From September 6-14, I took a group of 6 men to Northern Ireland for a golf mission trip. This was our first time doing a golf mission trip and being in Northern Ireland as well as Ireland. We partnered with Richie Shilliday and his ministry RIOT (Revival in Our Town).

Richie is a local and has been ministering to the towns of Dundrum and Newcastle for 20 years. He is also a cricket coach and hosts teams from the states for missionary training and for soccer ministry. He was very excited for the opportunity to try a golf mission trip.

While we were in the country, we would play 4 days of golf at 4 different courses (3 in N. Ireland and 1 in Ireland). Each day our guys would mix up teams and play with Richie and some guys that he was mentoring and ministering too. We played with Finbar, his neighbor, Tom, an American pastor, Terry, a local firefighter, and Stian, a South African cricket player. Each of these guys had been going through hard months leading up to the trip so the opportunity to play some golf and talk about some of this stuff was what Richie was hoping for.

When we were not playing, we visited Richie’s church and got to interact with the congregation and help move pews. We also got to share with teenagers who come to RIOT on the weekend at night to have a safe place to hang out on the weekends. We would play games and talk to the kids all evening. We also did a prayer walk around the city of Belfast which has walls that separate Protestant and Catholic neighborhoods as there has been years of violence towards each other and things are getting worse again. We got the opportunity to visit historical places in the Christian faith like the first church that Saint Patrick started on the island and the forest that inspired C.S. Lewis’s Narnia books. Each night we would have debriefs with the team and each player led a devotional.

This was a great time of bonding as a team and growing closer to God. As I wasn’t playing, I spent the time taking pictures of our guys, talking with the groups and meeting with some missionaries: Aidan who works with CRU and is going to help Richie full time, Jim who is an American and coaches’ basketball in Belfast, and Chris who runs a sports ministry called the Salt Factory in Belfast that does ministry locally and internationally.

Lastly, the group got to see a day of the Irish Open which was played just 5 miles away from where we were staying. It only happened there once every 10 years! This trip was a very good one and gave me ideas for how to do golf trips in the future and for creating new connections I hope to use for the future with or without golf. Thank you for the prayers for this trip and continue to pray for those we worked with!

 

Back to blog