Graduation with a difference

The Youth With A Mission (YWAM) campus that I work on is quite a large campus with a little over 120 full time staff, and so we have training courses running here year round. With new ones starting every quarter, and also graduating every quarter. This means I have seen a number of graduations over this last year, from the Discipleship Training School (DTS) which is the foundational course for everything that YWAM does, to design schools, humanities schools, and community development schools. Harpenden is also the main UK campus for the university of the nations (UofN) (http://www.uofnkona.edu), which is YWAM’s university; training and equipping people to enter all spheres of society (i.e. politics, science, healthcare etc).

The graduation that we had last week was special because it was more than just a school graduation, it was a degree ceremony for two trainees. The trainees who were awarded degrees have undertaken a number of different training courses, in several different places round the world over the last few years. These courses have given them credits with certain faculties within the UofN and now they have enough to be awarded a degree within this faculty. It was great to be able to honour them for all the work they have done, and what they have achieved. One graduated in the sciences, with a degree in community development, and the other in humanities with a degree in nation building and reconciliation.

It is such a blessing to see the people who you help to teach and mentor achieve the qualifications and then go onto use that either within YWAM, but more often outside the organization. To be able to see them living the passion that they have along side their faith is very inspiring, and I am looking forward to seeing many more graduating over the years as this campus grows and runs more training.

A chance to teach...

The foundations in community development course (FCD) that is currently running here on the campus gave me the chance to do a week of teaching with their trainees this month. I was asked to focus on environmental stewardship, which is a passion of mine, especially after working in marine and terrestrial conservation in the Seychelles for several years.

The trainees are form a variety of backgrounds (Korea, Malawi, Switzerland, Cameroon, Rwanda, Egypt, USA and England), which was amazing. Getting to spend time with such a variety of culture and worldview was a real privilege. We spent the week having discussions around a number of topics that I felt would best help them in this subject. I am not so good at just speaking/lecturing people, I like to get them to think, so to have the freedom to facilitate and have discussion was amazing. The trainees all said at the end of the week that they enjoyed sharing ideas and trying to work things out together.

I felt that they learned a lot, and it was really good that they saw that it is no good addressing just the problem and setting up legislation. You actually have to get involved with the community and educate and mentor the people so that they can catch the vision for what they have. It is more than just about looking after the animals, it involves resource management, such as fresh water etc, pollution management and so on, it is a big subject.

But why is this a passion of mine? Why do I think we should be looking after the planet? Because God has given it to us as a gift and asked us to look after it for him. God created it all. If you were given something by a good friend, and told you can use it, but that they would like it back eventually, are you going to look after it so that they can have it back in good condition? It would be selfish if you did not care for what your friend gave you.

Prayer walking London

On Wednesday, eight of us went to London to join an amazing man for a prayer walk. His name is Mark and he took us around the City of London (the square mile that was originally settled and where the city grew from, now the financial district). It was a really great time visiting some significant places. We started at the Tower of London, walking and praying until we reached St Paul’s Cathedral, stopping to pray along the way. 

Mark shared a lot about the history and spiritual significance of the area. The city itself has an amazing heritage having had, at one point, 96 churches in the square mile itself! It was great to be able to pray and intercede for the big decisions and trading that is done here. Also to speak blessing over the place, asking God to restore it’s heritage. 

When we got to St Paul’s Cathedral we met a few of the people who were camped around it protesting. It was a great chance to talk and pray with them. One guy was so thankful for us praying for the integrity and protection of the members of the camp that he prayed for us also and was in tears. It is amazing to see what God can do when you step out and engage with people, even in small things like prayer walking. I love to be able to engage with what God is doing, to see what He’s done in the past and through that see what He’s doing now and what He wants to do in the future.

London truly is called to be a city of blessing and influence for the Kingdom, a place of diversity and Father’s covering to the nations. 

Back to Batchwood

Last Friday I took a group from the current September DTS (Discipleship Training School) to Batchwood (a local club). Where we give out water and lollies to the folks coming and going to the club, and talk with the people we meet if they want to. A group of us goes there most Friday’s and it’s always really good. 

It’s been a few months since I last went, as I was away leading a short-term mission trip, so it was really nice to see the bouncers again and catch up with them, they always enjoy having us come down. The club was not as busy as it has been, but everyone who came with me ended up in significant conversations with people. I spent about 45 minutes chatting with a guy called Matt before him and his mates headed off. His comment to me was that it is really nice to be able to talk with someone who listens. He had some really deep questions that he wanted to talk about, but said he has found it really difficult to find anyone to be able to talk with. He was really open to God and very close to actually making a commitment to follow Christ.

