Oh wow, God is amazing - part 2!

Here's a follow on story from Thursday's encounter with our two lads; Anton (James) and Mike, as blogged by Lucy Marskell (Year2) yesterday:

"So Jess S and I are studying at the office and we get Mike and Anton these
two guys buzzing at the door. ..... Mike was on a crutch which he wasn't last time I
saw him, he explained that he was drunk at the weekend and had fallen down the
stairs hitting a metal bar, hurting his foot especially his ankle in the
process. He gets rushed to Chester hospital instead of the Liverpool one.

He comes out of hospital with one crutch and his friend Anton is there. Anton is
the homeless guy who got healed of a blind eye on Thursday, both of them wanted
prayer and wanted us to take them to the Christian cafe called the Spirit shop
around the corner to get prayer.It was closed so we offered to pray for them on
this bench in Rufus Court. They were talking about how 'The Holy Spirit is
better than drugs' and that they were 'born agains'. Mike takes off his shoe n
sock and apologises for the smell, it's majorly swollen so we pray for it and
Mike starts shouting because some of the pain has gone away!

So we prayed for it some more and the pain gets less and less!! I asked Mike to stand up without the crutch and he's shouting asking 'IS THIS FOR REAL??' because he can walk better than before!We prayed for Anton too about other stuff and then Mike said he had to go because he needed to pee, there was still a teeny bit of pain left in his foot but that he really needed to go and pee!Make of this story what you will. I think it is legit.God rocks!"

"Just saw a blind eye get healed. Jesus you are actually incredible!!"

This was Jess's facebook status sign in earlier today. She is a student on the City Centre Chaplaincy team and is in her first year at the Light Project. I asked her to blog for us what happened .....

Sooo... as part of the light project i get to go round town on a thursday morning doing something called 'city centre chaplaincy' which is basically like being a chaplain in a hospital but on the street, making myself avaliable for chats/prayer with the local businesses, shops and the general public. you get to meet all sorts of people and every thursday is different.

This morning we were walking through town when we stopped to chat with a homeless lad, one of whom Anina had met before and one of whom we hadn't. The one Anina had met with and prayed for two months previously had now been placed in a shelter, been offered some money and was getting back on his feet and totally knew it was from God. We then asked if there was anything else we could pray for (i.e. shelter/healing/finance) and his mate piped up that we could pray for his eye. Just at that moment Aliss walked past who works in a local christian cafe and she regularly prays for healing for people and they've seen so many miracles there. We stopped her as she was a friend of Anina's. The guy had an accident in a workshop when he was 12 so was partially sighted in his right eye and couldn't make out more than blurred to describe what his eye looked like - you could see the iris (coloured part) but not the pupil, it was covered by a kind of cloud shaped white scar.

Aliss covered his eye with her hand and prayed for his sight to be restored. After that we got him to cover his good eye and see what he could see and he could actually make out how many fingers were being held up whereas he couldnt before.
We then started chatting to them about the power of God, which they had been feeling strongly, and whilst we were chatting the scar was visibly moving away from his pupil and he could see more and more.

And then the best bit - we asked the guys if they'd like to know Jesus so we prayed for them and they became Christians :) absolutely amazing!!

[Jess]

Part of the family - 20th January 2011

Did you know that this week was statistically the most depressing of the year?

Our simple idea this week was to buy flowers and take them to the person who we thought might need hope, life and encouragement from some other human beings. God confirmed this before we went out, giving one of our students a picture of a tree just as another was reading from Job about a tree which felt dead, but as it was given water, it came alive again.

We ended up buying a strange mix of flowers, 2 bottles of water, strawberries and a bag of pic'n'mix as giveways (don't ask!). The old addage 'don't accept sweets from a stranger' doesn't seem to apply to grown up kids, as everyone we approached was happy to take a sweet and have a chat. We chatted with a lady who was thrilled to still be alive one year after a major operation. We prayed blessing and spoke words of life over a new business and some very cheerful staff. We gave a bottle of water away to a man happy to be starting a new job the next day with a throat infection with the promise of prayer. Where were the sad, lonely and depressed?

