Was I day-dreaming when I wrote the “Vision of Visions” article a few weeks ago, or was it indeed a wondrous vision from the Lord of what He is preparing to do around the world through CCI?

Well, any doubts I had entertained soon vanished after Nick and I had landed at Lagos in Nigeria – the ‘City of Excellence” – on May 6 , to begin our five days of small groups development work at Lagos and Ibadan.  The night before our departure from Nigeria, Nick and I walked the grounds of our hotel in Ibadan, rejoicing and encouraged by what the Lord had accomplished through us, and my “vision of visions” was affirmed. Pastor Elijah (CCI’s ‘man in Africa’) was given a “green light” by his senior pastor, Kola Emiola, to transition out of his pastoral role at the Lagos branch of Dominion Impact Church to establish himself as the small groups champion, coordinating the development of small groups in their two churches (soon to be four) and for other churches that had expressed interest in following our small groups church plan.

After giving Nick a hug at Dubai airport, I boarded my flight for Warsaw via London. It was my fourth time to Christian Fellowship North and while in Warsaw I facilitated a two day conference, met with small group leaders, preached twice and identified a small groups champion to oversee the small groups development work in Warsaw, and throughout Poland. (Several weeks prior to my arrival, the mother church celebrated the birth of a daughter church. Marek Sabotka is the pastor of the daughter church – several years ago Marek travelled to Maadi Community Church in Cairo to experience our small groups training.)

My last four days in Poland were invested with the Baptist church at Bialystok, 3 hrs drive North of Warsaw. During this time, I sensed the Lord’s presence and approval, and experienced His blessings in each small groups ministry engagement with the church. The pastor said, “What you shared is what we needed to hear. The timing is perfect. Thank you for coming to us.” Before I left Poland I agreed with Pastor Krzysztof Zareba of Christian Fellowship North in Warsaw to return to Poland  in September and October this year, to minister with churches in the North, Central, and South regions of Poland.

I flew out of Warsaw, at 6.30pm on May 23, bound for London. I was greeted at Heathrow by Gary Douglas and the pastor of his church, Bill Chapman. Bill’s wife, Ellen, was also there to greet me. We travelled for 3 hrs in Bill’s car to Llanelli in Wales, where I continued to experience the Lord’s presence, pleasure and power. Myrtlehouse, the Elim Church in Llanelli, is the most alive church in town and is one of 600 Elim churches in the UK. Every person I met greeted me with warmth, love and acceptance. They responded enthusiastically to our small groups plan and development principles, and I was overwhelmed with a sense that the Lord was about to do something very big through this church … something that would impact all of Wales and the UK. My time at Llanelli helped to endorse Gary as CCI’s field director in the UK – Gary and Aline are exceptional people and it would not surprise me if the Lord uses them to spark another Kingdom expansion revival in Wales. Pastor Bill Chapman asked if I’d be willing to return to Wales to share our ministry with other church leaders.

Friends, throughout the 24 days of this amazing trip, the enemy threw everything in his arsenal at me. Despite suffering many days from sleep deprivation, the Lord kept me strong and steadfast through the power of His Holy Spirit. I arrived back in Brisbane at 1am on Sunday May 29, believing the Lord had accomplished everything He set out to do through me, according to His will.

The Vision of Visions dream is a gutsy dream. It’s BIG … it’s beautiful … and, it’s being realised before our eyes!

If you haven’t already subscribed to our blog I encourage you to do so – we will be posting more detailed reports and testimonies about our visits to Lagos, Ibadan, Warsaw, Bialystok and Llanelli in the coming weeks!

[button link="http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=Cells-churchConsultantsInternational&loc=en_US" color="lightblue" newwindow="yes"] Subscribe today to get our blog posts by email[/button]