During our ministry visit to Inverurie and Aberdeen in August we saw God save and set people free and how He, once again, moved specifically on young children. We ministered over the weekend which included a worship workshop. At the worship workshop event, the worship team, technical team and instrumentalists came together, many of them with their children in tow on a Saturday afternoon. Many of the children, who were primarily there because their parents were attending, as young as they were (10 years old and younger), they started crying under the anointing of the Holy Spirit. We give Him all the glory for touching the lives of adults and children alike. 

In Bedford we ministered with our good friends at Bunyan Road Christian Fellowship and experienced such a love and peace of the Holy Spirit. It was truly God the Father gathering his family together in love as He ministered to all those present. Three people came forward for salvation.

We love prison ministry because we find that inmates come with a humility of heart, knowing, as we all should , that they are not deserving of God’s grace but relieved that God gives it freely. There is always such a freedom and we know that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God – Romans 10:17. Lincoln HMP was no different. One Sunday morning we ministered to two groups of inmates, those classed as vulnerable in the first service and the general inmates in the second. What a joy to witness these men pour out their hearts to God in worship and to see them broken in the presence of God. In total 24 men out of around 50 who attended the meetings gave their lives to Jesus. We thank God for the chaplaincy who are so supportive of the men and who also turned out in their numbers to support the event.

HM Prison Lincoln

Prison ministry is only properly facilitated, especially when the venues are far from our home and we need an overnight stay, when churches partner with us. Achiever’s Faith International Ministries in Leeds, under the leadership of Pastor Jude invited us to minister with them on the Saturday night and again we saw a glorious move of God amongst the people, especially the young musicians who were there. God poured out His power and many received the baptism of the Holy Spirit as they reached out to God. We are grateful to God for their partnership with us, which enabled us to minister in the prison on the Sunday morning.

Our final meeting in the UK before travelling to the Netherlands took place in Exford, a small village at the heart of Exmoor in Somerset. Exmoor is one of the UK’s 15 National Parks known for its wild ponies and rugged heather moorland. On the village green in the middle of this rural setting we sang the truth of God into the atmosphere. It was so special to be declaring the gospel in this village and seeing people respond by giving their lives to Jesus. Our prayer is that more seemingly sleepy villages in the UK would wake from their slumber and be ignited with the fire of the Holy Spirit.

The beginning of our tour in the Netherlands was very powerful and set the tone for the whole tour as we experienced spiritual breakthrough and freedom during our meetings. In total, over both Sunday morning and evening meetings on the first Sunday, we saw 15 people give their lives to Jesus! During the evening meeting at GodCentre in Voorschoten, the Holy Spirit moved mightily as people came forward for prayer and were delivered and set free from all sorts of demonic oppression. People didn’t want to leave and the 2 hour meeting turned into 3 hours as God moved mightily in people’s lives. Even after the meeting had finished, people wanted to remain and linger in God’s presence as we fellowshipped together. Our meeting can be summed up in this scripture:

We went back to the church a further two times during week days on the tour to just be part of special meetings that they were holding. They have become spiritual family to us in The Netherlands and we would like to thank Pastor Arno and his team for their love and spiritual input into our lives as individuals and a ministry. From that encounter on the Sunday night, we knew that we as a team and as individuals had been changed. This change and new dimension became evident at the following Saturday’s meeting in Almere, where we sensed a new freedom God brought that was also demonstrated in the worship. This followed through to the Sunday morning meeting in The Hague where two people gave their lives to the Lord, one of them being a Pastor’s son. After our ministry on that morning we were privileged to be asked to pray for the worship team collectively and individually.

Sunday evening’s service continued on an upward trend in the Spirit as we ministered at Victory Outreach in Rotterdam. This church wholeheartedly serves the local community with a residential programme for drug addicts. Watch the video to see the freedom experienced as we proclaimed in the Spirit, that ‘It’s Time to Fly’!

