What I am doing here in Northern Ireland

For anyone who doesn't know what I do here weekly, here is a brief view into my life as an intern.  

Here in Northern Ireland I am working under the missions pastor of the Causeway Coast Vineyard, so my weeks are generally spent in the church offices. It is amazing everything that the church staff and pastors do behind the scenes that doesn't get seen by the normal church goer. So during the day I am in the offices (9am - 5pm) and then I go home usually for a bit of reading and then dinner and then I shoot on to the next thing. 2 nights out of the week I go to a home group. One of them is a youth small group that I am leading with someone else from the church, and the other is a young adult group where I am learning, receiving, and being challenged in my walk with God. At the moment I am also doing a class on tuesday nights called the Father heart of God, where I am learning about God as my father, my daddy. It is such an amazing course where I am going back to the root of many hurts and problems in my life and having God come in and heal those places. My mondays are my day off from work, but on those days things have to be done around the house. Grocery shopping, cleaning the house, laundry, and a bit of down time. Usually mondays are my day where I jump on my computer and get in contact with people at home. (like right now) :-D

God blessed me immensely when I came here by opening a door for me to travel with one of the staff members here from the church (Mark). He started something here in Coleraine (the city in Northern Ireland where the church is) called Healing on the Streets. Healing on the streets is just a simple model for healing where churches can get outside of the building and offer healing and hope to a lost and needy world. Through this ministry, God has opened doors for Mark to go to other churches all over europe and teach them the Healing on the Streets model. I have been his traveling companion since october last year and I have been so blessed to be able to go places with him. By being around Mark and just doing normal life with him, I am learning more than I have ever learned in my life. It has been an amazing experience and the best is yet to come.  For many of my weekends I am away, but out of the past 4 weekends I have been home for 3 of them.  So all in all, I am a pretty busy guy all day all week long.  It is a rare occasion where I get a chance to relax and take some time off, but it is definitely the best time of my life.

I hope you enjoyed a look into the life of Ben.  Crazy, full, but because God has been in the center of it the whole time.... it has all been worth while.  

Places I am going!

Here are a list of places that I am going. Please pray for me on these trips that God will keep me safe, that he will bless me, and that I will not miss any of His leadings on these trips. And as I meet people please pray that God will place more wisdom in me, that He will humble my heart, and that He would expand my character so that I might be loving and encouraging to everyone I meet in every situation.

February 20 - 22 Bichester, England. Healing on the Streets with Mark.

February 27 - March 2 Edinburgh, Scotland. I will be going to Gemma's parent's church!!!!! Healing on the streets with Mark.

March 6 - 8 Aylesbury, England. Healing on the Streets with Mark.

March 13 - 15 Glasgow, Scotland. Healing on the Streets with Mark.

March 21 - 28 Morocco. Trip with Sydney and Ricky Wright (the missions pastor) to morocco to meet underground missionaries and pastors who are evangelizing in a muslim dominated society where it is illegal to be christian.

April 17 - 18 Newcastle, England. Healing on the Streets with Mark.

April 24 - 26 Colchester, England. Healing on the Streets with Mark.

May 1 - 3 Birmingham, England. Healing on the Streets with Mark.

May 8 - 9 Canterbury, England. Healing on the Streets with Mark.

May 15 - 17 Stevenage, England. Healing on the Streets with Mark.

May 19 - 31 South Africa missions trip. Sydney and I will be leading a missions trip to south africa for 11 days.

The past month!

Its crazy to think of all the things that I have done in the past month. January of 2009 is already gone, and it seems like it had just began. I had a more of a relaxed schedule this past month than normal. I had 3 weekends home which was really nice. But 2 weekends I went on trips with Mark and another I went back to Newcastle, england to visit some friends. My trips with Mark are always amazing and eventful. I wish I could truly describe the excitement and the atmosphere of what it is like being around mark and learning from him. He is an amazing guy who's heart is so humble. In January I went with Mark to Stanmore and Plymouth, england. Both of the trips went great and I saw God touch a lot of people. I had so much fun on the plymouth trip chatting with teenagers and inviting them to come and take a seat for prayer. It was amazing watching the routiest and craziest teenager become totally calm and tranquil as they sat in the chair and received prayer and were told that God loved them. I remember being amongst a group of boys when one of their friends who just got prayer came from the chair to rejoin the group. She had gotten prayer for her back and all her friends immediately asked her how she was doing. She said that all the pain in her back was gone. She was all smiles and kept on telling her friends over and over that she felt a lot better. She then made the hilarious comment that she was thinking about going all religious. Haha!

In Newcastle, I met two of my friends I had made on my first trip with Mark Marx for Healing on the Streets. Over the weekend I spent every minute with them and every second I was there I was learning things. These guys were both radically saved and came from rough and extremely hard backgrounds. Both of them had amazing stories and amazing a huge passion and fire for God. Just spending a weekend with them I was challenged and stretched in my thinking and faith. I walked away from Newcastle with so many stories, it would be too hard to tell you just one of them. So to sum it all up, in Newcastle God did amazing things and my friends taught me inadvertently about living a passionate sold out life for christ. It was flippin awesome!

