Category Archives: Evangelisation

Social distancing

26 Thu Mar 2020

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Hello all from London,

This morning I went for a bit of a cycle and London is truly very quiet. Besides the food shops and people out doing some sport it’s dead!

“Social distancing” is what is being recommended all over the world as one of the key ways of preventing the spread of the Coronavirus.

The other day in a shop a lady was shouting and making a scene as I had accidentally walked over a yellow line and probably broke the 2 metre rule which to be fair wasn’t being respected anyway in the shop.

However the irony of social distancing is that we will now spend much more time at home with those we love and with those we are trying to love!

Yes, social distancing is also creating an equal and opposite ‘household proximity’ and this may be challenging for us all!

A friend of mine from France mentioned that at one time in her life she was finding things very difficult and feeling boxed in. When she prayed she got this image!

It’s the chimney from a factory and Jesus was showing her that the way to let out her frustrations wasn’t by leaving the house that she was in but was by letting out her frustrations (hot air) from within through prayer!

Living with the same people, not being able to go out as before, our habits broken, widespread panic will test the best of us and bring up all our wounds!

It’s a little like a silent retreat when you are forced to face God and your inner self as the outward distractions are taken away!

The only difference is that every retreat has a retreat master and someone to look after and help the retreatants through the inner jungle and darkness of their souls.

This current period of social distancing is not by choice and as a result for many people is going to be a living hell!

There is only so much TV that you can watch and only so much exercise you can do at home! Sooner or later we are all going to come to cracking point!

Yet when we do spiritual retreats, cracking point or breaking point is both the most painful and the most valuable part!

It’s exactly at that point that you realise from your heart that you can’t do it on your own! You are faced with all your demons and weaknesses and ugliness and it’s the perfect moment to surrender your life to God’s mercy and to ask Him for His help!

And just as that lady I spoke about realised that the help she needed wasn’t to be found on the outside but rather on the inside, she found new strength, new ways of coping and is now an example to us all of the power of prayer!

Last night we had a lovely hour of eucharistic adoration here where we prayed for the world. We are very privileged and I know that this isn’t available to everyone.

However what we all can do is to find a special corner, it might even by our car, light a candle and talk to Jesus from our hearts!

Tell him how frustrated we are, how grumpy or angry we feel, tell him about the people that are annoying us.

Then gently and with faith invite Him to come around us with His mother and angels.

Take a mental break from all that is happening, let go of worry and stress and take some time out.

Ask Him to help you, to calm you, to direct you and to reorientate your life during this period.

If you are finding things really hard, don’t be afraid to reach out for support by calling a friend or a support service.

If you don’t know what to do with your time, ask yourself what you might be able to do or learn.

Many things nowadays are available to us online from learning languages to online exercise classes to cooking lessons. The list is endless!

Another thing we may do is to read or reorganize our living spaces!

Let us allow this time to be a time of re- learning. Learning to pray, to play and to work both together and as individuals.

And so my prayer for all today is that through social distancing we will learn spiritual proximity to both God, to our neighbours and to our friends and families.

May God bless your day and if anyone needs to let off some steam, get in touch, I’m happy to listen and help if I can.

Take care,

Michael

Last night

13 Fri Jul 2018

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Good afternoon from Split where it is super hot!

Last night I was invited to give a talk on evangelisation. It was my second talk, the first being last week which went very well!

Last night’s crowd was different! They seemed harder, less open and despite sharing years of miraculous stories it was almost impossible to get a smile!

When my talk ended some questions began and the topic of being gay and catholic came to the fore.

Questions were being fired at me and the tension in the room was palpable. I was disappointed that they were so obsessed with this rather than thanking God for what He has done in my life!

A lot of catholic people have ideas about being gay from reading books. But often these books are misleading. Some think you can get a prayer and it will go away. I got prayers for 10 years, it didn’t! I even had exorcisms.

I have never met a person healed of being gay and considering that I served in a healing ministry for gay men in Australia that is quite a statement!

