Prayer-Walking for Revival in the Uk & Southern Ireland

By Harry J H Pritchard

Is it possible that the Lord will visit the UK and Southern-Ireland with another heaven-sent Revival? The author believes that this is what the Lord has promised as he prayer-walked the length and breadth of Wales, Northern and Southern- Ireland, Scotland and England, and experienced the Lord guiding and providing each step of the way. The Lord particularly blessed him through the love and kindnesses of the numerous folk he met along the way. Read how from slow stuttering steps on a trial run, when he barely managed to prayer-walk 2 miles, how he was able to complete in total, nearly 2,000 miles. On one particular day (and into the early hours of the next one) he was enabled to prayer-walk 45 miles.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Jul 22, 2019
• ISBN: 9781728382258

Harry J H Pritchard

Rev. Harry J H Pritchard is the minister of Bethel Baptist Church in Macclesfield, Cheshire, England

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© 2019 Harry J H Pritchard. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or

transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse  07/22/2019

ISBN: 978-1-7283-8226-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-7283-8225-8 (e)

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CONTENTS

Author’s Preface

Prologue

Chapter 1     The Growth in Faith for Revival

Chapter 2     Forty-Day Fast

Chapter 3     Lessons learned

Chapter 4     Prayers Prayed on the Prayer-Walk

Chapter 5     Prayer-Walking the breadth of Wales

Chapter 6     Prayer-Walking the Length of Wales

Chapter 7     Prayer-Walking Bristol to Land’s End

Chapter 8     Prayer-Walking Bristol to Birmingham

Chapter 9     Prayer-Walking John o’ Groats to Carlisle

Chapter 10   Back Home Waiting on the Lord

Chapter 11   Prayer-Walking Buxton to Skegness

Chapter 12   Sell Your Possessions and Give to the Poor

Chapter 13   Prayer-Walking Macclesfield to Winsford

Chapter 14   Quick trip to Poland

Chapter 15   Prayer-Walking Stratford-upon-Avon to Kidsgrove

Chapter 16   Time to Renew my Strength

Chapter 17   Prayer-Walking Carlisle to Kidsgrove

Chapter 18   Prayer-Walking Warrington to Knutsford

Chapter 19   Prayer-Walking the breadth of S. Ireland

Chapter 20   Prayer-Walking the length of Southern & Northern-Ireland

Chapter 21   Prayer-Walking the breadth of N. Ireland

Chapter 22   Prayer-Walking the breadth of Scotland

Epilogue

Appendix: Loving Father; Lost son; Jealous brother

To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world (Karl Barth)

But the Lord said to me, Do not say, ‘I am only a child.’ You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you (Jeremiah 1 v 7)

How far this nation has moved away from Jesus Christ can be seen in what we have legalised

(Harry Pritchard)

The Lord will lay bare His holy arm in the sight of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God (Isaiah 52 v 10)

You discern my going out and my lying down; You are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue You know it completely, O Lord (Ps. 139 v 3 - 4)

Dedicated to all the kind people …

AUTHOR’S PREFACE

Dear Reader, I have written this account of the Prayer-Walk I did from July 1990 to July 1992, to add to everyone’s prayers prayed before this, and to those prayed since. I turned 65 years of age on June 15th 2019, and none of us know how long we have left here on earth. This is a testimony of how the Lord led me, and enabled me to do it in a day when we didn’t have smartphones, or google maps (well I didn’t have these). I started prayer-walking with a rucksack full of clothes, a map, a Bible, a Daily Light, and what little money I had. I only tell you this to bring home how the Lord alone did guide me, provide for me, protect me and undertake for me in every way conceivable. If that being the case, then He will, in His time, definitely answer the prayers prayed and bring about His promise to once more saturate us with His Presence in a heaven-sent Revival: Will you not revive us again, that Your people may rejoice in You? (Psalm 85 v 6). His answer – a resounding Yes! Amen.

PROLOGUE

I sat down on the pavement, exhausted and discouraged, having only walked two miles or so on a practice prayer-walk, with a rucksack on my back filled with very heavy books ‘borrowed’ from the Bible College of Wales Library. Lord, I thought, as I sat down on the pavement, I can’t even prayer-walk a few miles without feeling exhausted so how can I possibly prayer-walk the length and breadth of the UK and Southern Ireland as I believe you are calling me to do? Have I got it wrong Lord? Just then, as I looked up, I noticed a metal plaque on one of the large stone gate-columns of the house facing me. On it were two figures and underneath them were the words, Give me to drink. It was Jesus with the woman at the well. I quickly got out my Bible and read the relevant passage and these words stood out from John chapter 4 verse 6: And Jesus, tired as He was from the journey, sat down by the well. Deep discouragement turned into inexpressible joy for it was as if the Lord was reminding me that even Jesus got tired and that He was with me in this. I mean how does God do it? I’ve never even seen a house with a Christian plaque on it, let alone one that spoke so specifically into my situation; what if I hadn’t stopped at this exact position, I wouldn’t have seen it. Did God impress it on the owner’s hearts to put it there?