Since coming home, I have also finally settled into a home group. It was hard for me deciding on where to go and which home group to choose, but I finally chose one and I know that it is the family that I need here. The people in the house group are an amazing bunch of new and old christians and we have a lot of fun journeying our walk in christ together. Thank you Jesus!

As a small group and just as friends getting together to have some fun, we have all gone to the movies, thrown a surprise party, and watched a rugby match.

For any of you who have never seen a game of rugby... you are sorely missing out. It is the most amazing sport ever invented. I am definitely going to join a league when I get home. We watched the 6 Nations rugby match on sunday where it was Ireland vs Italy. The game was played in Rome, so the nerves were blaring and we were all a bit on edge. But as the fighting Irish always do, we kicked some italian ass and won 35-17!!!!! I love rugby.

Thank you god for putting me here

Thank you God for letting me be a part of your story.  Thank you for letting me be a part of what you are doing here.  Thank you for this church and all the people here.  As I look around at all the leaders and all the amazing people you have here, God my heart is moved to tears of joy.  Thank you for putting me here Jesus.  A teenager from California living in Northern Ireland I am.  What an adventure!!!  What a blessing!  What a time of learning and change!  Thank you for what you have included me to do here in Northern ireland and abroad.  Greater things are yet to come. Greater things are still to be done here.  I am so happy to be home, to be back at church.  Thank you for what you are going to do this year.  The best is yet to come.

(this is what I wrote in my journal the first sunday I was back since going home to california for christmas)

Holiday......

Going home......

It is an experience for any person who has moved away and then returned to their land of childhood, their place of safety and city of friends and all things familiar.  

My time home was an amazing one.  I got to do everything I wanted to do while I was there and more.  I had so much fun hanging out with friends and family.  I loved being home for  christmas and new years where I got to share life with so many old friends and family.  

One of the thing I would definitely say about my trip home was that it was an experience.  It was a holiday, a vacation, a time to relax and enjoy home, but I was thrown into a new experience and eye opening change.  As I came home I expected things to be changed.  People grow, change, and move on from the point when I left for Ireland.  But when I got home that was not the thing that I noticed the most that had changed.  I noticed that I had changed.

Things were different.  I had seen a new world and experienced a new way of life and going back to the previous one was an eye opener.  By no means am I saying that things at home were bad or worse than the new life that God has blessed me with in Northern Ireland.  I just had changed so much and had my whole way of thinking and perceiving life altered that I noticed many different things than what I thought I would notice.  I felt like I was now seeing clearly and so many things are being revealed to me.  It was a good and fresh experience to have at home and something that God is using to shape me and mold me.  To be totally honest, it wasn't an easy experience because I am such an internal person.  I think about things too much and the only way I can describe it is, I kill myself with my thoughts.  I turn it over again and again in my head and in the situations at home where I can't do anything with the things I was seeing, I just got stressed out and discouraged.  Loosing my hope and my passion.  

But God is good!  He holds me in His hands and takes all my worries.  He will do it in his time and will fulfill the dreams of my heart in His perfectly laid out plan.  I don't have to worry about it or give it a second thought until the time comes. 

So coming back to Northern Ireland I had a lot to think about and had a lot of questions I wanted to ask.  I also felt like I saw more of the ways God is changing and molding me.  He continues to show me how amazing He is.  My eyes are opened more each day (a spirit of wisdom and revelation) and I have this new love and passion for the Streets.  To get out among the lost, God's people, and live the life of the kingdom.  I see a new boldness within myself.  I see God's plan for my life coming together, I feel like God has given me the biggest gift by letting me see His plan for my future and now I get to watch him work and move things into place as I walk in obedience and partnership with him; it is so much fun.  

Since coming back, I have had a refreshment of the pure excitement that gripped my heart when I started my internship back in August of 2008.  Everything in me is just rearing for the next adventure and the next thing God is going to be teaching me.  Even if that thing is hard, tough, stretching, challenging, and goes against my comfort zone I want to learn it.  I feel that there is still lots of learning for me to do and many ways for me to grow.

I just want to say thank you for all my friends and family at home who love me and support me.  You made my trip home a very fun and memorable one.  You also have made my life one worth living.  You have made me the most blessed man on this earth with your kind words, your thoughtful actions, your time spent hanging out, your prayers, and most of all you love.  I am a blessed man indeed.

God Bless you all!

ps. for those who want me to write more because you want to know more of what is going on here, don't worry, I will be writing more very soon.   :-D

Filling in the gaps.....

It has been a long time since I wrote anything.....  I apologize.  I will try to fill in the gaps with all the places I have been and with some new and current things that have been happening with me and that have been put on my heart.  

Traveling around with Mark Marx has been the most amazing ongoing experience of my life.  I have been learning so much from this man, that in all honesty is epitomized by what Mr. Briscoe said one day at lunch "he is what I imagine jesus would look like today."  Mark is such an amazing man and I am truly blessed to be in a friendship with him and on this journey

 traveling place to place as he teaches Healing on the Streets.  

