Family and friends, grace and peace to you from God our Father and The Lord Jesus Christ. The above quote comes from the beginning of Galatians and it is how the Apostle Paul began many of his letters. He understood that it is through Gods love for us and his grace that he sent his only son Jesus to die for our sins so that we could receive eternal salvation.

I have now been back in Ireland for ten weeks and I'm half way through my time here. Firstly I want to apologise for the delay in writing this blog. I have been very busy and have struggled to put time aside to write. I'm now over half way through my internship of volunteering with Unbound in Cork city. It has been a great experience so far during which I have had a variety of experiences. I have spent most of my time working in their book shop in Cork city. I have helped run two separate kids camps, one in a Presbyterian Church and one in a Methodist Church. I enjoyed working in both of these camps and my experience from working with kids as a water sports instructor for a few years came in handy. I also helped organise a prayer healing conference in the city during my first weekend with Unbound. A number of miracles took place over that weekend including an old mans back getting healed. Over the last few weeks I have been working twice a week in a cafe run by Victory Outreach. The cafe serves as a drop in centre for addicts and homeless people. I have enjoyed working there and ministering to the homeless and addicts. If they are seeking further help Victory Outreach have a rehab centre that they can go to. I now have just over three weeks left of my internship. We have a YWAM team from Hawaii arriving in a few days and I will be spending most of my last few weeks here working alongside them. I'm looking forward to hitting the streets and doing evangelism with them which I have already done a bit of with my Church here in Cork.

For a week in July I had my friend Billy stay with my family and me. Billy is my old house mate from when I worked in Guildford for six months as an accountant a number of years ago. On my way back from Perth I stayed with Billy and his mum for two nights. During this time I had Billy finish one of my tattoos and as he was tattooing me he complained about an ache in his wrist from an old snowboarding accident. I offered to pray for him which he was very open to. After I prayed he told me that all the pain had gone, Thankyou Jesus. Jesus said that if we pray for people in his name he will heal them. He continued to tattoo me for another two hours pain free. Later that night his mum approached me asking me if I was a healer. I told her I was not a healer but a Christian who believes in healing by faith through the power of prayer. She then asked me if I would pray for her neck as she had been having problems with the discs in her neck for years. I told her that I would love to pray for her but I also told her that people are not always healed when I pray for them for reasons that I don't understand. As I prayed for her in Jesus' name something beautiful took place and she started crying and her neck grew very hot. I not only prayed for her neck but for her present circumstances also as she has recently lost her husband. I prayed for God to bring her comfort and healing, which he did in a powerful way. After praying for her she looked at me amazed with tears in her eyes and told me all the pain had gone. She continued to tell me that her neck had not felt that good for years. God had just performed a powerful miracle and had touched Billy's mum in a very special way. One of the things I love about being in a relationship with Jesus is that I get to witness and be a part of these miracles. When Billy arrived six weeks later he told me that his mum's neck was still perfect. As a result I prayed and asked God for Billy to have the opportunity to share this testimony with my family during his stay. I found out five days later that God had faithfully answered this prayer as Billy had shared what happened with my mum and my brother Will. During Billy's time here he came to Church with me and it was his first ever time going to Church. It was amazing having Billy stay with me for the week and I look forward to him visiting me in Perth as he is gonna be over in Oz for six months starting in October.

Talking about Oz, I must briefly mention my beautiful girlfriend Liz and the amazing ministry that she has been doing over the last few days. I'm sure that some of you can remember me talking about my friend Nugget in one of my old blogs. He was a homeless guy who lived with us in Perth for a month after getting powerfully saved. Two weeks before I left Perth, Nugget left the house and I never saw him again although I had a peace that God was taking care of him. As it turns out, Liz met a girl called Jess while on her lunch break last Friday. Jess was begging in Perth and Liz sat down beside her to share her lunch with her. As Jess was talking she mentioned her boyfriend Nugget. Once Liz realised this was the same Nugget she invited the two of them over for dinner on Saturday. They ended up staying in Liz's house till Wednesday night when she dropped them to the airport. They have headed over to Coffs Harbour on the east coast to move in with Jess's mum and start afresh. Liz showed incredible compassion towards them and to see Gods faithfulness with Nugget, having used both Liz and I while we are thousands of miles apart has been amazing.

I chose to stay at home rather than live in the intern house during my internship. It has been a great choice as I have been having an amazing time at home and this will be the last time that we are all together in the house for a long period of time. We have been blessed with the best summer in Ireland in over fifty years and I honestly live in one of the most beautiful places in the world with the most incredible view over the ocean. This is something I will never take for granted ever again. I also had my first proper visit to Northern Ireland last weekend during which I saw Andrew Peterson perform and got to visit the amazing Giants Causeway.

I want to take this opportunity to thank all of you who have been supporting me both prayerfully and financially. I am praying that you will be blessed for being a blessing. I'm still waiting to hear from God about what he has planned for me in Perth. I'm hoping to get sponsored through a job and get a visa that way, otherwise I may end up coming in on a holiday visa and doing volunteering until I get something more permanent set up. I'm also praying about whether to go back to studying for a period of time which would enable me to enter on a student visa. I know that God has gone before me in Perth and that he has an amazing plan for me, I just have to faithfully seek this out.

As I began with how Paul began his letter to the Galatians so I'm gonna end as he did also. Christianity is simply having faith in Jesus as your Lord and Savior and through this faith we are saved. We do not have to do good works to earn our salvation as it is freely given to all who believe. But good works should follow all who believe and are filled with the Holy Spirit. My friends, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Shalom.