Rich Wait writes:

During the summer Greg Sharples, John Harrison and myself spent some time in mission to the homeless of Bristol. We would meet for prayer in the morning and ask God for words and pictures, then spend a few hours walking through castle park and broadmead towards Stoke's Croft and the street drinkers that congregate there.

On the last day we were walking through the bear pit towards Stoke's croft when we noticed 2 girls, one with long dark hair and the other with braids. They were sat smoking and talking on one of the grassed areas. We had almost walked past when Greg remembered a word that he'd had earlier in the week about a girl with braided hair. So we decided to go and talk to them. As we approached the dark haired girl said 'I bet you wants us to sort you out some weed'. After thinking about it very briefly we declined her offer and explained that we were from a local church and that one of us had had a word for a girl with braided hair. Greg then proceded to explain what he'd heard, that this girl was worried about her mother and needed prayer. 'No way!' she said, with a worried look in her eyes. Greg then asked if that made any sense.

Rich writes:

I was one of a group of  Young Adults from Pip N Jay that went to New wine this year. On Monday night I returned to my tent frustrated because i wanted to encounter God in a new way and my tent was leaking. I prayed before going to sleep that God might do something, anything to get me excited about Him again.

I woke up early, prayed a bit and sang afew worship songs to myself (quietly I thought, but the guy next to me who I woke up begs to differ). Steve Nicholson preached the main morning meeting on the Holy spirit. He is excellent and well worth tracking down. Now, I've always been fairly sceptical about this whole thing. I've seen others encounter Him, but never myself. So the preacher finishes up and asks specifically for those who were either, under 32 or who have been a christian for under 10 years, to come up and recieve. "Well I'm both of those", I thought so up I went.

I find myself right infront of the preacher, not my natural position I can assure you. So I'm nervous, my eyes were closed and then Steve Nicholson is in front of me poking me in the chest and praying, asking "More Lord, more". Nothing. But then a tingling began to run up and down my arms and into my hands. It became more and more intense and was now a rushing. My hands that had been relaxed were now stretched out as wide as they could be by the spirit and the rushing was focused in my fingertips. It also began across my upper lip and down my cheeks. I couldn't move, all I could do was experience what was happening. I did my best to tell the preacher what was going on, but my face was not really my own. He explained that what I was feeling in my hands was the healing Power of God trying to burst forth from my fingers. Also that the feeling around my cheeks and mouth was speaking out and leadership. Help! God wasn't done there though. I should probably explain that for the past 6-8 months I have been battling with lustful thought and fairly consitently losing that battle. Steve Nicholson then left me saying that he felt that God wanted to release me from something and that he wanted to bring something up with me. Ok, so I stand and wait, the feeling in my left hand subsides a little but my right is crazier than ever. Then I hear God say "This hand that satan has used to enslave you, I am going to use to do my work'. Wow, I was totally blown away. Still unable to move I remained there for the best part of an hour. Greg then prayed for me before basically having to carry me out. Outside I could barely talk for laughing, God had shown up and in a big way, excited was not the word! I was uplifted and daunting as the implications are I can't help but be curious about what might happen next.

Praise God