One of the guys we talked with (on the left)

We did not manage to pass out all the water that we took, but we certainly blessed a few people, including all the taxi drivers that come and wait for the club goer’s at the end of the night. It is really nice to go and reach out, and do something that people do not fully understand, but really appreciate. So many said that it was really cool what we were doing. We all had a lot of fun, and I ended up going to bed about 5am on Saturday.

Something Matt said to me really got me thinking, “You get two types of people, those who listen to listen and those who listen to talk.” If Christians are really going to be people who make a difference to the those around us then we need to get good at listening to them, and hearing where they’re at and what’s going on in their lives, not just engaging with people to try and tell them things that maybe they are not in a place to hear.

Being in Church is great, being with other Christians and encouraging each other, but we need to get out there as well. I really believe that Jesus is walking the streets, and you see so much of God’s heart for you and those you meet when you go on that walk with Jesus.

A Gathering in London

I spent the last week (6^th-12^th November) in London at a DTS (Discipleship Training School) Gathering. What is this you ask? Well it is a coming together of a number of different DTS’s from different Youth With A Mission (YWAM) bases from around the UK together with two Schools Of Evangelism (SOE) (one from Norway, the other from Carlisle). This was organized by the Forever team (which I am helping with part-time at the moment, www.forever2012.com) and is run as a week of teaching on evangelism and also actual outreach in partnership with the churches in the local area.  We are focusing on cities that are hosting Olympic events at the moment, so they have been run in Cardiff, Newcastle, Manchester, Weymouth/Portland and now London, with the next in Coventry in March.

Numbers can vary from gathering to gathering, but we had over 200 people join us in London in an area called Tower Hamlets. It was an incredible and encouraging week for all involved. The churches really loved to have us alongside them and everyone really wanted to get stuck-in to what was going on and didn’t want to miss God. In the end we had hundreds of stories of how God touched people’s lives in the area through a big range of outreach activities such as: prayer walking, litter picking, various sports and art outreaches, and treasure hunting (asking God who to talk to and going out and talking to them). Also something as simple as engaging people for a chat and hot chocolate on a sofa in a park. Everyone really enjoyed the range and different things that they got involved with and it was a really good time of listening to the local community and blessing the area.

The week was very significant for me, with God speaking more about the next few years and also having my heart broken for people in a new, deeper way. On the Thursday afternoon we had some free time, so I asked God what I should do. He told me to go for a walk (which ended up being about 7 miles!) After an hour of walking, while praying for the places I wandered through, I felt God ask me to buy a bag of lollies and that I should give them out as I walked back toward the church we were staying in, because He wanted to show me some things. 

As I kept walking I offered lollies to all sorts of people, but most of them didn’t take any. The majority of people who did take them were those that wouldn’t normally be noticed. I got to bless people sweeping the streets, people who are homeless, young and old etc. I approached a group of young guys, probably between 16 and 20, and offered them lollies to which they asked, “So why are you doing this then?” A very good question as it probably does not happen very often! When I told them God had told me to do it they did a double take and thanked me for my craziness, it was great! 

I also stopped to talk with a woman who was working trying to sign people up to support St Mungo’s (a homeless charity). We talked for about half-an-hour, in which she told me that she was once a Christian and that meeting someone like me gave her hope in people again. 

But the conversation that really broke my heart was the last guy I met. He was sitting on a bench, drunk, and threw his can of drink in my direction as I walked toward him. When he spotted me he looked really confused, I offered him a lollie and as he took it he also took off his hat and made space for me on his bench. He seemed so crushed, so hopeless, his first comment to me was “well I guess this means that God hasn’t given up on me yet.” We sat and talked for 45 minutes, or so, about God and what had happened in his life. He told me he was an ex-Catholic priest and from what he said he had been greatly crushed recently. What broke my heart most was that he stopped part way through our conversation and started yelling, almost sobbing, that he was a Son of God, but he was in despair as he didn’t know how to come back. I prayed with him a number of times during that encounter and when we parted he managed to stand up straight after a bit of a struggle and I gave him a hug and blessed him. He told me as we parted that before I sat down he was going to end his life that night, but now he was having second thoughts and thanked me for giving him hope. It was really interesting for me to be there with him, as he was seeing God through me, he kept looking at me and saying things like “you look like an angel.” My heart broke, I felt a bit more of what God’s heart is for the broken in this world, and it hurts!

I talked with a good friend of mine when I got back to the church, as I had questions and needed to pray with someone myself. The thing he said that really stuck with me was, “Jesus is walking the streets looking for the broken wanting to reach out to them, and he needs our help to do that.”

How can we just sit back and not do anything when God is weeping? When we ask God to break our hearts for what breaks His, are we really ready for what this means?

That's My King!

