Report from second trip to Ireland Part 2
Monday December 2-Thursday December 5.
After having breakfast and prayer walking in Athlone I traveled to Birr to meet with Pastor John Bulfin and his wonderful wife Arja. The pastor the New Life Church in Birr, County Offaly which is a church plant out of Oasis Christian Fellowship, Roscrea.
I first went to Pastor John’s home, which is working on renovating. It was built in the 1600’s and has been in his family since the 1800’s and here people back home think I live in an old home because it was built in 1890’s. (Our “old” homes in America are new construction compared to homes like John’s.) We talked about the joys and challenges of planting and pastor a small church. They then fed me a wonderful supper of Pumkin and vegetable soup, lamb and potatoes.
As I was waiting for John to change for the bible study we were going to that night Arja, who is originally shared with me how she and John met. Back in the early 80’s she was traveling alone around Europe. She had made it to France and had intended to travel to Romania but she got food poisoning and by the time she recovered didn’t have the time to go to Romania. She did have enough time to visit Ireland. In Dublin she visited a Christian ministry and that is where she saw and met John for the first time. It was also when she heard the Holy Spirit tell her that John was the man she was going to marry. Now she wasn’t looking for a husband and John wasn’t looking for a wife. In fact, Arja told me that John had told the Lord that he wasn’t going to pursue a wife and that if God wanted him to have one that God would have to bring her to him. Arja returned to Finland quit her job and told her family she was moving to Ireland because the Holy Spirit had shown her the man she was to marry.
Her story sounds like a hallmark romantic movie, doesn’t it? Here’s the kicker, it took John 6 years before he saw that Arja was the one that he should marry. Here is also something very different and is a very important difference between this and our concept of romantic love. Arja told me that she wasn’t pursuing John but that she was pursuing the voice of the Holy Spirit. John wasn’t the focus, getting married wasn’t the focus, romance and romantic love was not her focus. Her focus was in following after what the Holy Spirit said.
Tuesday, I met up with Zoe who is a lady I met back in May who is in a similar business as my family. She took me to a place called Emo Court which was a large estate that the last owner turned over to the community of Emo to use as a park. There is a nice cafĂ© onsite and numerous walking trails through gardens, around a small lake and through acres of woods. It was a wonderful time walking and talking about life, the things of God, current events. The enemy has really been after Zoe. Doing everything to discourage her and keep her down. I felt led to give her one of the pray clothes that I had brought. I explained to her that there are people she doesn’t even know who have prayed and are praying for her. The cloth was just a representation of God’s love and healing that is hers in spirit, soul and body.
Zoe has a powerful giftings, and I believe a powerful calling as well, she just needs to see it for herself.
After Arja’s wonderful story we traveled to the Bible study location which was in a local businessman’s place of business. There were about 8 of us and we looked at the first part of the Biblical Christmas story from Luke.
Wednesday, I met Pastors Pam and Anthony Troy of Oasis Christian Center in Roscrea for lunch and then attended and ministered at a joint service later that evening. I had ministered at Oasis on my first trip so it was good to see how much growth had happened since then. The Lord had given me a word of expansion, expansion, expansion when I was there and was something that I have been praying with them ever since. Another minister and his wife came a couple of months ago and the wife a prophetic word for the church which was expansion, expansion, expansion. How awesome it is when the Lord confirms His word through different people who don’t know nor every met one another.
This led Pam to hear the voice of the Lord for the property that the Church needs to buy.
This was originally a jail, the name of the road is Jail Road, it was then sold to Anglican church, I believe, so a place of religious bondage and is now owned by a man who intended to turn it in to a brewery but legally can’t.
The word that came to Pam for this building, which is 3 times larger than where the currently meet (expansion, expansion, expansion) she got the name for it. Saoirse (seer sha) which is the Irish word for Freedom. Isn’t it beautiful to know God’s taking a place of bondage and turning it into a place to set the captives free and a place of FREEDOM. They have it in the spirit by faith and waiting in faith to have it in the physical in God’s perfect time.
After lunch I was able to, this time, get to spend sometime walking around Roscrea, pray over it, meet and talk to people. I parked near the ruins of an old church and across from an old tower.
As I was going to pay for my parking spot, I met a James a man in his early 30’s. As we were speaking the Lord opened the door for me to share the gospel with Jason. How it wasn’t God who took his mom when she was just 52, nor was it God who gave autism to His children nor was it God who had killed his friend’s dad recently. I shared that actually all that was as a result of sin that had come into the world at the fall and how it was the enemy that comes to kill, steal and destroy but that it was God who sent His son Jesus to give us life and that more abundantly. Jason let me pray for him and his children before he went into his home.
At the service that evening we had a wonderful time of praise and worship with a packed house. It was so wonderful to see the tremendous numerical and spiritual growth that has come in just 6 months.
The Lord had me minister on Vision. The importance of having a proper vision of who God is and how big He is and how it important it is to have a vision of who we are in Christ. I was also, with the permission of the pastor, able to share with the people the vision for Saoirse. I shared how I had before the service walked to the location, laid hands on the building and prayed over it. That the Lord had given me a vision that this was theirs. That they were a template church meaning that they are setting an example that will encourage other churches faith to step out and walk in the thing God is leading them to do that will usher in the freedom of the Lord all across Ireland.
Thursday, I relocated to my accommodations in Kildare Town and from there I traveled to Finglas to be with Sean and Thelma Curran and Living Waters Thursday Bible study. I was able to meet again with several people I had met the first time and several new people. It was a wonderful time. I was invited to share some of my testimony and specifically how and why God brought me to Ireland. We then had a beautiful time of ministry in prayer over everyone there. The Lord just ministered in wonderful ways in to everyone’s life.