New Seasons

Setting in Steve (holding the Hurley stick) as Pastor of DCF with myself and nine other Pastors from the Region.

This has been an exciting season for us. Earlier this month we set in Steve Hamer as pastor of the Dungarvan church. The meeting was awesome. Many pastors and leaders from all over the region came to celebrate with us in this momentous occasion. A founding member, he’s been an excellent elder and definitely has the call of God on this life to pastor and lead. As always, our goal is to see European leaders being released to lead the local church.

Fergus and I at Paul's baptism, 1985. We've been working together a long time!

Handing the church over here in Dungarvan has freed me to focus on Cornerstone Christian Fellowship, our sister church in Dublin. I have been leading both churches since January. Some of you know I helped plant the church in Dublin and was the associate pastor back in the 80’s. We are moving to Dublin the first week of August, and have created a new powerful team with the Perry’s and also the O’Regans, an Irish couple that helped plant the church in Delft with us. We are very excited to be working with both of these couples. They are some of our best friends and we have been serving together for over 20 years. Paul Perry is now released to travel and minister to many other churches in Ireland using his prophetic gifting. We will greatly miss our DCF family, but we know we will still be working together.

Ross Barrett on the cover of VOX magazine.

Ross Barrett, a member of our church who we baptized about two and a half years ago,has been busy with his burden to reach youth through his kickboxing gym and his Bad Boy Turned Good ministry. He was recently featured on the cover of VOX, the only national Christian magazine in Ireland, which actually only comes out four times a year! If you know of any young adults who are interested in a three or four month internship, please let me know. I’d love to introduce them to Ross and see if it’s a fit. Also, please be praying for him and his impact on youth throughout Ireland.

Paul Mahon from our sister church in Dublin told his powerful story of deliverance from a life of drugs and gains.

Since we last wrote, we have finished our Student Alpha course at University College Cork. I highly recommend it; it’s a great tool for student ministry. Earlier this year Mitch Smith sent us a great team that helped us in UCD and UCC. We also had the privilege of introducing Fusion into Ireland. Fusion is a ministry in the UK that helps local churches impact their surrounding universities. I’m excited to be working with them, and they’ve asked me to take a leading role in helping to establish Fusion Ireland, which really goes with the vision God has given me for universities. We had another team just a few weeks ago from Waterbury, Connecticut. They performed and ministered to seven different towns around Ireland. They did an awesome job but I was totally exhausted at the end of it! hanks Pastor Ollie! The day after they left another team flew in. Scott Evans from Elemental is partnering with us and using our building as a base for a ‘Drop In’ center for youth to come and hang out. We have all kinds of video games and snacks set up to help the American teens start to build meaningful relationships with the Irish youth. Also in these past few months, we’ve been able to welcome some fantastic visiting ministers including Doug Fortune and Armand Lefeu, who came through and blessed both churches. It was an extra special privilege to welcome John & Julie Steele. They have been pouring into us personally and the churches we have served for over 25 years. An incredible couple leaving a great legacy.

Best kids in the World

And now for a family update: Although Michael has been living in Cork City for the past year, this move will separate him from us much further. Genia just graduated from secondary school and will be moving to South Carolina for college. It’s going to be hard not having them around. Genia will be living with my parents and working for my sister while going to school. Michael is finishing off his last year and working in Cork. We were told it would be nearly impossible to get Emily & Benjamin in school in Dublin with such short notice, as there are long waiting lists for most schools. For months we had no success finding a school for them. The impossible is really HIS- possible, as God provided 2 excellent schools for each of them. The schools are very far apart, so the next challenge was finding a house we could afford where each could be in the proximity of their schools – it was complicated! But God did another miracle. We just found a house where they both could get to school rather easily. It is quite a bit more expensive than living in the country, but this house was far less expensive than others available. Emily is now entering into the Leaving Certificate course. For these next two years, she will be studying for her L.C. examinations. As Genia has just completed this grueling process of education, we’ve learned a lot about it. It’s considered one of the most difficult systems of secondary level education and has proven to be very exhausting. We’re standing behind her in this time. Benjamin has been doing great and received ‘The Pupil of the Year’ award. We are so grateful to his school, St. John’s, as they have helped and loved Benjamin so much over the past few years. Wendy and I are busy packing the house and are excited for this next move. So sorry we’ve had such a lapse in our blog. You’ll hear from us again soon!

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~ by lkholland on July 25, 2011.