I was passed this the other day, and it really inspired me and lifted my spirit, so I wanted to share it. You may have seen it before! It speaks for itself, watch and enjoy :)

That's My King! from Albert Martin on Vimeo.

A Week of Prayer

We have just come to the end of an amazing week of 24/7 prayer on the campus. The best thing was that when we first started talking about having a week of prayer we thought it should be focused on the U.K. but when we got together, prayed and asked God how the week should look we felt He said that we shouldn’t have a focus, but that it was about Him and intimacy with Him. This by far has been my favourite week of prayer that I’ve ever done because we had no agenda. The week was His, not ours.

It was such a special time for everyone who came. We had a small team to cover the prayer room for every hour which meant that everyone else here was free to come and go as they pleased. Allowing them to spend time with God, no pressure and only His agenda. It was a time of freedom for a number of people, and God spoke a lot about who He is, and who we are. A time of firming up our identity in Him individually and as a campus. 

As the week started we felt like we should have a day of pure worship. So on the Wednesday we set up some times of live worship and had an ipod at the ready to cover the rest. In the end the ipod didn’t get used much as many people came in and picked up the guitar to play and worship, which was awesome! By the end of the week God had spoken a number of very specific things for this next season for us as a campus and also a number of things for the U.K. as we move toward the Olympics.

All in all it was an incredible week. The younger people on the campus stood up and declared that they are not satisfied with where they are and want to see more of God. That they want to see God’s kingdom move in this world. All of the people who made up the core team and organized this were under 35, most in their late teens or early 20’s. God is awesome.

Reflection of identity

I finished staffing a Discipleship Training School (DTS) about a month ago and after the trainees graduated I suddenly found myself quickly moving from doing a lot of stuff to doing very little. This was difficult for me because I like to be busy, as it makes me feel needed and effective. I discovered that I’d been believing some lies, that ‘what I do is who I am’ and ‘what I do makes me valuable and important’! It was only when I slowed down that I realised this. I was suddenly thinking, “Oh no! now what do I do? I need to be doing something or people will not want me around.”

It was in this struggle that God spoke to me and asked me a question; he asked me “Why are you doing what you do? Does being a DTS leader define who you are? Or are you defined by your character, who I made you and gifted you as?” Then God took me to a verse in the Gospel of Mark where He says to Jesus “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.” Even though I had read this verse a number of times before and had been told that God said this to Jesus prior to Him doing any ministry, I was greatly challenged because this thought went through my head ‘So God is pleased with me not because I do things, but simply because I am who I am.’ This was my revelation; I don’t need to do things to please God or to be accepted by Him, but he accepts me whether or not I do things. He accepts me for simply being me, just as I am.

As we spend time with God and discover more of who He is and who we are in Him, we will find our peace. It is not the things we do that define us, but who we are. Why should we strive to be recognised and accepted by the world, trying to show the people around us that we are good at this or needed in that, when we are already accepted and good at what God wants us to be? No one can be better than you at being you and the only way we find out about who we are is by spending time with God, in His word and seeing who He is.

A School Graduates

The Discipleship Training School (DTS) I have been staffing graduated at the start of September, which was such an amazing evening. It was really good to look back over the 6 months of the school and see the growth of all the trainees, and us as staff also. It’s funny, just because you are staffing a DTS definitely does not mean you have all the answers. I have certainly grown and been more challenged doing this school than when I was a trainee a little over a year ago.

It was such an amazing experience to be able to hand each of the trainees their certificate and bless them. They have all come such a long way since we started the school and I have had so much fun living and traveling with them all. The thing I loved most about the graduation was to hear each of the trainees tell the community here at Youth With a Mission Harpenden (YWAM Harpenden) what God has done in their lives over the time of the course.

Being a part of this school, part of this process, has really brought home to me how powerful discipleship actually is. Staffing the school  really helps to bring to life what Jesus did with his followers and the transformation you see with all of them after Jesus has gone to heaven. Being on both ends of the process of the DTS has really opened my eyes to what it means to really speak truth into someone’s life and talk through the hard stuff, to truely challenge someone to grow. I really appreciate those people in my life who challenge me and bring correction to me in areas of my character that are a little rough!

Discipleship is such an amazing gift that God has given us, and brings such amazing revelation about who God is and transformation in the lives of those we invest into, it is such a privilege and a hard thing to do at times, but it is so worth it.

DTS Outreach

I have been a bit silent the last few months, but what an amazing few months it has been! I have spent the summer taking a small team of people to 5 different nations on a short-term mission outreach. We started off in Macedonia, then moved to Romania, from there we headed over to Israel and Palestine before heading back to the UK, where we spent our time in Manchester.

