Last week a group from my home church, Heartland, back in Fort Wayne, Indiana came to visit me! Okay, actually they would have come whether I was here or not, but the visit was a great plus!
There have been prophecies spoken over our church relating to the Welsh revival that started over a hundred years ago. Our pastor, Dave Frincke has done a lot of research about the revival and has even written a musical for the stage about the revival. So Pastor Dave brought a group of 9 other people who have a heart for Wales over and here's where our story begins:
The group was supposed to fly into Cardiff on Saturday night, but due to a completely unreasonable amount of delays and lost bookings, they only arrived on Sunday. We figured that all of these troubles and delays can only mean that God has got something great in store for this trip.
We did a lot of touring the first couple of days, going to significant places involved in the Welsh revival, as well as just going to the awesome Saint David's Cathedral. We'd also gone through a part of Wales known as "The Valleys". This area is what used to be a collier community, where people moved there to work in the coal mines, but when the mines closed, the villages were left with pretty much no way to make money. Therefore the name "The Valleys" generally implies a poor community and social deprivation.
After driving through one of the villages in "The Valleys" our tour guide (a brilliant man who knows much about the Welsh Revival and was taking us to the points of interest) wanted to go by this one church where he suspects the song "Here Is Love" was written. On our way there, we did have to turn around once or twice, but when we made it, our guide said to stay in the cars because he just wanted a picture. We all sat in our cars, waiting for him, when he came around saying that the groundskeeper happened to be right outside and he offered to let us in! So we all made our way inside the church. Once there, we had a short chat with the caretaker then Dave made went to the piano to lead us in a few songs of worship. We sang "Here is Love" of course, and when we had finished singing, we noticed a few people standing behind us near the entrance of the church.
The groundskeeper had left while we were singing and had seen 3 members of that church pulling up in their car, right at that moment! So he invited them inside to meet with this strange group of Americans who had waltzed into this church singing hymns. The people told us that there are only 10 members who go to that church. We asked them what they would like us to pray for and they said that the young people would come into the church. These people were all in their sixties and they said that they are the youngest people in their church.
So we all joined together to pray for these three people. As we were praying, one of our team members went out of the church and returned a few minutes later with a woman, a teenaged girl, and a girl of about 7. We prayed over these girls and one of our team members asked the younger girls if they'd like to give their lives to Jesus. They both said they weren't sure, but the woman was really tearing up behind them. We asked if she'd like to give her life to God and she said yes. She was then led in praying for salvation, while she was crying the whole time.
We're calling this the beginning of the new revival. If the team had only come to help that one woman get saved, then the whole thing would have been worth it! God treasures each person so crazy much that He orchestrated that whole day to lead us to that church at that time and for all of these different "coincidences" to add up to this one precious lady coming to Him! All of the turn-around and wrong turns, all of the people that "happened" to be walking by/driving up, all added up to this woman's personal revival! These are the kinds of divine appointments that we could never have planned out if we'd tried.
While I loved having this team here, I found that the hardest thing about their visit for me was the point of saying goodbye. While they could all breathe easy, knowing that they were almost done and they could go back to their lives and their families, I found it difficult knowing that I would not be going back as well. Not only that, but the home I once knew no longer exists. I have no home back in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and no real purpose to fulfill back there.
While this makes me incredibly sad to think about (with me being the sentimental type), it makes me realize that the only way to go is forward. This forces me to face what God's got ahead of me, rather than going back to the life I've always known and slipping back into the "normal". There is no normal for me anymore (if you can call any of my life before as normal). When all that's left is the unknown, it's daunting, but it makes me need to lean on God for guidance and comfort. It MAKES me rely on God and His instructions, rather than my own expectations from what life used to be. And I know that His plans are way bigger and better than any I could dream up for myself.
So in the words of a man with no name: Allons-y!
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