My mind was racing trying to work it out, and, eventually, I stopped and accepted it in faith from God. And that was it, as far as I was concerned, yet another confirmation that the Lord was calling me to prayer-walk the length and breadth of Scotland, England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland, praying for Revival, for a Spiritual Awakening that would touch every part of these nations. I was a different person prayer-walking back to the Bible College as I reflected on how awesome God is and what the chances were of me just happening to sit down by that house with a plaque on the post and the words and passage being so relevant. How does God do it? Well He’s God isn’t He!

CHAPTER 1

The Growth in Faith for Revival

I’m convinced that the Lord would have every believer know that He knew them before they were in their mother’s womb. It’s not just the Jeremiah’s, Isaiah’s, and Paul’s (cf. Jeremiah 1 v 5; Isaiah 49 v 1; Galatians 1 v 15), whom the Lord knows intimately, but all of us. I believe that when we finally meet Him face to face in glory, we will be absolutely astounded at the detailed way He has worked in our lives and circumstances, without us even being aware of a lot of what He has done (compare God the Master Craftsman at work in Ephesians 2 v 10, with great skill and detail).

I was brought up in a small village in North Wales, known as Deganwy, and when I was around 7 or 8 years of age, I was walking home from Deganwy Primary School along the scenic route, a path along-side Deganwy Vardre, a small grassy covered hill, and as I went past All Saints Church, I was suddenly overcome by something I couldn’t explain which only lasted a few seconds but in an instant this inexpressible joy welled up within me. I felt so happy, it was as if I had met a really wonderful person but no-one was there, and for a split second or so life was truly joyful and I could have stayed in that place for ever.

Many times, afterwards, I walked past that church hoping to experience again what I experienced but it never happened. However, when I was 9 or 10 years old, I was lying on the field at Deganwy Primary School during lunch-break on a hot sunny day with beautiful blue skies and not a cloud in sight. Suddenly, I had a similar experience to the one already described, and in an instant, I knew that God existed, that He had made all that I could see, and that He was good, kind and loving. I was delighting in Him and in all that He had made and then as suddenly as it came, it went, and it was back to normal life again. Naively, on a few occasions afterwards, especially on hot sunny blue-sky days with no clouds, I tried lying on my back in roughly the same spot looking upwards in the hope that the same experience would happen but it never did. Now I would explain those experiences as something to do with the presence of God.

Fast forward now to September 1972 and those two experiences are dim and distant memories, as if they had never happened. I am now a first-year student in Manchester, doing a 4-year Sandwich Degree in Finance and Accountancy, and I am very homesick. I hated the whole of that first year especially the first term! I used to mark off the days on the back cover of my exercise book, like a person serving a prison sentence. However, amazing as it sounds, in the most desperate times and without realising it, I would look upwards and say something like, ‘God, if you are up there, there has to be more to life than this, I can’t go on like this.’ In an instant, as swift as the blink of an eye, I encountered that same experience, like a power, a joy, a love, a strength, sheer exhilaration, it’s difficult to describe, but it was very real and only for a split second or two. ‘Oh! that’s it! That’s what I need’ I thought to myself ‘but I need it all the time not for just a split second.’

I would try and repeat what I had just done, and say the same words, ‘God if You are up there, there has to be more to life than this’, in the hope that I had hit on some special formula to experience what I now know is the Presence of God. I wasn’t able to explain it but I was convinced it was something to do with God and it was very good and I knew that’s what I wanted. The months would pass by, and again, I would reach another low point and without even thinking about what had happened previously, I would be walking along the city streets of Manchester and look upwards and not even say anything. I was that miserable and homesick, hating every moment of my time in Manchester and desperate to pack it all in and to just go home to Conwy when it happened again like a flash of lightning pulsating through my whole being, but again only for a split second or two. This happened once more during that first year. Oh, the agony and the longing for this to be a permanent part of me but how?