It was one of those experiences that I will always look back on in amazement, one of my favourite summers so far! The group we took were from a discipleship training school (DTS) that I have been involved with this year. This trip was the practical part of their course, where they got to put into practice the things they have learnt. I have massively enjoyed working alongside the trainees and have seen God work some amazing things in their lives, some amazing transformation, both in them and in myself also. I have certainly been stretched a lot doing this school, and I am really looking forward to staffing the next school in January.

The whole trip gave us chances to do a good range of ministry, ranging from simply face painting and balloon modelling in local parks, picking up litter, to speaking in churches, doing dramas on the streets, and praying for people to be healed all the way to intercession and prayer walking.

The most incredible thing about this outreach was how much we saw God provide for us as a team. We felt strongly that God had spoken to us about going to all these different places, but we did not have the funds to be able to go everywhere, so we left the base in faith, trusting that God had spoken to us as a school. The best story about this provision was halfway through our trip when we were on our way to Israel. When we got on the plane the guy we were going to see still did not have any accommodation for us, but by the time we landed he had found us a place and not only that, it was free for us to stay! Even more incredible was that we were also given a place to stay for free when we reached Manchester, but not only that, we were given a gift of Tesco vouchers which covered food for our entire stay in Manchester. It has been a real journey of learning more about what it really means to step out in faith, and to trust in the word of God and to act on it, even if it does not make sense.

We also saw God move in some pretty amazing ways in all these countries, people were so open to talking with us about what faith is and who God is. We saw God move in power and heal whole villages of people, as well as so many people inviting God to be part of their lives. We saw God transform others as well as ourselves. I know that everyone on the team was massively impacted by the amount that we saw God do when we stepped out in faith.

One of my favourite examples of this happened in Romania. We did a lot of work in some of the local gypsy villages there. They are the poorest group of people in the country and really cannot afford anything, including medical care. You often find that a whole village will get together to be able to buy a horse to help with the work. We were able to do some teaching with the kids, helping them get a basic education. This lead to the kids taking us into the village they live in to meet their families and because we had people in our team from South Korea and Africa, we were instant celebrities! This lead to us being able to do a drama and pray for a few people for different pain they had. The fun thing was God healed those few people and so the kids started to run through the village telling everyone what had happened, taking us with them. We were able to pray for people with sight problems, kidney pain, back pain, joint pain, other illnesses, and they were all healed, every single one! I got to pray with one woman, with her grandkids, who was so sick she did not have the strength to even raise a hand. We were told she had been like this for a few weeks, but once she had been prayed for she got up and started doing stuff, she even went to draw water from the well in the village. We saw God turn the village upside down while we were there, one of the women even wanted to turn her house into a church.

Another incredible experience was when we were in Palestine, just outside Bethlehem. We did a lot more intercession in Israel and Palestine than anything else. One evening we felt God had told us to go to worship and pray in an area called Shepherd’s field, where it is thought that the angels appeared to the shepherds when Jesus was born. So we went, and it was the most powerful worship time I have ever experienced. God showed us prophetic pictures for the nation, He gave us words to speak out over the situation that is happening, we ended up staying for about 5 hours. It was such a special time for everyone, we all left having met God in a very different way to what we had ever experienced before.

It has really been an amazing few months, and I know that my relationship with God has grown greatly, and so has that of those who were with me. It still amazes me how truly awesome God is and the way he provides when we think that it is impossible. I am constantly seeing more of who God is and who I am. It is such a humbling experience, doing what I am doing, but I love it and am so excited to be able to do the things God has called me to in this season.

God is so good.

Mind Body Spirit...

So what is this Mind Body Spirit, well it is a new age spiritualist festival. What did we do? Well we hired a stand for the week as we felt that God wanted us to be there. We did two different things, the main thing was what we called "Creation prayer" basically asking God who the person was, what he wanted to say to them, how he sees them. The other thing we did was healing prayer.

It was such an amazing week, we prayed for over 500 people at the stand, as well as so many more during the week around the festival. The thing that we all took away from the this is that God just broke your heart for people, he is so for reaching out and touching people, I have no idea how many people we actually prayed for and talked to during the week, but the biggest thing God wanted to say to people was that he loved them. And as you told people this, after sharing words of encouragement, knowledge etc, people would just break down. The theme of the festival was Love, and people just needed to know that It was God who truly loves them. The whole experience just blew me away, so many people so hungry to know truth. We were given 100 gospels of John, and we left the festival having given them all away, but we did not just give them to anyone, we gave them to people we had significant conversations with, people who God told us to. We had a number of people come to faith as well, and we were able to give them info on local church and how to find out more. The other cool thing was there were three other Christian stands, one called the Jesus experience, who are a group of Messianic Jews, who do similar stuff to us, but using the Jesus Deck as a tool for sharing the gospel, one that did dream interpretation, the only stand in the place which did, and the other was a massage place. All the other stands you had to pay for, but all the Christian stands were for free, we had a verse before we started from Isaiah which says come and buy bread without money! And we sent people between the different Christian stands and prayed for each other and worshiped together. It was amazing.

