Various Testimonies

I haven’t been updating this and have left it languish as been concentrating on other things, but so much has happened, felt the need to record it before I start forgetting. The below is a summary of just some of the things that has happened over the last few months, but there is probably stuff I’ve forgotten. I’ve tried to put it in order, but may have some things round the wrong way. I’m also just firing this down quickly, so may contain spelling mistakes, bad grammar etc.

Perfect Timing

So I’ve been doing street preaching on my own and went on a bit of a run. Been mostly at the band stand in Jordanstown, but also Hazelbank park on occassion too. I have a camera set up incase there is any “funny business” or false accusations made against me in the things I have said etc. Anyway, someone spotted the camera and started to make faces at it. They could have just lifted it and run, but thankfully they didn’t.

It made me realise that I shouldn’t be doing this on my own. Jesus sent the disciples out in pairs, and so I’ve been praying alot over the last few months asking God for someone to help me, not just with the street preaching but also on witnessing to people 1 on 1. Basically a buddy that lives near me with the same heart to go out and share the gospel.

As the weeks went by and the prayers seemed to remain unanswered, I began to think about why, and came to understand that maybe it is not Gods will or I’m asking for the wrong thing. Specifically that God has already given me everything I need and I almost felt like the Holy Spirit was saying to me that I have to walk this path alone. If anything, it will cause me to trust in Him even more if no one else is there to help.

So I finally stopped asking and praying for that kind of help and instead went and did what I felt God was calling me to do, and relying on Him only. So I did that and it was great!

I mentioned to a few people in my church that in all my years, I dont ever remember anyone at anytime sharing the gospel with me out on the street. Not anywhere, ever. Not a single person. Well last night I took the dog for a walk and walked through Mosley Mill. I usually go past the front and on round through the gates but for some reason, that night my dog made a beeline for the fishing lake.

I tried calling him over but he just ignored me so I ended up just walking up to the lake which is NOT what I usually do as it’s a dead end. I got there and sat down. There was a man with a backpack there just staring across the water. He goes to walk past me but then suddenly sits down beside me and says “If there is one thing that could solve all your problems, what would it be?”

I knew he was about to share the gospel and so I was tempted to play the atheist and ask some tough questions and have a bit of a laugh before finally telling him the truth, but I felt it wasnt the right time for it, so I just told him that I’m a Christian. We ended up having a really great conversation about God and it just felt like the Lord was with us both as we spoke.

This man also told me he never usually goes to the lake but felt he needed to go there that night! It is not a coincidence that both of us ended up there on the same night. Furthermore, he then tells me that he lives in the area and then says a pastor gave him a microphone and a speaker, but that he hasnt been able to go out street preaching with it yet. I’m like… are you kidding me!?

So in the week that I say no one has ever witnessed to me, someone witnesses to me, and they not only live near me, but also have a passion for the lost, and want to go out street preaching. This is not a coincidence. I truly believe God has caused our paths to cross. So myself and this person have now started to pair up and go street preaching together. Praise the Lord!

Pride Day

I was dreading this day. We go out preaching every Saturday, so we can’t not go out and preach on Pride day, but we know people will think we’re being antagonistic. We’re not, we go out every week, and God does not discriminate. Why should the LGBTQ+ community not hear about the good news of salvation in Christ?

Before Pride, I created a tract specifically tailored for the LGBTQ+ community. It can be found here.

The crazy thing about this is that the tract centers around a person called Jordan. It was the Wednesday before Pride, and I wondered what printers would be able to turn around 500 copies of the tract before Saturday. I tried to contact a big printing company based in Belfast, but to my amazement, no one answered the phone and no one answered their web chat. I don’t think this was a coincidence as I then found a printer closer to home and when I rang them up, a man anaswered the phone and his name was… Jordan! To the unbeliever, just a coincidence. Yet, we who are His know these are Him giving us subtle hints that He is with us in what we are doing. I also found out that this Jordan who answered the phone doesn’t usually answer the phone. The guy who does was busy, but it was no surprise that they were able to turn it around before Pride day.