Gay guys who experience Jesus however do change. Much of the lust such as pornography, mastutbation and compulsive sex goes and they (we) become prayerful. Jesus loves us in a different way.

When I was 23 I disappeared to Paris to try figure out who I was and my sexuality. Ironically I met a girl, Laura and we started to go out!

Occasionally I was attracted to girls and she was one. Laura was amazing and one of the most loving people I ever met. When I was with her I didn’t think of men, when I wasn’t I did!

It killed me to love her and to be keeping this secret from her. I felt like a liar and a cheat and most of all I felt confused.

I didn’t want to be gay, I didn’t want to be attracted to men, but I was! I couldn’t deny it and every day it screamed louder.

Eventually as I’m sure you are sick of hearing I broke down. Laura was amazing but how could I possibly say this to her!

I got through the first breakdown keeping my big black secret inside!

After an 8 month recovery journey I broke again just a few months later. Nobody knows the pain of breaking once but breaking twice and three times and four times is a martyrdom. You can’t plan the future as you give up hope of having one. You get on with life, doing your best while secretly waiting for the next one. Your confidence and sense of dignity and self trust dies. You exist rather than live!

And so a therapist counselled me to accept myself and to try the gay scene. I met some lovely guys and was shocked to hear of the pain of their lives. Somehow I expected them all to be happy, many were not!

A few weeks later I met Jesus and began to experience His love. I stopped watching pornography and meeting guys for sex and told everybody that I was healed of being gay!

The reality is that I wasn’t healed. I was still sexually attracted to men just I wasn’t acting on it!

And so I went back to France and spoke to Laura about it all! I was so enthuastic about my healing that I even bought a ring and asked her to marry me in front of the eiffel tower where we had first kissed some years before!

But I had changed as I was now interested in prayer and she wasn’t. She gave me an ultimatim…her or Jesus. I chose Jesus, my heart was broken!

But the gay feelings stayed with me and despite all the spiritual experiences I never had any desire for girls!

For years and years I was begging God to heal me but God kept telling me that I didn’t need to be healed to be loved.

My worst nightmare was meeting priests or healers who would pray for me for healing of my childhood so that it would go away.

I felt like an object to be fixed rather than a person to be loved. It was abusive, humiliating and both emotionally and spiritually damaging and sadly it led me to another breakdown which came dangerously close to taking me.

In the healing ministry in Australia I met many more guys like me. Some had met Jesus 20 years ago and had got married yet all still had an attraction to men and would occasionally act on it.

However they had a new problem! Having left the gay world most found no real acceptance in the church world and nearly all lived in fear and depression. They were rejected and musunderstood and while Jesus loved them, human beings, even other christians didn’t!

They were single, good looking and still with no attraction to women. Marriage was out of the question and so was priesthood as only the ones who keep it a secret can become priests (honesty is a fools game in the seminary).

And so I prayed and asked Jesus what He wanted me to do with my life! Where was I to find fun and joy and ironically He sent me back to the gay community but not for sex, to love!

Jesus showed me that like me, these men were never going to be attracted to women and that that was ok. It was not their decision or something that could be just changed.

And so Jesus started to teach me how to love them in a different way, in a spiritual way rather than a sexual way and to share His love with them!

Is it easy?No. Have I succeeded perfectly? No. Does God still love me? Yes!

And so as I finished my talk last night and as the questions flowed I felt like a man on trial!

They had a problem with the fact that I said that I’m gay, but what was I supposed to do? Lie?

Just because I’m gay does not mean that I’m having sex every night. Anybody that knows me will tell you that that is not the case.

But it does mean that I’m still attracted to guys and that like a straight person I’m doing my best to be someone of integrity and at this stage I’m not afraid to joke about it!

Maybe one day God will take all these feelings away but for now He hasn’t!

And so if you meet me, please don’t try to fix me or heal me. That is God’s business and not yours. Please don’t ask me 1000 questions as if I’m on trial for smuggling drugs!

