Report
 
by Robert Weston 
August 2005
 
We have experienced, at least in part, a sense of what people prophesied: that Hjaltland (Shetland) – ‘the hilt of the sword' – would wield the sword and take spiritual authority on behalf of the nation. 
 
It was a treat beyond words to experience the Lord so deeply, and to be with so many friends, both old and new. Shetland made a huge impact on people, and the Clickimin centre was the perfect venue, made beautiful by wondrously creative flags, banners and displays, but above all by the overarching sense of the Lord's peace and presence. 
 
It was wonderful to have 27 communities/nations represented, from as far afield as Pakistan, New Zealand, the US, Canada, Australia and a surprising number of points in between! Hannah Prittie not only designed our information leaflets, she also designed stunningly beautiful individualised colour badges for every conference delegate, with the flags of their home communities on. There was something deeply significant and symbolic in this. It certainly meant a great deal to us to be wearing Shetland badges The mingling of the nations and the forming of new prayer networks was extra special, and delegates were exceedingly responsive. 
 
We continued our ‘tradition’ of intermingling music and intercession, inviting people to participate wherever possible. There was much grace and maturity amongst the delegates, many of whom were prayer leaders in their own right. People were so responsive that we were often all but overwhelmed by the extent of the revelation that was forthcoming. We spent a lot of time praying for Germany, which we recognised as going through a pivotal period in its development. 
 
It worked well across the generations too: with the twenty year olds brilliantly leading prayer for the Faroes and for Iceland. On our morning off, the twenty year olds met together and cooked a meal they invited other visitors to, which gave plenty of opportunity to speak of the Lord. As we were keen to stress throughout the week, church works well as a verb as well as a noun!!!
 
My main concern before the conference was that there were too many talks scheduled: I ditched the first of mine and severely shrunk the other, but I think, on balance, we could still have devoted more time in prayer. A lesson for the future! 
 
In the run up to the conference we received excellent support from the Shetland Islands Council (who hosted the delegates with a lavish lunch, as well addressing the Friday night concert) and the Lerwick Community Council, who sent the conference a generous donation, along with a letter expressing their wholehearted support. 
 
You may remember we sent out an SOS just before the conference to pray for Sally Prittie, the worship coordinator. She was wonderfully released from hospital, having been threatened with an imminent blood transfusion and a hysterectomy down in Aberdeen. Her presentation ‘Love Shetland!’ was stunning beyond words. 
 
Francis and Lindsey Cummings and the anointed musicians inspired us to great heights. Francis had to go an extra mile when Godfrey Birtill was taken ill and was unable to come. 
 
There were remarkably few administrative hiccups: the extensive planning paid off well and everyone worked their socks off. Very sadly, however, Jennifer Rees Larcombe was unable to attend at the very last moment, for family reasons and John and Chris Larkin were called away prematurely. (Chris’ aged father died during the conference) 
 
The weather was nothing special: there was no hint of the wonderful summers we have enjoyed for the past three years but rather a chilly 12-14 degrees, just as it has been all summer, with the north wind blowing. The pilgrimages to Papil and St Ninians were memorable, however, and people loved the islands to bits despite the lack of warmth. (Maybe it would have been a distraction if the sun had made almost its first proper appearance this summer!) Many were blessed by seeing puffins and whales; I was with Bjorn Olav and his family when, amazingly, we saw a school of twelve small whales sporting themselves just below our house. Four people also prophesied the return of eagles to Shetland! 
 
There were so many touches from the Lord throughout the week, and a number of people healed in amongst everything else that was going on. It is rather like when visitors drive out to Burra Isle, gasp at the view and think there can be nothing more beautiful in the world – and then drive round the corner and find a still more beautiful vista. The dances that Andy and Anna Raine (from Lindisfarne) led were deeply appreciated, often touching places that other activities couldn’t reach, releasing the next phase of God’s moving. (At one point he took a dance troupe into the centre of town). Sam Leckie put together stunningly beautiful Power Point presentations at remarkably short notice: sometimes incorporating within minutes subject matters that had been taught or prophesied!  
 
