HS41 Middle East
Life changing time.
We flew as a family into Amman Jordan, and met with the staff from the school the next morning. Eighty students from around the world had come to seek the Lord and receive training into full time missions. We were stunned at the maturity and experience of almost every student. Most had been on the field for years in some of the darkest places in the world.
Jordan
We had 2 weeks in Jordan, in a beautiful compound in the North of the country. We were immediately impacted by the love and care of the Iris staff. They went out of their way to make us feel at home with our kids. Pamela Maxwell who ran the Iris Harvest School, led us to our little apartment. We had a room for the kids, a bathroom and room for ourselves. It was simple, and generous accommodation.
The school programme consisted of waking at 6:30AM, which was thankfully our norm at home, and classes around 8 hours a day for five days a week. The kids attended class with us almost every day, around twice a week the staff would take the kids for a few hours which we were very thankful for. And the kids rocked it! We were so impressed by them, they really were resilient and adaptable.
The focus of the teaching ranged from main reasons of attrition, emphasising the high likelihood most people are called back to their home town, the core values of Iris Global, healing of the heart, and how to deal with conflict in a team.
Each week we would have one day that was a mixture of seeing a local sight, and outreach. In Jordan we were blessed to see Petra, the Wadi Rum Desert and some local Biblical Sights.
Egypt
We then flew to Cairo where we travelled west to a base in the desert for the remaining six weeks of training. The weeks took on a more intensive schedule with fitness every other day, circuit training designed to test and build your resilience. I had the privilege of leading worship many of the teaching sessions and was given the opportunity to learn from seasoned worship leaders that visited. Many different speakers came to visit the school for a few days, each was seasoned on the field and had hard word wisdom to impart.
It was a full on time, and beautiful time. We watched our kids, Nai especially learn to worship and pray along side the adults in the class. We were amazed and encouraged at the development and joy in all our kids.
In conjunction with outreaches to some of the poorest neighbourhoods in Egypt, we were very fortunate to see the Pyramids, Alexandria and the Cave Church east of Cairo.
Outreach
Each week we would have outreach into the slums of Cairo. This was the kids first experience of poverty. The rubbish was piled in the streets, we would climb flights dark musty stairs to visit people who needed emotional encouragement or had physical ailments.
One of these times that will stay with me forever, was visiting a woman who had been bedridden for a year with chronic back pain. On the way up the stairs I asked the Lord if he could give me any sign of what was wrong with her back, and I had an impression of a disc. When we reached the room, the lady in her early thirties greeted us from her bed and was in considerable pain. It turned out through translation, that she had a ruptured disc in her back.
We started to pray and the woman’s face lit up.. through translation she said “I know I’m healed!” I did not have faith that this had really happened. I thought ‘Oh thats really great that she wants to show us that she has faith, and honour us as we’ve come all this way.’ But she bounded out of the bed, bent down fully and was in rapturous joy!! We were all stunned. She had also regained full mobility in her right hand, which had been affected by the pain. We heard later that this lady had then gone to hospital and the doctor had given her a ‘before and after’ report, it was medically confirmed that she was completely healed. Jesus is so kind.
A few weeks from the end of the course, I headed to Nacala on an outreach short term visit and Tash and the kids headed south to a small town called El Minya. My trip is detailed in a previous entry, however Tash’s was very different. She was a champion, taking the three kids by herself and a small team to a difficult town in Egypt. One of the great encouragements from her trip was Nai seeing a mans leg healed. They ministered in many homes of the poor during this trip, and the kids had a great experience hands on in the mission field alongside the team. I was very proud of Tash and the kids.
Family
We feel the biggest impact we had from the school, and Iris Global in general was the reality of a family community in missions. We were stunned that so many students wanted to take our kids and play with them, they would sit with them in class. We all ate together every day as an extended family. It was truly wonderful to be around so many people that shared the same vision and burned with the same fire for missions and Jesus Himself. We received many prophetic words during the school that confirmed our calling in the Lord to Nacala Mozambique and we were deeply encouraged. We made so many friends, that we know will be genuinely life long.
We returned to the UK in Dec to begin packing our home, selling our possessions and getting ready to move to Nacala in the Spring of 2025. The greatest adventure of our life is just beginning!