Wednesday Evenings in the Upper Room

Lilias Milne joins the group and remembers the early prayer meetings:

Lynch Drive has a very special place in our memories. It was the cradle, if not the birthplace, of the community. When I first went to Lynch Drive in 1978, I had never been to prayer meeting before.  I used to avoid them very carefully.  I was curious about the Charismatic Renewal, but not curious enough to go.  I would send people with problems to Charismatic meetings, but I didn’t have problems, so I would never go!  But I began to get more curious, and one night my sister inveigled me into going.  I went with two friends.  It was the first time I had even heard of Lynch Drive.
 

There was an apartment block, with six apartments.  When I got there I met Rhonda whom I had known fairly well for several years, though I had not seen her for some time. I heard rumours of something strange happening in her life, and I wanted to see for myself.  Then I met Rose whom I had not known before.  There were about 40 other persons in that little apartment.  I sat at the back of the porch and declined  to go to the front because I didn’t want anyone to see me.
 

At the end of the night, one of the friends with whom I had gone asked if I would go again.  I said ‘yes’.  I think I found what I had been looking for.  For me that prayer meeting was like an “upper room” experience.  I think that was how the early church was, with Christians gathered together, praying, rejoicing, praising God, sharing and praying for each other’s needs, and experiencing the gifts of the Holy Spirit.  It was an awesome experience for me to see the gifts of the Holy Spirit: hearing people praying in tongues, and prophesying and bringing words of knowledge and wisdom, offering healing prayers for people who were sick, and seeing healing taking place.  The level of faith was very high.
 

I went back the next Wednesday, and the next.  Then I did a Life in the Spirit Seminar.  I found myself sharing more and more with Rose and Rhonda and Maureen Kelsick and Kathleen Frost in that apartment.
 

Every Wednesday afterwards, we would go to the other five apartments on the block and borrow all the chairs we could.  People would start arriving around 7.30 pm, and I don’t know what an engineer would have said if they saw that apartment on Wednesday nights.  People sat on the stairs when all the chairs were taken up, and were flowing into Violet’s apartment opposite.  The prayer meeting just grew and grew, and more people kept coming.
 

Lynch Drive was the ‘centre’.  Everything happened there: they lived and ministered there.  In addition to the Wednesday night prayer meeting there was a Thursday morning women’s meeting, and a youth meeting on a Sunday afternoon.  There was no telephone, but the doorbell was constantly being rung.  There was always someone in need of counseling, or something being brought to share with Kathleen and Maureen, or just people coming to lime.  Sometimes there would be some drama happening and Rose or Rhonda would leave to pray with someone.  People would be coming and going at any time of the day or night.  Rich or poor, young or old, everybody came through those doors.  Louis used to come across the road and through the picket fence from the Convent where she lived.
 

We all found there a beautiful experience.  I felt nurtured and fed with spiritual food.  And I felt my heart drawn more and more to the life Rose and Rhonda shared in that apartment.
 

The prayer meetings grew bigger and bigger.  The last meeting before we moved to Archbishop’s House had a count of 150.  Imagine a two-bedroom apartment with that many people!  They sat on tables, under the tables, on the balcony, on the floor …. I remember being crouched in a foetal position once because someone was sitting above my head.  If the Archbishop had not given us his grounds, we would no longer have fitted the people who were down the steps and in the driveway.  And there was a song we used to sing.  It was a powerful song:

Fill my house unto the fullest,
Eat my bread and drink my wine.

The love I bear is held from no one

All I have and all I do, I give to you.

Early days - from left, Louie, Rose, Maureen & Rhonda