“We’d been working in Australia [for awhile], so we were praying about how we’d return to Ireland,” David recalled.

Cheryl suggested looking at roles with OM. “We were open to whatever, although we were looking for roles specifically suited to us. At the time, [OM in Ireland] was looking for a youth coordinator and an operations worker with gardening experience. These were the specific jobs we’d been looking for.”

Starting in January 2012, David and Cheryl served with the team at Lacken House. During the next three years, God trained and prepared them for a big step in their future ministry.

“By May 2015, the Lord was putting church planting in Ireland on our hearts,” Cheryl said. “Alastair [OM in Ireland’s national director] approached us about the Philippian Project, which was hot off the press at the time. David kept saying ‘It’s going to be horrible to leave the church we’re attending.’ Then in January 2016, he came home from church one day and said: ‘I actually believe it’s [our church in Ballinasloe] we’re meant to work with.’ David then contacted our pastor, who’d been praying that we would want to come work alongside the church.”

David and Cheryl transitioned into the Philippian Project with their local church at the end of February 2016; Irish witnesses to the community. The Philippian Project places couples or families with a local church to serve full-time, providing the church with support to grow and thrive.

“My heart was there,” David shared. “I knew that the Lord was asking me to get to know these people. I was trying to meet people who were living in the town or connected with the church. I have gotten to know them and work with them in the community. Then they get to know who I am. Through that witness, I can talk to them about the church and about the Lord.”

“In the past couple years,” Cheryl added, “we’ve seen a vulnerability in folks in conversations that we wouldn’t have seen [without being based in town]. We love that you have one Gospel conversation at a Horse Fair, see that guy later, and are able to invite him over for a cuppa to answer his questions.”

The church recently moved to a new building in the town centre which means an opportunity for more interaction, and impact, in the community.

“Key people who are known throughout the town have been dropping in,” David said. “The Lord is bringing people in and weaving this thing together for us. We’ve got a new building and a few new believers. We want to see families transformed in our town and Jesus being lifted high.”

“The more concentrated time we spend in a community,” Cheryl noted, “the more we realise that the fields are ripe. There’s a real beauty in the local church, in knowing that He’s going to work through you. It’s the Lord’s work, church, body, all these various little pockets. Everyone [in Ballinasloe] is feeling a bubbling that God is going to work through His Spirit.”

For David and Cheryl, God brought them from Lacken House to Ballinasloe where they now serve and faithfully wait to see how God will move in their town.

“We’re not [totally] prepared,” David said, “but God is.”

“What brought us down to Lacken House?” Alastair Kerr, OM field leader in Ireland, was asked. “The simple answer: God.”

When a fire destroyed the OM office in Donegal in 2006, the team began exploring options for a place near Dublin, a logical location given its high concentration of people.

“We were quite far along in the process when we first heard about Lacken House,” Alastair said. “The day we drew up plans for the new office, we got a phone call about this property owner in the centre of Ireland who wanted to sell to a Christian organisation.”

The 2008 purchase of Lacken House for €1.1 million was a step of faith, but the relocation proved to be a strategic move. Alastair shared how God’s direction held a deeper purpose for OM’s ministry in Ireland.

“God was directing us to areas where others had not focused very much, giving us an opportunity to minister where the need was the greatest.”

Lacken House’s central location allows it to be a gospel presence to the surrounding communities. Ireland’s population is about one per cent evangelical, and many towns have no gospel presence at all.

“Looking at this year’s St. Patrick’s outreach,” Cornel (OM board member) said, “we were distributed over the whole of Ireland. Being central for that is important, because we can bring participants here first for training, and then send them to places like Letterkenny and Newcastle West. It’s also a key point for staff visiting other teams like the Missionary Discipleship Training (MDT) programme or the Philippian Project, because they can go out and back in a day. It’s important for us to be centrally located, because now we can reach more places more easily.”

A haven away

In its ten years in Rahara, Co. Roscommon, Lacken House has been a home away from home for hosting as well as training to equip volunteers, church workers and short-term teams to reach Ireland and the world.

“It’s safe to say that thousands have stayed here since we bought it,” Alastair said. “Our hope is that each person who’s stayed here better understands the spiritual needs of the nation and would leave knowing something of what God is doing here in Ireland.”

Lacken House can easily accommodate large groups up to 30 people, and is tucked away in a peaceful and rural setting.

“We are remote enough that folks can focus on the preparation and training and learn something of the needs here. Lacken House brings a certain tranquillity, a chance for people to get away and actually spend time with God.”

Lacken House is available for local use, a place to rest for anyone who may need to step away for a time.

“We wanted Lacken House to be a bit of a haven away from all the busyness of life,” Alastair said, “somewhere people can come to get refreshed but also mobilised to go back and make a difference in their situations. I would love to see more local believers and pastors come here and spend time being refreshed. It’s so much more than a good experience. There is a certain peace that comes from connecting with God in the beauty of nature around our site.”

Release to reach

Since the beginning of OM in Ireland, there has been the heart to mobilise more Irish believers. However, one of the greatest restrictions at times has been finances, particularly the payment of Lacken House. Over the past ten years, God has provided for 80 per cent of the cost. The team wants to be good stewards of what He has given, so is hoping to pay the remaining balance with one final campaign.

As finances are freed at Lacken House, more funds will be enabled to reach others through various ministries. One dream is to be able to facilitate more Irish involvement in missions. Would you pray and consider joining with the team in Ireland to finish the last 20 per cent in order that they may be 'Released to Reach'?"

“We had such a large age range too,” Helen, OM office administrator, said. “We had everyone from 16-71 years old!”

“I’m thankful that God is still burdening and calling people to serve Ireland,” Irene (OM Human Resource Director) said, “and that they’re willing to give up time and money to come serve.”

With the guest house and chalets of Lacken House, we were blessed to be able to house everyone onsite. For some, this was their first visit to Ireland. For others, this would be their first time doing street ministry. Trained at and sent from Lacken House, the participants were sent to five different church partners around Ireland: Letterkenny, Cootehill, Longford, Athlone, and Newcastle West.

Each team’s ministry was a little different, based on the needs or plans of the hosting church. Everyone participated in their local St. Patrick’s parade in some capacity. The Big Red Bus was also able to be a part in a couple parades. Teams were handing out gospel St. Patrick’s tracts as well as doing street evangelism.

Letterkenny. “We got to Letterkenny and joined the youth group that night, Benjamin — the youngest member of our group — was asked to share his testimony on the spot. It was his first time sharing his testimony. It was amazing to see,”  Danny (USA).

Cootehill. “During our time doing street evangelism, I was able to share the Gospel with an older lady who brought up the apparent brokenness of politics in the region. I spoke about God’s design for the world and the way that Christ’s death and resurrection makes it possible for God to hear the brokenness in our hearts,” Rebecca (USA).

Longford. “As my husband and I went door to door, God allowed us to encounter a young man who had been dealing with bigger questions: How can there be goodness without a God? How can one maintain an atheistic viewpoint when it is unreasonable? We were so excited that God had already started working in his heart and mind,” Wendy (Canada).

Athlone. “We connected with three young men from the time we got there. Right after we set up, these three guys came up. Gene from our team connected with them through his background in the States. It was incredible to see how easily we were able to connect.

"After the parade on Saturday, God brought one of those guys back to us [even though we were in a different location than the night before]. We talked with him for about an hour. Then on Sunday, we were in a different part of town, and he showed up again. So we got to talk to him a third time," Jeff (USA).

“It’s amazing to see how we’ve never been out witnessing before, but we connected with these teens. The second day they were so excited to see us that they introduced us to their friends. I can’t tell you how excited I am to have been part of OM’s mission ministering out on the streets,” Gene (USA).

Newcastle West. “During our mall outreach, myself and Monja were able to share the full gospel with two guys. It was cool watching their faces as we shared. They seemed like they were really listening and considering what we said,”  Lela (USA).

“It was a joy to see Lacken House full with St. Patrick’s Challenge participants,” Alastair (OM Ireland national director) shared afterwards, “being trained onsite and how they are passionate about going out and sharing their faith. I would love to see more Irish initially equipped here at OM Ireland with for something like St. Patrick’s Challenge and then sent out.”

Jarlath first heard about OM years ago when he saw an OM poster that said: ‘Go into all the world’ on the wall of a church in his city. Years later, Jarlath decided to retrain in I.T. and needed some work experience for his classes. The OM in Ireland office provided the training he needed, and an avenue to serve God’s Kingdom.

“After I finished my classes, I said I’d come in for a few days a week to help, even though I felt very inadequate,” Jarlath remembered.

Missionaries are usually defined as ‘people sent on a religious mission…in a foreign country.’ There’s a preconception that missionaries are street preachers who have moved to a different country to share the gospel. However, there are many missionaries with behind-the-scenes roles that play equally important parts in a ministry – and they often stay in their home country.

Much like Jarlath, Thiago was introduced to OM in the past and came back to serve at OM in Ireland years later. “I began working with OM as a work experience student during my QQI Level 4 course in VTOS Roscommon. I started with general work, helping with anything I could.”

Even after the semester ended, Thiago agreed to continue volunteering in the office for one day per week. “They asked me to continue on. Now, I’m currently the petty cash operator on a voluntary basis every Thursday,” Thiago said.

People like Jarlath and Thiago with practical skills are invaluable to OM offices. Jarlath urged: “We have missionaries who are born evangelists, but we also need the practical skills. When there are people with practical skills — construction, secretarial, etc. — who are willing to do that work, it benefits the overall ministry since you don’t have to hire a third party to do that work for you.”

There are lots of different aspects of ministry besides preaching. Jarlath knows that: “You can be involved because you clearly have skills that the Lord wants to use. He wants you to use those skills to extend His Kingdom. Just ask! There might be some office where you might be just the person they need.”

Do you have practical skills, but didn’t think you could be used in missions? Have you considered that your skills might be needed somewhere? God can use you right where you are. Get in touch with us to hear about how you can start using your skills for the Kingdom!

“The goal is to share the Gospel with as many people as possible,” said John Humphries (IEB), another OM partner for the Ploughing. “[We do this] through talking to people at the tables, free literature, talking to some as they walk past, and the team [engaging with others] outside the tent.”

Colm Ó Brolcháin, OM Ireland’s bus driver, explained, “Cavan Christian Bookshop is well-known at the Ploughing Championships for providing free tea, coffee, biscuits and cakes in a marquee. After a couple years, I started suggesting that the Big Red Bus would be a great additional venue because it has a kitchen with kettles, boilers, and coffee makers. But bringing the Bus would require renting another half tent space, which was not available in the budget. We still went to the Ploughing, still gave out tea/coffee, still talked to people, still spread the Word.”

Cavan Christian Bookshop had been providing the marquee for nine years. The tent provided a place for visitors to get out of the weather, sit, and enjoy a cup of tea/coffee.

“When we set up this year, the folks from Cavan were saying that we wouldn’t be able to use the tent in 2019,” Colm remembered. “It had done a lot; it had served its purpose.”

That was the preamble to the storm that would change everything. On Tuesday night, a massive windstorm ripped through the Midlands and made it too dangerous for the Ploughing Championships to continue the following day. The Wednesday morning events were postponed until further notice and not even the vendors were allowed onsite.

“When we finally arrived around 15:00, we discovered the damage to the tent, which was fragile anyway,” Colm said. “There was a lot of discussion about where to get another tent.”

“We had to find a way to continue or close up,” John explained.

At one point, when the conversation had stalled, Colm told John that the Big Red Bus was sitting at Lacken House, OM's base in County Roscommon.

John jumped on the possibility: "Who do I need to contact? How long would it take to get the Bus down here?”

