By His Wounds We Are Healed - Fr Gladson Dabre OSA

Last night our eldest picked out the gold vestment he wants for when he is a priest. Let’s just say you are doing something very right if their little imaginations are drawn to such thoughts! Can’t quite put into words the joy we experienced of staying in the same house as where The Eucharist is present. It’s such a gift!

Me, Maddie and Helena were just out in the school yard, on the soccer pitch, and a group of maybe 12 or 13 year olds approached us. They were kind of joking, “our friend has a broken arm - would you pray for healing for him? So we said, “yes, absolutely.” We were going over to pray with this boy who had a broken arm, and Maddie said, “why don’t we all pray for him, not just us - so does everyone want to extend a hand?” So everyone put a hand on the boy. I led the prayer and they repeated the line after me. We all prayed together. It was about a group of five or six of them around this boy. After they were all kind of giggling, and the boy didn’t really do anything. So we said “move your arm and see, check it out.” He checked it and said, “I couldn’t move it that far before. I don’t feel anything!” We said, “you’ve seen healing. This is a miracle!”

I felt the Lord just say really strongly: "turn around I’m behind you." I don’t know what I expected. But I turned around, and there was this lady behind me walking towards me. She’d been there before but I had not seen her - she just came out of nowhere. I turned around and I was like, okay, well, I don’t have a word for her so I’ll just go up to her. So I went up to her and it turned out she was a fallen-away catholic, and she had been slowly coming back to the Lord. And she had this deep love for the Lord that she didn’t even know about. She ended up experiencing physical healing in her fingers and her feet. She was a musician and she hadn’t been able to play. So she got physical healing to be able to play again — but it was far more than that. The physical healing is always so good when it happens, but when you see the inner healing that comes with it! She encountered the Lord and the Holy Spirit was not missing a trick.

I witnessed so many lives changed and miracles happen over the few days. God called me to go deeper in my faith and step out in ways that have changed my life!

God's presence can be felt in the room. I always feel peace and often clarity at Stronghold; it is where God reminds me life isn't meant to be done alone.

I had a huge experience with the Holy Spirit and encountered the saving touch of Jesus. This just showed me how much God wanted to meet me, yet He was not imposing or controlling.

It was such a blessing and it really touched my heart and soul - the fruits of that prayer were almost immediate.

I wasn’t sure if my children would want to come back now they are older but my daughter said it was the only place she felt free to live her faith. So we had to come back!

You allowed me a place to begin to heal, learn, reconnect and grow and I’ll be forever thankful.

Truly jaw dropping experience. There are not enough positive words in the dictionary to describe the sheer power of God’s Love that I think was felt by all at the festival.