Impact Throwback

This is my third day in Espanola Ontario visiting the Revive Espanola mission, which is my friend Angele's initiative to bring a parish renewal mission like CCO's Impact mission to her hometown. So far everything has been awesome! Last night was the best so far - it was a complete throwback into Tuesday nights from Impact Halifax last summer.

It was the first night of the second round of faith studies in the parish of St. Jude's in Espanola, which is one of the main things that these missions do in the parishes. The Discovery faith study is a six-week study that looks at the basic message of the Christian faith: that God loves each one of us personally, and Jesus gave His life for us on the Cross so that the relationship with God that was broken by sin can be restored, and then we can choose for ourselves if we want to have this relationship or not. Twenty-seven people attended the studies last night, which is awesome!

I sat in on a study that one of the parishioners is leading in the second round, after having taken it in the first round. All the women in her study seemed to really enjoy the first lesson, which is about God's real, personal, and secure love for us individually, and they all had some really interesting stories to share too. The leader shared her testimony (the story of her faith journey) and everyone left beaming with a heightened awareness of God's love, and the other missionaries had great things to share about how well their studies went too. I was so filled with joy at being able to witness this first night of studies and to see how much God is working through these people to make their parish more alive and on fire for Christ! Everyone deserves to know how much Jesus personally loves them and if everyone knew that, can you imagine how much more meaningful people's faith lives would be? There is a reason we go to church, and that is because we are living out a relationship with our Creator and Redeemer, who wants to give us everything, and a hundredfold more. The Revive Espanola team is essentially giving parishioners at St. Jude's a reason why they go to church. Churches all over the world need this kind of renewal, and it's so amazing and a blessing that I get to see some of what God is doing through them!

It's also really nice to get to spend time with my friends who have given their summer for this mission. Espanola is a really nice town and this is where I got to spend my prayer time today: http://instagram.com/p/bT2lGOhsry/

I'll be sure to share more on my week in Espanola, so stay tuned! And check out their blog: http://reviveespanola.blogspot.ca/