I want to share two particular stories from the week which really ruined me, but there were so many, I would never be able to put them al here.

The first we prayed for a lady, and I have never had an experience like it, we were praying and asking God who she is, and what he wanted to say to her, and I had the deepest ache in the depths of my spirit while praying. It was an ache of longing, we had a picture of Jesus just weeping, crying out for her, desperate for her, and that is what I was feeling. We had some other really specific words for her, and also got to pray healing for her, which was instant. She broke down and kept asking if we tell other people what we were telling her. The amazing thing about the week was that no two was the same, God knows everyone intimately and we saw that. She went away after we sat and talked for a while with a Gospel to read to find out more about who Jesus is. Time after time we just shared truth with people and you saw them transform before your eyes, they would light up with hope.

The other story I want to share really broke my heart. We were praying for a woman for healing, as she told us that basically her immune system had stopped working properly, so her body was basically rejecting itself. so we prayed for healing and I really felt God give me the word rejection, that she felt rejected by her family and the other things in her life, and she told us yes and that she had accepted it. So we prayed some more and God said she needed to forgive those people, and also to repent for accepting the rejection, which she did not seem keen to do, we talked with her a bit longer, so she prayed forgiveness, but you could see it was not from her heart she just spoke the words. Because she had accepted the lie that she is rejected her body was physically reacting to what she believed in her spirit. As she left my heart broke, because I know God wanted her to be free, but she was not willing to accept it. It really challenged me, to see how desperately God wanted her to be free, but that she did not see it.

It was the most amazing time, and I know that I will not see things the same again. To see God touch so many lives in so many ways, to see how desperately he wants to share with people, but how gentle he is in that as well, he never forced his way in, he offered and waited.

My prayer is that all those seeds would be protected and grow, our link outside the festival was with alpha, each card we gave to people had the alpha site on the back and we told people that if they want to find out more about Jesus that is a really good way to do that.

God is so amazing, I can not truly express here what happened over the week, but He touched so many lives, like I said he is amazing.

Our Light...

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."


This is a quote from A Return To Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles by Marianne Williamson.


This quote has always challenged and inspired me to think about what my own light is, what does it mean to be a child of God? and what is this Glory of God within us?


So what does it mean to let our lights shine, simply to show the world who God is, his spirit is within us, the spirit that brings life, and I do not mean the everyday, I mean life in all that it can be, in fullness, after all Jesus said himself that he came so that we could all have life and life in its fullness. For me this means that that hole that I felt, always wanting to find something to fill it, but never managing to, has been filled. I have peace and satisfaction with life, knowing that God, who created everything, loves me and accepts me. That in itself is a humbling thought! "I am unworthy, but not worthless" is what someone said to me last week. In fact I am so very uniquely valuable, we all are, as God himself gave the most precious thing he could to save me. I think that living the truth of this is one way to let our light shine, not cutting myself down, but in-fact acknowledging that God actually does see me as valuable enough to give himself for me, he actually likes who I am. No matter what that looks like, he still loves me and accepts me.


The other way to live the glory of God that is found within us is to know what the purpose that God created us for, which is to be expressions of who he is on this earth. We do something on the YWAM (youth with a mission) base I work on that we call freedom prayer, which is basically asking God who we are, who he created, and then asking God what is getting in the way, what lies we have in our lives that stop us living this. Fear of what other people think is probably the biggest thing that holds us from living this as real! I know it has been in my life, but God is so good, and I love him so much, he has freed me from so much in my past.


I think that is the key to life, it is living in the love that God has for us, we can never be rejected by him, as he has adopted us as his children, and promises never to leave us, and God is always true to his word. And when we live in that love, other things do not seem so big anymore. There is great security in it, and all the things that God says about himself become more real. As we live in that freedom, that security, other people want to come round it, as they feel safe, it gives them a place where they can ask questions and find freedom also. That is what I see when I look at this quote. As we live in the reality of who God calls us to be, it releases others around us to also be able to live in that freedom. I have found this to be true in my own life, as I have spent time around people who are really on fire for God, I find they have a deep passion for living life, and it is infectious, I also want this. It challenges me, but also greatly encourages me that maybe I can also have that, and I have found over these last couple of years this to be true. As I spend time round people who are living in the freedom of God's love, I find it rubs off, and I am also able to live in that freedom, and then I notice people round me, who I can speak encouragement to also, and see them move into greater freedom. It is one bit cycle really...