Be nice, be kind, get to know me and over time you will understand my journey.

This morning I cried about the lack of love and community I experieced last night.

Father forgive them, they know not what they do.

Pray for me. Have I suffered enough yet guys?

Mother Theresa

02 Fri Feb 2018

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As I strolled past a beautiful church today I thought I saw a statue of mother Theresa…. I did!! I did!

It got me thinking! What would mother Theresa do!!

Like most saints the Church only canonises them after she has tried them and crucified them and they are well dead and buried and pose no threat of coming back to cause further trouble! Mother Theresa was perhaps no different.

Working in India she felt a calling to help the poorest of the poor. She was already a nun helping the poor but she felt called to helping the POOREST OF THE POOR!

When she spoke of this to her superiours they gave her no support. They desired to stay comfortable and did not desire to lower their standards by mingling with the vermin on ground zero!

Her calling wouldn’t go away. By her own sisters she was mocked and ridiculed for damaging the reputation of the order. They lied about her and did everything to undermine her but yet she persisted! The rest is history and now we know her as a saint!

Recently I myself have come under attack by disgruntled Sheilas’ and moaning Marys! It appears that reaching out to the spiritually poor and broken in the gay community is not too cool in catholic circles. These modern day lepors are to be avoided!

But just like Mother Theresa’s critics, the intentions are well founded. Most Catholics that i know are good people who have only read half the bible! They purchased a little stool and they are sitting at the foot of the cross weeping for crucified Jesus. Unfortunately they have not read the acts of the apostles and St Paul’s letter and the Holy Spirit has yet to be invited to the party!!

And so folks, Jesus is inviting us all to step out of the boat and enpowered by the Holy Spirit to be bold and fearless. As I am writing this there are prostitites in brothels, drunks in pubs, drug addicts on the streets, psychiatric patients in hospitals, young men and women about to hang themselves.

Jesus needs your feet to go meet the lost sheep! Are you willing to step out of the comfort club? Are you willing to give your life to Jesus? Are you willing to give your life for others?

And if not, well putting it bluntly maybe you should SHUTUP!!

Mother Theresa, pray for us tonight as we hit the clubs! Wohoooo!

Adventures in Sarajevo!

27 Sat Jan 2018

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About ten days ago Jesus and Mary sent myself and Seamus to Sarajevo. As only God can do, He told us both the same thing seperately and so there were no doubts!

So as He does we had a days notice. Our bus was at 2.10 on Monday and so what better time to pack our things than 1.30! The Holy Spirit sent me to say a few goodbyes, pack my bags and i arrived at the station with seamus at exactly 2.10. Jesus specifically told us not to bother with a taxi.. the bus may not wait for Michael or Seamus but it’ll wait for Jesus!!

4 hours later we got to Sarajevo. It was cold and we had nowhere to stay. We prayed and were sent to a coffee shop “relax” said God, trust!

After half an hour Jesus told me to go on the internet (for those of you that don’t know, Jesus is a great man of technology). I found a list of hostels. I looked at the first, Jesus said “no”, second, Jesus said “no”……fifth.. bingo! Jesus says ‘yes’!!

So we arrived at the hostel called “the doctor’s house” and were warmly greeted. Hostels are a great place to meet new people and evangelise and so we had a lovely evening sharing about Jesus and Medjugorje!

Next day we found the cathedral and mass times and Jesus told us that we were to find an apartment!

As both my testimony and Seamus’s are stories of confusion and hope around sexuality, it came as no surprise that Jesus was asking us to reach out to the broken in the LGBT conmunity. Most have the same story, rejection by family, fear of God and sexual promiscuity to fill the gap (no pun intended)! Lol

After Mass the Holy Spirit told me to go to McDonalds and that we would take it from there! As i prayed Jesus guided Seamus onto a gay networking app and Jesus wouls do the rest! One hour later we found an apartment in the city centre for €400! We moved in immediately! The power of prayer!!