  We went to Jersey, which is a small island in the british commonwealth that is a vacation spot, and had a great time teaching some very open and enthusiastic people.  We didn't end up going out into the streets with that group of people because they didn't have all of the right equipment ready, but meeting the people there was a very encouraging experience indeed.  I had a lot of fun there and would love to go back one day.

 After Jersey mark and I went to denmark where I got to meet some really cool people and chill with some fellow americans from South Carolina.  The house I was staying at while I was

 in Denmark had 5 people living in it, but when I got there it was filled with teenagers.  The residence of the house had opened their home up for the local teenagers of the area.  The city they were living in was a commuter city and had no businesses or public shops, so the teenagers of the city didn't have much to do.

  They were welcomed by the people living in the house with open arms 6 months ago when they opened their house for the local teenagers.  Many of the kids who came to hang out at the house had no affiliation or connection with the church and many

 of the kids in the youth group of the church never came to hang out at the house.  The people I stayed with were really cool guys and I got to hang out with some of the teenagers who they liked to call Little Gangsters.  That night I got to experience the first snowfall.  It was so amazing.  I loved it.  I took a walk through the snow and got covered in snow flakes.  As I was walking I experienced the most beautiful thing.  It was true and utter silence.  So much peace and safety in that moment.  I have never had a moment like I had, walking in the middle of the street at

 night, while it was snowing in Denmark.  I will never forget that.  It was a picturesque moment that no camera could capture.  We had a good time in Denmark and it was sad to say goodbye to another beautiful country. 

  The next weekend after that I was blessed with some time off from traveling with

 mark (which can be tiring after a while) but then decided to go and fly to bristol to hang out with my friend Ben Lucas.  Ben is a friend of mine from Brazil and we met up in Taunton (right next to bristol) where he is doing an internship with the taunton vineyard.  It was so good to catchup with him and hang out with him for the weekend.  He is an amazing guy who has a passionate heart for God who loves to worship him.  And, I might add, is an amazing worship leader... in english or portuguese.  I was also blessed to accidentally meet up with some other friends who live in Taunton and go to the vineyard there, Andy and Jemima Malam.  We hung out with them a lot while I was there and had a grand time.  :-)

The weekend after that I went with Mark to Bath, England to do another training.  If you ever get the chance to go to Bath.... DO IT!!!  It is such a beautiful city and I can't wait to go back there.  I loved it and I really want to go back to visit the friends I made there.  Everything went well over the weekend training and on saturday we hit the streets of Bath and set up for Healing on the Streets right outside of Bath Abby.  It was such a cool place and location t

o do Healing on the Streets.  God did a lot in Bath and I can't wait to hear all the reports that are coming out of that place.  While we were there Mark and I both separately got to have a very prophetic lady within the church pray for us.  She is one of those prophetic people who goes on for so long that she records what she is saying and then gives you the tape because sometimes it is 20 minutes long.  I was blessed beyond my wildest dreams by the things she was saying.  Everything that she said rang true with my heart and my desires that had been within me for many years.  I am so grateful for her praying for me.  She was the sweetest and most kind person ever.  I know that I have to way everything that she said to me, but but the things that she said to me are so true with what is in my heart that I hope each one of them comes true.  :-)

The next weekend Mark and I only had to drive down to Belfast to do the training at the belfast city vineyard.  I was able to reconnect with some friends who I had stayed with right when I had arrived in ireland and it was good to see them again and catch up.  The people in belfast were really receptive to the teaching and the whole lot of them numbered more than 50, so it was really cool to see everyone hit the streets.  We set up Healing on the Streets in Victoria Square, which on saturdays is thronged with people.  It was an amazing time to see people sit on the chairs and get healed.  I loved doing it and had so much fun partnering with God with what he was doing.  

Then after that I came home and the rest is history.  :-)   I came home for christmas and had an amazing time it was so good to see my friends and family.  Christmas and New Years were both great and loved seeing friends and doing fun stuff like bonfires at the beach, going out to dinner, having jacuzzi nights where me and the guys smokes some cigars, and just hanging out and playing cards.  I loved being home and am so thankful that I have a huge family at home that loves and cares for me.  

I have only been in Northern Ireland for a couple of days now and I already miss everyone.  I am glad to be home and I love it here, but I miss California already.  I love you all and may everyone who reads this be blessed.  God Bless,

Ben

Places God is taking me

Here is a list of places that I will be going in the coming weekends and if you could pray for me and Mark, the pastor who I am traveling with, that God would bless us, bless the church we are going to, and most of all bless the people on the streets in each town as we go out, I would really appreciate it.

Place/City/Country: Date we will be there:

Salford, England Oct 31 - Nov 3

Jersey, (island in Nov 14 - 16

the english common wealth)

Denmark Nov 21 - 23

Bath, England Dec 5 - 7

Belfast, N. Ireland Dec 12 & 13

If you feel it in your heart to pray for these trips please do. We need all the prayer we can get. Thank you so much for your prayers. God Bless. -Ben