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12 January 2016

Spring Harvest 2016: game changers

This blog was first published by Spring Harvest – a teaching and worship event for everybody. Spring Harvest are featuring everyday game changers in the lead up to the event this Easter. You can find out more about Game Changers and Spring Harvest 2016 here.

Laighton and Heather Walters

In 2009, we spent two weeks at Spring Harvest in Skegness, aiming to go at a slow pace but keen to attend as many seminars as possible. During the second week, God gave Laighton a vision of people lining up in a canteen and yet outside people were hungry and asking to be fed. This vision made sense as we'd just opened a café called 'Café Eden' in our parish church.

As well as being given a prophecy from a complete stranger about using the gift of hospitality, we completed a survey at the Vocation Zone which also stated our gift was hospitality! The man running the stall shared about the Eden Network and by the end of Spring Harvest we felt a clear calling from God to join the Eden Network and move to Manchester.

We sent for the expression of interest forms many times and even though we occasionally opened them, they usually remained sealed and shoved in a drawer. We both felt quite scared of moving 300 miles away, yet God persisted in reminding us. We would switch the radio on and hear Eden's national director, Matt Wilson; we would open magazines and find Eden adverts; and we kept meeting people from Manchester.

The reality of God's calling settled in after a day trip to Calais that went slightly wrong. We had to board a different ferry and found ourselves sitting next to a young family who, you guessed it, came from Manchester. I shared our story and the woman listened intently.

It turned out I was speaking with Emma Owen from The World Wide Message Tribe; a Christian band linked to Eden.

By Christmas we had made contact with Matt Wilson and arranged a visit to Manchester. We knew straight away that this would be our new home and within five months we had moved to South Manchester.

It's been a rollercoaster of emotions, from seeing many highs including our neighbours getting saved and freed from addiction and witnessing relationships restored, to many lows such as being burgled. 

However, we know we are exactly where God wants us and we are waiting on Him as He calls us to go deeper in building His Kingdom.