And so the adventure began! It didn’t take us long to get our sense of being at home and the Holy Spirit jumped on both of us guiding us here and there like a child with a remote control car.

We have met so many wonderful and yet very broken people from the gay community. We have shared, laughed and prayed with them and the rest, well that is up to God!

Of course Satan always tries to get a foot in and watching our money disappear has been stretching our faith. One can’t help but feel the acute lack of support. If we were raising money to help orphans in Africa I’m sure we’d get lots but when it’s to reach out to the dirty gays, who cares!! Is it any wonder they hate the ‘church’!

But thankfully a few people did respond and we are very grateful and know that we are praying for you.

Most of the guys we have met so far are in the closet as Bosnia is a conservative country. They live in fear and shame and lack joy and peace in their lives. Many are sad and lonely and turn to one another for comfort. God has given us a special grace to listen to them and to love them. More than anything they crave a hug, acceptance and reassurance that God has a place for them in His heart and in the world!

And so dear readers. Please pray for us and for those we meet, that we may be a light in the darkness and give hope to the hopeless. Pray also for our material needs and if you would like to help us send either Seamus or myself an email!

God bless, crazy for Jesus!!

Sex and the City!

26 Fri Jan 2018

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Growing up in Ireland I think back of the TV shows that I watched! We used to rush home to get ‘home and away’ at 6.30 and of course when ‘friends’ came out then it became a cult! Other successful tv shows included ‘dawsons creek’ and of course ‘sex and the city’!

What if missing mass was as bad as missing an episode of one these shows ? Or to say it another way, if going to mass was as exciting?

To answer this question we simply need to ask the question : why were these shows so popular?

The answer is obvious! Love. Which one of us isn’t yearning to be loved, to be kissed passionately, to be held tenderly, to be seduced, to be desired, to be romanced, to be held, to be cherished? We are all yearning for intimacy, to give ourselves wholy to another and to receive them into us.

TV shows capture this perfectly and that’s why we relate! Yet they also portray the other side, meaningless sex, affairs, lying, cheating, divorses .

John Paul the second wrote extensively on the beauty of sex. He compared it to the Holy Trinity where the intimacy between the Father and Son which begot the Holy Spirit could be compared to the intimacy between a man and a woman which can make a child!

Sex is the greatest physical expression of love and that’s why it feels so good! But unfortunately it feels too good and many people get so attached to the feeling that they will have sex with anybody! I am speaking from experience! Once I figured out how my plumbing worked, pornography and masturbation became my friends. The porn industry is worth billions so i’m guessing i wasn’t their only customer!!

Soon I graduated to the real thing and how easy was this with all the dating apps!

And yet deep down there was a void. Sex was easy to find but where was ‘Mr Right’!

Of course in my own case I was mainly in the gay scene but I shudder to think what may have happened if it was with girls. How many may I have got pregnant. It is easy, so easy, to understand why there are so many abortions when sex is easier to find than coffee!

And then we talk about the Church where as my young sister put it once ‘you’d be afraid to catch the menopause in there’!! To talk about sex in front of Jesus and Mary seemed to be akin to talking to your mother in law about your sex life!

And so the Church of today is empty of young people who are looking for love and intimacy and who are sexually free and liberated. For all purposes it is like a cross between a museem and a retirement home!

But God didn’t give us a sexuality to then shame us about it nor did He give us these desires for love to then make us feel bad about them! No, God gave us these appetites so that He may fill them.

The first experience of supernatural love i had was so strong that i immediately gave up sex. Sex was nothing, a fake in comparison! The rosary and the bible soon replaced my porn and the extatic experiences of Jesus and Mary were so strong that I thought I’d die.

These experiences aren’t reserved for me only. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, you can have them too!

Because God was presented to us in such a bad way when we were young, we either became ‘rosary rattlers’ out of fear or else we ran away. Either way we missed out in the main message that Jesus is looking at you right now and despite anything that you may have done and all your bad traits He loves you more fully and intimately than the best lover you have ever had!

