We’ve had an amazing week as an army of volunteers from The Message took to the streets of Wythenshawe to show our neighbours the love of Jesus in word and action. As we’ve tidied gardens, picked up litter and made over community spaces, we’ve grabbed every opportunity to share the gospel and pray with those we’ve met.
One lady we got chatting to was Sarah who saw our team clearing people’s gardens and asked what we were doing. As we got to know Sarah, she shared that she suffered from vertigo so the team prayed with her, told her about the love of Jesus and invited her along to church. Whilst this was happening, another lady, Kate was walking past and saw the team praying for Sarah so she asked if they could pray with her too about her cancer diagnosis. The team grabbed this opportunity to pray, share the gospel and to invite Kate along to church and to the end-of-week Family Fun Day.
As well as praying for people in the community, our mission teams took the Message Bus into local parks to use as a mobile youth centre, engaging with young people in the area. On one day, team member Georgia got chatting to Daniel who was hanging out on the bus with his mates. As they chatted, they talked about the Bible and about faith, and Daniel shared he was from a Catholic family but wasn’t really sure what he thought about faith himself. As the conversation came to a natural close, Georgia left praying that Daniel would experience God in the week and want to find out more about Jesus.
Just the next day, Daniel came back to the Message Bus and got talking to James from OTC, who was able to share his testimony and the gospel message with Daniel. Daniel shared he’d been thinking more about Jesus since his conversation with Georgia and hearing more from James helped him decide that he wanted to become a Christian! So he and James prayed together on the bus and Daniel accepted Jesus into his life there and then.
At the end of the week of mission, we hosted a Family Fun Day where over 800 people gathered for an epic day of face painting, bouncy castles, free food, music from our bands and the chance to hear and respond to the gospel. Throughout the day, 51 people responded to the gospel.
One of these was Chantelle who we first met in 2020 when we delivered food parcels to her. As we have got to know her over the last two years, we’ve shared more about Jesus with her, invited her along to church and signed her up as a member at the Community Grocery but she hadn’t been ready to make the decision to follow Jesus. We connected with her again this week whilst out blessing the local community and invited her along to the Saturday Family Fun Day. She came along with her daughter Chloe, and they both heard the gospel boldly shared and gave their lives to Jesus!
Do continue praying for those who we met during our Love Where U Live mission in Wythenshawe, that they’d want to find out more about Jesus and give their lives to him.