The second year at Manchester Polytechnic was an improvement on the first but in the third year something wonderful happened. As I was due to start the sandwich part of my course, I had to cut short the summer vacation and come back to Manchester at the start of August, 1974. I began working for a firm of Chartered Accountants called Ashworth Moseley (later taken over by Robson Rhodes). During this time, I was sleeping on the floor of the flat of my sister Julia, who was sharing with 2 other friends, Pam and Sue, so things were a bit crowded. Then Mike, Julia’s boyfriend (they later got married in 1977), suggested that I apply to Montgomery House (MoHo) a YMCA Hall of Residence that was particularly suited to students. However, as it was nearly September, when all the students started coming back, he mentioned that they would probably be full.

I sent in an application form immediately and amazingly I got a place. Thank You Lord and thanks Mike for the suggestion and thanks to the warden for giving me the room! (I was later told by one of the receptionists that I really shouldn’t have got a place there because there was a long waiting list. However, the day I sent in my application, they had a cancellation, and the warden told him to reply to me and offer me a place). Well that was the start of heaven on earth and the moment I walked into that place I knew that things were going to get better and this was the place I was meant to be.

For the first time in my life I met born-again Christians who would talk to me about Jesus and their personal relationship with Him. I later learned they were always praying for me, and no, they didn’t bash you with their Bibles, and no, they didn’t ram it down your throat. I was really impressed with the lives they lived and even though I swore like a trooper at times, they never once condemned me. I did notice, however, that they went quiet when I did swear, especially when I blasphemed (I understand that now because when I hear people swear and blaspheme it’s like a pain in my heart, a bit like being punched in the solar-plexus). I also noticed they never talked about anyone behind their backs or said a bad word about anyone and were amazingly positive people (I used to grumble and complain a lot in those days). There must have been about 15 – 20 Christians staying at Montgomery House (MoHo), out of a total of around 100 or more people from across the world.

I can remember there were Manchester United and Manchester City supporters at MoHo and they were always arguing about who was the best team and the best players, but the one thing they seemed to unite on, was in being rude to the Christians, or the God-Squad as they were referred to. However, it was these football supporters who would eventually storm off in anger from any discussions they had with the Christians and I used to think to myself the Christians are winning! By being really nice people, to people who are not very nice to them, they win the argument every time, how amazing is that! I started to learn who was and who wasn’t a true Christian. I can remember approaching Alan, a new resident waiting in reception to book into his room. There was just something about his demeanour and I just knew he was a born-again Christian. I went up to him and asked him if he was and he answered humbly Yes I am quite committed to Jesus which let’s face it is not the usual replies you get to such a question. I started to really want what these Christians had.

To cut a long story short, it was January 1975 and I was walking down the path from MoHo to the bus-stop on Princess Parkway to catch the bus to work in the City Centre when all of a sudden ……………………Before I tell you what happened next, I need to tell you about what I believe was the lead up to it. Just prior to this, I had spent Christmas at home in December 1974 and two things had happened. Firstly, I had been to a party, got drunk and then done something really bad. Come 4 a.m., whilst walking home and going across Conwy Bridge, I peered over the side at the river below with its swirling currents. Right there and then, it came back to my memory that a friend of my sister’s had drowned there a few years back. I was filled with guilt and shame for what I had just done at the party and cried out in a loud voice, God, forgive me.

The second thing needs some background information: When I was around 13 or 14 years old, an older woman gave me some hard-core pornographic magazines, warning me never to let my parents know and to hide them away somewhere, which I did. Boy those things were powerful, and I could feel myself being slowly sucked into things that, in all honesty, a part of me didn’t want. I also had a fear of this thing totally enslaving me, so it is a mercy that I never got too much into it. I had hidden them in the loft, four floors up, that our Dad had converted into a play-room for us, and in a moment of weakness during that Christmas holiday, I decided to go and have a look at those magazines. However, as I entered the play-room and started to negotiate a path (amongst all the junk up there that had accumulated over the years) to where I had hidden the magazines, I tripped up and instinctively stretched out my hand to try and cushion my fall.

How very awesome is God, for amongst all the old school books, exercise books, old football magazines, car magazines, and even my sister Julie’s Jackie magazines, my hand came to rest on a little book. I was astonished to see it was entitled, Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis. I don’t know how that book got there as the name inside it wasn’t one I recognised. Even more astonishing, when I opened it, my eyes fell straight onto these words, or words to this effect Leave off these lusts of the flesh and this sexual impurity. In that moment, I suddenly realised, that all these things that had been happening to me over the last three months weren’t coincidences but God-incidences! I didn’t even dare look through the skylight window to the sky because a holy fear and reverence engulfed me as I bowed my head and said these words, God, you are after me, aren’t you?

