As we complete our 75th year of ministry in Ireland, we want to take time to reflect on God’s goodness to us over the years. Some of you have been with us on this exciting journey from the earliest days, others joining more recently. However long you’ve been involved, and in whatever capacity, we trust you’ll rejoice with us that “thus far the Lord has helped us” (1 Samuel 7:12).
God called me to start the work of CEF in Ireland in 1950, and to lead it for the fourteen years which followed. But I was only 23 years old, I had only been saved a few months, and I had no experience or training in any kind of Christian ministry. As a result, I started that first Good News Club in Bleary with much fear and trembling.
Over the years which followed, God opened the eyes of many believers all over Northern Ireland to the reality that children could be saved and gave them a desire to evangelise boys and girls. The local directors, teachers, and I were all volunteers. We all retained our secular jobs and did not need financial support. But God blessed the work, and it really grew.
By the end of those first 14 years there were more than 100 Good News Clubs, hundreds of open-air meetings, many training classes and the first four full-time workers. We even had our own radio programme in operation! Above all else, many children all over our little country trusted the Lord Jesus as their Saviour. And during those 14 years we laid the foundations for the great growth of CEF of Ireland which was to come in the years which followed.
How can we explain all of this? The answer, surely, can only be found in understanding God’s will for the children of Ireland (Matthew 18:14), and in understanding God’s desire to use us weak believers and our ministry to bring glory to himself (1 Corinthians 1:26-31). We give him all the glory.
This article first appeared in our winter 2025 edition of Every Child, the CEF of Ireland quarterly National Newsletter. You can subscribe to a digital or paper copy of Every Child for free by clicking here.