God is about doing something new in our land. Isaiah 43: 18,19 say:s “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland."
ECI will have a stand at the World Meeting of Families Family Congress - Stand 85 - do come visit. We are sharing this stand with Release Prison Partnership which runs Alpha the prison , the Recovery Course etc. 38 prisoners did Alpha in 3 prisons in 2017 praise God and 22 Prisoners graduated from the biblical 16 Week Recovery Course which is based on the biblical equivalent of the 12 steps of AA.
Do also visit the Alpha Stand, Catholic Charismatic Renewal and lots of other excellent stands. You might like to know that in addition to the Holy Spirit making major inroads through Alpha in prisons, that it is amazing what is happening in Secondary Schools - some 2,011 students, average age 16, did the 10 week Alpha Youth course in 31 Secondary Schools last year. This involved 78 Alpha Youth Courses and 75% of these schools were RC. This is good news. More schools are wanting to run Alpha Youth than the Alpha Ireland youth workers can cope with. 103 volunteers were involved in delivering these 78 courses and the limiting factor is having more volunteers to go into our schools See Attached note for details of the 78 Alpha Youth Courses.
The New Wine conference went really well in Sligo with some 1,700 attending including 500 children. This Christian family conference has been pioneered by the Anglican Church and they have asked ECI to help open it up to Catholic Christians. 3 of us led Seminars there this year - Bishop Kevin Doran from Elphin, Dr. Fodhla McGrane, who works as a Pastoral Worker in Belfast with Clonard Monastery and myself. My 2 Seminars were well attended and the theme was - Towards Revival in Ireland from an evangelical Catholic perspective and How can the Churches work together post abortion referendum.
Former President McAleese has been hammering the Catholic Church - in the beginning of July I was praying for her and sensed the Holy Spirit saying to contact the Irish Times and ask for a right of reply. To my surprise they agreed. Enclose my 700 word article which they published. Being the IT they changed the heading I gave it from "Reform in the Catholic Church" to "Mary McAleese comments on Jesus and marriage equality are appalling" see https://www.irishtimes.com/opi