Themes 
Everyone found Mark Stibbe’s teaching inspiring, particularly the session when we addressed the Jante Spirit in depth. Saturday night was mega serious, as Patrick Sookdheo unfolded in detail the extreme danger that Britain is now in spiritually. His analysis revealed how much farther advanced the spread of Islam is than most people have the slightest idea of. Authorities are bending over backwards to facilitate the spirit of Islam, even whilst, privately, they are far from convinced of the truth of many of the things they are saying about Islam being a religion of peace. (For obvious reasons, these intensely sobering talks were not recorded. Praying into this fault line, however, between what people know in their hearts to be true, and what they feel obliged to say may actually be a key area for prayer). 
 
We heard examples of five year olds being taught to read English from the Koran, and parents being threatened with being taken to court if they try to withdraw their children. We experienced a wondrously intense time of crying out to the Lord on the Thursday night that took us to exceptional heights.  
 
Roger Mitchell’s overview of the book of Amos was also challenging. The only appropriate response, apart from crying out for mercy, was deep mourning. We closed the meeting in total silence. 
 
We had been confidently expecting the unexpected, and so it came as no surprise that the themes we had prepared in the leadership times before the meetings often bore no resemblance to how the Lord directed the actual meetings! We quickly learnt to say, ‘Thanks for tolerating our plans, Lord – even though You end up ignoring most of them!’ We had to be very fleet-footed and adjust ‘on the move’ as His Spirit led us. 
 
On one particular evening we didn’t pray for a single one of the countries we had focused on beforrhand, because the Lord came in power after Martin Scott had spoken. Roger Mitchell had stepped forward courageously to pray for the ‘point’ to be added to the Shetland sword. It would take a long time to explain why this was such a significant step, but the result of the time of repentance that he led was immediate and electrifying. The most obvious effect was the rediscovery of the Shetland’s musical voice for the Lord. Shetland is world renowned for its music – especially its fiddle playing – but this has not been reflected in the worship of the churches. (One pastor, over a century ago, denounced all such music as being of the devil and actually broke the fiddle of one of his church members). 
 
Two of the current pastors repented of the control the church has exercised as an institution, particularly in inhibiting creativity. A beautiful eighteen-year old girl was present (she was the fiddler of the year and has recently come to faith). Francis Cummings gave her his violin and invited her to step out and improvise in the Spirit, right in the centre of all the Shetlanders who were crowded at the front. At first hesitant, her playing began to release a new sound and spirit into the conference. Suddenly, she was up on the platform and leading the conference with clarity and confidence, releasing the distinctive ‘voice of Shetland’ music, that had people dancing in the aisles and open spaces. It was a thousand times more moving than if we had organised the ‘ceilidh’ we had at one time considered!
 
One by one, other musical Shetlanders came forward, each one being cheered onto the platform, until we had a completely new-look team occupying virtually the whole stage. Francis Cummings and Simon Bernard Smith were by no means the only ones to marvel that they had never seen anything so moving in their entire life. 
 
We were joined on Monday by David Hathaway, with his vast experience of leading hundreds of thousands of people to Christ in Russia and Eastern Europe and his first hand awareness of how easily the door for the open gospel could close in these lands. He led us in powerful times of prayer for Moldova and Belarus, and other nations. 
 
Another member of his team, Suzanne Pillans, was with us for nearly all the week. When she first went to Malawi, the Lord told her to ask the people to bring along the sickest person in the village and to watch what the Lord did. When that person was healed, entire villages came to the Lord. She is speaking later this month (23-25 August) in India to a conference of over 10,000 young people (and a thousand pastors). While Michael Ross Watson was ministering powerfully in Lerwick, Suzanne spoke in a small chapel in Shetland (delegates had spread out across churches all over Shetland on the Sunday morning) and a number of people were touched by the Lord. 
 
Another special feature was an exquisitely beautiful classical concert – the richest of feasts, and a chance to enjoy for the second time highlights from Sally Prittie’s stunning presentation. 
 
The Lord did many precious things in the seminars and workshops. Many, for example, were deeply touched by the Spirit during and after the one led by Guy Rothwell. The prayers that were crafted for the nations in Chris Larkin’s workshop were really special, and there were tremendous release of intercession at the end of Bjorn Olav’s seminar for Israel. 
 