The day itself was insane. I’ve had thoughts and words from God a few times, but today the leading from the Spirit was incredibly strong. In one moment, as Peter was preaching and I was filming while wearing a small speaker with a receiver on a strap round my shoulder. The Spirit give me instructions that a woman was going to try and take the receiver out of the microphone jack. This woman was talking with a friend. Then the Spirit instructed me to stand on a road behind some metal railings. As I got behind the railings, the woman started to come over, and made a half hearted attempt to grab the receiver, but it was no use because of where I was standing she could not reach. Amazing!

Another moment, I saw a chain of people start to form, and felt the Spirit instruct me that they were going to surround Peter, and to position myself next to Peter to close a gap between him and another person. I did this, and then I saw the people in the chain start to let go of each other’s hands. They couldn’t do what they wanted because the gap was closed. Amazing once again!

As I stood behind the ralings and watched Peter preach, it started to get a bit boisterous. I felt the Spirit gently rebuke me for just standing and filming. There is something else I could do. I could pray for Peter and against the contentious spirits that were starting to take over. As I did this, I saw some people start to quieten down, and then Peter gave a good bit of the gospel as some people were listening. I kept praying throughout the rest of the day.

Later on, we changed position to across the road from the front of the City Hall. I put our stuff down in a corner and started to film. I noticed a man with a Pride flag eyeing our stuff. It was too far for me to get there in time, and as I saw him make a beeline for our stuff I began to run over. What happened next is hard to describe. It looked like he tripped over something, but there was nothing there but air. He didn’t fall, but stumbled, which gave me enough time to reach our stuff first. Again, some would say this is a coincidence, but I don’t see how it is possible to trip over thin air!

We handed out over 400 tracts that day and had some really great conversations with people, including some from within the LGBTQ+ community. Thank you Lord for your protection and intervention! Our God is soo good!

C & C Falling

As Peter and I went out preaching every week, we seemed to get a lot of attention from homeless people, many of whom have additions. It is so sad the level of substence abuse in Belfast, and I was not prepared to see just how much people are suffering. Unfortunately, as I had conversations with various people, I started to realise that nearly all of these people are there because of choices they have made.

On one occassion we met a man and woman (C and C). After I finished preaching, I gave the microphone to Peter and had a chat with them. As I started to talk to them both. The woman then wanted to go and sit down, I think the Holy Spirit was working in her. She then took a few steps and just went down like a ton of bricks. Myself and C grabbed her and took her over to a bench and she was in floods of tears. Then she started to recant everything that happened to her since she was born, and some of the stuff was horrific. But I felt that God was doing a huge amount of healing in her in that moment.

Thankfully, she had a hostel she was able to go to that night.

F & P With Knowledge

A week later we were preaching and “Biker Grove” started harrassing us. “Biker Grove” is the name I give to a group of annoying youths who go about Belfast on their bikes. They seem to be involved in alot of anti-social behaviour, and have tried to do various things to us to stop us from preaching, but we carry on anyway with the grace of God enabling us to continue. They were really getting in our faces, and then out of nowhere this woman comes screaming at them and calling them demoniacs. She looked like she was going to floor them, and I started to wonder if the Lord sent her our way to get these youths to go.

After the youths departed, she wanted to sing on the microphone. Then loads of people wanted to take the microphone of Peter and myself for various reasons. We were literally playing rugby with the microphone as the rugby ball, passing it between ourselves and speaking and then passing it back, to try and stop others from getting it. It was crazy! I realised that this couldn’t continue, so I turned off the microphone and started shouting. This was to give the impression that the microphone was no longer working. It seemed to work and people started to get disinterested and leave (thank you God for that piece of wisdom!).

Anyway I then turned the microphone back on and had a great public conversation with an atheist about why there is so much pain in the world and if God is real, why are there so many homeless people on the street etc. It was a fantastic conversation, and as we started to get in to the details of sin, I hear this screaming behind me. This girl who caused “Biker Grove” to go away was rolling around on the ground saying over and over again “I have sinned with knowledge! I have sinned with knowledge!”. My memory of the situation was that Peter was taking her through Psalm 23, but Peter has a different memory and says it was while I was preaching.

