Pressing in, Pressing on
In our original planning, June 2008 was the end of our lease on the house in Llanelli and we wondered about taking some time to explore what God might want us to do in connecting with France from Wales. (For those of you who don't know our story the idea of travelling from Wales to France came to us in January 2006 although the first celtic monks were doing it in the 5thC!)
The acceleration that has been evident over the last months has meant, however, that we have already been across the channel three times since we arrived here.
When we wrote our last update towards the end of May, we were about to leave for France, and we're off again on Thursday - travelling to Paris to take part in a weekend of praise, intercession and reconciliation led by our new-found friends in the city.
It has been so exciting for us to be, as we were in Toulouse, in a congregation where the pastor has said "we feel we need to be connecting with people from Wales" not even knowing that we were sitting there.
Our last trip was an adventure in itself. Manifestations (demos) by French fishermen in Cherbourg, thunderstorms, endless rain and floods in the Dordogne, four days at a prophetic conference in Toulouse with Martin Scott, and some R&R near Perpignan courtesy of a lady we met in Paris at Easter. The engine warning light came on 800 miles from home but went off again in response to prayer, we visited Philippa Whyte (remember the Whytes?) stayed with an American couple near Montauban, prayed for more Fire to cross the channel at Dol de Bretagne and came home.
So, have we finished in Wales? As Paul says "by no means!" There are some amazing signs of God's revival fire here but we want to see the nation ablaze. There is a lot to do. We now have a chain of contacts up the west coast, through Aberystwyth, to Robin and Fi in Caernarfon and on to the North coast and into Anglesey. We need wisdom as to how these connections should be encouraged and strengthened.
Prayer for our local community in Llanelli continues too.
Jean and I have a "faithful few" intercessors with whom we meet once a fortnight. Amongst other things we have been praying for "the heart of the town" to be restored and only a couple of days ago a news item announced that a grant towards regeneration has been approved by the Welsh Assembly.
People continue to be inspired by events in Florida and, as in River, a number of folk have been or are planning to go. Todd and Lakeland certainly demonstrate that a window into the supernatural has been opened in the western church. In company with the leadership here in Antioch we are determined to press in for whatever God is pouring out. We need the window to stay open!
Meanwhile, on the family front, we are looking forward to Benjamin and Sarah getting married in August and rejoicing with Paul who has successfully completed university! This means that we will be appearing in Marlow rather more frequently in the coming weeks and we are really looking forward to seeing loads of our friends.
Hopefully we will be able to impart some more Welsh wildfire!
With our love
Jean and Nigel |