The final night, however, did not go as well as we had hoped. I had had a real concern for it beforehand, and despite some powerful times of prayer and worship, we were left with the feeling that we had by no means succeeded in releasing all the Lord had in store for us. After going so high the night before, we didn’t manage to find the balance between prayer and preaching, and this was obviously disappointing. 
 
We apologised to the conference on the final morning that things hadn’t worked out well the night before, which was wonderfully and graciously responded to by all the delegates in a profoundly beautiful interchange. We broke bread together and the conference ended on a really sweet note, with another powerful time of prayer for Israel. 
 
Aftermath
At this early stage, we know just a few of the wonderful things God did during our time together. Only the Lord knows all that has been accomplished in the heavenly places and all the developments and networkings that will emerge in time. There was a word on the final morning that much of what has been accomplished will be released as slow time capsules.  
 
So many of the local people we have spoken to were enormously blessed. I spent a lot of time during the week in tears, both because the Lord’s presence was so strong and because we will be leaving Shetland so soon! We know the time has come, and  Martin Scott and the local pastors took time out to pray for us and send us on our way from Shetland on the final morning, which was really special.  
 
It was a tribute to how well the conference was going that we did not need to make many notices during the week. When we did, they in no way lowered the spiritual tone! It was particularly fitting that Andrew Harmsworth, the leader of the Shetland Intercessors Team should introduce the powerful time of prayer for Shetland on the middle day of the conference, having received a strong word from the beginning of Ezekiel 1 about the fifth day of the fourth month of the thirtieth year – which he took to be the fifth of August: the fourth month after arriving in the islands in May thirty years ago! 
 
It was in every sense an extraordinary gathering of the nations. One evening, Andrew Harmsworth read aloud Catherine Brown’s prophecy, which spoke of Shetland being a spiritual gateway and a bridge to the nations. It also included the fact that God had long ago decreed that this prayer conference on behalf of Europe should be held on Shetland. What a joy to see prophecy being fulfilled before our eyes! 
 
‘Off the ball’ things were happening all the time as people met and networked together. One dear friend felt a strong call to go to Ruach, so we lent her our car.  (Like most people who venture there, she felt as though she was living a fairy story going there)!  The Lord came on her in power, and commissioned her to work for a particular organisation. Guess what was waiting for her when she returned back home? An appeal from that particular organisation for her ministry! 
 
A couple of weeks before the conference, a friend from Sweden had a dream of a baby being born – but the ‘mother’ was not a woman at all but a blast furnace! She could make no sense of this until she received Shetland Saga 55, and the explanation of all that Ros has been though. That was when the whole thing made sense! Ros opened the meeting on Saturday night with a prophecy that led us in an entirely unexpected direction. It was a joy to see her beginning to refind her prophetic voice after the ordeal she had been through for the past two years. 
 
A young German medical student felt sad to be leaving the ‘fire’ in the north, but the Lord said to her: ‘you will be carrying the fire with you!’ Another delegate had this picture as she was leaving the island. “I see the Fire from the North conference as a volcano with power and spiritual upwelling from the heart of our faith, throwing us all up and out. Some of us will go far and set others alight with the power of Jesus . . . and some will fall into the sea of our busy world, and sink for a while until a subterranean movement causes Jesus' power to be released again. 
 
Going the extra mile 
I would like to close by mentioning a wonderful example of how God blessed ‘the going of the extra mile.’ One evening, Francis left his violin at our house. When he realised this, he shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘oh well, I probably won’t need it; I’m playing keyboard tonight!’ But Lindsey drove all the way home to fetch it. As she drove along, she said to the Lord, ‘Every session has been so amazing, Lord - is there really anything new left that You can do?’ The Lord replied very clearly, ‘My treasure chest can never be emptied.’ And so it proved to be, for that was the evening that Francis placed the violin in Laura’s hands and so many wonderful things happened. 
 
May there be more prayer and more of the Lord in all that we all do as a result. Thank you so much for those who shared with us in spirit throughout the week. The Lord has heard your prayers!