He is so crazy in love with you that He even died for you and rose again. He desires to share His supernatural extatic mindblowing love with you right now. He desires to be your friend, your lover, your everything!

And so folks i conclude by saying; forget ‘sex and the city’ and don’t be wasting your time on porn or dating apps looking for love because Jesus is in the city and He can give you the joy and hope and purpose that your heart is yearning for !! Give Him a kiss today! He is ‘Mr Right’!

Catholic Schizophrenia 

28 Thu Dec 2017

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Recently I watched a film called ‘me, myself and Irene’. For anyone unfamiliar with it, it’s about a man who flips out and turns schizophrenic. His mind splits into two different personalities and besides knowing that the other exists, each personality doesn’t know what happens when the other is in control!

As I reflect on this I can’t help but compare it to the terrible division of personality in the church today!

There seems to be a terrible divide between the charismatic healing side and the more conservative traditional side.

Healing, deliverance, tongues, visions, reading the Bible, personal testimony and sharing are some of what is normal for the charismatic side while on the traditional side there is a far greater emphasis on devotionals, rosaries, reparation… 

So which one is right?

Well just like the movie, both are parts of the same personality. The issue isn’t who is right or wrong, the issue is the division!From my own life story I’ve certainly suffered the consequences of such divides. When I used to have nasty experiences of demons such as seeing them, feeling their presence and nasty demon dreams my charismatic friends took it completely in their stride, praying with me for freedom and it worked! When I used to share the same story to my traditional friends, they were unable to understand and many even thought that I was schizophrenic, a word that many people in the church use despite not actually knowing what it is (it appears to be the mental health equivalent of a ‘virus’). 

On the other hand when I used to speak of our lady ‘s messages of Fatima and other such revelations, my traditional friends got it immediately while my charismatic friends seemed to find it difficult to grasp! 

Traditionalists seem to hold more clearly to the church teaching on moral issues but the charismatics offer healing and hope to the lost sheep. A priest once said that some have truth without mercy while others have mercy without truth…. 

So what’s the solution! Just like in the movie, the personalities need to be integrated! We need the love, mercy and power of the Holy Spirit that we often associate with the charismatics with the prayer, reparation and clear moral teaching of the traditionalists! 

Holy Spirit, heal the Schizophrenia of our Church. Bring us together on love and truth! 

Dead Mass! 

24 Sun Dec 2017

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Most people are familiar with the term ‘black mass’. For anyone who is not, black masses are how satanists worship the devil doing abominable acts to the eucharist which they usually steal……

Needless to say, black masses are extremely evil 😈 

So what are ‘dead masses’?

And if I told you that ‘dead masses’ offend Jesus and Mary more than black masses..  What would you say?!

Dead masses are like when you wake up on a sunny day and you rush to the beach but when you get there, there is a big clowd of darkness blocking the sun. The other people, instead of being happy are fighting and bickering, moaning and groaning and the joy you had suddenly turns to sadness!!

Dead masses are often celebrated by dead priests. Men who gave their lives to God but for whatever reason, years of ministry, lonliness, false theologies… have snuffed out the spirit in them and often they have become dismayed and cynical, no longer believing in Church teaching or in prayer or in spiritual realities such as heaven or hell.

Their God is more loving than ours. He does not let anyone go to hell. There is no such thing as sin and hence no need for preaching, teaching or old fashioned confession. Everybody may receive Holy Communion at these masses, if the devil himself was present, he too would be welcomed in and of course given communion. 

The result of these dead masses is that thousands and thousands of people are receiving the body and blood of Jesus without taking it seriously or being taught. Jesus often mentioned to the saints how he hates entering some souls, not because He doesn’t love them, but because they don’t love Him!! 

To give a human analogy. When we receive the body of Jesus, He gives us Himself. The only human activity that this self giving comes anyway close to is the sexual intimacy of marriage. John Paul 2 wrote superbly on this in ‘theology of the body’. But going back to the point I was making, to receive Jesus without thinking twice about the type of life you are living, without prayer, with love would be like going up to a woman that you do not know and raping her!