We revisited an assistant manager who we've been connecting with over the past few months. She is coming closer to faith, and has been given prophetic and 'seeing' gifts, but is still relying on clairvoyance and spiritualist roots to bring her insight. Both she and I were astounded to discover that God had answered my private prayer 2 weeks earlier that God would silence the enemy and prevent her dead relative from speaking to her any more. She has found since then that she isn't connecting with the dead anymore and she has starting praying to God instead and that He brings her peace. Astounding! By now we'd given away all our 'gifts' except for the flowers, and I really hadn't seen anyone who looked sad enough to warrant them!

We then bumped into a chatty and bubbly lady who we know from the 'homeless drop-in' who hung around with us and came out for a cuppa. Extending hospitality to her wasn't my idea I must confess; but it was very powerful, as we shared life stories over steaming cuppas and a pile of buttered toast in the market; we captured the moment with photos and she was drawn into the middle of a loving family and for a little while belonged. We gave her the flowers and she was touched as she couldn't remember the last time someone bought her flowers and confessed that she had actually been feeling very low that day.

I re-learnt a few very valuable things today - don't judge a book by it's cover.... (smiles can cover sadness), the victory our God has over the powers of darkness .... and the simple powerful gift of inviting someone into 'family' to belong and know they are special and loved for a while.

[Anina]

Mother and daughter in Neros

As I asked God about going out for Chaplaincy this morning, in my imagination we were in his carpentry workshop and in the next season, He was going to give us the next lesson and share His secrets on how to catch fish.

Having spent some time praying and listening to God, we went out this morning and as we walked out onto the streets of Chester, the sun was shining. It felt to me as though there was much potential about this new day, and almost as though we were walking on fresh grass rather than paving slabs. We spent some time praying outside the Cathedral, in particular for their 'Business' department.

Nero's coffee shop has become a place where we recognise the presence of God, and we went in, got coffees and sat praying for people we saw; 3 young, casual business men sat opposite us chatting about their IT business, an older couple, the waitresses. We asked that God would show us who to talk to and if He wanted to share things with us that, on sharing them, might encourage the hearer that God is alive and interested in them. God began to reveal the destinies of those walking past us, and we focussed our attention on an older woman and a younger female companion. The young woman was wearing a red coat, and it occured to me that she had always been a source of strength to others, but that God was wanting to reach out to her and take from her some of those burdens. Jess sensed a very special and close relationship between them.

They were happy to have us join them at their table and we got a snapshot of the precious bond and history that they shared. Indeed, she was the stalwort of her family; she had lost her dad as a young teen, her brother had been born with severe disabilities and now she is caught between two generations; caring for both her teenage children and her mother; independent, heavily frustrated with arthritis and waiting her time to be up. She confirmed that what we had said was true. She didn't believe in God, but we felt sure, as they left, that she saw that God is real, speaks to his children, knows her situation, and that there are people who will keep that family in their prayers.

[Anina]

Beer and Carols, Monday 20th December 2010

Beer and Carols
On Thursday 16th december, a group were singing Carols and telling the Christmas story in Watergates Bar in Chester. Why did we do that? The good news of Christmas is normally contained in our churches, where we hope that we will attract people in to celebrate with us the festive season. However, there are already hoards of people who know how to celebrate out and about in the pubs and bars in the City during Advent. Why not go to them?
At 7pm, a motley crew from the Light Project, dressed in home-made nativity costumes, along with other local Christians, people drinking in Watergates and late night shoppers gathered together. People were encouraged to get a drink from the bar and given carol sheets and were invited to join in. Carols were interspersed with readings, telling the Christmas story in modern day language. It was great just to get together, but highlights of the evening included conversations with a group of Scouse lads on a works night out and having a group of Geography uni students come and sing "Away in a Manger" and "We wish you a merry Christmas". Thanks to all who were involved and to Neil and the bar staff at Watergates in Chester.

[Anina]