Needless to say I love God, I certainly do not have all the answers, far from it, I still do not understand a lot of things that happen, but I love God and trust that he sees more than me, and I want to know more of who he is. It is a really exciting journey.

A Week In Cambridge

So we headed to Cambridge for a week with the April 2011 DTS (Discipleship Training School) which I am helping to lead. It was a time of real strengthening of friendships as a team, we all had such fun together. The city itself is so beautiful, with the university area and all the old town, buildings several hundred years old. We just don't make them like that anymore. The city is also full of bikes, simply because it is easier to get around on a bike.

We joined up with the YWAM team in Cambridge and got the chance to do a number of things during the week. The really cool thing about the week was that this is the first time that YWAM in Cambridge has had a team come and join them, and the week we were there another team had come over from the States, so there were a lot of us!

The first couple of days was spent working with a new church plant, we ended up going door to door to talk about the church and offer prayer for people. i was so surprised at how open people were, and how many people truly wanted prayer over some really significant things in their lives, we even got to pray for healing for people.

The other few days were spent doing a lot of prayer round the city, as the team in Cambridge have launched a new 24/7 prayer initiative for the next few weeks, with the aim of establishing a permanent prayer house in the city. This was really amazing, being able to write down things that God had said. I also found out that nearly 20 years before God had spoken about the establishing of a prayer house in the city, so to see the vision and dreams being walked toward is amazing.

All in all the team and I had such an amazing time, it was a really good way to be able to spend time together encouraging each other and actively practicing some of the things that have been taught during the school so far.

The team :)

Walking With God...

I am in Cambridge this week and found myself with an evening free so, since I lived here until I was almost 9 (which in actual fact is over 15 years ago!), decided that I would go for a walk with God round the area I lived. It was so much fun, and I got to see God do so many random things.

I started off popping into a local tesco, to get a couple of bits for the team I am with, and ended up having a conversation with a lady about the little pocket bags you can now get, and was able to bless her before she left. After that I walked down the main street and stopped to talk to a couple at a bus stop outside the church that my family was at when we did live here. I asked if they knew where the road that I used to live on was, and found out they were also visiting the area, but thankfully they had a map with them, so we were able to find it on the map, and we blessed each other as we parted company. So after I found my old street, I did a crazy thing and knocked on the door of the house I used to live in, and was greeted by a really lovely lady, who must have been in her 50's. We talked for a few minutes about the house and what had changed, and she said that If I wanted to see it I could come back during the day when her husband was also around, but I did et to bless her before wandering off. I headed toward my old primary school, but was not entirely sure where I was going, but I could not find anyone to ask, so asked God instead and then headed in the direction I felt was right, and got there without getting lost! Thanks God. It was so much smaller than I remember it, in fact everything was, but I guess I have gotten a bit bigger since. I then headed back to where we are staying and on the way asked God if there was anyone I could pray for before I finished my walk, and he lead me to a leisure centre, where i met two guys, Ben, who was about 3 inches taller than me and well built, and Dave, who was in a wheelchair. When I asked them if I could pray for them they immediately said yes, so I asked if there was anything specific, to which they said no, just a general prayer of blessing. So I got to pray for them, just like I had asked God, it was so amazing, to see an answer to prayer like that.

Like I said, I had so much fun, and even came away with about 30p in my pocket, as I kept finding coins whenever I stopped, God is just awesome. I think the biggest thing for me during this walk was taking a step of faith on those little prompts that I felt were from God, such as knocking on the door of the house I used to live in, or asking those two guys if I could pray for them. It's funny, when you do step out and follow what you feel God is saying, you see God touch the people you meet, but he also touches you as well, it is such an encouragement, such a faith boost.

I think this quote from William Temple sums up my walk.

"When I pray, coincidences happen, and when I don't, they don't."

A Weekend In Crawley!

So we headed down to a place called Crawley for the easter weekend to help out with a new church plant, aimed at the Portuguese speaking community (mainly Brazilians) in the area. The church has been planted by a couple who work out of the Holmsted manor YWAM base, which was the first base here in the UK. Such a beautiful place to spend the easter weekend, especially with the weather we had.

The team spent Saturday doing a mix of evangelism, basically inviting people to the church for the easter service, and also serving some of the local people by helping to clear gardens etc, it was so much fun. I got to sit and chat with a guy who had not been to church for nearly 15 years. He suffers from sinus headaches, and so is going in for an operation in a few weeks, he was really open for talking, and I felt I should ask him if he believes in prayer. His answer to me was that he could not remember the last time he did pray. So I asked him if he was open to me praying for him there and then, for his operation etc, and his face lit up, so I got to pray with him in the middle of the town, it was amazing. I love doing this sort of thing, and I had a revelation during the time that we were in Crawley, that in actual fact, I really do love it, sharing with people the hope that I have, and being able to pray for them, there is such life in it.