Now, to be fair, many people are unaware of what they are doing because they have never been properly taught. I too was one of these people who popped along to mass at Christmas and Easter and probably received communion because ‘everyone else did’ and the priests never said anything about it so I took the silence as an affirmation!!

Fortunately when I did experience Jesus ten years ago, He began to show me the terrible reality of sin and the terrible silence in today’s church that leaves so man people spiritually unaware and dead.
You see, Jesus’ body and blood is like a medication for the soul and like any medicine, it must be taken properly. Even the best medicines may kill you if you don’t take them properly!!

So you see dear friends, Jesus is not about refusing you His love because He doesn’t love you. Jesus is the good doctor who wants you to take your medicine correctly and get healed!!

Jesus needs you to cooperate with him and his ways and to do that you need to know who He is and what sin is so that when you fall you run back to confession and mass…. NOT because Jesus is angry with you, but because He wants to clean out the wound so that it does not get worse just like a doctor would bandage and disinfect a nasty cut!

When I lived in Australia I used to go to mass on a Sunday morning and then immediately after it was over, I’d jump into my car and drive into Sydney City centre where I’d attend a pentecostal service! Why?

Simply because dead masses are mostly attended by the living dead and if you talk about Jesus or the Holy Spirit afterwards they’ll look at you like you are a psychiatric patient who sneaked out of your padded cell during the night. The reality is that you are not mad, but they are dead!!

And so with my pentecostal brothers and sisters I could talk about Jesus, danse and sing for Jesus and share amazing community!

Many of my dead Catholics friends would wonder what I was doing with these heretics. But when I prayed about it I heard the Holy Spirit say to me

‘What is better, a broken down Mercedes benz or a nifty sports car ‘?!!

You see, being Catholic isn’t about what we believe, even the devil and the satanists believe in the real presence of Jesus in the eucharist (they even pay for consecrated hosts… They have such’ faith’.

No, being Catholic is about how we live what we believe, how we live holy lives, how we love Jesus and Mary and the sacraments. How we pray, how we respect the teaching of the Church and strive to live Holy lives. How we desire to bring others to Jesus and to His real presence remembering that Jesus is not a kill joy, Jesus is joy itself and truly knowing Jesus is the most amazing experience that you can ever have!

And so to finish. Let’s transform the Catholic Church by transforming our hearts. Let us no longer receive Jesus without confession and without getting to know more and more about Him and His desires to bring us to full life. Let’s get to know our God, our church, our faith, our healer.. . Our Jesus!

May our church be transformed from a ‘dying man’s’ house 

Into the true centre of love, healing, hope and mercy that Jesus and Mary desire it to be!

No more dead masses please but life, life, and more life through the merciful transformational  love of the Holy Spirit!!

Pray for Our priests, that those who have strayed may find their way back, for persevernce and strength for the Holy ones and for young men filled with the fire of the Holy Spirit to heal our church and world!!

Thanks for reading! 

Interview with the devil? 

31 Fri Mar 2017

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Recently I went to confession. It’s something that I do at least once a week for now almost ten years. 

I’m writing about an experience that I had recently as a warning and also to highlight the need to pray for priests while also to choose a good one to share your soul! 

Excitedly I got to confession and poured out my failings as best I could after which the priest asked me where I’m from in a tone of voice that indicated that he had no interest in what I’d just shared. 

Out of politeness I replied as He asked me the next string of questions such as what work I have, ‘real work’ He meant not this living on providence and trusting the Holy Spirit!! 

Eventually He came to my sins to which he said that he could see no reason to give me absolution. My outbursts of anger at times and other obvious sins were ‘natural’. We went onto discuss some other moral issues and of course He didn’t agree with Church teaching there either… 

God gave me the grace to stay calm and eventually I talked him into absolving me. I left disillusioned thinking of how sad it was and also of the desperate need to pray for priests. 

