I (Janet) can’t believe today was day 6 of our prayer walking! We’ve been having such a great time doing this, and it has gone by so quickly. Today, even though it was still a great day, felt a little bit different than the other days… our dog decided she wasn’t enjoying the overnight roadwork that was happening near our house last night, and so she barked A LOT during the night 😩 meaning we were pooped today even before we set out 🤦🏻‍♀️ So while it was still a lovely fun day, we definitely felt the steps a bit more than the days before!!

Today we want to highlight the third town in the Triangle trio – Portrush. Even though the three towns are so close together, they all have different ‘feels’ to them. Portrush is a place that doesn’t have as clear a spiritual history as Portstewart and Coleraine. While it has some great churches and, like a lot of the North Coast, was influenced by early Celtic Christianity and much later the revival of 1859, there aren’t many significant events that took place in the town. I think it’s probably fair to say that Portrush can feel slightly heavier than the other towns in the area. That’s not to say that we don’t love it or that it isn’t nice, but spiritually it hasn’t always felt as rich as the rest of the area. The town has been a fishing port for a long time, and when the railway was built in the 1800s, Portrush grew rapidly and was transformed as many people from the larger towns in Ireland would come there to see its beaches and views. Today, it is the gateway town for Dunluce Castle (thought to be the inspiration for C.S. Lewis’ Cair Paravel in the Narnia Chronicles), Bushmills, Carrick-a-Rede, and of course the Giant’s Causeway. We have loved praying around Portrush, and as well as it being the town that I (Neil) lived in until I was 4, we feel it has a really special place on the North Coast.

One of the major things we have prayed as we’ve walked around ‘the port’ is that it would have a significant impact on tourists. The town hosts many big events throughout the year; the North West 200, Raft Race, Air Show, Truck Fest, and of course this year it hosts the 153rd British Open golf tournament. There are hundreds of thousands of people that move through this town and we prayed that the Spirit would hover over each of them as they come so that they wouldn’t leave just rested but restored!

Anyway, back to Janet nad todays prayer walk.

We’ve decided our favourite route to take is to head to the wonderful Portrush first after we leave Coleraine and then go to Portstewart before heading back to Coleraine again! So today, after an early morning appointment in Coleraine, that’s exactly what we did!

Because we felt so tired setting out this morning, we were really asking God to lead our prayers! We want to pray what’s on His heart for this area—not just our own ideas and thoughts. As we walked around the Triangle today, we found that our prayers often came back around to praying for parents and families in our area, especially for those families who are struggling financially at the moment. Around here, our schools are able to offer free school meals to kids who could benefit from them. As it’s coming to the school summer holiday time very soon, we were so aware that there will be families in our community who might struggle to eat well or have very much without the provision of those school meals… and so we prayed against holiday hunger. We also had some friends come to mind who are struggling with some health issues at the moment, and so we prayed for healing for them. Also, it was a beautifully sunny day today, at least in the second half of the walk, and we kept being struck again and again by the beauty of where we live – God is incredible ❤️🙌 We weren’t planning on stopping for lunch today, but by the time we reached Portstewart, we were getting a bit peckish, and so we made a wee change of plan and stopped for chips 😂👍 And then we headed for home!

Our last day is going to be this Sunday! Even though it’s going to be a super early start, we’re really looking forward to it because we have a couple of friends joining us for the walk, and our plan is to finish the walk at church 🙌 because when we read the account of the Israelites walking around Jericho, on the 7th day they worshiped all the way around the walls, and so, while we’re not doing 7 laps on Sunday 😬 we do want to finish with worship 🥳

What a privilege it is to do these prayer walks at this time although we are definitely pretty sore after 4 walks in 6 days!