On Sunday we spent the morning planning the church service, which they hold in the afternoon. The team ran the whole thing, which was such a blessing for the guys who have planted the church as they normally do everything as a couple. So to have a team who could do worship, testimony, preaching and the kids work was an amazing easter gift for them. It was also a lot of fun for all of us, and I know that the simple act of sharing what God is doing is such a faith building exercise for both us and the people you share with. I am sure that there were a few nerves especially  as a few of the team had never done anything like this weekend before, but we all left having had an amazing time, with stories of God. Such a great way to bond as a team; to be encouraged, and encourage others.

I think that one of the highlights for al f us as a team was simply the amount of food we were given, the Brazilians know how to do a BBQ, full of meat, meat and more meat. Such a great time of fellowship.

Phil Went To A Club!

I want to start this with a question, what were you doing last Friday?

I found myself at a place called Batchwood, which is a club close to the base. I am helping to run some of the outreach from here that focuses on reaching out to the people who go to the clubs, basically handing out water and lollies’. It leads to some really interesting conversations, as the clubbers try to understand why a group of people would come and spend time at the club and give out stuff for free. We do this at least once every two weeks (on Fridays) and I took with me a group from the new DTS (Discipleship training school) that started here at Harpenden two weeks ago, for which I am full time staff. It is always so much fun, and the guys who came with me all came away raving about it, which is always nice!

The guys who own the club always enjoy having us come and spend time, and you get to have some really deep conversations with the bouncers and taxi drivers about who God is and what life is. I reckon they think we are a bit crazy heading down and spending our night round the club, but they really enjoy the lollies. One of the girls who came with me ended up in an amazing conversation with a girl who had recently come down from Durham. She had been going to a church there that does similar things at some of the local clubs in that city. We got to chat with her about where she was at and encourage her. I love it when God brings people together, so we invited her to come to the church that meets on the base on a Sunday evening. The night was full of other conversations ranging from drunk people thinking we were crazy to the girl above, and one of the bouncers asking some really deep things about what it is to be a Christian, but most are short, kind of double take passing chats about why we are doing what we are doing, most people think we are nuts, but at the same time tells us they have a lot of respect for what we are doing.

I always enjoying going, chatting and sharing with people, as it really challenges me in my faith, and where I am at with God, and keeps me pressing into him.

A quote from Phil Jones (one of the DTS trainees) – “I thought that it was a fun way to serve people, and one where it is love that is received. I initially thought it would be fairly pointless, but now I think that doing it consistently will see that love go deeper for the guys who are meet regularly, especially the staff. Even just going once I was asked by a lot of people why I was doing it, which both challenged and encouraged me to want to go again.”

Amazing Miricles

I am constantly amazed by God's faithfulness, and his willingness to be apart of our lives.

This little story started last November, when I was helping to run a week of evangelism in Newcastle. We had a time of praying for people to ask God to heal them, which was incredible in itself, seeing God really touch people, setting them free from so many different things. There was one girl in particular that we prayed for, she had cysts on her ovaries, which she has had all her life, and the doctors had told her were incurable. Obviously there was no way to tell at the time what God had done, but she said she felt peace, so we thanked God.

Its been about 6 months since we prayed for her, and last week I got a facebook message from her to tell me she had been back to her doctor in Spain for a regular check. When he ran the tests he had found no sign of the damage, and he was unable to explain what had happened. Such an amazing story, and one that I will not forget.

The most amazing thing is, I had not really thought about it much since we had said goodbye at the end of that week. But she had obviously not forgotten about the prayer and nor had God. I was completely blown away when I got the message, God is so good. I really think it shows God's joy at being able to be involved with us, and how much he just wants us to take that step and ask. The more I hear about the things God does, the more convinced I am that he really does want to be right there with us, involved in both the good times and the bad.

3...2…1…Launch

It has been an exciting weekend here in Harpenden. One of the tings which I personally love about working with YWAM is the values, and I saw several of them actively lived out this weekend, with the launch of an album by a band here on the oval.  The band in question is called Evergreen (which comes from the verse in Hosea 14v8) (http://www.evergreenband.co.uk/ or http://www.facebook.com/evergreenbanduk), and is made up of 4 guys, one Mexican, one Englishman, and two Americans. Their heart and focus is going into pubs etc where not many people currently reach out to and playing music they have written as praise to God, alongside over bands, with people also praying and chatting to people in the places they pray. It is an amazing ministry opportunity and has lead to so many amazing stories of Gods faithfulness. I love these guys, and they had the amazing pleasure of heading to northern Island at the end of last year to record a professional album.