Hardly daring to breathe, I turned from approaching those pornographic magazines and went back downstairs and started reading ‘Imitation of Christ’. I later learned that what I had done was what Christians call repentance, an about-turn from doing the sinful things that I wanted to do, to living my life the way God wanted me to.

Returning to January 1975 and back in Manchester, Christmas holidays are over, and I’m walking down the path from MoHo to the bus-stop on Princess Parkway to catch the bus to work in the City Centre. Suddenly, I am filled with joy, love and happiness and I felt really clean on the inside despite the many sins I had committed in my life. I can remember thinking, Oh my goodness, this must be the born-again thing; that’s it, I am a Christian, Jesus has come into my life. It was the same experience that I have detailed previously but this time it wasn’t for just a few seconds or a split-second thing, Jesus was here to stay, Hallelujah, Praise the Lord, Amen and Amen! That sense of the presence of Jesus in my life, has lasted over 40 years, and it gets better and deeper, and deeper, and better. Yes, there have been valleys, trials, difficulties, tests and disobediences, but like any relationship, it’s a learning experience, but it’s wonderful, it’s joyful, it’s Jesus!

Fast forward again to 1980 and I have just moved into Charterhouse, a Christian venture in Rehabilitation. This was a work started by Ivy Cottage Church, Manchester (the church I was a member of), in conjunction with Strangeways Prison and Northern Counties Housing Association. The vision was to take in lads between 15 – 25 years of age, especially those who had shown some interest in the Christian faith, and to try and help them break the cycle of spending most of their lives in and out of penal institutions of one kind or another. The need to keep strict confidentiality about these lads prevents me from elaborating in any detail but the three years I spent in this work showed me just how spiritually barren, Britain had become. I began to realise how family breakdown had had a devastating effect on each of these young lives. I know, speaking personally, that I am part of my Dad and Mum and I am totally grateful for their love, commitment and dedication, not only to me, but to my two brothers Jimmy and David and sister Julia. I came to that place in Charterhouse where I concluded that, but for the grace of God, there go I. I reckoned that if I had been through what those lads had been through then I would have ended up as they did, or even worse. Enough of the negative side, now to turn to the positive.

At the same time there was a move of the Holy Spirit amongst the Christians on the support team and a number of us were baptised in the Holy Spirit and spoke in tongues. I had this experience and turned from a ‘run of the mill’ type Christian into one who was getting a little bit fired up and sharing my faith so much more. Furthermore, I started to hear about Revivals and Awakenings and realised that this was the answer for today’s ‘spiritually barren Britain’. I listened to tapes (e.g. Dr. D. M. Lloyd-Jones) on past revivals, read books teaching about Revivals and so on. Peter and Betty Webster, the wardens at Charterhouse, would often speak to me about Revival and the need for a Spiritual Awakening. As I read the Scriptures, certain verses would warm my heart about the possibility of the Lord doing it again as He had done in the past.

However, for some reason, up to that point in time, even though I was praying fervently for the Lord’s blessing on ‘Spiritually Barren Britain’ (SBB) I always thought that the Lord was going to call me to mission overseas, either to Africa, India, or China. This seemed to be confirmed when in 1981 the Lord called me to go to India with the missionary organisation Operation Mobilisation. Following a time of disobedience regarding this call I eventually made it to India in October 1983. I hadn’t been there long when one of the Indian brothers at one of the churches we were helping, came up to me and gave me a book on Revival in Wales and said maybe the Lord will one day use you in revival in your country. I was a bit taken aback by this but also encouraged and left wondering how would that be if I was working in India or Africa? Upon reading the book again I was left totally amazed at what God had done in the Revival and how the nation of Wales was so powerfully impacted by the Holy Spirit in 1904 –05 and how it had spread to other nations.

Well amazingly, that 2 years in India (which included 3 months in Pakistan) was like an exile for me and I can honestly say that not a day went by when I didn’t fast (my lunch) and pray for Britain. To me the measure of the greatness of a nation isn’t whether we are financially prosperous, but this: Is Jesus Christ worshipped, honoured and respected in every household? Are children safe to play out on the city streets at any time? Are women safe to go out even late at night on their own without the risk of being raped or something worse? There are many more similar questions we could ask and the answer is always a resounding No. Hence, we need another revival and we all must keep praying for one until we can answer a wholehearted Yes to these questions.