She kept rolling around the gound shouting this over and over again. I found it interesting that she didn’t just say that she had sinned, but that she had sinned “with knowledge”. I think the Holy Spirit was really convicting her about her life. The athiest I was having the public conversation with apologies for her behaviour. He was her boyfriend (or possibly husband). He grabbed her by the arms and tried to trail her away. I told him to let her be because something powerful was happening. I almost felt like I should grab her legs and stop him trailing her away, but then didn’t want her to be the rope in a game of tug-of-war.

Then she got up and started to swing for her husband, and for him to leave her alone, then she ran away and her husband ran after her. Later that night, he came back and asked if we had seen her because she had his phone and money and he couldn’t get home. We hadn’t seen her but then found out he lived just a few minutes down the road from us, so we offered to give him a lift home once we were done.

I drove home and Peter and F were talking in the back seat. By the time we got home, this “atheist” was in the back of the car crying his eyes out and saying he believed in God. Not only that, but I got a word for him and it was just a really amazing encounter. We have been in touch since and I hope he and his wife will come to repentence, as I definitely see the Lord is doing something in them both. Today was a crazy day!

P Seal Death Encounter

I took the dog to Jordanstown for a walk and walked right to the end of the grass and on to a stone verge where the sea was. I passed a man in the water and I sat for a while basking in the sun and talking to God. On the way back the man was out of the water and I felt the Lord tell me to witness to him.

As I spoke with him he told me about a time he near got killed by a seal. I thought this was a geat way to bring in the gospel and asked him if he knew where he would have went if the seal had of killed him: heaven and hell. We had a great conversation and then I find out that his deadly encounter with the seal had just happened literally a few seconds ago and thats why he had to get out of the water. What are the chances of this happening when I was down there? I told him I didn’t think it was a coincidence we were having this conversation.

There were other amazing things we discussed, but can’t write about them for various reasons.

L Sympathy Pains

A friend from church came round to my house and was in some discomfert, although I wasn’t sure exactly what was wrong. They did say to me on the way in but I didn’t catch what was said. After were speaking for a while, I suddenly started to have really bad knee pains in both my knees at the same time. I’ve had foot problems but never knee problems. It was really painful, and came out of nowhere. I suspected that the pain may have been not my pain but the pain of my friend. I’ve heard various testimonies of people who God has used to heal others through enabling them to experience their pain. This then gives the person information on what to pray for and where to lay their hands.

It is not the person who is doing the healing, but God is healing, and I believe it is through faith that this happens. You see this in the Bible where Jesus says “Your faith has healed you” to various people. It wasn’t them, but their faith that has healed them (and faith, as we know, is a gift from God - so no one can boast in of themselves that they have healed a person).

Anyway, this was an amazing chance to not only see God work and bring healing to a dear friend of mine, but it would also be a huge boost to my own faith as the last time God used me to heal someone was quite a while ago, and I have felt lately that it wasn’t going to happen again.

I then made the fatal mistake of engaging my brain too much. What if this pain is not a sympathy pain? What if my knees are really sore? What if I do this and nothing happens? Once again, I started to doubt, and because I started to doubt, I didn’t do, and so nothing happened. It bothered me greatly after he left and I sent a message the following day asking if the issue with him was that both his knees was sore and he confirmed it.

Its strange that I am now able to pick up a microphone and preach the gospel on the street but can’t pray for a friend in my home. A friend of mine said the problem is that it is like a bag of cats fighting each other in my head. I need to drown those kitties (note I am not talking about real kitties here).

Gospel Rap Battle

I had a dream where I was in a rap battle, but rather than slagging off my opponent, I was giving them the gospel. Some of the lyrics that I was saying were great and when I woke up I wanted to write some of them down before I forgot. I was too lazy and fell back to sleep. The next day, I couldn’t remember the lyrics, but I still remembered the dream. As I scrolled through the news on my phone I was amazed to then see a story about a rap battle called “Acquisition” happening in Belfast on Saturday. Wow, what an amazing coincidence (obviously not a coincidence).

Gutted I didn’t write down those lyrics, but still went ahead and wrote a gospel rap during that week (if you could call it that). Will upload it to the YouTube channel at some point. Anyway, because of the dream, myself and Peter set up in Custom House Square on Saturday evening across the road from the bar where it was all happening. Oktoberfest was also happening in that area too so there was plenty of human traffic and we had some great encounters with people that night.