You Ask, I Answer, Take 11

Today's You Ask, I Answer question is a follow up question from You Ask, I Answer, Take 6 which dealt with the topic of travel, and in which I mentioned that I spent about 4 weeks in the country of Malta about three years ago.

Jenny asked:

Why Malta?  I don't know much about it, but it does seem like a beautiful country.

Malta was a lovely country, though let me tell you, for the Mediterranean, it was a lot colder than I expected it might be in January.  A lot of the cold had to do with the fact that it's a tiny island and very windy.  The rest (at least in my opinion!) had to do with the fact that central heating is non-existent and everything is built out of limestone and marble, making for very chilly interiors in the colder parts of the year!

So, why Malta?

Well, I was invited to join a group of friends, as part of a team that was traveling to Malta to participate in and help to facilitate a 24/7 Prayer Room with some Maltese Christians.  My own prayer life had been changed when I'd encountered 24/7 in the last half of university, via the church that I was a part of at the time.  Prayer suddenly became something creative, active and meaningful, and God spoke and worked in my life, meeting me in surprising ways through my time in various 24/7 prayer rooms.

Some of my friends had had long term connections to the Maltese church and had made some journeys there leading up to their inviting a number of others to join them.  God had already put Malta, and the friends who were inviting me heavily on my heart, and when they asked, I felt the Lord confirming that I needed to go, and agreed to join them.  Ultimately, about 10 of us from all over Canada traveled together and participated in the prayer room and had the chance to see parts of the country of Malta, meet with various believers there, and spend time praying for this island that dates it's history with the Christian faith back to the shipwreck of St. Paul.

The trip definitely changed my life, though not at all in ways I thought it might.  The results were very different from what I expected, but, three years later I'm not sorry I went.  I still believe that God asked me to go and I believe that He has used all that resulted from that trip to shape and form my relationship with Him in new and infinitely deeper ways.