A light read...

As a YWAM (youth with a mission) community here in Harpenden we thought that it would be a good idea to kick of the new year with a little light reading. So we set aside 4 days and started to read the bible out loud! We started as the new year started, at midnight, and took hour shifts as both individuals and small groups.

Me and Christy got to get the ball rolling, with Christy leading some worship for about 30 minutes before the new year started. We were joined by two others at about 23:30, before settling into Genesis at midnight. Me and Christy read together quite a few times over the few days, which was great as we got to talk about what we had read after we finished each session.

I think we were both overwhelmed and very thankful for Jesus and what he did after reading big sections of the old testament, especially the sacrifices, regulations about clean and unclean and just how hard it was to be in a relationship with God, before his incarnation, death and resurrection.

It was a really great time to reflect on what has happened since creation and also where we are now and what is to come. Such a great way to start off the year, both very encouraging and challenging.

The Provision of God

I have seen a much greater level of God's care and provision over the Christmas period in the form of a car.

Me and Christy have been praying for a car or the means to purchase a car for the last few months knowing that we will need one for what we feel God is calling us onto. Just before Christmas we were offered a car by a member of my family who was upgrading his. So, on January 3rd, we became the owners of a 5 door Ford Focus.

It is amazing as it is everything we had been praying for, with a few little extras! It will give us the flexibility needed to engage in new ministry and to be able to see family more easily. More amazing still is that we were not only given a car, but we had someone else write to us with a desire to support us monthly, which will greatly help with the running cost of a vehicle. Completely blew me away.

When we first started praying I was not sure if I really expected to receive a car, I have heard of it happening to others, but did not think that it would happen to us. But as we prayed and we started to dream of what we would need and why, I started to get excited about it happening. God is amazing, and I think I know him a little better though this experience. I am so happy that we kept praying, and so in awe of God for his provision of exactly what we were in need of.

Teaching a Passion

I was given the opportunity to teach a few days on one of the schools that we run here in YWAM (Youth With A Mission) Harpenden. The Foundations in Community Development (FCD) school looks at all aspects of how to equip and enable community's to develop in a positive way, both those in developing nations and developed nations.

My Passion revolves around conservation and environmental stewardship and sustainability, so this is what I got to teach on, focusing on environmental stewardship. It was a really fun few of days, with lots of discussions and exploring together what it means to be a steward of this earth and looking at why as Christians we are called to do this.

This is the second time I have been asked to teach on this subject and it has really challenged the way I think about the way I live, especially the way we look after our environment. We live in such an incredible world, such a gift from God, and I for one want to see it flourish.

A New Chapter

It is always exciting to be able to start a new chapter in a book, especially when the last one was so exciting. I feel the same way about getting married, and what God has spoken to me and my beautiful wife Christy about.

The last couple of years have been incredible, God has touched my life in a way that has left me changed forever, and I have had the privilege in being apart of God touching so many other lives around me also. I have witnessed people healed physically, spiritually, emotionally. I have witnessed God provide in some pretty crazy ways, when nothing seemed possible. I have never felt so full of Joy and Hope as I do now and feel more alive and more real than ever. This last chapter has kept me of the edge of my seat!

So I am really excited about this next one, especially with the way it has started. We got married on the 6th October in the states, in a town called Hudson which is where Christy's home church is. After everything that we were involved in we had about a month together in the states to organise everything that needed sorting. All the doors just seemed to open for us when we needed them too, every little detail fell into place. We spent much time praying together also, for the day and for what it would look like next. Our photographer fell into our lap, a woman of strong faith, and only an hour away, we were her last booking of the season. The flowers worked perfectly, and the food was amazing, and family on my side who were thinking they would be unable to make it happened to get time to be able to join us.

A small example of God's faithfulness in the day, we prayed and felt we should marry on the 6th, even though we wanted to marry earlier (looking back this would not have been possible). We wanted to get married outside in Christy's backyard, but that door closed very quickly. So we prayed and felt like we should do everything, ceremony and reception at her home church. We are so glad we listened and submitted to this as the temperature dropped and we even got light snow on our wedding day!

