I personally have only been involved with Joel’s Place for the last 2 years, but it has a much longer history than this.
Going by conversations with people Joel’s Place was originally called the windows project. On one of Aileen Jervis’s (a sort of mother to Joel’s place!) mission trips in Amsterdam she felt God was saying something to her as she walked through the Red light district of the city. Seeing the obvious difficulties the women were in, who were advertising themselves through the windows. She felt the Lord was highlighting to her the problems that go on behind windows in East Belfast but are not so public. So that’s how the windows project was born.

Some where down the line the name was changed to Joel’s Place, which came from the prophet Joel, read out in Acts 2 ‘ in the lasts days I will pour out my spirit on all people’. Up until 2 years ago we entertained the young people across the road from the strand cinema, next door to the corner house from a shop outlet.

As the years went by and relationships are built this ministry of social outreach has established itself in the community.
I suppose at the minute we’re into the 2nd leg of the journey of Joel’s Place. With the original group of young people grown up and moving in different directions we have started investing in a new generation of kids in the area while still keeping up relationships with the older ones who are in different places in their lives.

The vision we have at the present, is to continue to build relationships. We want that to be in an environment that is safe and fun, with the opportunity to share what Jesus has done in our lives and the truth of gospel.
We have quite a few kid’s that we would work with throughout the week through various activities. They mostly come from the local area around the church, with a few coming from other parts of the east. We’re really open to working with new kids and encourage more to come along and we are dedicated to ones who have been coming since the beginning. The ages of the young people range from 10 – 16 years old.

We have various programs happening throughout the week. These range from guys and girls groups, a lifeskills course, drop in and the normal youth club night. Through these programs we want to develop friendship and give young people different skills, experiences and opportunities.

Due to the nature of this work it can seem quite intense at times with time and patience needed in large supplies to push through the trust barriers to form lasting relationships. We have seen incredible breakthroughs over the last 12 months and we really have been rewarded in the perseverance shown which is really encouraging.

With all our programs we do want to be ourselves and share the gospel when appropriate, but most importantly we do want to have authentic friendships and through that let the Holy Spirit work. This sort of ministry does involve a lot of prayer and it seems like a real battle field sometimes, but we have come to notice that our prayers and the prayer of our prayer partners makes the difference. We want to have to most prayer cover available to us that’s why we are always looking for more people to be involved as possible.

Of course we cant make Joel’s Place happen without the team we have around during the week. We want the team that works in Joel’s Place to have a full part to play in the ministry and see as it their ministry and to have ownership of it. We know that if we’re going to see lasting breakthrough it’s a collective effort that’s going to make that happen.

So what does the future hold or us at Joel’s Place. Well really we just want to have an impact in our local community and the young people we work with and continue to be used by God in whatever way he wants in the way of relationships and sharing who the person of Jesus is. - TIM