Let me introduce you to a beautiful friend of mine… Megan Landreth-Smith.
We first met when we served together at Newday, a youth event held once a year at the Norfolk showground. As we chatted together about how God was moving in our lives, blogging and how to make an impact for God, I knew then she was something special. I was delighted when her and her husband Joseph turned up to do TSM, the course I was involved with, and I knew it was going to change their lives. She is an incredible influencer and visionary and has a heart for those who are marginalised and living in terrible conditions (being trafficked). She is currently being an amazing wife and momma, bringing up her daughter to know who she is and that she too is a world changer, whilst somehow running her own business!!
Have there been pivotal moments in your life that have changed your direction?
So many. I truly thought I would be single for the rest of my life, until God spoke to me one day and said I was about to meet the man I would marry. There have been places I thought I was going, and He said actually no, I need you to be here, or there. We thought we were okay in our house in Hove, until God said no I need you to move inland, and we have ended up in a house 10x the size for less money than we were paying. Many changes of direction have only taught me more and more that GOD IS GOOD, He is ALWAYS working for our good, and on the other side of the process, and the change is a Promised Land!
How do you hear from God?
I feel I hear from God differently in each season. I have known the audible voice of God speaking into my life and I have known soft whispers in my ear and impressions on my heart. I often see pictures for people and feel a sense of something they’ve been through or need to hear. Recently though, I’ve been hearing Him through Hephzibah, my daughter and I’m learning that that’s enough when it often feels like I’m waiting for time to be with Him and speak to Him, when actually He’s trying to speak to me in the moment with her. It’s interesting how we determine what we think is pleasing to God. I thought for so long He only wanted to encounter me flat on my back in worship, but it was a lie I was believing. He is as present and willing in the mundane day to day as He is on the front lines of mission rescuing girls from trafficking in Cambodia.
What is your mission field/passion?
I am so hungry for orphans to find homes and for those who have been trafficked to find freedom. My heart burns for people to know they have family and a Father who radically loves them. I want the church to know how powerful He is, and that we hold the keys to every giant we face here on earth and to see the giants of slavery and fatherlessness fall. I am passionate about people living well and living fully and am passionate about children being released from a young age into their destiny.
So just a few… ha-ha!
What do you do whilst waiting for promises to be fulfilled?
I thank Jesus for what He’s already doing even in the unseen. I get myself around others who are telling the testimonies of what I am longing for and around those who will champion our family and push us to seek Him. I read books on that and study those miracles and keep them fresh in my mind and remind myself of how His goodness throughout my life. I ask Jesus what He is wanting to be to me in the waiting that he couldn’t be for me before.
How have you coped with any disappointments?
I remember Wendy Mann saying something at TSM whilst speaking on disappointment that has stuck with me since. She said something along the lines of- “we have the right to have it out with God but we don’t have the right to just dump our garbage and walk out, we must stay with Him in the throne room until we have a new perspective and hear His heart”. I don’t want disappointment to harvest within my heart and so I want to deal with it quickly. For me, I need to voice what is inside of me otherwise it festers, and I feel it continue to linger inside me. This is something I want to get better at, to go straight to Him rather than people, as it’s His perspective I need in disappointment and not someone else’s.
What do you think is the key to breakthrough?
I think the key to breakthrough is a willingness to be the one who He would bring breakthrough through. It’s a yes, it’s the life of a laid down lover- a surrendered yes.
What do you want to see God do in your life?
Wow, another killer question! I want to see God in more of His fullness and glory and to live a life abandoned to Him. I want to gain a better understanding of who I am and how He sees me. I want to see in my time the sex industry tumble because women are finding homes and restoration. I want to raise a family of world-changers who will run beyond Joseph and I and impact countries and nations.
How do you pass on what you have? What do you want your legacy to be?
I love praying for people and sharing revelations and breakthroughs with people that I believe impacts their lives.
I think there was a stage in my life I wanted the gifts of God, I wanted to be known for the wild and the crazy and the daring. But the more I know Him the more I understand it is my mandate to love and be loved by Him. I want to be known as one who loved well.
What have been your biggest obstacles and how have you overcome them?
Fear of man has been and often continues to be a big obstacle for me in many ways. When I started to hear God’s voice and went to the streets to pray for people it was a massive obstacle to overcome that sick feeling in my stomach of ‘what if I’m wrong?’ or ‘what if they reject me?’ but I often think- those who are in love don’t care what anyone thinks, and so the answer is to fall deeper in love with Him and it won’t be an issue. Perfect love casts out fear. I never want my own fear to stop someone from encountering Him. Fear of man has been an obstacle in wondering what other Christians think of us. A lot of what God has done in our lives has not made sense or been conventional to an observer, many people don’t agree with how we believe or connect with God, and as people have rejected that, had problems with that, or been uncomfortable with our faith I have learnt to understand that I live for an audience of one and my responsibility is to obey Him and what He is saying, I cannot dumb down my faith or remain more comfortable in a bid to please others at the cost of knowing more of Him. I believe it was Kris Vallotton who once said: “radical faith offends the stationary”- there are going to be people who take offence in life and that’s okay.
Finances have been one of the biggest obstacles in our lives. It is so easy to find ourselves saying ‘oh but we can’t afford that’, ‘we don’t have money for that’, and to slip into a self-pitying or fear over finances. There has been big breakthrough for us this year with finances, and how we view our finances and God just telling us to dream beyond what we see. That is one of the keys to overcoming in this area I believe, to offer what you do have. We were on a course at Bethel a few years ago where we heard a speaker say something along the lines of-“God is in the business of multiplication and He cannot multiply nothing, so stop saying you have nothing and offer Him what you do have and He will multiply it”.
Another of our favourite quotes is this:
‘If what you have in your hand is not what you need, it can’t be your harvest it must be your seed.’
We have renounced lies of that to have less money is holier and renounced lies that to have more money is not of God. God wants to lavishly bless us, and He has cattle on a thousand hills! He always wants to give!
The house we currently live in is a constant reminder to me of the goodness of God and that our finances are no problem to Him!
Where did you get your idea for your Kombucha brand and what is the heart behind it?
This is a bit of a long one. I had been working with girls in the sex industry for about 9 years when I felt God speak to me one day and say that the key to seeing the sex industry tumble is to create a company that can create jobs to provide alternative ways of employment. I had NO clue where to start but with the direction of Holy spirit we got there.
I had come across kombucha whilst living in Cambodia, and a friend of mine who I had met on a Bethel missions’ trip to Cambodia had come across it in America around a similar time. At this time, it was not big at all in the UK, but we knew the wave was coming. We met together for coffee around three years after that initial trip and both came with the idea to start a business and the thought flying around our head of why not start a kombucha business?
We are about three years in now and it’s going really well.
The heart behind HOLOS is to provide employment for survivors of trafficking…well that’s just the start! We have big dreams!
We employed our first two survivors of trafficking this summer…it was a dream come true.
You can find out more at:
Inspired by series 2:
Megan Landreth-Smith
Kingdom Calling Blog... 
Such an honest, vulnerable, brave interview. Thank you for sharing!
Thanks for taking the time to read and leave a comment. I appreciate it.