanted her to share her testimony one on one with a man. As their conversation ended Mpumi felt called to talk to this man about his testimony, God called them both to boost this mans faith and they were faithful in that task. Meg got to talk to a girl who was suffering from a seriously bad relationship, this lady actually got to see and understand that God is really here, that regardless of her faults that God is here to love and take care of her. This was such an amazing night, we had such a great fellowship. We taught and learned so much from one another and many prayers were answered.

A Ferry Tale

Our God is so cool, one small step to honor him and he gifts us greatly. One minor step in faith and he drops down miracles like he does when he makes It rain. Our mission called us from Rome to England to Ireland within the span of 3 days, the commute from Rome to England smoothly. We flew into England and were granted a couple of hours to pack our things before we were to depart to Ireland. We picked up our vehicle and were on our way. We seemed to be running a little bit late, but we made it to the ferry just in time. However when we arrived at the ferry, the line didn’t seem to be moving at all. After an extended period of just sitting there with no progress in our journey Mpumme said “you guys we really should pray that we get through this process smoothly and without troubles.” I began to pray and just praise the lord for taking care of us and watching after us as we proceeded forth to serve and praise him, it was the prayer of a man who knows his God is capable of all things. A prayer of thanksgiving to that awesome God for the fact that our Lord was going to take care of us and conquer our every trial. As we approached the gate, the lady just began saying each of our names, as she was stating each of our names she handed us our paperwork and said have a nice night. We were astonished at the fact that we didn’t say a single word to her and she knew each of us by name. So we asked if she needed to see our passports and without any verification of our identification at all she said “your fine to pass, just have them prepared for when you enter the ship.” The second the car in front of us pulled out she somehow knew, without even looking at us or our vehicle, that our little missionary group was in the car praying for a quick, painless and trouble free ferry crossing from England to Ireland and boy did God answer our prayers on that one!

Little did we know that when we entered onto the boat we were going to be thrown into an enclosed miniature chuckie cheese play ground complete with a man making balloon animals and noisy children racing about. We prayed and decided to just try and put our names on a waiting list for a cabin. After waiting just a short time a room was made available to us. As we got ready for bed our leader Mpumi addressed the possible problem of girls and guys sharing a room in such close quarters. Kindly, the men offered the three girls to sleep in the cabin whilst they sleep in the land of Chuckie Cheese. All of us were in agreement and so the guys prepared to leave. While this was happening, Kirsty experienced a prompting from the Spirit. She ran around the corner and spoke with the manager at reception. She explained the situation and concluded with a daring question. “So, I was wondering if there was an available room and if we could possibly get that room for free? I completely understand if this is not possible.”She said really hoping that it was indeed the Holy Spirit prompting her to do this. "I can give you one room with only two beds in it." He said whilst handing her the key. Perfect! two beds for the two guys, Mpumi and Mike.

Divine Conversation in Cafe Devine

Today we had an OM meeting at café divine, A speaker from Algeria talked to us today, I learned so many random facts about Muslims and Algeria. Muslims are the easiest people in the world to evangelize to because they want to talk about God all night! Apparently St. Augustine is from Algeria too, which is pretty random. God is doing so dang much in Algeria, it’s absolutely astonishing, he just went on for an hour stating miracle after miracle. Wow God is doing so much!! He said just wait, in a couple years the North African Muslims are going to be evangelizing and revolutionizing Europe. NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE WITH GOD. Anyway after this talk the same man from café Devine, the one who both Inhye and Mpumi were told to share their testimonies with started asking questions. God has been so abundantly at work in this mans life, it almost seems like God sent our whole group out here with this man in mind. Anyway his question was “well the evangelizing information you are sharing with us would be helpful if we were evangelizing to Muslims, but how do we share with the Catholics?” “are we supposed to evangelize to the Catholics and protestants the same way that you are evangelizing to the Muslims, by just telling them that they are wrong and that the only way they can find salvation is by having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ?, are you sure that would work here?”

After he asked that question one of the OM workers just erupted on him and bursted out the entire gospel message, it was perfect because that was the one thing that we hadn’t yet got to share with him in full detail because he portrayed to us that he already knew the gist of it, which he did, but this information was so essential.. Right after the gospel message had been delivered another individual stood up and said it’s not about telling people that they’re wrong in their beliefs, it’s about getting right with God by having a personal relationship with God. It doesn’t matter if you go to church or mass, and it doesn’t matter what church you go to, what matters is whether you give your life to the lord entirely and turn from your past.

