An Adventure in Ministry

A few weeks ago, as part of our staycation exploring Scotland, we decided to take a day trip to the Isle of Arran. The Island holds a special place in my husband’s heart and he couldn’t wait to show our daughter all the places he frequented on his childhood holidays.  In the afternoon we spent some time on a beautiful beach and as I sat listening to the sound of the sea, I had a magical moment where I could almost hear the sound of bagpipes on the breeze. However the sound continued for some time and we realized that the sound was real – there really were bagpipes playing! In fact there was a group of people doing a bagpipe display for a primary school in the local park. My daughter absolutely loves the bagpipes and will happily watch you tube videos of them all day long! So you can imagine how excited she was to seem some in the flesh! Later as we sat on the beach we started to talk about how, often when we are on holiday or daytrip adventures, we find there happens to be interest...

Our final stop of the day was to see the Jesus boat – a 2000 year old boat discovered on the shore of Galilee. After we had seen this we then went on our own ride over the sea of Galilee. Words cannot even begin to describe my experience there and even writing this, I can feel tears coming to my eyes. As we began our journey with the beautiful sun on our skin, we listened to songs of worship. I simply couldn’t stay in my seat or keep my hands by my side and as we sang ‘My Jesus, My Saviour’ the tears poured. Then the Bethel version of ‘It is well’ played. As the music washed over me, I was reminded of the promise Jesus had given me already on this trip, and the words from the song brought such deep peace. Paul was then asked to read from Mark 4:35 where Jesus calms the storm. It was overwhelming to know that the very story happened where I was sailing. Then, after a short thought we sang 10,000 reasons. This song is so special to ...

It has been awhile since I have last posted a blog. This has been for many reasons, work has been busy, family life has been busy and I, a lover of routine, have found it difficult to get into the routine to sit down and write.  Ministry is fabulous. At times it can be lonely, exhausting and demanding, but God is moving in The Salvation Army (can I get an amen?!) and he is certainly moving in The Salvation Army in Mold. We are seeing lives transformed, commitments made, prayers being answered and dreams being dreamed.  We are hearing testimony of God drawing people deeper and we are seeing new members Literally being drawn off the street.  When God moves in a mighty way, the devil gets angry, and we have had our fair share of attacks; our brand new boiler has broken for the second time in three weeks and conflict has sprung up in unlikely places. But the most subtle way in which I have seen the devil attempt to work is by making people busy believing they can achi...

Over the past couple of months God has really been speaking to me about the issue of opposition and facing difficult times, and in particular the last couple of weeks has shown this to me in stark contrast. Over the Christmas period At the Salvation Army in Mold we have been incredibly blessed by the generosity of the people in our community. We regularly receive donations of food from both Sainsburys and Tesco and in the run up to Christmas we were collecting and distributing food daily. We also, with the help of generous donations from the public, were able to provide hampers to families in need to ensure that they can celebrate Christmas too. We also ran a toy appeal and were able to give children all over Flintshire a present to open on Christmas Day. All in all thousands of people were effected by the work of the Salvation Army and we pray that many of those saw the face of Jesus in the extravagant love we tried to show.  A highlight for me was on Christmas Eve as Father ...