For the last quarter of 2008 it has been a privilege to be a member of an Alpha Team in the Military Corrective Training Centre in Colchester.

Each week over a period of thirteen, we have sung, spoken,  drunk tea and yes, prayed and shared God’s word with the resident personnel of the infamous ‘Colly’ Glass House. 

Each week we have arrived with our kit and cakes as guests of the Camp Commandant David Steele and Padre Michael Stevenson. Once in we have set up camp for the Lord in the canteen. The ladies have cut the cakes and set up tea and coffee tables. The guys have dis-organised the tables and spread about ‘Alpha’ literature, in a café style. Our ‘awesome’ band has planted themselves in the corner. All the techno-equipment has been assembled in rapid time.

We pray like billy-oh! For the right people, the right words and, MOSTLY, Divine Appointments. And then the anxious wait…how many this week?!… then ‘the lads’ start streaming in and we breath a sigh and we praise God. Then another bunch… and sometimes another bunch. Soon, the place is packed.  After we have had a good, Godly sing we settle back each week for the guest speaker.

We have been so blessed with the quality of the speakers. They have ranged from local clergy, to combat scarred ex-service men, to a lieutenant colonel, to a number of reformed street criminals of varying sorts! Each week there has been anticipation in the atmosphere of just what the Holy Spirit going to do!

Each speaker has given us incredible insights into the Word of God and the healing power of Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit: An ex-Para who met God when his parachute didn’t open, the brawling marine who hung himself and should not have lived, a retired lieutenant colonel who spoke to the residents prostrate on the floor and the Anglican, ex-jail bird, priest who’s Dad let him dive off a wall as a child just to prove a point. And the Sally Army officer who sang ‘Wild Rover’ to us as part of an illustration of just how crazy he had been before he met Jesus. It’s been awesome, it’s been unbelievable, incredible, and it’s been amazing.

It has been after the speakers that we have all got to know each other. The team have shared their own life experiences and testimony in small groups over coffee and cake. More to the point is the incredible trust the guys have put in us. We have experienced incredible disclosures of family pain. We have shared with guys whose hearts and lives have been broken in various ways and stages of life. But the most incredible thing is the over riding desire of these guys to change.

We have been AMAZED by the Grace. We have stood together as Wretches and belted out Newton’s wonderful words. And then we have sat in silence and listened to an incredible tapestry of testimonies, littered with the Word of God, simplicity and wisdom, desperation, and near death experiences, and then the peace and joy of finding a relationship with Christ. There have been experiences near our own and some so distant that we cannot consider them as real. But the experience of this Alpha has been strengthening and converting, restoring and renewing.   

It has been such a privilege to serve God in this way. On behalf of the team, thanks everyone at MCTC, Sunday afternoons are AMAZING!

Tony, Eagle Ministries, Colchester.