In March 1995 we went to do outreach in Swansea for a few days.
On these campaigns we usually took a team, made up of people usually from our town, on a brightly painted double- decker bus, which was converted to hold a kitchen and sometimes bunk beds as a sleeping area.
This was my first campaign since becoming a Christian, so I was really on fire for the Lord and full of excitement.
I went with David, my sister, a friend of hers who is blind and several other people from Leicester.
I used to write a diary when I first got saved, so here is the story…
We arrived in Swansea city centre at around 11.30 am and started handing out papers.
I was really optimistic.
On the way to the bus I noticed some New Age Travellers sitting in an alcove and we came back to them later.
Sarah (my sister) and I were giving out Street-papers (evangelistic materials from our church containing testimonies).
There was I time when I felt that people were responding to us as we really were, for the love of Jesus we wanted to convey to them, but only seeing us through the eyes of the world, another old hat thing, not relevant to them and with a lot of skepticism and suspicion.
In desperation, God inspired me and Sarah to pray for the papers and anoint them.
We did this with great passion and prayed that the papers would carry God’s anointing and get across the message of what we were trying to do.
We prayed for my papers and Sarah’s, then David’s when he came to join us.
I think I passed on the anointing when I prayed for her papers!
We worshipped for a bit on the street there and then!
I really loved the spontaneity of worship and prayer during this weekend.
We had our own little worship and prayer time on the way to Cardiff and frequently broke out into prayer.
My sister said I shouldn’t ‘drink and drive’, but I was quite happy, those were heady days of the Holy Spirit!
We had a little singsong on the street, opposite the bus, as I felt we could convey our feelings better to the people through song.
Later, I told Sarah and Steph (Sarah’s friend who is blind), about the travellers I had seen and we went over and chatted with them.
Sarah got them some tea and sandwiches from the bus.
They had four dogs, all sitting between them.
The travellers names were Amanda, Justin and Martin.
Justin had been a traveller for 6 years and he knew our church from London.
He was into eastern religion, which he said brought him peace and satisfaction.
He also spoke about the ‘awakening’ that is going on at the moment.
He called it, ‘a flower with many coloured petals’.
Steph said that she could see that he had a lot of demons.
(Steph is blind, but she can see angels and demons and often told us about it.)
Justin was from Lancashire.
Amanda and Martin were from Bridgend.
They all came onto the bus later and stayed with us for supper and the evening meeting, which we had at the Mumbles.
At the Mumbles Sarah, Steph and I went down the cliffs to the beach.
It was great, but a bit scary at times.
Have you ever taken a blind person rock climbing, with seven foot drops below?!
A very team building activity! LOL
On the bus Amanda sat with Sarah, Ruth and Steph and really learned about the gospel.
Martin sat next to me and we talked a lot, about everything.
He told me that he’d been to Sunday School and Bible classes on Friday nights until he was about fifteen.
Clive brought a word and then we had a worship time and sang, “Give thanks with a grateful heart.”
There was a beautiful atmosphere on the bus, very precious, like family, cosy.
I felt woozy, like my head and shoulders were covered in an intoxicating spiritual dew. Like
a mantle!
After we sang, we all prayed for each other.
Sarah and I prayed for Martin and Steph and Ruth prayed for Amanda.
After another song and worship, lots of people carried on praying with each other.
Anna, a girl from another church got prayer to speak in tongues, it was lovely!
Martin got prayed for four times on the bus, and, by the time we left the bus he was absolutely glowing!
He was really buzzing.
Amanda looked good too.
When I spoke to Martin, he said he was open.
Steph said he had the look of new birth about him.
When we spoke to Justin, he said all the right things, made the ‘right noises’, about being into peace, fulfillment, light and truth, but our friend Steph could see that he carried demons with him.
We prayed that he would be delivered of them.
These were some of the adventures from our first campaign.
Some people, we may never see again, but we pray for God to work in their lives, as He has worked in ours.
“You Used To Be A Teacher”
On another day of the same campaign in Swansea, Dave was on the bus when a few men came up and started taking the mickey out of God.
One of the team tried to share from the Bible with him, when another guy from the team, called Steve came up.
Only one of the men was left behind to talk, while the others went shopping.
Steve looked at the man and said, “You used to be a teacher, didn’t you? But you’re not anymore and you need to talk to God about that, something happened and you need to talk about it.”
It was a word of knowledge.
The other team member told Steve, “No, we need to tell him the gospel,” pointing to the Bible.
But Dave thought, “No, this man needs to hear from God, He is speaking to Him!”
The man’s friends soon came back and said, “Let’s go, you’ve had your fun.”
But the man said to them, “No, these guys are real, I want to talk to them!”
Steve was always known for having really accurate words from God.
It’s so important to be open to listen to God rather than our own religious views of what we should do.
Jesus knows what is inside the heart of a man and how to reach him.
We’ve had many adventures like this over the years, and I’m sure you have too, we certainly all have testimonies of what God has done in our lives, we’d love to hear some of yours!
God is certainly not finished with us and there will be many more to come in the days ahead!
Wauw !! Inspiring
Wonderful