Brantford- The CIty of God

This is coming a little late, it's been a busy week! I left Brantford on Sunday afternoon after an amazing 6 days. Freedom House, a downtown church in Brantford, started a week of 24-7 Prayer the day before I arrived. I took four 6am or 7am shifts that week, which by the end was exhausting but so needed in my life. One of my favourite parts of 24-7 prayer weeks is the way it challenges me and helps me discipline myself to pray more. After a few weeks of travelling, making that space in my life was just what I needed!

I spent the first half of the week with Dave and Krissy and the second half with Nicki and Steve... and all their kids! As you've probably already sensed from my birthday story, the people in Brantford were so welcoming and hospitable. On Sunday at church (my last day there) Dave did a little interview with me, they prayed for me and then took up a love offering- I totally didn't expect that. The people I'm meeting on this trip have certainly surpassed all my expectations.

Dave (24-7 Ontario team leader) and Brian (the pastor of Freedom House) are on our 24-7 Base team so I've had the chance to get to know them a bit better the past few months. I remember the first time they referred to Brantford as “The City of God”, I didn't understand what they meant, I had never been to Brantford before. I actually wondered if that's what the sign said as you drove into the city. Then we would always just refer to Brantford as 'The City of God” ... This is the story... About 10 years ago a number of people decided that they wanted to see their city transformed – they wanted to pray God's Kingdom down to Brantford. Most people I met when I was there would also refer to Brantford as the City of God. I love the way that belief and hope for change has spread! And God is transforming Brantford, no doubt!

Dave gave me tour the day I drove in, he showed me where their church used to be and a few different parts of downtown. The church still owns their run-down church building but was approved and has received funding to turn the church into low income housing. Now the church currently meets in a downtown mall, they actually have a coffee house store front- it's amazing! One part of downtown is super sketchy, it's on the main street and is basically just a large area of completely run down housing that the owner wont fix up. I think it was the city or university that recently bought the land and plan to build a big community centre. Maybe the people living there now could move into the churches low-income housing, that would be awesome. It's amazing to see how the city is changing, it's cleaning up, people are doing something about the problems (including the church). The churches also seem to be starting to work together. This prayer room was advertised to churches and even to the community in the news paper. They didn't want to make their prayer room a Freedom House thing, they wanted to serve the community by giving them a place to pray and praying for people. I learned a lot from the Freedom House community on urban ministry, they get it! They believe that God can transform their city and he is, it was amazing to see. Keep on Freedom House!

While in Brantford I also got to connect with a few other “24-7 Prayer people”. As wonderful as email is, meeting someone in person is so much better. The Wednesday afternoon Matt and Don from Hamilton came to Brantford to hang out with me and check out the prayer room. They just lead a week of prayer at their church which also went really well. On Friday Jim from Guelph came to Brantford too, Jim is leading his first week of non-stop prayer at the end of May.


This is a picture of the mall that the church is in (I spent many hours in that Williams):