After a couple of phone calls, Colm went to fetch the Bus. When he returned, a few logistics still had to be sorted.

“Their big concern was whether the bus would sink into the soft ground,” Colm shared. “I’d already anticipated that. I had planks that we’ve previously used to get vans out of soft ground, and we put the Bus on those.

“Then the question was would we have the Bus facing in or out? Because the tea/coffee was at the back of the tent, we had the Bus facing in. The blessing in that was that the Scripture verse (John 14:6) on the back of the Bus was absolutely obvious to everybody. There were people who came, read that and walked on. We just don’t know what that’ll do.

“Double decker buses are a novelty in the Irish countryside, so people are interested in that. We were still the Cavan Christian Bookshop, but part of that was the Big Red Bus.”

John also recognised the benefit of having the Bus on site. “When people saw it, they had to come and have a look. It was a great landmark to send people to as they talked to our team.”

The Ploughing Championships draws visitors of all ages. The organisers of the Cavan Bookshop tent are always looking for ways to appeal to everyone. Andrew, leader of the IEB, saw the difference having the Bus made, compared to years past.

“The Bus was a life saver this year [when our marquee was destroyed]. It has its own approach to evangelism, mainly to youth, and we saw that effectively fulfilled. We had a large number of young people in attendance, and the Bus has its functions and attractions for them.”

“The young people wanted to sit upstairs on the Bus and chill out,” Colm recalled. “For two days—the Thursday and Friday—there were a lot of youngsters on the Bus sitting upstairs and talking about issues of faith and why we’re doing this. That was very exciting.”

“One girl asked a lot of questions and shared some really personal stuff,” Sage, one of OM Ireland’s Immersion students, said afterwards.

“There were these girls who were fascinated by the free literature, so they kept coming back to look. We sat down and talked about anything and everything. They asked questions, and I answered. I’d expected more resistance but really didn’t get much.” Charis, another Immersion student, shared.

Colm hopes that this is the beginning of the Bus ministry serving alongside the IEB at the Ploughing Championships. “We were excited about the response to the Bus, and we look forward to working with these groups again in the future.”

The Ploughing Championships is just one event at which the Big Red Bus can be used.

“The Big Red Bus is one of those resources that needs to be used, and I’d love to use it more,” Colm shared. “The more we get to use it in different locations, facilities, places and outdoor events (like the Ploughing), the more opportunities we get to share the gospel. That is what we use the Bus for: proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ.”

I’d heard many things about the annual Ballinasloe Horse Fair. Former colleagues who’d attended told me about the grounds, the horses, the visitors and the locals who came into the pub the church group was renting out. I hadn’t attended myself until this year, an opportunity only brought about because we needed photos of our MDT Immersion students in action. Every year, our students partnered with Ballinasloe Christian Fellowship to serve the locals and (hopefully) strike up gospel-centred conversations.  

While the students served tea and coffee to any locals who wandered into the pub, I had a chance to sit with a local Christian with a genuine passion for his country.

“We need to keep praying for revival,” he said. “We never know what God will do, so we just need to keep praying for revival.”

Looking around that pub at the various people enjoying their tea, I started really thinking about what he’d said. Praying for revival…In a country that many have come to learn is spiritually dark, have we given up on praying for the people? Has the belief in revival died, or are we still trusting that God can move in a mighty way?

“We don’t really know where people are,” he continued. “I have to believe that there are people out there who are searching.”

His optimistic hope got me thinking. Do I hold on to the hope that there are people searching for answers? Do I give up on seeking out those who are seeking? Honestly, it was humbling to think about. Sitting in that old pub, looking around at people who probably had no idea what came after death, it was a firm reminder that things in this world fade away. 

Pubs are a place of community, a safe(r) place to let go and forget the worries of the day. Even if the only thing being served was tea and coffee, sitting in that pub gave me a further glimpse into the culture while inspiring very real thoughts for the people around me. Glasses clink, friends laugh, drinks drown out worries and life after death gets lost in the midst. A one-off conversation in a pub about Christ dying on the cross for the sins of the world is easily forgotten in the bustle of life. 

It can be devastating to think that so many have given up on, or turned away from, the hope of Christ. In an era when it’s easier to drink into numb oblivion than to face the truth of our lostness, we can start to think that there’s nothing else we can do. If folks don’t want to hear about a better future, what can we do? Tea in hand, my new friend had a point. There is always something we can be doing.

We can pray for hearts to be softened, for minds to be opened, for the veil of spiritual blindness to be lifted. We can pray that Christ followers would be bold for the kingdom, that they would be a witness to their neighbours. No matter where you are in the world. No matter the current spiritual state of a country. No matter if you know the people or not. No matter if the people sit in a pub or a pew. We can always be praying, and the Lord hears our prayers.

He hears our prayers and moves in hearts. He draws a people back to Himself, sweeping through a nation. There’s nothing He cannot do, no place He cannot see, no person He cannot reach. He merely asks for our love, honour, praise for His kingdom and prayers.

Prayers for revival. 

Hannah (USA) has been serving as OM Ireland's journalist for two years. A trained writer, she loves sharing stories of people and their God-inspired life moments. She believes that everyone has a story worth telling, and it's a true joy to be the one to tell them.

“I saw a guy installing network cables in the building where my friends were staying,” he remembers. “When I saw him, I had this thought of God telling me, ‘This is how you’re going to get into Russia…through Information Technology (I.T.) work.’ I wanted to live there, be among people, and live my life out for God [with a normal job].”

As newlyweds in 2009, Kieran and Ciara visited OM’s ship, the Logos Hope, in Cork where they surprisingly met a couple of Russian workers on board. The friends they made during that trip would set the stage for their official introduction into Russia later.

While managing the I.T. department at his factory job for a year, Kieran received specialised training that would qualify him for the next door God would open. Remembering God’s guiding towards I.T. work, Kieran and Ciara saw an ad posted on Facebook by their Russian friend from the Logos Hope. OM Russia was looking for an I.T. manager.

“We prayed about it,” Kieran shared, “and really felt God leading us to do this. We put aside our preferences [a steady-paying job as opposed to living on missionary support] and went for it. So, we ended up in Russia.”

To Russia and back

Ciara shared that “one of the biggest culture shocks was how people related to one another in public, and how long it takes to connect. Mums at the playground didn’t talk to each other. The locals were very suspicious of foreigners. We were told that it would take two to three years to form a friendship with a Russian, which was pretty accurate.”

Kieran and Ciara originally agreed to serve for one year, yet they felt God leading their family to stay for a total of five years. As their fifth and final year in Russia approached, they began preparing to return to Ireland. The first step was praying about where in Ireland they’d return. Ciara remembers that “the Lord told me ‘I’m throwing you a curveball, and it’s not going to be what you think it is.’”

“I asked the Lord to send someone to us, instead of us specifically looking for something,” Ciara shared. “The very next day someone contacted us, directing us toward Tramore, County Waterford. There were many confirmations after that, leading us to move there. Each step required God to open the door for us.”

Coming back to Ireland was not only a transition but reverse culture shock. “From 11-30 years old, I had this dream [of living in Russia],” Kieran said. “Then I lived the dream, which was a great privilege. We came back to Cork with this vision that God would bring us to Tramore, just not knowing how.”

“While we were in Russia,” Ciara said, “God had given us this vision of community, of living and getting to know our neighbours and seeing His kingdom come.”

“When we first got back, we were jobless, homeless and not in Russia,” Kieran shared. “Through a series of unbelievable ‘coincidences,’ we found schools for our three kids, a house to rent and then a job.”

“God can have an impact in any place,” Ciara said. “He is so kind and takes care of the smallest detail.”

For Kieran, “Our lives together, what we want to teach our kids, is about asking God. Whether that’s serving in Russia, developing a career in this or that, or sweeping a road somewhere for work. All He wants is our obedience. It’s a struggle not to get so comfortable that I stop relying on God.”

Ciara recognised that “being in Russia was training. God taught me all that I thought I knew, but didn’t. It was also a reminder to be ourselves. When people put missionaries on a pedestal, they opt themselves out. For every single person, He wants to see His kingdom come.”

The future isn’t exactly clear for the Fitzgibbon family, now a party of six. Kieran described it as, “We have no idea what’s going to happen, but we’re looking at it as an adventure. Going to Russia and coming back has all been part of our walk with God.”

“It’s exciting because we don’t know lots of things,” Ciara agreed. “Our kids are learning to relate to Irish people, to be themselves and to communicate who they are to people who have never heard of Jesus. People ask, ‘will you go back to Russia?’ I don’t know. It’s very likely, but under what circumstance we don’t know. I don’t feel done with Russia.”

Kitt had been “looking for years for a missionary organisation working in the south of Ireland, as I had a burden to share the gospel with the Irish. I heard about OM and eventually found the short-term outreaches on their website.”

OM’s best known annual short-term outreaches in Ireland, St. Patrick’s Challenge (in March, for one week) and Impact Ireland (in July, for two weeks), hold the same purpose. It’s all about sharing the gospel with people who do not know Jesus and allowing it to impact in their lives.

Beginning with thought-provoking, creative and interactive training, these exciting outreaches involve Christians from around the world, working together with Irish churches to share the message of the gospel and demonstrate the love of Jesus in action.

“The first time I came to Ireland was for St. Patrick’s Challenge in March 2015,” David remembered. “To this day, I’ve been to Ireland nine times. Three of those outreaches were the Christmas show tour, which is about five to six weeks long.”

Kitt remembered her first St. Patrick’s Challenge as well. “I was praying for people on the street for specific prayer requests they had—this can communicate a living relationship with Jesus and stir up a hunger in the person you are praying with. I’ve done four St. Patrick’s Challenges and one Impact Ireland, in addition to independent visits.”

“I loved Impact Ireland, which was my first mission trip,” Liam — who’s also participated in two St. Patrick’s Challenges — explained. “I loved the chance to do public ministry, working with a new church, and new people. The teaching at Lacken House was really good, and the fellowship and bonding were amazing.”

“We should take part in short-term outreaches because they help us grow in Christ, in love for our fellow Christians, and in zeal for the unsaved,” Kitt said. “I realised that the skills I learned in Ireland can be put to use in my local church. We don’t get much evangelism training in the churches. It was great to meet so many Christians who are intent on sharing the gospel.”

“It’s important to go where the Lord wants us to go,” David shared. “I don’t think everyone is called to be a full-time missionary in another country. However, I do believe in short-term outreaches! If we read the book of Acts, we find people on the way meeting other people; then things happened, and lives were changed.”

Ireland needs the gospel. A majority 98.5 per cent of the population have yet to be redeemed from spiritual darkness. Short-term participants like David, Kitt and Liam return to the Emerald Isle to continue to be trained and plant gospel seeds in hearts around the country.

Twenty years ago, Brandy* (USA) went to Ireland for a trip after graduating high school. In July 2018, she brought her daughter Alexia* to be part of OM Ireland’s annual two-week outreach called Impact Ireland. While this was their first experience in missions (separately and together), the experience was merely the beginning of something far greater.

“People tried to discourage us from coming, because—in their minds—missionaries go to poor, isolated places like Africa,” Brandy shared during the training week. “They’d say, ‘Ireland has lots of religion already. You don’t need to go there.’ That’s exactly why we need to go [here]. I don’t want people to have a ‘religion.’ I want them to have a relationship.”

After a few days of ministry training at OM Ireland’s headquarters, Brandy and her daughter joined a team that would be spending a week serving in Lehinch, County Clare, Ireland. Between practical working in the community, hosting a kids clubs in a housing estate and asylum seeker hotel and doing music ministry at a local music festival, they saw God working through their team. As most participants are, they were drawn out of their comfort zones and stretched to show God’s love to those around them.