This man then explained briefly that he had gone to church since he was a boy, but he hadn’t really experienced God until he began to have a personal relationship with Christ, then Christ gave him the power to turn his life around. He said it wasn’t about the church he grew up in; it was about his relationship with God. Then man who originally asked the question said something along the lines of, well you grew up in a catholic church so of course your relationship with God wasn’t right. After this statement God told me that I absolutely had to share my story with this man. Because he had the perspective that if you go to the right church then you’re saved. I felt like I had to share with him that I grew up in the “right faith” that I grew up Presbyterian, but for a majority of my life I wasn’t saved. I got to share my testimony, my idiocy, my rebellion. As the spirit lead me I spoke, and as I spoke he became more and more heart struck. In awe he nodded, agreeing with everything the spirit inclined me to say. As I would stop momentarily to gather my thoughts, he would say “I’m in that position right now, how did you get freed from it, how did you get out of this lifestyle, how did you get out of these types of situations, is it possible to break free from this?” I got to lay out and explain each of the steps that God laid out for me, I got to share so many of the things that God taught me, and ultimately, with every answer I got to point this man to the Lord. As I talked we connected more and more, but every miracle which had freed me from this lifestyle of rebellion (and trust me it does take a miracle when you get into it as pathetically deep as I was) was a gift of God. God was gifting this man as we spoke with one another. This seriously seemed like a divine conversation in Café Devine: God had started it by pointing out how essential it is to come to him and give him our all and that when we make that commitment is when he flips our worlds upside down, not when we join the right church, God then inclined me to share my testimony and as I spoke it each word of my life story convicted this man and showed him how to be redeemed, God gave him the answers he needed, God showed him a way out of that entrapping, consuming lifestyle, and God showed him that even when you get deep into that darkness that there is always a way out, that there is nowhere to dark for his light to shine and that God will always meet us where we’re at. . Our God is so cool! Haha to think that he dragged me half way around the world just to share what he’s done in my life with this man, (his son), just so that this man could not only have hope, but so that he could see hope and understand that God wants to give him hope and freedom. Our God loves each one of us that much! Enough to drag someone who you can relate to half way around the world just to help you come to your senses.

Missions of a living God

And so the adventure begins! The moment many of us have all been waiting and praying for has finally arrived. Our mission consists of a 5 month journey; we call it the Transit Challenge!  And we want to invite you on this journey with us, because we need your spiritual support. There is so much oppression in the areas that God has called us to serve in, and we are anticipating God to break the chains holding these people from him. Your prayers can make that happen, and to be honest God is already making this happen.

Thus far it’s been absolutely incredible! Our journey has actually just started, but God has been at work in such unimaginably abundant ways already! I'm going to try my very best to share what God is doing, He is doing so incredibly much that I can't guarantee you'll here everything, but I will definitely try my best to share the most meaningful bits. We want to invite you to be a part of this mission, so please know that your prayers mean more than you could imagine and that your support will be felt, heard and shared.

The practicalities are that we will get to travel around the Mediterranean, sharing the Word and surrendering our every motive to the Lord’s reign. There are 5 of us and we have each taken to heart the fact that discipline is the key to true discipleship.  With our individual focuses solely on God, in unity, we are building one another up to ensure that discipline is designated throughout our every step of faith. Each of those steps delves us deeper into this miraculous plan which God has laid out before us.  Stepping forth in unity God has enabled us to work on bettering one another as individuals as we get to display a picture of the way, the truth and the life, through our lives to others as we walk together in faith through this broken world.

My sole intentions with the posts are to share some of the blessings that have come so far and that will continue to come as we serve the lord, because one of my favorite things in the world is hearing about what God is doing and how miraculously and profusely he is at work around the world. I want to share the blessings that he has been gifting us throughout our time serving him.  These things are so great that it would be selfish of me if I didn’t share them. The works of God are for the people of God and on the mission field there is a massive surplus of the glorious works of the lord our God who is most undeniably abundantly at work in all things.

Your prayers bring those works to life in our ministry, would you please pray for:

Safe travels from England to Bulgaria

Unity within our team so that the love of Christ may be represented to this broken nation

A right message to deliver to the Bulgarians

Jesus Romped Rome

God worked in the most powerful way amongst the people in Rome. This mission began with a conference called Tranform. The vision is to reach the lost in the Mediterranean nations, and let me start by saying; WOW did God commission us into that vision with an enthusiastic beginning. There were only 300 of us, but regardless of our small number God used us to reach into every corner of Rome. We were designated one day of evangelism in a city filled with millions and with the power of the Holy Spirit; I feel that our army was as victorious as Gideon’s army of 300. (Please pray that the spirit continues that work in the hearts of those who we encountered.) God opened up opportunities to share the Word with ten’s and ten’s and ten’s. Many were delivered the gospel. Some of them eagerly dove into the word of God as if they had been anticipating and longing for the opportunity and moment in which they could be freed from the chains through the words and deeds of Jesus recorded in the gospel of John.

Others who were less enthusiastic about the message we were delivering were still delegated the power of the gospel message in the tract format (the short sweet and to the point message of salvation which was written in the individuals native language for their convenience) I encountered and got to share with tourists from across the nations. 300 of us went out that day, and Gods multitudinous power radiated through each of us, turning numbers into a meaningless ordeal, that whole town was bombarded with the truth of God. I don’t think I can thoroughly explain this, but I would like to attempt to give you an understanding, so just try to bear with me. As I walked through the town, all of Rome, stopping many to hand out tracts to them, on several occasions throughout the whole of the city I stopped random individuals. In an attempt to give them tracts, they stubbornly refused saying no no no , then slyly pulled a tract out of their pockets as they wryly smiled at me and said“I’ve already been given one of those today” Just imagine the odds of that happening on several occasions when you are walking through a city filled with millions. That is more than a coincidence.