In the second part of our tour of the Netherlands we drove up to the north, where we ministered in a town called Anna Paulowna. It was this church that we visited on our way to the Czech Republic earlier this year, which gave us the original initiative to prayerfully consider organising a tour in this country. There we also stayed with our dear friend Isaac, a previous Vinesong member and his lovely wife Anne. The family were back together again for the second time this year. What an absolute joy and honour it was for us to be with them in our Dutch home away from home.

During the week we were blessed to be taken out by Paul and Irene from GodCentre Voorschoten. They took us to Alkmaar, a town known for its cheese market. We went to the cheese museum and were greeted by a very happy and friendly lady. Somehow we got to tell her that we were missionaries who sing. She asked if we would sing for them and we sang “Lift Up The Name” [of Jesus] in Dutch. Immediately as we sang the first note, the presence of God was palpable and the lady’s eyes filled with tears. How special that was. Following the museum, we went on a boat tour of the town on its beautiful canals complete with 22 bridges that we had to duck our heads for! As we went past the museum, the guide said (in Dutch, German and English) that the museum was once the church of the Holy Spirit. We understood then why it was so important for us to sing there and why the presence of God was so tangible the second we opened our mouths to sing.

We ministered at the church in Anna Paulowna on the Saturday night and left early on Sunday morning to minister in Wageningen. The RCCG (Redeemed Christian Church of God) church in Wageningen is Pastored by a Zimbabwean and the congregation contains people from many nations. As we have said before, when a congregation is not monocultural, we find such liberty and freedom in the spirit and Wageningen proved this to be true. Again there was total liberty in the Spirit as we ministered and many people came forward for prayer to receive more of God. A young boy of 10 years old came forward for salvation. 

On Friday night, we ministered at the new RCCG plant out in Amstelveen near Amsterdam. The following day we were privileged to proclaim the name of Jesus over The Hague as we joined in with the local church in their service. Many people were prayed for and we believe empowered through the Holy Spirit to reach out to their local communities.

Our tour ended in Antwerp, Belgium at a new plant out of GodCentre, the same church that we ministered at at the beginning of the tour. Belgium has been known as the missionaries’ graveyard with many churches starting and failing there. Knowing this, the family that God is using to plant this church knows that they have been called and have seen God move in miraculous ways already. After 6 months, they have seen people born again and God’s awesome provision. This final meeting truly was the icing on the cake as we saw God move powerfully amongst the people and through us as a team. Together we prophetically released a blessing over the nation and from now on we say ” Blessed Belgium!”

Our tour in the Netherlands could not have been a success if we didn’t have people who so willingly and lovingly shared their homes and lives with us during this tour. We were hosted for the first 11 days by two families from De Schutse, the first church we ministered at. We want to thank Hanna, the church secretary who worked hard to make sure we had a roof over our heads, thus being a blessing to the cities of Rotterdam, Voorschoten, The Hague and The whole of the Netherlands. Our time in The Netherlands would never be complete without Isaac and Anne Neuteboom. As Vinesong family, they go above and beyond the call of duty to provide us with our Dutch home away from home, hosting the whole team in their home whenever we are in the country. In Almere another couple graciously opened their home to us whilst they were away on holiday, which provided us with accommodation during our third week away, again providing enough rooms for all of us just 15 minutes walk from the town centre. Their son and daughter-in-law were a blessing to us, providing groceries and helping us however they could along the way. It is not an overstatement to say that our lives have been profoundly touched throughout our time in The Netherlands and Belgium. God is certainly doing a new thing and as a team we leave the nation feeling invigorated and more passionate about making Jesus known wherever we go. The love, joy and freedom we experienced in the Spirit were and still are tangible. It is no coincidence that this was the nation in the late ’70s that Pastor John laboured as a missionary before the ministry of Vinesong began. It was also from this nation in 2019 that Pastor John waved us off as a new team on our first tour without him through Norway and Sweden.

We thank God for all that He is doing in The Netherlands and Europe as a whole. He is certainly doing a new thing and we want to thank you all for faithfully reading this newsletter, for your prayers and for your support. For all you have read, we give God all the Glory.