Ireland Mission Trip Updated | Summer 2026
Over the summer, MeadowBrook sent a mission team to Belfast, Northern Ireland. The team’s main focus over the course of the week was a kids camp through a local youth club. They were able to invest into the lives of kids and teenagers over the course of the week, but perhaps the more important investments came into the lives of the workers, especially the leader of the youth club, Anton. Anton, is a born and raised Irish Catholic man who until our team started planning for this trip and communicating with our missions partners there (Nathan & Emily Brown), had not really delved into investigating a Gospel-centered worldview. Although he was raised Irish Catholic, many in his age range and generation operate more from a secular worldview than the generations before. As the plans for the kids camp were developed and communicated, Anton began to ask Nathan more questions regarding faith and after having met and worked with our team, is even more open to the Gospel than ever before!
Belfast, Northern Ireland is one of the world’s most divided cities…literally. Similar to Berlin decades ago, there are sections of wall (called the “Peace Line”) that total over 20 miles worth throughout the city, dividing out the Irish Catholic neighborhoods from the British Loyalist neighborhoods. Each section of wall is around 30 feet tall, with barbed wire at the top of it, preventing people from trying to scale the sections. There are gates in the walls around the city; gates that are opened and closed every morning and evening, further separating the city inhabitants. Each July 11th-12th the British Loyalist residents of Belfast light huge bonfires around the city. The bonfires historically are there to commemorate the Protestant King’s victory over the Catholic King all the way back in the 1600’s, but has since been used as a means of exerting the Protestant dominance over the Catholics and an opportunity to demean and intimidate the Irish Catholics, which only keeps the population divided further socially and relationally. The bonfires can reach up to over 100 feet high in construction (it takes weeks to build them) and they are usually coupled with large celebrations and marching bands that will march right into the Irish neighborhoods nearby the bonfire sites. Overall there are between 80-100 bonfire sites every year in the city of Belfast for those few days.
Ireland has long had a history of divide between the Irish Catholics and the British Loyalists (Protestants), that date back hundreds of years. Most notably in recent history is the 30-year period known as The Troubles, where paramilitary groups from both sides would take the divide and make it violent with guns and homemade bombs. There has been much bloodshed on the streets of Belfast over the years. Throughout the city are murals, plaques and other markers for both sides that seek to communicate their side of the conflict. All of this impacts the population of the city and the country today. Most kids will grow up, either in an Irish Catholic home or a British Loyalist home, going to their own schools and never meeting someone from the other side until they reach university age. They are groomed and taught not to like each other. Even the Gospel preaching churches among the British Loyalist side rarely, if ever, seek to minister to an Irish Catholic. They would sooner take the Gospel to another part of the world than across town to the Irish Catholic neighborhoods.
Our partners, Nathan and Emily, have moved their family to an Irish Catholic neighborhood in West Belfast, seeking to share the Gospel, make disciples, and eventually plant a church among the Irish. There are evangelical churches among the British population in Belfast, but not among the Irish.
- Pray for the Browns to have many opportunities to share the Gospel, make disciples, and plant a church in West Belfast
- Pray for the hearts of the British Christians in Belfast to be softened towards their Irish neighbors and to be willing to reach out to them with the Gospel
- Pray for healing and unity among the citizens of Belfast…this is a work that only the Lord can bring about
The plan is for MeadowBrook to send another team next summer back to the youth club. Our team did an amazing job of representing Christ among those who don’t believe…so much so that they received an open invitation to come back again. May the Lord use our continued presence and partnership there in Belfast, a spiritually dark city, to shed the light of the Gospel and the hope of Christ to many!