So, on Friday the 4^th March the base hosted an album launch event, to which over 100 people came. They were also supported by a couple of other acts, one guy who helped to start the band but then moved on to other things he felt god call him to, and the other was a band who the boys have played alongside a lot over the last year. The whole evening was amazing, so much fun. The boys really put their all into the gig, and the crowd was amazing, each feeding off each other.  I have always enjoyed hearing these guys, and the heart behind the music, it always speaks of hope.

This whole Launch is in itself a testimony to the way God has had his hand in this journey, and his faithfulness in providing the finances etc to actual come to the point that these guys now are.

So what values have we seen lived out through this? The first has to be “Be Visionary” the pioneering of new ideas, and listening to where God is leading, and these guys have really run after a new way to reach out from this base here in Harpenden. The other is “Champion Young People” I think the guys would agree that the eldership and leadership of the base here has been an amazing support for them as they have sought and run after what they felt God had called them into.

The Call

“If a commission by an earthly king is considered an honour, how can a commission by a Heavenly King be considered a sacrifice?”

~ David Livingstone ~

This quote was used by one of the teachers here on the current discipleship training school while teaching the staff team last week, and it really hit home for me, in a good way. You know when something really significant is said to you, and it really gets you thinking, it really goes deep, this was one of those moments, and I wanted to share some of the things I really felt God challenge me on and speak to me about.

I think the biggest thing was to do with where I came from. When I came into mission I gave up a very good job, in the seychelles, which I absolutely loved. I moved back to the UK to join youth with a mission to be a part of their discipleship training school, to invest into and equip young people to take up the call God has for their lives. I have always said that I would not want to be doing anything else, but I do miss the life I had in the seychelles, which was something I know God had also called me into for a time. I guess deep down I looked at it like I had made a big sacrifice to come here and do this, but in actual fact, what a privilege it is to be asked by the creator of the universe to do something for his kingdom.

This lead to me praying and talking to God about what it is I am doing, and he told me that I am helping to give skills to and equip all those people who come and do a discipleship training school here at the base so they can walk into the different commissions he has for them. Be that in full time missions work, or in business, science, at home, overseas, wherever it is, what a privilege it is for each one of us to embrace the thing that God has set aside for us to do. Paul, one of the writers of the bible, wrote this in one of his letters, and after hearing the above quote, it suddenly meant something more significant:

"For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."

We all feel good when we are given a promotion at work, or a special contract, or are recognised for our hard work in this world, this is certainly not wrong, but how do we look on it when God has asked us to give up something, to walk into something he has for us. and how willingly do we do it? I will not lie, it is not an easy thing to give something up we enjoy, but when the king of kings has something that only we can do for him, should we not run into it willingly, I know my attitude has been challenged on this over these last few months.

Truly, what a privilege it is for us to do something everlasting for God's kingdom, I am so excited to see what the next couple of years brings, and where God calls all these amazing young people that I will have the pleasure of spending time with.

A Graduation Happens

Well, if you have been following this blog then I hope that you know I am involved with the DTS (Discipleship training school) centre here at the YWAM (youth with a mission) base in Harpenden. If you did not already know that then…..now you do!

This last week has been exciting for us as a team as we have had the graduation of the school that started in September. Although I was not one of the official school staff, as we run several a year, we all get involved in some way behind the scenes, and it is an amazing privilege to see where God has brought all of the trainees that have been a part of this school. The main focus of the graduation is to celebrate the faithfulness of God in bringing these young people to a new place with him, and it is done by the trainees, with a little help from us as staff.

We had to spilt the September school into three teams for the actual outreach phase of their school, which is where we take them for close to three months of practical short term missionary work. One team went to Chile and Paraguay, the second team went to Thailand, and the third were in Germany and France. They also spent 2-3 weeks in the UK as we are a UK base we always want to do outreach into this country as well, so one group were in Scotland, one in Northern Ireland and the other spent time in England (spending 10 days in Manchester, which is my home).

All the teams came back with incredible stories of how God provided for each team (none of the teams went with enough money, but felt God had said go and so did, and all of them saw God provide what was needed where they went!) They also came back with such amazing stories of how God healed people, such as one guy who was blind, but also of how God had challenged their world view and had broken all of their hearts for the various issues of injustices they faced. The other awesome thing is that they are all determined to return home and make a difference where they find themselves next, some at university, others at home, and a few even feel that God is asking them to return to the mission field in some of the places they visited.

It is always such a joy to see how God has grown them other the time of DTS and to know that they are all on fire for God. The graduation is also a great time to think back on my own DTS and see where God has brought me since, and be so thankful for his provision, and joy in life. God is so amazing, and I never want to live another day without that relationship with him, he saved my life in a very real way, and I will forever be grateful to him.