Wales and Back Again...... a Revivalists Tale

Hey everyone,

So I had to write a blog about my experiences in Wales, just because it is such a profound part of my personal journey with the Lord. My middle name is Evan, and I was named after Evan Roberts the man who the Lord used in mighty ways to spark the Welsh Revival into a national and then international phenomenon in 1904-05. When I moved from Alaska to the Carolinas to pursue an internship in the Zadok House of Prayer, I had a powerful encounter with the Lord where He told me that it was a name changing time for me, and that I was to go by Evan because that is what He called me, and that is what He saw me as.......a revivalist. Over the next couple of years I have literally had many prophetic words from Lou Engle to random people I did not know, saying in effect exactly what the Lord had told me.....that the Lord was gonna use me as a modern day Evan Roberts, release a similar mantle and use me mightily. I have read several accounts of the Welsh Revival and Evan Roberts and it has always been a burning desire in my heart for the Lord to do a similar work in me. As you can imagine I never really thought I would get the chance to go to Wales and see the places the revival happened, and hear the stories from people whose families took part in the revival. When I moved to Northern Ireland I realized I was a lot closer to actually taking this personal pilgrimage, but I wanted to wait for just the right timing of the Lord. Three different times I was supposed to go and it ended up falling through. Then in the fall David Killingsworth told me he was taking a couple guys to the Hebrides and then to Wales for a conference and I was welcome to come along if I was back in the U.K. by that time. I only found out I had my visa about ten days before their trip, and only just got back in the country about 4 days before I was supposed to go meet them in Wales, so basically I say all that to give you a grid for the impact the trip had on me.
For me the trip is very hard to put into words in a lot of ways. To sit in a place that you have read about, and heard about, and thought about, and in essence has encouraged you profoundly along the way in your Christian walk is an experience hard to explain to someone else. To sing along with "Here is Love" (the anthem of the revival) in the very Chapel where the Lord started one of the greatest visitations in human history, to stand in the same pulpit as the man you were named after and has hugely influenced your destiny, to visit the sights and hear the sounds......it was in short awesome. I mean awesome in the truest sense of the word, it inspired awe in me as to the greatness of God, and his love for man, and His willingness and desire to invade our lives and our countries. It stirred faith in me to see something like this and bigger in our day and age in Ireland, in Europe, and in the world. We got to see Moriah Chapel where the revival started, and on the Friday we got to go and have a tour of most of the major sites that influenced the beginning of the Welsh Revival. That night we actually got to stay in Evan Roberts house as well which has been turned into a sort of bed and breakfast. As I have said before I am not going to even try and explain how significant it was for me, but I am guessing you can kind of somewhat imagine.
I heard a couple comments on the trip from different people about how we should not just "worship the past" and visit these "shrines" but that we should be more interested in what the Lord is doing today, that the past is cool but we need to move on. I thought about it for awhile and I decided that I understand what they are getting at but at the same time I have a slightly different view on it. I thought back to the Old Testament and remembered that not only did the Lord encourage the Children of Israel to remember their past, he commanded them to!!! He had them build monuments and altars, and He told them to tell their children's children the stories of the mighty deeds of God. Now obviously we do not worship the movement, or the location, or even the people; but I believe that it is right and honoring to the Lord when we remember and take seriously the things that the Lord has done both in our lives and in the history of the world. As I have mentioned before, this trip was hugely impacting on me; but not because I worshiped the places or the people or the stories, but because they became so much more real to me. They encouraged my faith for the future. They helped solidify some of my dreams and expectations from God; and most importantly of all they helped me fall a little more in love with my Creator and Father......and I think that is what they are supposed to do.

Be Blessed,

Evan