Our biggest prayer for the day was that it would be a God focused ceremony. We were so blessed by what people said after. "How you really know God was present", "that it felt like a real wedding, not just a show/ceremony", "how full of Joy it was".

We are both so thankful for what God did and has done since, how he has brought us together. We are both really keen on continuing to write this chapter with him and see where we end up.

January DTS 2012 Graduate

The last 8 months have really been amazing, with 20 trainees from 12 different nations, it has been a real mix of ideas and experience. Such a privilege to spend this time with them, going through teaching and leading a team on outreach. To be a part of what God has done in and through them and to look back on it with them makes what I do so worth it.

This is the second School that I have staffed, and I really enjoy the graduations, they are full of both excitement over what has happened and also over what is too come. One of the greatest joys about staffing a DTS (discipleship training school) is watching how much people change and grow over the time, and also to hear what they are planing to go to next, where they feel God is taking them. Which is why we not only give our trainees a certificate of graduation, but also commission them into what God is calling them too by praying for them.

The evening itself was simple yet full of joy. As each of our trainees came up to collect their certificate they marked on a map of the UK where they had been with a thumb print. as the evening went on the board was filled with lots of colour. We had worship and a time of reflecting on some of the ways which we have all seen God impact our lives and the lives of those we met over this school. We finished by presenting the certificates and then spent the rest of the evening in a mixture of joy and sadness as we spent time together for the last time before people started to head back home.

The school was called Impact UK, and these guys certainly left a mark everywhere they went. As well as being greatly impacted themselves. God has really done so much over these last 8 months in and through all these guys, and I am excited to hear what they go on to do.

A Week In Bow

It has been a busy year so far with the team I am helping to lead here at Youth With A Mission (YWAM) in Harpenden. We have Just got back from spending a week in an area of London called Bow (famous for the Bow Bells). We went to help a local church, All Hallows Bow (AHB-www.allhallowsbow.org.uk), to run a number of activities during the Olympics to help them build relationships with the local community. We also got to spend time in Stratford, close to the Olympic venues sharing faith with the different people we met.

We spent most of our time helping to run a café, showing the Olympics for the local community. We got to have a number of really good conversations with people, seeing them come day after day. One or two of them even came along to join us on Sunday for the service. We also went round the local area talking with the people who live locally, and even getting to pray for people. Amir, one of the guys who was with us got to pray for healing for a man with terrible knees, to the point he could not walk more than to the park bench outside his house and back each day. After talking and praying with this man, he saw a big change in his knees physically, and the man was able to walk without pain. We also got to run sport with the local kids, especially football, which they all really enjoyed. Loads of people ended up joining us in the café after we met them in the local area and talked and prayed with them.

We were also treated to some amazing views of London from people who lived close to the church we were staying in.

It was a really good way to finish off this part of the DTS (Discipleship Training School) that I have been helping to run this year. God has been so amazingly faithful in providing finances and other logistics to enable everyone who came to complete the whole school.

Tent City

Here at YWAM (Youth With A Mission) in Harpenden we are having a very busy summer. The campus I am working on at the moment is hosting a great deal of YWAM Internationals summer outreaches for the Olympic season. This basically means that over the whole summer we will be seeing over 2000 people pass through the gates of the property as we go and share who God is with the people we meet, especially in London, and pray for them.

We have had to set up what we call a tent city on the back field attached to the property to accommodate all the extra people. It has been a lot of fun so far, and we are only half way through everything that is happening.

It has been a real privilege to be able to hear all that God has been doing during this summer to date, with several hundred people committing their lives to Christ and even more asking for pray and seeing God answer. From healings of all sorts of injury and illness, to stories of provision of travel and daily needs, to God opening a way for things to happen when nothing seemed possible. We are so excited to see what else God is going to do this summer, and so blessed to be apart of it.