Jesus Loves Ibiza

Published: July 19th, 2010

With sleepy eyes and weary bodies, we negotiated our bags into the 24-7 Ibiza van, more fondly known as “The Vomit Wagon.” Our last night on the streets of San Antonio was just a few short hours behind us as we made our way to the airport. As we drove the light of the approaching day steadily grew. Before long the sun came blazing over the hills, and the six of us (along with Brian, joint leader of the 24-7 Ibiza team) squinted at its grandeur.

It seemed like an appropriate closing scene to our time on this little Spanish island, which is commonly known as the “party capital” of Europe. It was as if God was sealing our two weeks there with His glorious light, reminding us of His redemption taking hold in Ibiza.

Going into their sixth year of reaching out to Ibiza, Brian and Tracy Heasley are a rather unique part of the global 24-7 Prayer family. Bruce Gardiner-Crehan has also been a part of the year-round community for the past two years. The hub of 24-7 Ibiza is at a centre that houses a prayer room and a space where workers on the island can hang out, use the internet, access the prayer room, play table tennis and wii and connect with the 24-7 Ibiza team. The team is also available six days a week to aid holidaymakers that have had too much to drink or too many drugs and need help getting to their hotel. Their efforts are focused on an area known as the “West End,” which is a concentrated strip of bars and clubs that is teeming with activity for about six months out of the year.

Our team, a handful of Americans from Oklahoma and Missouri, was the first of many short-term teams heading to Ibiza this summer. We were both honored and excited to tuck into the rhythms of the longer term 24-7 Ibiza community, which includes several people who are living in Ibiza for all or part of the six-month party season. As we walked the streets, usually between the hours of 12 a.m. and 5 a.m., we would talk, pray and interact with everyone from holidaymakers to club and bar workers, prostitutes and locals. During the nights we worked on the streets, half the team would stay in the prayer room and the other half would be out.  Each hour, we would switch places—a rhythm likened to breathing in (prayer and worship) and breathing out (being on the streets).

Countless wonderful stories came out of our time in Ibiza. One night, two of our teammates led a holidaymaker to the Lord after a powerful conversation about purity and abstinence. Another night, two of our girls were able to pray with a dancer they had built a relationship with who ended re-committed her life to Jesus. We were also amazed to see several prostitutes and a few PRs attend two of the Sunday night gatherings the team hosts on a regular basis.

Naturally, we helped many people home, and sensed on numerous occasions that our aid kept situations from going from bad to worse. We greatly enjoyed being part of the camaraderie between the bar workers (primarily young people from the UK) and the 24-7 Ibiza team. As our two weeks in Ibiza unfolded, the “prayer wall” at the centre steadily filled with written prayer requests that we collected out on the streets.

Perhaps a highlight of our trip was when Brian challenged us to extend a “random act of kindness” to the people on the island. He handed us 50 euros and left the decision up to us on how to bless somebody with it. After talking for a while as a team, we agreed that we really wanted to do something for the girls who worked as dancers in three lap dancing clubs in the West End.

A whirlwind afternoon of shopping and preparing, carried out by the ladies on the team, followed. In the end, we had three beautiful gift boxes full of both practical and fun things—makeup remover, nail files, candy, nail polish and things of the like. We included little notes telling the girls they are loved and beautiful and an invitation to a free hand and foot massage at the centre. One of girls on the 24-7 Ibiza team offers these massages on a weekly basis to the women on the island. The gift boxes were incredibly well received, and we were overjoyed to give them. We believe that God will continue to use this gesture as a way to draw these girls to Himself.

The primary question that seemed to be on the mind of the people we helped was, “Why would you show kindness to me and not expect anything in return?” It was a powerful avenue to explain the love that God first showed us, which we are in turn inspired to extend to others. In all these things, we were constantly reminded that Jesus is very, very present in Ibiza. We saw Him in the overwhelming beauty of the island, the driving rhythm of the clubs, the serenity of the prayer room and the madness of the streets all the same.

Being the hands and feet of Jesus is so vital to the Kingdom, even if it means humbly dealing with the intoxicated and messy or reaching out to the ones caught in the darker places like the sex industry. They are God’s beloved children, no matter how estranged, and we were honored to see Him in the eyes of the broken. Jesus’ words in Matthew 25:30 challenge us with this very thing when He says,

I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these, my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to Me.

Rachel Wegner oversees journalism and media for 24-7 Prayer USA. She moved to Kansas City in May 2009 to join the Campus America team and stayed on as 24-7 Prayer USA fully relaunched in January 2011. She is an active member of the Kansas City Boiler Room and involved with the thriving artists community therein.

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