Hemmed in by the Tide: Our First Weekend, and Revival History

On Saturday, we Americans ran a workshop on Prophetic Evangelism. Chris taught on healing, and Naomi on the prophetic. We had a good mix of people, even though it is still Easter holiday time, and lots of students were out of town.

I love the prophetic. I love to receive words, but I think I love to give them more. On Friday, I was re-listening to a recorded word that Gary Morgan had given me. (He is a Welsh prophet, to oversimplify things. He has crazy revelation.) The next day at the workshop, during a practice game, one of my partners (Mr Finch) gave me that same word again. It was really encouraging for me to hear it again (especially since it was fresh on my mind), and encouraging for my partner to get the same insight as a person who is well-known for operating in the prophetic 24/7.

After that, we split up in groups went out on the streets to look for people to pray for. In my group were Mr Finch and a Malaysian student. Mr Finch is bold like a lion (I told him so); he's also very peaceful and wise, so he was a perfect person to be in a group with. There were several divine appointments that day. An elderly woman got her ankle healed; she had been using a cane beforehand, and her husband was astounded when she put it up and started stomping up and down to test it out.

Sunday, we went to a church service in Newcastle. The three local Bethshan campuses came together. Worship was wonderful. I felt really connected. Their worship band handed it over to our students after a few songs, and of course they did a great job. Shannon taught a powerful message on forgiveness.

We went to the Finch household to hang out for a while that evening. They live in a Victorian terrace house, about 150 years old. It's one of the most beautiful houses I've ever seen. Mr and Mrs Finch told us story after story about how God has been faithful to them, providing supernaturally, beyond all reason. I want a life like that.

I don't have pictures of most of this — I haven't been taking as many as I normally would. But I think that's good, because I'm taking it all in. Sometimes you sacrifice the moment to record a snapshot of the memory. There's definitely a balance.

On Monday, we got to go to different sites that are connected with Celtic Christianity, and revival history in this area. Although I'm relatively new to this world, I'm fascinated by Holy Spirit moving en masse; and I've been drawn to Celtic Christianity for a long time. I can't tell you much about the Revival sites we visited at this point. But my favorite thing we did was walk along a rock beach on the northeast coast, to a site that used to be tidally connected to where St Hilda of Whitby had a prayer tower. The tide would go out, and she would walk a causeway to this tower. The tide would come in, stranding her for something like 10 hours. She would stay there and pray the whole time, until the tide went back out. This was something like 1300 years ago, so the tower is no longer there. But we went to the point, and prayed until the wind and the cold pushed us back to the bus. The ocean awakens something very deep within me, and I felt really connected to that site. I want a prayer tower.