A few days later I met another priest with whom I’m good friends and my experience was the opposite. Full of the love, wisdom and compassion of the Holy Spirit He exercised His priestly ministry with skill! 

Lord Jesus have mercy on priests, Our Lady help the lost ones and bless and strengthen the many good ones. Mercy, mercy, mercy! 

Ars 

30 Mon Jan 2017

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You may have heard or the cure of Ars, now a Saint and the patron Saint of parish priests. Anyway Ars is about half an hour from Lyon and so I often visit it when I’m in the area.  This time I took some photos thinking of those who may not be able to visit.. 

    One arrives in a very small French village. If you did not know that this was Ars you may well think that you are in the totally wrong place. To their credit they managed to build an underground basilica totally hidden, thus preserving the village feeling. 

    Next we meet the Saint… 

    Who invites us to visit his house… 

    They have kept it as it was,  a simple kitchen 

    His bedroom 

    One is immediately taken by the simplicity and one senses the presence of God,  a peace beyond human understanding is there. 

    Another bedroom where the saint slept when he arrived in Ars 

    We then can move to the Church where His body is exposed.  Say a little prayer,  he’ll hear you from wherever you are… Even if it’s Cork!! 

    Again inside they have kept the original simplicity.  A priest is available for confession and close by there is perpetual adoration and the divine office is recited.  




    Ars is definitely a little treasure.  For €20 return one can easily make a day trip for Lyon.  It is quiet,  peaceful,  prayerfu and oozing with history! 

    Peace!! 

    The joy of Evangelisation 

    26 Thu Jan 2017

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    I’ve always found a great contrast between Evangelisation ministry and healing ministry!  Often in the healing ministry I meet people who have been going to Church for years,  who have degrees and qualifications that I don’t have, people who love Jesus for far longer than I’ve known him,  people who pray….. Many times I feel like Mr Bean,  bluffing my way through it all and it somehow working out… 

    And then God sends me evangelising and I meet people who don’t know  God in the same way, tattoos,  funny haircuts with funny colours that remind me of the coloured sheep the neighbours had when I was a child,  piercings and rings that bring back my woodwork days  and yet behind it all some of the nicest most interesting people who simply haven’t encountered Jesus yet. People I dare say that if they met Him would do a far better job with all this spiritual stuff than me! 

    Yesterday brought its own share of such meetings!  When quietly sipping my tea in a busy Lyonnaise coffee shop a little boy of African decent sat beside me…. I felt like Mr Bean on that episode when he cuts a little boys hair as Mum dashes out to run a few errands .  A few minutes later his Dad came along who asked me if I could watch him for a few minutes as he went shopping!  So here I now was officially babysitting this little fella.  He told me he was 9 and that he was watching you-tube. A multitude of thoughts crossed my mind….is this a scam,  what if Dad doesn’t come back…… And that haircut!! 

    About ten minutes later Dad did come back with a pair of shoes for his little man before bringing him back to mum’s house…. Maybe the couple had split.  I didn’t say much but just quietly prayed for them before they left thanking me. 

    Afterwards I felt God say to me that Evangelisation isn’t about throwing bibles at people or annoying them with religious debates but rather by just being. It surprised me also the trust of this man to ask me to babysit, some may say even irresponsible and what touched me the most was that little pair of shoes. 

    We are called to loving others and to meeting all sorts of people. I for one prefer the safety of sitting in Church where everyone will agree with me and where we can pray for sinners without getting to know them or their stories but God likes to send me out,  after all who better to understand the power of God to work in messed up lives than myself and the utter chaos that God pulled me out of and into!! 
    Today,  let’s not fear getting to know and befriend people who don’t share our beliefs because they too are as much our brothers and sisters as our friends on the pews and often God will teach us so much through them such as  gratitude, love,  respect and the limitless borders of His mercy.  We also remember that God loves us not because we go to Church,  not because we are better than them, nope,  he loves us because he loves us. Free love!!