When the two weeks came to an end and it was time to go home, Brandy and Alexia looked back with amazement at God’s faithfulness. Shortly before her departure, Alexia shared the following:

“Impact Ireland: 14 days… it's been the most life-changing, challenging and amazing experience. There are no words that do justice how happy being in Ireland makes me. No greater joy than having the freedom to serve the Lord in such a beautiful country. I love that Ireland is a people culture: you don't meet a stranger; everyone is inviting and will talk to you for hours… most are the friendliest – some people can be hard to love, but you do it any way as Jesus would.

"I've learned more about the person I want to be. I've learned to trust everyone, to genuinely love all no matter the background, let go of selfishness, and have prayed more than ever for the Lord to open, transform, and renew my mind and heart. Being a Christian, living for the Father and having a relationship with Jesus means so much more to me now. There is so much more depth and a new sense of boldness.

"I'm so thankful to have gotten this opportunity to see the things I've seen, to have done the things I've done, to have met the people I've met, to have formed the best relationships with so many, to be here serving the Lord with the most precious people who are so generous, forgiving, encouraging, fun, loving, and kind. I am truly overflowing with thankfulness. My heart is content.” 

Seeing Impact Ireland participants strengthened in their faith and emboldened in evangelism is one highlight for OM Ireland staff. There is a hope, a prayer that they will take what they’ve learnt and experienced in Ireland into their home lives. Sometimes, it’s the principles that are carried forward. Sometimes, it’s the new desire to continue being part of missions.

For Brandy, God touched her heart to continue serving before she even left Ireland.

“Y'all, God just straight up showed me the answer to a question I've had for months and I am so excited! I have dreamt for months now of me in a bookstore type setting; but in my dreams, it's always been more of a 'gathering place.' In my dreams, it’s a place where people come to talk about Jesus, get encouragement and hope, talk and read," said Brandy. 

"Since these dreams started, I felt like I was meant to do something with books and that never made sense because I had no idea how I could go about serving Jesus with books....

"And then tonight I happened upon the OM USA page and then I read that the OM Ships Centre in South Carolina needs people to pack the Bibles and books they take aboard the ship! There's an actual mission trip in the states (a three hour plane ride from me!) that involves books!

"If it wasn't 11:30pm, and if everyone in this house wasn't asleep, I'd be up having a dance party cause.... serving God by helping the Ministry Centre get the books and Bibles ready for distribution to the unreached people.... that's HUGE and exciting and SO my thing!

"I love Jesus and I've got a taste of what it feels like to be involved in mission work. I'm ready for more!”

Impact Ireland is far more than a once-a-year outreach. It’s a powerful experience that often encourages participants, like Brandy and Alexia, to continue in the love and light of Christ.

* surname not included for security reasons

The religious statistics in Ireland give a clear picture of the need for the gospel. “There are numerous town with populations of over 5,000 that do not have a gospel-centred church,” Ludie shared. “I had a couple days in my work week to focus on church ministry, and after a while, I started to think that this idea of church planting had a nice ring to it.”

Ludie and Barbara’s church, Grace Community Church, had been reaching out to Longford for nearly ten years. Two families from the church were already living there and agreed to be part of a new church plant if it came to be. “We wanted to plant this church as part of a team and God graciously put people around us who said, ‘We’ll go with you,’" Ludie said. "We’re not just sitting there by ourselves trying to figure it out. There’s history, intelligence and support to build on.”

As they wanted to be intentional about reaching the community, Ludie and his co-planter Tim Coyle spent time going door-to-door, setting up a literature table on the sidewalk in town, offering movie nights and holding community discussions about ‘Big [Life] Questions People Ask.’

“It’s not just sitting back and preaching on Sundays,” Ludie said. “But really reaching into the community with the gospel.”

Longford boasts a population of roughly 27,500 people within a 12km radius from the town centre. Ludie shared how they decided to “boldly ask God for one per cent of the population to come to Christ through the proclamation of the gospel. That’s 275 people in the next year or two. It sounds crazy and huge, but we believe that God saves people and He does it through the preaching of His word. …We don’t want to just see people [come to salvation in Christ]. We want to see them discipled and embracing Christian living in every area of their life. It won’t be an overnight thing, so it requires investment into people.”

In addition to their Sunday morning service, Ludie’s family and their team are finding ways to be involved in the community. As they see it, being good neighbours and citizens is all part of the platform to share the gospel. A team from Ludie’s church in the USA travelled to Ireland and helped clean about six miles of highway. Such community service helped establish relationships as well as their own identity as a church group.

“As God gives you the opportunity, preaching the gospel to them, whether that’s over coffee, on the street corner, at the literature table, in a church service … we’ve got one message to bring to people: only God can save. All we’re told to do is preach the gospel and trust God to bring about the increase from that.”

The name Hope Community Church holds deep truths for its members and the community. Ludie defined the different parts of the name as follows:

Hope: “We’re living in a land where everything folks placed their hope in (people, relationships, finance, health, even the church) has let them down and will let them down. We want people to know that there is hope in Jesus. No one is beyond hope.”

Community: “We’re a people of community. We love coming together because we’re created by a God who’s been in community for all eternity. We want to create that place for people to come together.”

Church: “The church [the people] is the highest form of community. We don’t have to get crazy ideas about fulfilling the Great Commission because He’s already given it to us: the local church where people can live in the light of the Gospel.”

The Hope Community Church family meets at 11:00 in the Longford Arms Hotel each Sunday morning. For more information, see their Facebook page HCC Longford or contact Pastor Ludie.

“At first, I didn’t know very much about refugees,” she said. “When I started to learn more, it broke my heart. I wanted to pursue refugee work in Europe, and the OM ministry in Austria seemed like an open door.”

Through a series of complications that would limit her Austrian internship to six months, Ellianna agreed to a two-month stop in Ireland. Within two weeks before she was to leave, she learned that a visa denial had closed the door to work with OM Austria. Now she would spend all eight months of her internship with OM Ireland.

“I was confused,” she confessed. “During all of my preparation, my heart had grown for Austria. I was asking, ‘God, what is going on? What are You doing?’”

Arriving in Ireland and settling into an admin assistant role, Ellianna struggled to wrap her head and heart around this dramatic change of plans. “The office role wasn’t as exciting to me as what I would have been doing in Austria. I prayed that my heart would come here because I knew that this was where God had me, and I wanted to be present.”

Several months passed, and her internship gave her the opportunity to participate in street evangelism, on-site hospitality and school programmes. Yet she still wasn’t working with refugees. There didn’t seem to even be an opportunity to do so in Ireland.

OM teammates Jesse and Michelle had been visiting a hotel serving as a refugee centre once a week for several months before Ellianna arrived in Ireland. During a casual conversation, Michelle invited Ellianna to go with them sometime.

“To have this opportunity, even after everything, was so great,” Ellianna shared. “Walking into this situation, I had no idea what to expect. In the middle of almost nowhere in Ireland, there’s this hotel with 200 refugees. You walk in, and it’s a whole other world. It’s a Syrian world in the middle of Ireland.”

“From the beginning, my heart melted,” she continued. “I wanted to know everything about them, but I’ve learned that you can’t just ask for it. It takes a long time. I was thankful that Jesse and Michelle had been going for awhile and building relationships. I knew that I could trust and follow their lead.”

The OMers visit the refugees without an agenda. Each week, they go to the hotel, hang out, love the people they meet and pray that God gives them the opportunities to speak gospel truth. Now Ellianna has begun building her own relationships with the refugees.

During the most recent visit, Ellianna was instantly greeted by a young girl, whose face lit up as the group entered the hotel. She started happily telling Ellianna about her day, which soon turned into a spelling lesson. Such simple things can lead to deeper conversations, no matter the age of the people invovled.

“It’s been amazing to see how conversations have come up about Jesus and the gospel,” Ellianna marveled. “We often feel, as Christians, that after you meet someone, you have to share the gospel with them. But no… It was four months after meeting that I first shared my personal faith with any of them. It’s cool to see how God uses relationships for His glory. We pray that He will do it, but it’s still amazing when He does.”

Ellianna genuinely loves her refugee friends, enjoying every chance she has to spend time with them. While refugees in Austria may have been her original plan, God directed her to Ireland.

“It’s been eye-opening to talk to people who have been through so much. I can’t grasp where they’re coming from, but it breaks my heart. There’s a whole other world out there that is suffering. A lot of fears come out of what we see and hear in the media about refugees. To go and see that these are real people with real fears, joys, passions, it’s challenging to not take what the media says and truly value these people for who they are. There’s this challenge of how do you show love to someone when you can’t use words because you don’t speak the same language.”

Challenged to get out of her comfort zone, Ellianna takes each visit as a gift. “I’m so thankful for this time there and the unforgettable relationships that have been built there.”

Through her visits to the refugee centre, Ellianna has learned something about herself too. “I’ve found that there’s this real passion to help these people, and I don’t know where it comes from. There’s something inside me that’s undeniable. I want to pursue this work or something like it. There are loads of people like this [refugees] out there. Sitting around doing nothing is not okay. I don’t know what I can personally do, but there’s a passion I didn’t know I had.”

Through a handful of OMers simply valuing individuals in this displaced community, these refugees have had the opportunity to experience God's love in ways they might never otherwise have done and be part of His Kingdom.

“I was 11 when Bree started coming to the church in Cootehill, County Cavan,” Nicole said. “At the time, I knew about God but didn’t really know when was the ‘right time’ to start a personal relationship with Him.”

Bree remembered that Nicole was “very quiet and reserved when I first met her. I learned that the church had been praying for her, her mom and brother. So that’s what I started doing. I prayed and would talk to her at the kids’ club.”

Saoirse’s mom had become a Christian shortly before Bree moved to Cootehill. “I had just turned 15. I was attending the youth club only because others were going. I started talking to Bree the first day I met her, and we bonded a lot in the weeks ahead,” she said.

“Saoirse was older than most of the kids,” Bree recalled. “We hung out and got to know each other. I had a good conversation with her about the difference between Catholicism and Christianity, which opened a door to share the gospel.”

“I was raised with a Catholic background in school but not at home,” Saoirse said. “It was drilled into my head, but it didn’t make sense. I never understood it. I would have questions that [my teachers] couldn’t answer.”

Whatever messages Nicole and Saoirse heard in church and school did not clearly describe the love and salvation Jesus offered. Bree co-hosted a small group Bible study for pre-teens, a low-key environment where they could be open and honest. This provided simple answers about the gospel from someone closer in age to help Nicole and Saoirse understand.

“Bree always listened and understood me,” Nicole said. “When she taught about Jesus, I always understood her.”

“If I missed a study, I would do a one-on-one lesson,” Saoirse recalled. “During these studies, Bree would explain things to me. She would take the time to answer questions my teachers couldn’t.”

It was a clear message of the gospel that brought both girls to saving faith in Jesus Christ. Nicole said, “Everything finally made sense. I understood that you could die without the Lord.” Saoirse remembered, “I thought I was the only one who understood. I realised that there was meaning behind it all.”

Nicole and Saoirse, with the support of their local church in Cootehill, are now learning to be bold in sharing their faith with their peers.

“The church is like a family,” Saoirse said. “They have knowledge that really provides a foundation for us. I’ve tried telling my friends about the gospel, but no one really cares. They’re trying to say it’s fake, but I’m telling them it’s real.”

“It feels good to know I have Bree and all the others around to help me,” Nicole shared. “I’ve faced my fear about talking to people on the streets about God. I’m so thankful that Bree came to our church.”

OM’s Immersion MDT programme is a one-year opportunity in Ireland where student interns complete two months of training at the OM base, followed by an eight-month internship in partner churches. Students finish the year with a month of debrief at OM and an opportunity to co-lead a short-term outreach team as part of the Impact Ireland outreach, often back to the churches where they served in the previous months.

“I was at a park concert the summer of 2016—a ministry of the Impact Ireland team—and I thought, ‘Wow! I’d love to do this.’ So I thought about it over the year,” Rebecca recounted.

While Rebecca knew about ministry opportunities with OM through her church, she was nervous to be bold about sharing her faith in the community.

“I wanted to learn how to share my faith with others. Just thoughts of evangelism made me nervous; but I thought if I could learn to share in the ‘proper way,’ I would have a bit more confidence and know what to say to people,” she explained.

OM’s Impact Ireland provided the training Rebecca needed to help put her faith into action. She set distractions aside and trusted God to take care of the details. “Street evangelism… not at all comfortable for me!” she confessed. “The first morning, the pastor was praying over our teams going out. I was terrified, so I was thinking, ‘Let the prayers go on for a while so we can postpone going out.’”

But she did go out. In addition to face-to-face conversations, Rebecca sang and played guitar on the street in partnership with the Big Red Bus team. Her talent caught the attention of OM’s bus driver, Colm.

“He came up to me and said, ‘What are you doing in August?’” Rebecca recalled. “He told me the Bus was going to be at this event in Ennis called the Fleadh Cheoil. I prayed about it and felt God leading me to do it.”

She hoped to only play music on the Bus. However, God had other plans for Rebecca’s time. Through her nervousness and feelings of being ill-prepared, she trusted God to give her what she would need.

“God was pushing me to go out and talk to people. I went out onto the street and spoke to so many people, even groups of teenagers,” Rebecca shared. “I can’t even remember all of the gospel conversations I had.”

“I didn’t realise how lost my country really is. It’s easy to get into this Christian bubble,” Rebecca said. “Being part of Impact and then the Fleadh, I see we’re all called to the Great Commission. I used to think it didn’t apply to me. Evangelism still makes me nervous, but I feel much more confident approaching people.”

As Rebecca discovered, Christians must allow the Holy Spirit to work in and through them.

“It’s amazing what happens when you totally rely on God, His strength and His ability,” Rebecca said. “His power is made perfect in my weakness. He can use my nervousness for His glory.”

 “We lived in a very troubled household,” Chole said. “Our parents were alcoholics and there was a lot of fighting and violence. We girls yearned for love because [our parents] didn’t know how to express it.”

“OM’s Big Red Bus would come to our neighbourhood. That’s where we first heard that Jesus loved us,” Chloe remembered. “For us, who’d never experienced real love, it was like ‘Wow! We’re loved by this man who died for us.’ I didn’t know who Jesus was, but I knew He loved me.”

A Christian neighbour prayed for the girls’ family and spoke to them about God’s love in greater detail, especially to Chloe; taking her to church in Athlone.

“I was attending Bible studies, Sunday school and the services. One day, when I was about seven years old, it just clicked for me. I understood,” said Chloe.

Chloe didn’t tell her mother that she’d dedicated her life to Christ, which made Chloe’s sudden interest and concern for Maeve’s future quite difficult to understand.

“She comes up to me one day with a Bible in her hands,” Maeve said. “She says, ‘Where are you going when you die, Mammy? You’re going to the bad place, and I don’t want you to go there.’”

Following her mother around the house with a Bible, Chloe continued to share the hope and love of Christ. “I wanted this for her because I saw how much pain she was in. I had this hope; she just didn’t get it.”

The neighbour continued to share the gospel, while also praying with and encouraging Chloe. “She was taking the two older girls to church, and I thought it was unfair that my youngest was being left out,” Maeve said. “She told me ‘You can bring her. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to stay.’” So mother and daughters started attending church all together.

For two years, Chloe prayed for her family. “I was getting discouraged, especially because the woman I loved most didn’t have the hope that I had.”

When Maeve asked the Lord into her life, Chloe knew her consistent prayers had been answered. They were baptized together in 2013.

Chloe’s younger sisters Zoe and Chantel attended the kids’ clubs and Bible camps for several years, but the gospel seemed to have no effect; they heard without understanding. Two years after Maeve’s change of heart, Zoe was touched by a testimony where God revealed Himself and decided she didn’t want to be the person she was becoming. “A friend said that I might become an alcoholic like my mum,” she remembered. “It broke my heart to hear her essentially saying that God hadn’t done anything in my life.” So she made a decision to follow Jesus.

A year later, Chantel also chose to follow Christ during a weekend church retreat at OM’s Lacken House. She trusted in Christ when she heard that Jesus is the light of the world and was asked where she wanted to be in five years.

Learning to support one another

“In the beginning,” Chloe said, “we weren’t looking to God as a family. We were spiritually walking as individuals because we didn’t know how to come together.”

Now they are learning to support one another through the struggles and are being encouraged to tell their story. During a recent Impact Ireland outreach in Athlone, Maeve was asked to share her testimony, not knowing that a neighbour was live-streaming online.

“Many people from our neighbourhood watched,” Maeve said afterwards. “People who’d seen me staggering across the street drunk with my three little girls in tow now saw a radical difference. They wanted to know what had happened to change me.”

The miraculous change in the family occurred through the love and power of Jesus Christ. The family who previously had not known 'real love' is now sharing God’s light and love in their neighbourhood. 

I will admit I was nervous. The last time I went with a team to a school for a retreat day programme, my first group of kids were not pleasant. I could barely hold their attention, and their indifferent and hostile attitudes did not help my cause. So going into another long day with a programme called ‘Who Is Jesus?’ I was a bit nervous how I would handle it all.

The first group was around 55 kids, not too many, but enough to make each small group eight kids. The second group was closer to 70 kids, requiring a bit more effort to keep everyone’s energy reasonably in check. I silently prayed for a way to connect with these kids, to draw their interest. Each programme was nearly three hours long, and it could get quite difficult were we to lose their focus.

Thankfully, the kids were happy to be doing anything besides their normal studies. They stayed quiet during the videos and while a leader was speaking to the group. But it was the small group time that I worried about the most.

In the past, I have worked with two kinds of groups: those willing to talk and those not. Those willing to read the Bible and those who are not. Our goal is to simply get the students thinking, to see that they can read the Bible for themselves; some of them have never even touched a Bible before. Some are curious and want to look up verses for us, while others shrink away and cross their arms as though the Bible is about to explode.

There was at least one student from my two groups who eagerly volunteered to find and read the first Bible verse for me: John 3:16. Even though my first question was about who God is, both groups latched onto the fact that believing in God means eternal life. From there, we sprang into amazing discussions with deeper questions than I expected from their age group. In both groups, we did not look up any other verses but spent most of the small group time asking and answering questions about Jesus and the Bible. It stunned me that these kids genuinely wanted the answers.

Will everyone go to Heaven? Why are there so many different religions? Do we really have any proof that God is real? Is the Bible exciting? Couldn’t some of the Bible be exaggerated? Did Jesus really rise from the dead? 

Then it was time to share my testimony. I do not have a tragic backstory like some people do, but know that I had some less-than-ideal moments in my younger days that might resonate with these young minds. I also needed to share the gospel as blatantly as I could. So I pushed the point that I used to be a terrible liar, and that my lying tongue was destroying my relationship with God. As I shared, I tried to look around and see if anyone was connecting with what I said. While almost all of them were making eye contact and listening to me, I could not tell if I had connected with any of them on a heart level.

During our first programme, we offered the kids Bibles to take home if they wanted. We had offered this at other school programmes, but no one came forward. We suspected today would be the same.

The kids in my group turned to me: Were the Bibles free? They could keep it? Did they need to sign anything to receive one? When I explained that we were giving the Bibles away with no strings attached, their faces lit up.

After the programme, as most of the kids were swarming out of the room, some came to the front to ask for a Bible. We handed out all 12 of the Bibles from our box, including the ones that we had been using in our small groups! More kids wanted their own Bible, but we did not have any more. We promised to bring Bibles the next time we came to the school. Three of the eight kids in my group left with a Bible in their hands.

My second group asked many of the same questions as the first group. More of them were interested in looking up a Bible verse, even if it was on an app on my phone. They had not read the Bible for themselves before, but they wanted to now. They asked the hard questions and did not shy away from my questions in return. We found common ground in our mutual respect for each other’s time.

As we were getting ready to leave, all of us climbing in the van, two students came running across the parking lot. This was outside of school, after the programme and they were excited. They each asked for a Bible. Still having no more Bibles with us, we promised to bring more during our next visit.

Once our team was all buckled into the car, we started sharing thoughts, comments and stories from the day. Another team member from told me that a girl from her second group had cried the whole time I was sharing my testimony. Someone had cried! That had never happened before, but clearly God was working in that young heart. It gave me hope that maybe I had gotten through to at least one student.

We watched groups of students leave the school and load onto buses or walk down the street. Our leader just smiled.

“There’s something happening in this school,” he said. “It’s a miracle that we get to be part of it.”

She didn’t remember that I was coming, but she still asked if she could put the kettle on for tea as soon as I entered the room. Shuffling about in her blue slippers and robe, Miss Jean seemed more happy to see a guest than worried about her morning attire.

I had called to ask her about her time working for George Verwer. She needed some time to think and recall, so I waited for her to call me back. Thankfully, she remembered to do that. When she did finally call, she invited me to come see her so “we could talk about George.”

A dreary, rain-threatening sky covered Ireland when I grabbed the office photographer and ventured out for the interview. Miss Jean smiled and welcomed us into her little apartment. I could tell that she didn’t recognize my voice, but she still told me to come and sit. While the kettle boiled, she shuffled around the living room to move her little cart closer to my chair so I could have the tea close at hand.

I sat on a cushioned chair, my voice recorder inconspicuously balancing on my knee.

Miss Jean leaned back in her chair, resembling my late grandmother so much that I swallowed back tears.

“So,” she said while looking me in the eyes, “you want to hear about George.” She held a folded piece of paper in her trembling hand. As she slowly unfolded it, I could see that the other side was covered in writing. She must have thought to write down her memories before she forgot them once again. She looked down at her paper and smiled. After a moment, she began to read what she had written.

“Someone had found a carpenter to make a desk for George by the window. A beautiful, long desk; loads of storage. But he never sat at it. He told me that it was to be my desk. He sat in the centre of the room at a moldy old card table with piles of papers to sort out. Typical, kind George Verwer.”

There was a slow, reminiscing crack in her voice. Whether from age or emotion I could not quite tell. Her papery-thin skin and white wispy hair certainly testified of many faithful years of service.

I had prepared so many questions for George Verwer’s former secretary.

Miss Jean couldn’t remember certain details, such as how long she’d worked with George or even how old she’d been when she started that role. It became clear that she wouldn’t be able to answer most of the questions I had in mind. After one question, she shook her head slowly.

“Oh, I don’t remember things like that any more. Some days, I struggle to remember my own name.” That gave me pause. I took a moment to ask myself, Do you need the answers to your questions? Why not let her share?

The paper fluttered open again, having folded over some time during the last few minutes. “He lived on skates, George did. He would come to me and say, 'Well, I’m off to India in the morning…about 5am.’ And that would be that. George was always rushing here and rushing there. It was quite a life.”

I admired the faint smile that touched her face. The smile faded to a dismissive shrug. “I miss it. I don’t like sitting here like this, but I can’t keep up like I used to. But I can pray…that’s what I can do since I can’t be out there.”

She glanced at the teacup in my hand. “That tea must be stone cold by now!”

I’d spent so much time listening that I forgot to drink the tea she’d been so insistent to make for me. Thankfully, the tea had been scalding hot when initially poured and the cup held the heat well.

She turned toward her window. The sunlight outlined her profile and created a sort of glowing haze about her head. “George was a wonderful man to work for. One day as I came into the office, there was a man in the hallway without a coat on a very cold day. I mentioned it to G.V. He jumped up, took his jacket off his chair, and told me to give it to the man. I did, and he (the man) had tears in his eyes as the warm jacket fitted him perfectly.”

Miss Jean smiled as I took a long sip of tea. “The first time I made him a hot drink, he told me he liked five spoons of sugar in it! Five spoons of sugar, I tell you!”

She’d run out of stories on her paper now. She seemed at a loss of what to say next and embarrassed that her memory wasn’t better. I waved toward the wall of her living room that was covered with pictures and posters of different kinds of dogs. “You must love dogs.”

“Oh, yes. I had a dog once.” She pointed to a stuffed toy dog that sat beside her arm chair. Its head was poised just below the armrest. “That’s the only dog I’m allowed to have now. Poor thing. Its tongue—sticking out like that—is all faded by the sun. It used to be dark red, you know.”

I thought about that for a moment, a symbol of her beloved pet that never left her side and endured the harsh rays of sun day after day. Years later, faded and worn, the dog still served its purpose.

That dog reminded me of Miss Jean. Here she was, a bit faded and worn and stuck in one place, yet serving a specific purpose. She’d said it herself: she prayed for those “out there.” Even while wishing for days past, she accepted her new role of prayer warrior with determination.

“I always say ‘Do what you can when you can with what you have.’ That’s motto.”

I hated to leave Miss Jean. She wouldn’t remember that I was there, but she’d touched a young missionary’s life in a way that she would never see.

As I wandered on the beach near Miss Jean’s nursing home, I could only marvel how I had come to be blessed by even a short visit with such a dedicated servant of God. She had been to 33 different countries with George, yet returned to her Ireland birthplace until the time when God called her home.

I told myself that I wanted to carry on her motto…to do what I could when I could with whatever I had.

Sometimes, that may mean putting the kettle on for a visitor.

 “You know when you really notice something?” Catherine recalled. “I think it was more on Colm’s heart in the beginning. … It was the job, really, that suited Colm. … The Lord knew the needs for OM Ireland.”

As an Irish national, being mobilised looks a little different than it might to the international worker. “When I think of ‘Go into all the world,’ I see first of all that it’s a command. It’s not an if you have time for it,” she said. Catherine thinks of her command this way: “We only have this time [on earth] to tell people about how good He is.”

Even without an official job title herself, Catherine entered into ministry with Colm. At the time, she and Colm were thinking of a year-long commitment. Five years later, a position in People Care befitting her gifts came into existence. When OM Ireland started to create a team called People Care, Catherine knew “it was my gifting.”

She has been inspired by an internship programme which sends a group of students to serve with OM Ireland every year. She explained that, at various ages, the students are mobilised into their own neighbourhoods, a different city or state, and then abroad.

“It goes to show that you can be mobilised at any age, even as a young person,” she shared. "'Into all the world' does not have a geographic limit. It could be your local neighbourhood. It could be the other side of the world. And that command of go,” Catherine further explained, “could mean physically moving or moving in your attitude…that you’re willing to be moved by God to talk to people.”

 “It’s a huge opportunity to deepen your faith, to move on and move out more directly into evangelism,” Catherine testified. “People talk about their amazing personal experience of worship, growth, and deepening knowledge of God. When we get to Heaven, we’ll be able to talk to God. We’ll know a lot more about God. We’ll be able to sing, praise, and worship Him. But we won’t be able to tell unbelievers the gospel once we’re there.”

Being local gives Catherine a certain insight into the cultural background any worker might encounter. Having a national on the team gives an advantage to any office. “We’re very Irish,” Catherine laughed. “We’re a cultural resource for all things Irish.”

As Catherine sees it, the modern Irish church doesn’t have much experience with going out. Lots of workers come in, but very few are being sent out. And growth is slow. “You need a lot of patience. Some pastors have been sowing seed on hard ground for the past 20 years.”

What does it look like, this command to go? The simplest answer is just that: Go.

“You will never be the same,” Catherine explained. “Your faith is deepened because you really have to rely on Him. You can do this.”

Andrew is the general organiser of The Irish Evangelistic Band (IEB), a group formed to share God’s love in Ireland.  The IEB is a diverse group from varying backgrounds and church denominations—which its workers put aside as long as the truth is preached. As God has enabled them, they’ve set up a tent within the National Ploughing Championships for the past 15 years. One of hundreds of vendors, the IEB has reached out to thousands of Irish people at the Ploughing in several different ways.

Sitting in the white tent and looking over the tables of people enjoying a free cup of tea, Andrew remembered the early days of serving at the Ploughing.

“We had a lot more literature back then,” he recalled. “We stood outside and handed out tracts. No tea or coffee or anything. But I felt a lot of literature was going to waste. People were taking the tracts and throwing them away.”

That was discouraging, so Andrew knew that they needed to do something differently. The group changed tactics to be more impactful and personal.

“We decreased the amount of literature being distributed; we started offering free tea and coffee; and we focused more on spending time with people,” he explained. Every year the team is there, seeking to share God’s word

A need for new faces

As a group of 12 people, the IEB has their work cut out for them with over 280,000 visitors passing through the Ploughing over three days. The goal of reaching as many as possible grew more difficult as the staff got older over the years. Rather than despairing, Andrew kept in mind that “God can do His work. He has His people to do it.”

Three years ago, Tim from OM Ireland approached Andrew and offered the help of the Immersion team (a small discipleship program for young people) “just for the day.” They helped serve the tea and coffee as well as sitting with the locals and chatting about life, with the goal of moving toward spiritual matters.

It was a long day, but many people had been reached. “After that day,” Andrew recalled, “I thought to myself, ‘Oh, if I could have them for all three days…’ But Tim already had other plans. So I went to Tim and said “How about all three days next year?” He said okay, and that was the start of a great partnership.”

This year, 14 Immersion students, plus several other OM Ireland staff, served with the IEB at the Ploughing. In a society where young people may not show much responsibility or initiative, Andrew was thrilled to see the commitment and dedication in the members of the Immersion team. “They’re here to learn. They’re prepared to trust the Lord.”

And they needed plenty of trust. After a day of training, the Immersion team was brought to Europe’s largest outdoor exhibition and agricultural trade show and asked to interact with the visitors.

One team member named Amber* commented, “It was nerve-racking. It took us awhile to start talking to people, because it’s scary.”

“The first day I was freaked out,” another worker named Caitlin* admitted. “I felt like I was thrown into ‘Here, go talk to people.’ That was not comfortable for me.”

But Andrew and John*, the IEB’s “gopher,” loved watching the team members come out of their shells over the three days. As John put it, “Seeing them there, sitting at the end of the table, shivering in fear, not knowing what to say or how to say it … and then having that conversation. Once they see the reaction to what they’re trying to do, it’s like the switch is flipped.”

“The first day was really difficult because I didn’t feel like I knew what to say,” shared team member Lois*, “But then I sat down with a couple of older guys. They really intimidated me at first, but then I got to talking to them and had a rather deep conversation. Since then, I’ve had probably nine great conversations.”

When OM staff member Hannah* visited the Ploughing on the third day, she didn’t see timid students. She sat with Andrew and John and watched in amazement as some of the Immersion team interacted with the locals as if they were local themselves.

“It’s a blessing just to sit back and see them doing what I used to be doing,” Andrew smiled as the team worked around them. “It helps me to relax, knowing that we’re a big family.”

The IEB approaches people with love and care. The free tea and coffee at the Ploughing is a nice offering, especially on a rainy, windy day. And the conversations are guided by genuine interest and concern for the people.

“Sure, people will oppose,” Andrew answered when asked about the general response to their ministry. “But don’t worry. God will build His church. What God has asked you to do is something that will win. When you think of the 2,000 people that have been here, sitting at these tables… They’ve heard the gospel.”

The partnership means about 50 people are serving at the Ploughing now. The Immersion team joined other OM staff, the Big Red Bus team (a group that drives through Ireland and hands out coffee/tea and does outreaches), and the IEB. Even with that number, each worker would need to reach 5660 visitors in order for everyone at the Ploughing to hear the Good News.

“But you know,” Andrew said as he watched YaeJi*, a Korean Immersion member, serve tea to an elderly Irishman, “we are labourers together. It’s been a touch of heaven.”

Matthew 9:37,38 (ESV) Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore, pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest.”

The three branches of OM’s Mobilising department—recruitment, personnel, and people care— work together to place “the right person in the right place at the right time.” From the recruiting process of receiving and sending out, to the administrative process of acceptance procedures and appraisals, to the basics of listening and asking and providing care, Mobilising looks after current and future workers.

One of the greatest challenges in mobilising new workers is a lack of knowledge of available opportunities. “There are a lot of people who have no clue their skills can be used in missions,” shares Irene.

The mission field needs journalists and mechanics just as much as it needs street evangelists. But if the knowledge isn’t out there, and no one is challenging potential workers to get involved, how can they respond?

Irene believes that an effective mobilising department creates enthusiasm and interest about opportunities and through that, the Holy Spirit does his work.

 “Often people have the desire to share the gospel in one way or another. Or they have the feeling of Is this it? Is there more? Is there something more specific I can be doing for God? People are searching. On the other hand, there are people who don’t really know that there’s a call on everyone’s life. Then you have people in between. Mobilising is getting the message across that everybody is called to be a missionary—to be a missionary at home, or maybe overseas. But there is a call on everybody, and there can be a more specific call to a job or to missions,” she explains. Whatever skills and abilities a person has, God can use them.

There can be external motivations, but the internal motivation is far more important. When God puts it on your heart to go somewhere or to do a specific role, take an initial step of faith. “Get in contact with an agency, especially if you’re unsure, and set achievable goals for yourself. Go on a short-term mission trip. Or if you want to go longer than a couple of weeks, look into the possibility of internships,” suggests Irene.

As an encouragement, Irene shared that “There is an opportunity for everyone in missions. God can use you to build His Kingdom.”

“Our hope is to share the good news of Jesus Christ in a fun and relevant way,” said Junior De Larina, OM Ireland’s Programme Director, who leads a team of cast members from around the globe that volunteer for the three-week tour.

While the show is mainly performed in primary schools, last year and this year, the production will be broadcast by the Irish national TV station, RTÉ.

A Woolly Nice Tale tells the story of a group of woolly sheep who are frantically preparing for Christmas Day, but something has gone terribly wrong: Carols don’t come out right and the lights don't twinkle as usual. The fuzzy lambs set out to rediscover the meaning and purpose behind some of the most well-known Christmas traditions.

"It’s still hard to believe that our shows are now on national TV,” said Junior. “I remember watching TV one day and having the strange thought of trying to put our shows on TV."

The show will be aired on December 28, the Sunday after Christmas, at 11:20 in the morning on RTÉ One. It is estimated that 100,000 people will be watching the show.

Even though it is hard to measure the impact of the new ministry opportunity, the OM Ireland team has been blessed to hear a few stories from local people who watched last year’s production on TV.

The local county councillor approached Junior to thank him for the show. She watched it with her family, which generated a conversation around her dinner table about the meaning of Christmas.

Later that year, while the Creative Arts team was running a school activity, a teacher told them how she was moved by the show on TV. She commented that it made her re-think how she handled her relationship with God.

OM Ireland’s heart is to proclaim Christ in a relevant and exciting way. OM Ireland Creative Arts is thrilled to bring the message of God’s love and salvation to many more through this year’s partnership with RTÉ One.

Please pray that many will respond to the gospel message in A Woolly Nice Tale and experience the true reason for Christmas for the first time this year. For other OM Ireland Creative Arts initiatives, check out their website here.

"The greatest gift of all [Jesus] is available to everyone,” said Creative Arts Coordinator Junior De Larina. “Many simply haven’t received Him."

In hopes that more would receive Jesus, the creative arts team crafted “Pass the Parcel”, a multimedia production that shares the gospel through 45 minutes of drama, puppetry, music and illusions.

This year, children meet a furry orange monster called Ben, who finds a mysterious Christmas parcel. Unsure if he should open it, Ben embarks on a quest that ultimately leads him to the centre of the Christmas story and the greatest gift any person can receive.

“The aim of “Pass the Parcel” is to help kids remember what Christmas is truly all about," said De Larina.

Therefore, each act builds on the truth of the gospel, which is brought together in the final scene when viewers hear from John 1:12: “…to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God… ” (NIV).

“Pass the Parcel” is taking place in 21 schools, seven churches, and two community centres around Ireland—it’s estimated that over 4,000 people will hear the gospel by the conclusion of the three-week tour.

Additionally, for the first time in the show’s history, a national Irish television station, RTE, will film and broadcast “Pass the Parcel” to an audience of over 180,000.

International viewers are also welcome to tune in to the show on Sunday, 22 December, at www.rte.ie/live at 11:10a.m. GMT.

Please pray that many will respond to the gospel message in “Pass the Parcel” and experience the true reason for Christmas for the first time this year.

For other OM Ireland creative arts initiatives, including a touring Easter show in 2014, check out their website at www.ie.om.org/what-we-do/creativearts.

OM Ireland’s recent summer outreach revolved around the theme “ACT”, taken from the verse found in Psalm 37:5: “Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him, and he will act” (ESV).

Thirty-eight participants from around the world gathered at OM Ireland’s base, Lacken House, for a few days of training before being sent out to partner with churches. Training included studying theological topics like “What is the gospel?” and evangelism, as well as training in creative arts areas such as face painting and dramas.

The participants were then split into five teams based on location: Shannon, Carlow, Athlone, Ballycullen and the Big Red Bus team, which travelled between the teams and spent a weekend in Westport.

Each team did ministry unique to their location. The Athlone team spent their week in a park sharing the gospel, painting kid’s faces, hosting children’s programmes and more. With great weather and record-high temperatures, the park was crowded with people. God led a young man to the park so that team member Yasmin could share with him.

“It was amazing how receptive he was,” explained Yasmin, from Australia. “He quickly understood his need for God’s forgiveness and wanted to receive that gift of salvation Jesus offers. It was like he was really ripe for harvest. When we asked him if he would like to pray and submit his life to Jesus, he said ‘yes’ and he prayed to receive Jesus. We are really praying that he would make steps to continue growing in his relationship with Jesus.”

The teams discovered the importance of listening to God. They had to be prepared to listen to God’s voice, even when they were planning on doing something else. Dave, from Northern Ireland, on the Shannon team was preparing to do dramas with his team.

“I noticed this guy walking by. He was big and scary looking, but the Lord said to me, ‘Don’t worry about what he looks like, just go and speak to him,’” said Dave. “I ran over and put a tract in his hand and asked him to read it. We got chatting, and he told me his story. I shared the gospel with him, and I wanted to pray with him. He told me he had anxiety and asked if God would take that away, so I put my hand on him and asked God to really minister to him.

“You could see the Holy Spirit was at work and his heart opened up, and he burst into tears,” continued Dave. “I called over the pastor and he prayed for him and again—he flooded with tears. The next day after church he came over and had lots of questions. We opened up the Scriptures and went from Genesis right through for three hours. It was amazing to see how God was at work.”

Participants saw God act in many different ways and even noticed how He had worked in their own hearts. “I can honestly say that God’s Spirit is alive and on the move in Ireland!” said participant Lucy, from Northern Ireland. “These have been two of the most challenging but rewarding weeks of my life. God is faithful!”

Please continue to pray for the work done in Shannon, Carlow, Athlone, Ballycullen and Westport during Impact Ireland, and pray for the work that still continues in these areas. Pray that those who heard the gospel will continue to grow in their understanding of Christ. 

To view pictures of the outreach go to their Facebook page, or to check out opportunities to serve at OM Ireland, visit OM Ireland's website. 

The old and the new, the young and the old, the stranger and the local all joined together this Easter for a week of sharing the Gospel in Carlow town. The new and old Big Red Bus served as a base for the five-person creative arts team, 11 young people from Sweden and a host of local volunteers from Carlow Bible Church. Working together, they ministered to the people of Carlow through live worship, dramas, conversation and a constant supply of tea and coffee.

Prayer inspired by Truth

The evidence of God working was clearly seen in the people who were drawn to the bus and engaged in conversations with the team.

Jacob (Sweden) said, “I had only talked to a man called Brendan for a minute or so, but he got up and asked if I could pray for him. It was just amazing to see what happens to people when they hear the Truth.”

Bringing friends

Laina from OM’s creative arts team had the opportunity to chat and pray with an older local man who said he could clearly see God’s love in her and in the others working with the bus. He returned the next day with some friends, with whom she also conversed.

“His friend Brendan stayed behind,” said Laina. “It was encouraging to hear how he has been involved in a Bible study and how he was interested in God’s love.”

Local impact

Josh (Carlow, Ireland) was encouraged to experience God moving in the lives of people from his hometown.

“I sometimes look at Ireland and see it as a hopeless case,” Josh said. “I sometimes wonder if God is doing anything. Then I realised that what we were doing was the answer to many prayers. God was and is working. It gave me hope for my country.”

Lorraine, a member of Carlow Bible Church, spoke of how their community was impacted by the outreach.

“The team that came were a wonderful example to the young people of our church,” she said, “and it’s an encouragement to see our own teenagers evangelising to their peers.”

International impact

Not only did the outreach impact and transform lives of the locals in Carlow, but God was also at work in the lives of the team.

“I always thought I wasn’t the type of person to do mission work,” said Jessika (Sweden), “but because of this week, I changed my mind. Now I can see myself preaching the Gospel in the future.”

Praise God for the ability to park the bus in Carlow town centre for free. Praise Him for the connections they made and the conversations they had. Continue to pray for Carlow Bible Church and the town of Carlow. Too see what else God is doing in Ireland, see here.

“There are many lost people here,” said Fatima, from Brazil. “But if at least one understands the Gospel and accepts Jesus, the whole job will be worth it.”

St. Patrick’s Day is a holiday celebrated all over the world. Though now associated with drinking and rivers dyed green, at the heart of the holiday lies St. Patrick’s message of hope and salvation. Fatima and others from Canada, England, Wales and the US joined OM Ireland for the week surrounding the holiday to share the message St. Patrick brought to Ireland hundreds of years ago.

The team had a busy week with school programmes, street evangelism, youth drop-ins, a St. Patrick’s Day parade and handing out hundreds of tracts with the Gospel message on them.

A testimony over tea

Marcia (US) invited Sean* on the Big Red Bus for a cup of tea during outreach in the city centre. As they talked, he started opening up about his own beliefs. Marcia related Bible verses to stories in his life.

“He was very open to reading the word of God and receiving a Bible,” said Marcia. “At one point he asked how I had come to have such commitment to God. I thought, ‘Wow, God, someone is actually asking me to give my testimony!’ God continued to open opportunities for me to share particular scriptures with Sean. It was definitely a God-appointed time.”

God honours obedience

Chris (Wales) learnt the importance of persistence and obedience even after opposition. After rejection and anger from people he tried to talk to, Chris had a breakthrough with Sarah*, who took a break from work for a night out.

“We talked for a while and I was able to share the Gospel and my testimony with her,” Chris said. “She asked loads of questions, and when I explained how much Jesus loved her, I felt it really hit home. She opened up and shared her life with me. I was able to challenge her to pray alone in her room for God to reveal himself to her, and she said she would.”

Love of Word bears fruit

When Joshua (US) told a 13-year-old boy that he read the Bible all the way through, the boy couldn’t believe it.

“He was even more surprised when I told him I read it through at least once a year,” said Joshua. “He said his family had a Bible, but it just sat at home – nobody reads it. He said he wanted a Bible, so I gave him one. He accepted the challenge to read the whole thing through in the next year.”

Please pray for the people who received the Gospel message, whether through a personal testimony of a team member, or through the tracts. Visit the OM Ireland news webpage to see what else God is doing in this country.

*Names changed 

Seizing the opportunity to invest in the lives of the young people of Carrick-on-Shannon, OM Ireland’s Creative Arts Team partnered with a church and took the Big Red Bus out for an evening programme in the town centre. Students from the community school came to the bus to continue conversations with those leading the workshops in their school. Some nights, over 70 young people played games, listened to music and hung out around the bus, and some made life-changing decisions.

In the classroom, Luke, one of the students from the US, sat next to 17-year-old Thomas. Luke asked him a question about the talk, and Thomas gave him an honest answer. Sensing Thomas was earnestly seeking, Luke asked him to come to the Big Red Bus that evening in the town centre. Thomas came and continued the conversation, saying he was lost and looking for his first step in the right direction. Junior, OM Ireland’s Creative Arts Director, helped Luke start a conversation about the Gospel.

“When Junior left, we talked about the Gospel that he presented,” said Luke. “Thomas understood it and wanted to hear an in-depth version of my testimony. Through that, we realised we were very similar in our struggles, and he could clearly see what he had to do. I gave him a Bible and asked him to read about the Jesus who loves him. When he came back to the bus, he had read it and made the decision to accept Christ. He knew that Jesus was his next step. I got his email [address] and plugged him in with a local church.”

Maggie, a student from the US was nervous to give her testimony in front of 30 fifth-year students.

“I got up in front of the class, and it seemed everyone was uninterested and unaffected,” she recalled. “Later, we rolled out a huge piece of paper and had the students write down something that affected them that day. A lot of students actually said that my story inspired them. I would have never expected that to happen. I’m glad I was able to help them because they definitely helped me!”

On the bus one evening, Cornel from Switzerland showed a group of teens a riddle about getting rid of dirt by moving some sticks. After the riddle was solved, Cornel asked them, “How do you get rid of the dirt inside?” One of the quieter guys seemed interested but was pulled away by his friends. Later that evening, he came back with his friends and started a more serious conversation.

“As I was just about to explain to them the good news, his friends wanted to move on,” said Cornel. “So I quickly explained the Gospel to them, and they all left except the quiet guy. He stayed and I had the chance to explain more thoroughly what Jesus did for us.”

The outreach also had an impact on the church already established in Carrick-on-Shannon. “Talking with Anthony from Rivers Methodist Church was a great opportunity to see how God is moving in the youth in the town,” said Brad from the US. “His excitement with what God has been doing in the town and what he was doing with our team was really encouraging. He told me a story of how God was providing opportunities well before we arrived. His enthusiasm at the turnout of so many of the students from the community school really showed me how the work we did not only affected the students, but also the local Christians who are working in that area with those students on a daily basis.”

As the students from the US headed back to resume classes the next week, they shared how their time in Ireland had changed their lives.

“I never thought of myself as someone that would be interested in long-term ministry, but now I am!” said Karley. “This week was the first time I have really talked about Jesus. It’s easy to call out all the right answers in my Bible class, but that’s not really proving anything. This week, I told my story and answered questions and was seen as someone who walks with the Lord. It was life changing and eye opening, and I want to stay in this place of open, outward, unashamed godliness.”

Another participant, Brad, said, “I used to believe that living the right way was all I had to do to ‘share’ Jesus with others. I learnt that, in fact, intentionally telling someone in a direct way about Christ is just as important. The training with OM that was provided before we went to the school really emphasised this in a way I hadn’t seen before. This idea is something I can take home with me and put into practice daily. The Great Commission, where I am commanded to go and preach the Gospel, took a new meaning for me this week.”

Do you want to participate in a short-term outreach with OM Ireland? Or are you interested in working with youth in Ireland? Visit OM Ireland’s website for opportunities to serve. 

OM Ireland’s Creative Arts team is performing two different Christmas shows 75 times over the course of 22 days. Every year, director of Creative Arts, Junior DeLarina, writes and produces an original, multi-media puppet show. Due to the increasing demand for the show, Junior envisioned having two teams performing two different shows. Last year, The Donkey’s Back!, and this year’s new show, The Cameron Show, are designed to preach the gospel to children in a fun and entertaining way.

“The main aim of the show is to help kids remember what Christmas is all about,” said Junior. “We relate the many traditions of Christmas back to God.”

The Cameron Show is themed around a Late Night Show’s Christmas episode. Host Cameron the Camel interviews other characters about the true meaning of Christmas.

The Donkey’s Back! features Bray the donkey, who wants to be a part of a nearby primary school’s Christmas play. He can’t find a part to play until he learns the true meaning of Christmas.

The shows will be performed mainly in primary schools and churches all around the country. Over 1,000 people—children, students and teachers—will hear the clear gospel message presented in the two shows.

Another special aspect of The Cameron Show is that for the first time, local Irishmen are helping with the show. Actor Daniel and stagehand Daryl are from Athlone, Co. Westmeath. The two teams consist of nine people from Ireland, Brazil, USA, Canada and Switzerland. 

Norma Summers, principal of Trentagh National School in Co. Donegal saw The Donkey’s Back! last year. She said, “The team comes with their usual enthusiasm and energy, presenting the message of God’s love in a child-friendly, fun and relational way. We look forward to visits from the Big Red Bus team. We are never disappointed!”

Please pray for the two teams as they travel around Ireland performing. Both teams have one to five shows every day until the winter holidays. Please pray for their health and strength. Finally, pray for the people who will hear the gospel message.

Visit the OM Ireland Facebook page or website for pictures and videos of the two shows.

Impact Ireland is designed to not only impact the lives of people in Ireland, but to impact the lives of the participants who take part in outreach.

During the four days at Lacken House, participants and staff alike were taught and challenged by guest speaker Alan Wilson, a pastor from Northern Ireland. His teachings were about being “Children of God”. They studied Matthew 4:1-11, where Jesus is tempted by Satan in the wilderness.

The participants were split up into five teams based on location: Killarney, Athlone, Carlow, Shannon. Another team worked from OM Ireland’s Big Red Bus. Each team was involved with kid’s clubs and street evangelism, but the teams participated in different types of activities depending on what their specific church was involved in.

Kristen from the USA was on the Shannon team. She worked with youth in the church and recalled one girl in specific. “She had struggled with self-harm, alcohol, drugs, and several other things in her life,” said Kristen. “She had first learned about the gospel through a previous OM Ireland team and then God continued to work on her after the team left.” The story was an encouragement to Kristen, because she had been feeling down that no one had come to Christ during their time in Shannon. “She reminded me that God is going to continue His great work!”

Shane, also from the USA, recalled, “On one day of outreach, I was given the honour of sharing the gospel with a couple of younger men. As the scriptures were brought to them, one started to smirk and lose interest, but the other never broke eye contact. At the end, he asked if he could be forgiven”. Two days later, the Lord brought Shane and this man back together. “We went back through the scriptures. He accepted a Bible and as I walked away, he was reading the plan of salvation, which had been shown to him.”

Please pray for the people in Ireland who accepted Jesus as their saviour during this outreach. Also pray for the work God is continuing to do in the lives of the participants and members of the Irish Church who were involved with Impact Ireland. 

Each day on the school tour, primary school students boarded the bus, watched a puppet show and listened to a story about Jesus, followed by crafts, songs and games. “God gave me an opportunity to share the gospel with many different kids this past week,” said Kaylan (USA). “By doing crafts that related to books in the Bible, I was able to share the gospel and explain the love God has for them.”

Throughout the week, it was apparent God was stirring the kids' hearts. “I saw God at work in a little girl’s life,” said Lauren (USA). “Her dad wouldn’t allow her to bring the crafts into her house if they had Bible verses on them. But she asked me a lot of questions about God, and I got to tell her about how great of a dad God is to us.”

Since the kids’ club in Battery Heights ran every night, the team saw the same kids every day and develop a relationship with them. “The first day, the kids just seemed to do whatever they wanted,” commented Creative Arts team member Lee. “But each day they would listen more and we could engage in conversation with them.”

Jenny (USA) was encouraged by the last day. She was watching a fellow team member show some of the kids the “evangi-cube”—a cube that shows pictures of the gospel message. “Many of the kids began asking questions,” she observed. “I saw the kids’ eyes begin to light up as they all became engaged in the conversation. This was a great way to end the week and I will never forget their sweet faces!”

The Lord was at work not only in the hearts of the children they encountered, but also in the lives of the team. The short-term team from the US came out of the week with a different perspective on missions and a stronger relationship with God. “This week has shown me what an awesome God we have and has made me so thankful for Him,” said Courtney. “The Lord has further confirmed in my mind and heart that missions is where I’m supposed to be. I feel like God really wants me to come back to Ireland for the Immersion Programme.”

Please pray for the impact made in the schools and in the lives of all the children reached.

Creative Arts workers needed! For opportunities to serve in OM Ireland’s Creative Arts department, click here.

April showers held off for OM Ireland's annual junior golf camp during the first week of the month. The camp, organised in partnership with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) Golf and Glasson Hotel and Golf Club, was open to golfers age 12-17 from local clubs. Thirteen golfers attended the camp.

In addition to golf instruction by professional Anders Forsbrand, the participants focused on life lessons that explored characteristics like honesty, openness and perspective. Coaches shared from their own personal experience as golfers and used principles from the Bible.

FCA golf coach Daniel from the US said the golf camp increased his faith in God during the week. “This experience changed my attitude toward missions by showing me that missions is not about executing a programme or telling others what they should believe,” he said, “but all about humbling yourself, serving others in love, and listening to them and their hearts.”

During the coaching groups, the campers gave prayer requests. The second day, one camper, Paul, told them about his baby cousin who was born premature and on a ventilator. The doctors had tried to take the baby off the ventilator, but he barely lasted a minute without it. The next day, Paul raised his hand and said thank you for praying for his cousin. The doctors had taken him off the ventilator the night they prayed for him, and he breathed unassisted for eight hours!

“The power of prayer and the power of God were definitely evident in our midst,” said Daniel.
At the end of the week, the coaches held a banquet for the campers and their parents. Campers received certificates of participation and other awards like “Camper of the Week” and “Most Improved.”

“The golf camp is probably my favourite ministry event that we put on,” said Dax, OM Ireland's Sports Coordinator. “Sport is such a natural launching pad for having conversations about the deeper things of life. To be a part of the experience of making the Bible and the gospel practical and relevant for these young people is a real privilege. I’m so thankful for Anders and FCA Golf and their faithfulness to this event over the years!”  

Travelling 2,595 km over 7 counties, the team performed their Christmas show, “The Donkey’s Back!” in 17 schools across Ireland.

The 45-minute show involved puppets, video, black lights, music, a snow machine, illusion and more. It was about a donkey, Bray, who wanted to be part of a nearby primary school’s Christmas play. But Bray didn’t know how he fit in to the true meaning of Christmas until Mr. J, the director of the play, explained it to him.

Creative Arts team director Junior DeLarina said the show went beyond any expectation. “I’m very pleased with the final result,” he said. “All the schools gave us a positive response and many are interested in other activities with us.” As well as hosting other performances, schools are interested in the Creative Arts team’s puppet making and puppet manipulation workshops.

Sinead Ni Thorsnaigh, principal of Gaelscoil Manorhamilton, was impressed with the high quality of the show. “This is the most effective puppet show/theatre company I have ever seen,” she said. “This year’s ‘Donkey’s Back’ was particularly well compiled and an effective way of telling the Christmas story. Well done!” 

Maridette Hugnh, teacher at Boyle Parochial School, commented, “Your show is always very cheerful, very uplifting and very entertaining. It always conveys the true Christian message. Thank you!”

OM Ireland’s one-year programme “Immersion” consists of eight, 18 -30 year olds. After two months of training at Lacken House, the Immersion team was divided into groups of four and placed into churches in Ireland, where they would act as interns for a year. One team has been placed in Carlow, Co. Carlow, and the other team in Athlone, Co. Westmeath. Each team just completed their first month in church placement. They returned to Lacken House for OM Ireland's Christmas party a week ago, and the OM team was able to catch up on their news.

Carlow Bible Church

The Carlow team is settled into a four-bedroom flat with five people. “It definitely gives me a different perspective on ‘me time’” said Ashley (USA). “I am definitely getting a feel of what it is like not to take the little moments of alone time for granted.”

Each team member is given responsibilities in their church based on their interests and skills. “It’s all a team effort here in Carlow,” said Lindsay (Canada). “We all have a different part to play depending on our gifts.” Lindsay is helping with communications and taking leadership roles in kids’ clubs and youth group. Ashley is helping in administration with planning and event coordinating. Seong Bok (South Korea) also works in communications, with social media and videos. David (USA) is in charge of youth club and is involved in the teaching side of things. Next Sunday, David is preaching for the Christmas Carol service!

It is very apparent the Carlow team feels happy and blessed to serve in this church. There are already signs of growth in their relationship with each other and the Lord. "My life means a 'Christian life'," said Seong Bok. "God has been teaching me that all Christians are missionaries, and it’s not my business, but God’s business. The field is not important, our life is important."

Lindsay said that God is teaching her that trying new things is important to finding out what your spiritual niche is. "You have to try every aspect of ministry out there to know what suits you and what doesn’t. This is what this year means to me, a year to grow and to return home with old and new gifts!"

Cherith Athlone Baptist Church

The Athlone group is set up a little differently. The three girls, Julia (Germany), Haley (USA) and EunJin (South Korea) live in a flat close to the town centre, and CJ (USA) shares a flat with a student from the Athlone Institute of Technology.

The four work at Cherith. Each team member helps with set up and tear down for events and services. The girls attend and help out with ladies’ meetings and Mums & Tots. CJ is responsible for a lot of the physical labour that needs to be done. As the church plans to volunteer and provide more opportunities to serve, the team will help as needed.

The four Immersion team members all expressed their love for the congregation at Cherith. “I love my church,” said CJ. “I love pastor Dom and the way he teaches.” With a diverse congregation, it gives the team a new perspective on the church. “Cherith is like a huge family,” said Haley. “Everyone knows each other, and everyone is always willing to help each other out if someone is in need. Church isn’t like a gathering on Sunday mornings, but a family meeting. Our church has a wonderful fellowship atmosphere, and everyone is welcome. We have about 10 different nationalities in our church, so it is very cross-cultural, which is really cool. It’s a wonderful reminder that we all, no matter what background we might come from, have that common ground of serving an amazing God.” 

The Lord continues to teach this team about His faithfulness. “When I look back on this time, I can see God is always with us to help us and lead us if we put down the rights that we think we deserve and listen to His words,” said EunJin. “God is teaching me to give everything, even small things, to the Lord and take His grace, which He has given to me.” 

For more information about the Immersion Team, click here.

In the early 19th century, The Times of London recognised the Ballinasloe Horse Fair as the “largest of its kind in Europe.” Over 200 years later, OM Ireland had the opportunity to participate in this centuries-old event.

A team from the U.S. joined the Immersion Team (OM Ireland’s one-year programme for young adults) to hand out literature, host children’s programmes, offer free tea and coffee on the Big Red Bus and engage in conversation with vendors, participants and visitors at the Horse Fair.

For seven days straight, the team faithfully and passionately shared the truth of God’s love and learnt the value of sharing their personal stories of how that Truth has impacted their lives. 

“I have been reminded by God to share my story with people,” commented Marie, the local pastor’s wife who joined the team. “I had gotten out of the habit and was more concerned with presenting the gospel in a certain style. I had lost the personal touch of what God had done in me.”

The team also learnt the impact Christian witness can have in a place where God’s love doesn’t shine so brightly.

“One night, a man came on the bus,” said participant Scott (U.S.). “He was drunk and unpredictable at first, making us nervous, but I saw him as a person who needed to hear the gospel. I talked with him and brought Jesus into the conversation whenever I found the chance. At the end of the night, he came up to me and said, ‘Thank you. You kept me away from the bottle tonight, and I had fun. I have never been welcomed like this before.’”

Participant Julia, from Germany, was encouraged by her conversation with a local named Mike. “He saw us talking to some kids and he was very interested in the blue and red card trick we were doing,” said Julia. “I went over and started talking to him. After a while, David (U.S.) joined in and we talked and talked. He had a lot of questions, but in the end, he really understood the position he was in. He was thankful for the DVD and the gospel we shared.”

The next day, Julia and David met Mike again. He told them he had read the Bible the previous night and really liked what he had read. “He looked different,” said Julia. “It was like we knew him and talked like old friends. We exchanged contact information and he wants to come to our church.”

Tim, the pastor of a local Ballinasloe church, commented that he could already see the impact from this outreach event and the positive effect it had on the community. Please pray for the seeds planted and that they will continue to grow.

For more information, stories and outreach opportunities visit OM Ireland’s website: www.ie.om.org.

From 20-22 September, over 190,000 people attended the 2011 National Ploughing Championships in Athy, Co. Kildare. And OM Ireland’s community outreach team took part in the fun by sharing about God with visitors to one of Ireland’s biggest farming events.

Over 18 people represented OM Ireland: four staff, the Immersion Team, a group from the U.S. and a couple from Singapore. Partnering with the Association of Baptist Churches in Ireland, the team provided a café atmosphere by serving complimentary tea, coffee and sweets to passers-by. They also offered free face painting and balloon animals.  

Participant Julia, from Germany, was working in the tent and sat down next to two young boys, but couldn’t find the words to start sharing about God. “I had asked God before the Championships to give me a signal to speak to people,” she said. “Through a very tiny hole in the roof of the tent, a small sunbeam hit me directly in the face. It was clear to me God wanted me to speak to these boys. And I just shared the gospel for the first time in my life.”

Another participant, Lindsay, from Canada, was talking with a group of teen girls and was shocked to discover these girls didn’t know who Jesus was or what He had done for them. "I’d never seen something like this in all my life," said Lindsay. "Someone who didn’t know about Jesus? Impossible! This experience really made me realise the reality of the country’s need for Jesus."

It’s one thing to read about the state of religion in Ireland, but a totally different thing to experience it for yourself.

One afternoon, a group of teens approached team member Eric, from the U.S. The leader of the group asked Eric a few good questions, but Eric could tell the teen was mocking him. The group walked away but then returned 10 minutes later, and they talked some more. Throughout the conversation, Eric realised that the leader of the group was affected in some way by what he said. “He told me he couldn’t look in my eyes because he believed me when he did,” remembered Eric.

Throughout the event, team members also handed out Christian literature on different parts of the site. One of these team members, Seong Bok, from South Korea, was nervous because of her limited English, so she decided to pass out as much literature as she could to get the gospel into people’s hands.

As she did so, Seong Bok was reminded of the verse from 2 Peter 3:9 (ESV): "The Lord is not slow to fulfil his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance."

"Through this message, I realised the honesty of God again, and I expect God to be at work in Ireland,” said Seong Bok.

Rachel and Jeremy, a couple from Singapore, had heard about the declining church in Europe and decided to come this year for the first time to get to know the culture. But, they knew that visiting as tourists wouldn’t give them an accurate picture. So, the couple made a few inquiries about OM Ireland and the outreach in September.

“If it weren’t for this opportunity, we would have just come as tourists, and we wouldn’t have been able to interact with the locals and meet people,” said Jeremy. “That has been very special to us. It’s one thing to read about the state of religion in Ireland, but a totally different thing to experience it for yourself."

Interested to experience what God is doing in Ireland firsthand? Find out more about short-term outreach opportunities here.

Participants travelled as far as 30 hours from Australia and as close as three hours from Ballina with the desire to share Jesus with the people of Ireland.

The group of Australian, Brazilian, Canadian, American, Dutch, Finnish, German, Irish, South Korean and Swiss participants divided into five teams working in Athlone, Mohill, Shannon, on board the Big Red Bus and on the roads with the Cross Walk.

The theme of the morning Bible studies, “By the Spirit”, focused on John 15-16, Galatians 5:16-24 and Ephesians 4:25-5:21. The teaching pointed out the desperate need each person has for God and how to allow the Holy Spirit to sustain them and speak through them as they encountered people throughout the week.   

Daily carrying the cross

The Cross Walk team trekked over 180 kilometres (about 110 miles) from the southern tip of Ireland in Waterford to OM’s base at Lacken House in Rahara. Along the way they had amazing opportunities to share the gospel.

The desire to share remained strong even in spite of a setback when luggage was stolen from the van. Kyle, from the U.S., lost virtually everything he had brought with him. After focusing on the things that were taken from him, Kyle realised he needed to look beyond and see what God was doing.

“It took me a few days for it to finally sink in that I had lost a lot and I was pretty frustrated about it,” admitted Kyle. “I just think that God has made more peace in my heart. I’m beginning to see that all these things that I lost are really worth nothing.

Our material things, they’re not going to further His kingdom in any way; that’s our job to do—to further the kingdom. We carry the cross spiritually every day.”

Using all circumstances

When the team realised a stack of leaflets they’d brought with them was printed in French, Keilah, from Ireland, took one and stuck it in her pocket. While in Waterford, Keilah saw a group of French tourists taking pictures of the cross, but because of language barriers, they couldn’t communicate. Keilah suddenly remembered the French tract she had in her pocket and gave it to them.

“They were so excited when they saw it was in French and they were huddled in a group reading it,” Keilah said. “It just showed me that God can use all circumstances and that He’s completely in control.”

For more information about the ministry of OM Ireland, visit their website at www.ie.om.org.

As an MK (missionary kid) on the South Pacific island, Anna first learnt about OM’s ship ministry. In 2009 she joined OM with the plan to commit to two years on board Doulos. However, when the programme was decommissioned, Anna had to readjust, and after much encouragement, opted to join OM Ireland. She particularly wanted to participate in the Cross Walk and the Big Red Bus ministries, but had no further expectations other than for God to do some amazing things.

Within the first six months of living in Ireland, Anna was able to experience all three.

“We’re random people from all over the world who have come together to serve Christ,” Anna said. “Despite our differences, we all have the same similarity and that’s the only thing that matters: that we all love Christ and we’re here to serve Him.”

Since then, Anna has joined the Creative Arts Ministry team and has been able to share God's story with children all over Ireland through programmes like the Easter and Christmas shows, Bible education classes, face painting, balloon modelling, day retreats, music, games, crafts and especially puppet shows.

Anna has a burden for the children of Ireland and prays that the ones she meets would come to know God.

“It's just cool to be a part of that,” Anna said. “Teaching them about Christ while they’re still young so that when they grow up they can remember what they’ve learnt and impart that to their children.”

Although Anna has met many challenges, she also has many fond memories of her time with OM Ireland, both of which required dependence on God and letting go of her own desires.

“We’re random people from all over the world who have come together to serve Christ,” Anna said. “Despite our differences, we all have the same similarity and that’s the only thing that matters: that we all love Christ and we’re here to serve Him.”

After completing her two-year commitment in December, Anna hopes to return to OM Ireland for an additional year and work as the Creative Arts Ministry Coordinator’s Assistant. 

OM Ireland's Big Red Bus is a vintage London double decker bus that travels throughout the country providing a range of activities for all ages.

Recently the team worked on a local housing estate in Ballina, County Mayo in the west of Ireland. There were all kinds of challenges ranging from the bus' battery going dead, to fatigue, to rambunctious teenage girls, to ill-mannered teenage boys.

Kirk Joyce, a local church member shared, "We had been planning and praying about using the Big Red Bus on the streets of Ballina for many months. One of the key factors was the involvement of people from other churches in town. This happened as folks joined with us on the Big Red Bus or as they prayed with us during the outreach. For the testimony of Jesus in this town such a combined effort is powerful.

"While the Big Red Bus was open to all, it was children and youth from the travelling community who were really attracted to stop with us. This was a difficult group to relate to but by the end of the week we had many serious and significant opportunities to talk and pray with many of them.

"The Big Red Bus' visit was being talked about weeks later in the town - giving further opportunity to lift up the name of Jesus. We are now seeking to visit with some of those who visited us on the Big Red Bus."

For more information about the Big Red Bus, click here.

Eleven years ago, Lacken House in Ireland was derelict with trees growing out of its roof, gaping holes in the floor boards, broken windows and rubble piled up across the property.  The advert for the property had been in an estate agents’ window for so long, it had gone brown!

Incredibly, a young Dutch couple saw beyond the ruin to the potential of the building.  They bought the property and began the long process of rebuilding and renovation.  On the wall of the house they wrote the text of Psalm 127:1 “Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labour in vain.” 

It was a severe blow for them to realise last year (2007) that they would need to sell the property for health reasons.  Had all their work been for nothing?  Would their efforts go to line the pockets of a rich developer?  After much prayer, they knew that they wanted Lacken House to go to a Christian ministry and offered the property to OM Ireland for just €1.1 million (considerably lower than value estimates).

So began a remarkable story which came to a climax on February 23 this year when OM Ireland took possession of the deeds to Lacken House as their new headquarters and ministry centre.

Since the project was first launched last May, OM Ireland has received gifts totalling €334,288 almost 1/3 of the property price.  Along with short-term loans from Christian businessmen, this has enabled the ministry to move forward by faith to purchase the centre.

“The response has been staggering,” shared OM Ireland Director Mike Mullins.  “We are so grateful to those who have been praying and giving and to those who have stood by us in this major milestone in our OM Ireland history.  Like us, many believe that this property will enable us to be more effective as we seek to see lives and whole communities transformed.”

“It is inspiring to know we will be operating out of a property that has been transformed,” Mike Mullins added.  “I see a place which was once ruined but is now beautiful and of great value and usefulness.  It is a picture of Ireland, of our vision to see broken lives and hurting communities transformed through the love of God and the power of the Gospel.”

“Lacken House reminds me to dream again; to dream big dreams for Ireland and for the world. It reminds me to see beyond the mess, the brokenness, the lost, to God's purpose and plan of transformation, restoration and healing.”

The main house and three accommodation ‘chalets’ come completely furnished and ready for use and ministry will start immediately with short term outreach teams based at Lacken House in April and May reaching out in the towns of Roscommon and Athlone.

Work is needed to finish three apartments and the office block / meeting rooms and work teams are expected to arrive within weeks.

To find out more about Lacken House and OM Ireland and to get involved in this exciting vision, please visit www.ie.om.org/lackenhouse