A New Home

We have recently moved to West Sussex, to a place called Holmsted Manor. It is another location of YWAM (Youth With A Mission) here in England. It is a beautiful place, and also YWAM England’s oldest location. Here we will continue to help train and lead mission trips as a couple. We will also be helping to develop some new ministry with YWAM aiming at Brighton on the south coast of England.

We have settled in well over the last month and have made some very good friends. We are both very excited to see this new season with God looks like and where we end up going.

Cutting Things Down!

I had a great opportunity a couple of weeks ago to help start something with a friend of mine. Here in Harpenden the council do tree planting and clearing of the large common area with volunteers once a month. We thought that this would be a great way to be able to help serve the local Harpenden community, and to get to know a few more people here in Harpenden. This is something that we will now be doing each month, along with the trainees.

It was really good fun, to be able to work alongside the council and a group of other people from the local area who are all retired. To hear stories and get to talk about who we are as YWAM and what we do. We got to clear an area of trees and undergrowth to  re-open an area that has slowly been lost over the last twenty years or so. It was a really beautiful day to be able to do it, and the guys we were working with were a lot of fun. I especially enjoyed doing this as it is something I used to do a lot of, and I really enjoy being outside.

I am really looking forward to seeing how this connection grows and what other doors God opens in Harpenden. We are certainly looking at how we can be more intentional as a campus in serving and blessing Harpenden as well as sending teams out from here.

Restoration

The September 2012 Discipleship Training School (DTS) Graduated last week. The trainees all successfully made it through both their lecture and outreach phases. I have had the pleasure of spending time with these guys as they have helped in the maintenance here at YWAM Harpenden. To see the difference that a few months can make to someone as they go to share the Love of God in both practical ways as well as verbal is inspiring. They are all so much more alive then when they arrived. To see God challenge them and take them through past hurt into a place of great healing is so very precious.

It is when we let God into our hurt and brokenness that real deep restoration happens. To see these guys so excited for what God is doing in this world at the moment, and really wanting to be apart of it is great. Only by His grace do we see people transformed and released to transform others. It is such a privilege to be able to be a part of the process and to know that God is being made known.

Latte Art

Christy and I have been apart of the Oval Café team here in Harpenden since November of last year. Our time has been a lot of fun so far, learning how to make and serve many different types of coffee, tea, smoothies and other blended drinks. We have also been able to learn a lot about the management and running of a business such as a café, which is one of the main reasons for us joining the team.

One of the skills that I have been trying to learn during this time is how to make good latte art, just to add that little flair to drinks for the customers. I discovered that it is a more involved process than you may first think. You have to steam the milk in a certain way, pour it into the coffee shot with at least two different pour techniques for each drink. My efforts over the last couple of months have been varied, but I am finally managing to get the hang of them (see picture below).

 It has been such a joy to be able to work in this ministry, and to also help train others. The vision of the couple who manage the café is to be able to invest in others so that they can go and establish a community café where they can meet the people who live in the local area and build relationships with them. To give people a space where they can come and ask questions about faith and life, but not to pressure anyone into anything, a neutral place. It has been great to see how the regulars here have engaged and stated to ask some really deep questions of life.

Knowing that God and his kingdom values are at the core of what we do in the café, and having people around whom can both encourage and challenge us in our own faith is such a valuable environment to be able to work in.

A Quiet Night

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I had the privilege of taking a group to Batchwood part way through February. This is the local club to where we are in Harpenden and a place we do regular ministry at. We try to go at least once every two weeks with bottles of water and lollipops, we also take blankets etc in the colder months, and spend time chatting to and give out the water etc to the people who are coming out of the club, before they head home.

This particular night was one of the quieter ones I have been to, but we still had a good time. It meant we got to spend quite a bit more time talking to the bouncers about faith and why they do what they do, and what they believe. One of them in particular wanted to know more about the church we partnered with and about what it would mean to start coming along.

It is really encouraging to have been doing this over the last couple of years, being consistent, and getting to talk to these guys each time. I really enjoy getting to spend a bit of time with them, giving them something to think about other than when the next fight may be, and to have them ask me questions which gets me thinking a lot about who I am and why I am doing what I do. I have really seen God’s faithfulness over this time, and how valuable individuals really are to him. It is such a blessing to be able to honour the people we meet and show and tell them this.

A Process of Healing

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Over the last couple of years Christy and I have spent time praying each week for her healing as she suffers from a number of different food intolerances. Over the last couple of months we have seen a significant change in her ability to tolerate and digest certain food without the pain that she once suffered, which is incredible. When we started we felt God say it would be a gradual process of faithful and perseverant prayer, not an instant fix. This is why we set aside a time each week to pray. We are not all the way there yet, but God has been so faithful to his word during this time. I am so amazed at what has changed over the last couple of years; the journey God has taken us on in this, and what he has taught us. I am so grateful for this, and look forward to what God is continuing to and going to do.

Finale

Some friends of ours here at YWAM (Youth With A Mission) Harpenden started a ministry as a rock band a few years ago. Just before Christmas they played their last gig together before moving into other things they have felt God talk to them about. Over this time thy have been going into pubs and clubs and playing gigs alongside other bands. Very much witnessing to those who may not normally meet other Christians, such as the other bands, people going to the gigs, sound guys etc. Christy and me have both had the pleasure of helping these guys periodically over this time. Christy with her voice, especially when they were starting off, and me with transport, driving the van for them.

They have really challenged me a lot over this time and the journey they have gone through. Especially the way they have been right in the centre of things and made such an impact on people’s lives. They have just been themselves in those places they have gone too and had fun.

The final gig was pretty awesome. Christy even got the chance to sing with them one last time. A lot of the people they had met over the last few years came down and packed out the venue. For all these guys it was a real bittersweet experience, with tears shed by the most unlikely people.

 Having watched them over the last few years, and seen what they have done, it has really challenged me in the way I see how we live as Christians. What it means to actually have a real relationship with those God calls you to impact, to treat them as people, not just as a project or numbers. Which is really how Jesus treated people, he gave them value and treated each and every person he met as an individual. I know that this is very much a journey and I really look forward to seeing where God leads Christy and me.