School Cleaning

We have just returned from Krakow in Poland having helped to lead a short-term mission experience for 16-22 year olds. One of the things we got to do was work with a local church to help to clean a school that had been vandalized.

We spent our time painting over graffiti and cleaning up the grounds. This was the first time that the church had had an opportunity to work in the school, and they will be running a family day in the grounds at the start of August. The hope is to be able to do much more in the local community through the school in the future.

It was a great day and every one really enjoyed the opportunity to serve the school and local community. The team helped to open a door for church to be able to do more in partnership with the school for the local area.  It is real blessing to be apart of the start something, to plant the first seeds, and we are really looking forward to seeing what comes out of this.

Just Go...

We have just finished helping to lead a short-term missions experience for people of the ages 16-22. Altogether we had 23 go to 3 different nations in Europe (Poland, Serbia and Romania). People came and spent 3 days here at the Youth With A Mission (YWAM) base, having teaching and orientation before spending 10 days in the country they applied to go to. After this we spent another 2-3 days back at the YWAM base debriefing.

Christy and myself helped to lead the team that went to Poland, and spent our time in the city of Krakow, which was the capital of Poland about 300 years ago. We were 8 in total, split evenly boys and girls.

It was a great team to lead as everyone was so willing to seek God and do what they felt He was saying. They were all quick to worship, so much so that when we would meet as leaders to talk about the day and pray for the team, we could hear them next door finding worship and praising God.

We saw God do so much in each of them individually as well as in the city of Krakow. They each grew and took hold of what God was teaching them quickly and willingly. They all came back with a new view of who they are, what it means to know God and what it means to do mission as a life style, not just an experience. We both felt very privileged to have been able to be apart of this season in their lives.

Getting Wet In Brighton

I love being a part of Discipleship Training School’s (DTS’s). It is a real privilege to see God work in people’s lives, and to see this spill out to others around them also.  One of the young men who came to be apart of the DTS which was running from January to June here at Youth With A Mission (YWAM) Holmsted Manor really had his life turned around during these 6 months. His desire to demonstrate this and show his commitment to living his life fully for God led him to ask to be baptised. He decided, however, that since we do not live very far from Brighton, that he wanted to get baptised in the ocean. So we all headed down with him to Brighton to join with him in celebrating what God has done in his life and his commitment to God.

He told us afterwards that the water was not the warmest, but that he would not have wished to do it any other way. It was great to be able to worship God with him on the beach and to affirm what God is doing in and through him.  Such a special day for all of us here.

Mind Body Spirit 2013

We had a stand at this years Mind Body Spirit Festival (MBS) in London offering both healing pray and creation prayer. We had an amazing 4 days; God touched and healed so many people, and we got to introduce quite a few to Jesus for the first time.

Creation prayer is where we spend some time asking God who this person is, how he sees them, then we share what we feel God has said about them and talk to them about it. Healing pray is where we pray for someone to be healed.

We also spend time each morning before the place opens praying and worshiping together and listening to God about who he wants to touch that day, we then write these things on a board so people can see them as they walk past.

One of my favourite stories from the week was if a lady named Judy. We had written here name on the board in the morning and she came past the stand at about 3 in the afternoon with a friend and stopped, seeing her name. She told us at the end that she would not have stopped to have prayer if her name was not on the board. I got to pray for her with Christy, while two others sat and prayed with her friend. God is amazing, really, what we felt Him share with us spoke really deeply to where she was at and what she is doing. She was blown away herself and ended up in tears at the fact that God cares and loves her so deeply, and sees her and her heart for the voiceless in Thailand. It was such a blessing to be able to pray for and encourage her in what she is doing. God Also spoke very deeply to her friend as well, bringing deep emotional healing. We were able to connect them to other people close to where they live as they both wanted to know more of who God is.

My other favourite conversation was with a guy who came and sat with us at the very end of the last day, to be prayed for. He did not know Jesus before he sat down, but as soon as he sat he told us it was the most peaceful place he had found in the place. We prayed and God showed me the most amazing picture of an eagle soaring. When I share this with him he came alive and told us that a few weeks ago he had been in India climbing some of the mountains when the most incredible thing happened to him. An eagle had soared over to him and hovered about a meter above him for 10-20 seconds before slowly gliding away again, and then he found 3 eagle feathers on the ground of different sizes. So he started asking us who Jesus was as he wanted to meet him. So we got to talk to him about Jesus and share the Gospel with him. I ended up giving him my contact details so we could talk more as the places was closing.

It was a really encouraging time; no one we prayed with told us that what God had said was wrong. Everyone said they felt encouraged and many of them want to know more about who Jesus is. God also healed so many different people, from small sports injuries, to arthritis, and even a lady who had lost the sight in one eye. All I can say is God is amazing.

A Family Gathering

We had our YWAM (Youth With A Mission) Staff gathering toward the end of May. It was a great time meeting old friends and making new ones from the various YWAM locations around England, although with over 300 people attending we did not manage to meet everyone!

It was really nice to here how the different locations are doing, and what they are up to, from those that have helped to establish new teams recently, to those locations that have been running for over 25 years here in England.

We spent time worshiping together, praying for England and also having teaching.

One thing I will say is that the YWAM family in England is pretty big, and when we get together we have a lot of fun. One of the highlights was the huge BBQ that was done at the end of our time together; we had a really amazing time of celebration.

CRE

A group of us from Holmsted had the pleasure of running a stand at this years CRE (Christian Resource Exhibition). We all had a great time and got to talk to a lot of different people who were either looking at how they could get involved in Mission themselves or were people like Youth Pastors who wanted to know more about where they may be able to encourage their young people to get involved in something stretching.

It was a great opportunity to talk to people about who YWAM (Youth With A Misison) is and what we do and raise the profile of mission’s work both here in England and overseas. And to be able to encourage others to think about how they may get involved with missions work, both short term or long term, or even supporting work that is already happening.

It was also really nice to be able to go and talk to other exhibitors in the place and make some connections that should come in useful further down the road, such as printers.

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.