As always, my intentions of keeping this blog updated more regularly have failed. I apologise...
Most of you know that I returned to London in January of 2015 and I've been happily settled and busy there for the last year as a staff member. We've had amazing students, and I've learned quite a lot. God is so faithful! He works in the waiting, friends, He really and truly does. I was blessed to enjoy my time in the States, even though my heart ached for London, but I can see how He worked in that time and I'm so, so grateful!
I've been writing newsletters as replacements for this blog, so none of the above was probably new to you. I'm on outreach in Puerto Rico now, so I decided to write a blog post about my time here in lieu of an official newsletter until I return to London.
We've had an incredible time! Our work has taken us all over the island, and we've been working with several churches for their Sunday services and partnering with them for street evangelism. My favourite group we've partnered with is Teen Challenge, which some of you may know is a rehabilitation program that allows Federal convicts to serve the last few years of their term in a Christian environment (rehab centre). We've visited several of their centres to speak with them, share testimonies, pray for them, and worship together. The response from them has been inspiringly humble and enthusiastic. It's a sadly rare sight to see many men in the churches here, so to see a roomful of them at these centres has been an encouragement to many of us.
We also had the privilege of serving in a school for underprivileged children (i.e. children from broken homes, often at risk or with addictions. One of the ten-year-old girls was addicted to alcohol, for instance). The school had perhaps around 20 kids, aged anywhere from 3-17. I was pleasantly surprised to see them bond with us so quickly. We played games pertaining to each of our art forms (theatre, photography, music, dance, etc.) with the younger ones while our guys took the older boys out for a time of fellowship. As you can imagine, Christian male leadership is something lacking in the lives of those teenagers, so it was a blessing to have our guys (several of whom have a street background) minister to them in a personal, relatable way.
We've had many opportunities to evangelise, even on our off time! The language barrier has been no true barrier, which I love. Though not everyone speaks English, we seem to get by with Spanglish. Failing that, I call a Spanish speaker over to help. ;)
Really, it's been amazing how God's planned this trip. It hasn't gone according to our plans. You may recall that we were working on a production called "Catharsis," but we couldn't get a theatre and it wasn't practical to do on the street, so we're saving it for another time. Instead (in addition to working with the local churches and Teen Challenge), we go to plazas and play song covers, drums, do stilts, fire poi, fire blowing, dancing, etc.. Using the gifts God's given us we've been able to have many conversations!
You may remember our annual outreach in London called Bones, in preparation for the Notting Hill Carnival. Here, there's something called the Festival of San Sebastian. It's four days, and there are millions of people that come to party. Like the Notting Hill Carnival, most of the churches stay away from the Festival. But we're going in! Not only that, we're starting a sort of Bones camp here! It'll be for a couple of nights preceding the Festival so that people can come straight from work to join us for dinner, then we'll work with them on different art forms to use as evangelistic tools and have some training in basic evangelism (not that we're experts or that there's one way to do it, but many people have no experience at all, so we want to give them some tools and tips in preparation for the Festival). On the days of the Festival, we'll be there performing, praying, and talking with anyone that will listen!
With all of this in mind, here's how you can pray:
*Safety and protection for our team, the local base, and for the pastors we're working with
*Provision (with opportunities, as well as basic daily needs)
*Strength. Especially for the week of the Festival. Between the training and the long hours of the outreach, we'll be completely exhausted!
*The local church. There's a lot of religion here, but not much relationship. