I figured it was about time I gave you an update on the Vancouver/Seattle ministry trip that I was on last week, so here goes…

Vancouver
The 29th November 2004 was my first 36 hour day. On arrival at Bristol bus station at about 8am I found a rather cold Don awaiting our bus to Heathrow Airport. We found Abi in the café whispering sweet nothings to her fiancé (now husband) Matt. A few moments later Sim arrived and the dream team was complete.

We travelled many an hour, from coach to plane, to people carrier, but finally arrived at Margie and Marcie’s house, two ladies who were looking after six of us during our stay in Vancouver. The first thing that struck me in Canada was the size on the roads, the size of the cars, and how spread out everything is. I was tired, so it’s not surprising that my memories of my first night in the country were fairly vague.

I fell asleep at 7pm (8 hours behind GMT) and woke at 7.20am feeling great and very blessed that my excitement at visiting a foreign land hadn’t hindered my rest. Marcie fed us very well the two mornings that we had the time to have a large breakfast – eggs, crepes, caramel and maple syrup were the order of the day! We felt so welcomed and encouraged to relax and enjoy our time with them.

On Tuesday we went to the mall, my first experience of a North American consumer paradise and I think we stayed too long (4 hours total). It was interesting to check out Wal-Mart (I pray I never have to step into one of them again) and to try a Taco Bell (tasteless food, but at least they had Root Beer).

In the evening we attended a leadership training evening on the subject of ‘intentional community,’ where Andrew spoke and the we mingled with the discussion tables.

Wednesday was a day for exploring downtown Vancouver. We took the Sky Train and then the Sea Bus, divided so that some could go up Grouse Mountain and others could find ‘urbana.’ Sim, Abi and I found ourselves in Gas Town, where we met a girl who tried to convince us to eat at Brothers (a restaurant). We asked her where we could find independent record shops and nice coffee houses and she sent us in the direction of Commercial Drive. We then took the long way: bus, train, bus, train.

On one of the busses we met an old lady called Grace who was enthusiastic about the merits of fruit. She told us that she “should have died” years before, but owes her continued existence to eating fresh fruit. She also informed us that she had asthma, arthritis and cancer. It turned out our stop was the same as hers and, as we got off the bus, Sim chased after her and asked if we could pray for her ailments. She agreed to us praying for her there, on the street, so we did. When we had finished she prayed for us, that God would bless us on our trip.

That evening we went to one of Southside’s evening celebrations, where all four congregations come together. Andrew spoke and we ministered. One of the coolest parts of that night was having the opportunity to pray with a group of teenagers in the church. Earlier in the evening I sensed that God wanted us to pray for those who were under twenty-five, and when Matt called the teenagers forward I knew this was the time.

Seattle
We woke up at 5am on Thursday morning so that we could be ready for our 6am pick up. The aim was to get to Seattle for 10am and our Canadian escorts knew we might be some time crossing the border. The journey went smoothly and we switched vehicles in a Starbucks car-park somewhere near Seattle. This leg of the journey was with Wayne and Dusty in their van that closely resembled the A-Team van. They took us to Yakima, the self professed ‘Palm Springs of Washington,’ where we hung out with the leadership team of Yakima Vineyard, a great bunch of people.

In the evening there was a get-together with the all the leaders in the church where Andrew told us, during the ministry time, that if we were going to give words they had to be specific, i.e. point at someone and say ‘I think God is saying this for you,’ rather than just ‘I think there’s someone here who has this going on in their life.’ I found this kind of scary because it was something I had never done before, and I was expecting that if I gave a word to someone it would turn out to be completely ‘off.’ So as we stood there at the front I was praying like crazy and was, rather politely, letting everyone else go ahead of me! After having a word for one person go around in my head for what seemed like forever I decided to grit my teeth and tell the individual what I felt God was saying. The amazing thing is that it was entirely relevant and we were able to pray together! I was blown away.

Friday was another early morning as we departed at around 6.30am for Seattle where the ELI (Emerging Leaders Initiative) conference was to take place. We started off with a Leaders Roundtable where we talked about planting communities of faith in a secular context. A lot of this involved the post-intentional debate as we tried to explain that a lot of this stuff is intuitive.

In the afternoon we went up the space needle and chilled out, but that’s a story I’ve already told.

On Saturday morning Abi told her story and spoke on allowing God into your whole life, which was great and led into a really special time of prayer. In the afternoon Matt spoke very briefly on healing, but mostly on following Jesus. He ended by sending everyone out to pray for people on the street. That night we spent some time sharing stories from the afternoon and then Chris spoke on prophecy and we had a clinic time.

Afterwards Sim and I went back to the house we were staying at with Kyle and Ian and some of the other people from the conference. We chilled out to the likes of Michael Jackson, Prince and Madonna! We also learnt to hi-five in true American style.

Sunday we visited the Vineyard Community Church in Shoreline (the venue of the ELI conference) where Don spoke on Jeremiah. It’s great having this extended family across the globe.

That afternoon Kyle took us shopping in downtown Seattle where everything was half what it would cost in the UK. We went for pizza in the U-District and then retired to the house where we started watching Jackie Brown. I never did make it through that film…