Sometime later, our team were invited by some Pentecostal Christians from Kerala in South India to attend one of their evening meetings. During the meeting, one of the Malayalam Pastors preached for about an hour and was jumping up in the air and coming down banging the pulpit saying, Stotram! Stotram! Stotram! which translated means Praise the Lord. It seemed to be very powerful stuff but not understanding the language, I spent the time reading my Bible in the corner of the large room. Suddenly, I became aware that everyone had gone quiet and all eyes were fixed on me. One of the Indian brothers on our team explained that the Pentecostal Christians wanted me to preach next. No way I said, I can’t preach after that. I have hardly ever preached in a church in my life let alone preach after such a powerful preacher. But everyone was so insistent that, sheepishly, I walked to the pulpit at the front and whilst doing so prayed Lord, Help! What on earth am I to preach on? I felt the Holy Spirit tell me to speak on what I had recently read in the book, Revival in Wales.

How awesome is God! I simply introduced myself as: Hello everyone my name is Harry Pritchard and I come from Wales the land of Revivals and the interpreter did all the rest. The interpreter took it up in Malayalam (reputed to be the fastest language in the world, likened to putting a lot of pebbles in a tin and rolling it over and over) which sounded something like this Hale eliavarum enre per Harryan nan unarvvinre natt punarud dharanasthalam etc. etc. Wow did I just say all that and that was only an introduction to where I came from. He took my short little sentences and made them into long powerfully sounding sentences. By the time I got to the meat of Revival….it sounded even better than the first preacher. Well, I spoke in total for about 20 minutes and the Interpreter added his 40 minutes worth and there were also many Stotram, Stotrams from the congregation.

Afterwards I went back to my little corner and guess who came to preach next? Yes, the first preacher, and for sure, he spoke for another 45 minutes or so and the only bit I understood was his text which he spoke in English, Psalm 87 v 7 All my springs are in you. As I took hold of my Bible to try and find that Psalm and verse, my Bible opened at Psalm 85 instead, and I was totally arrested by it. I felt the Lord was confirming that there was going to be a mighty move of His Spirit in the UK: You showed favour to Your land O Lord; you restored the fortunes of Jacob… You forgave the iniquity of Your people and covered all their sins…. Will You not revive us again, that Your people may rejoice in You? Show us Your unfailing love O Lord, and grant us Your salvation. The Lord will indeed give what is good and our land will yield its harvest (Psalm 85 verses 1, 2, 6, 7, 12).

It is amazing how the Lord speaks to us for I must have read that Psalm quite a number of times previously, as I used to read the Bible through 3 times a year, and yet I never even noticed what it was saying, but the Lord has His time and His ways to bring His word to our attention. All I need to add is that the Lord has kept adding, and adding, and adding to this promise for Revival. People look at the UK and S. Ireland and say it can never happen, because we are too bad or it’s too dark. But look at Revivals over the whole of church history it’s exactly at these times that the Lord, in His great mercy and amazing grace, pours out His Spirit again.

Fast forward again to 1987 and I am now at the Bible College of Wales and the College timetable is full with Studies, Intercessory prayer, and hard graft on practical jobs, even early morning workouts, such as preparing fires at 6:00 am, and painting, sweeping the grounds and other practical work at 7:00 a.m. Alternatively, and it’s what I did a lot of, we might be on the ‘Wood-team’ whereby we would go out, in the College truck, to different locations and cut trees down to bring in wood for the College fires. Following these chores, we had breakfast, 8:00 am, followed by washing pots and pans, 8:20 am – it was like Boot-Camp! Morning prayers began at 9:00 am (a misnomer because we opened with a prayer, followed by a hymn, and then usually one of the visiting lecturers would preach for about 45 minutes, and then we closed with a hymn and a prayer before going off to lectures at 10 a.m.). On one such early morning workout, I didn’t arrive back for the 9:00 am meeting till around 9:15 am by which time Stan Teed had already started preaching.

Stan was a very humble, gracious man, full of the joy of the Lord; previously a farmer he now ploughed the fields at the College with his tractor. Stan did lots of practical work at the College and rarely preached there, but that morning he was speaking on Revival in Wales. From the moment I sat down I started to feel a little strange and vulnerable, it was as if all my insides, ‘onion layers’, were collapsing, and all my resistance and hardness of heart within was melting away. It was the most unusual experience I had ever had to date. I started to panic a little thinking, Oh no, I think I am going to start crying