The President (of UK Student Union) touched by 24-7 Ibiza’s "Angels”Charlie and Abby Clayton - 17 Aug 2012

The interesting thing about the work out in Ibiza is that for 6 months of the year we are predominantly an outreach to the peoples of the UK. When we meet someone in the West End, we are really meeting someone back in our home towns - on the streets of Liverpool, Birmingham, Luton or Chester as was in the case of Dechlan.

Walking down the street, Abby and Ellie (a volunteer on a 2 week team) met Dechlan and his friend Adam outside a bar. After saying ‘hi’ and explaining what we did, the conversations opened up into something much deeper and profound than I think anyone was expecting. Prayer requests were made and it was truly an encounter where God was speaking. The conversations were abruptly broken up by a huge fight that erupted in the West End – an occasional thing out here and people went on their way. For Ellie the encounter was a real privilege to be trusted to listen to someone’s feelings and thoughts, and only Ellie will know the depths of what Dechlan shared.

We continued on into the night praying, chatting and helping people home unaware that the encounter would be something that would be longer lasting with Dechlan.

The team returned home and Abby, inspired by something that Adam said whilst this fight was going off, posted a blog. (You can read the blog here)

We then receive an email from Dechlan thanking us for the conversations the night before and how they had impacted him, and furthermore received a link from someone else directing us to the facebook group of Chester CU, who have also received a message from Dechlan. We find out that he is actually the president of the Student Union at Chester University, and he is letting them know about the work here and encouraging the Chester CU to continue to the great things they do there. You can read the facebook page here.

It is times like this where we realise that a brief conversation, prayer, or encounter can have wide reaching impact, and spurs us on as we reach out to people here. We rarely hear from those we have prayed for and helped in the West End, something we accept as being part of people’s secret history. What we do know is that through these interactions and prayers, people here are encountering a living God here on the streets of San Antonio.

We continue to pray for many hundreds out here and we have helped over 400 people back to the safety of their hotels, health centre or hospital so far this season. As we reach the crescendo of the season over the next month, we pray that our friends that work in the bars and clubs here, who have watched all season as we have prayed and helped, would see through the logo of 24-7 Prayer in Ibiza and see a God who is longing to be in a relationship with them.

If you would like to support the work of 24-7 in Ibiza go to http://clappingtheson.wordpress.com/2012/01/05/the-money-one/.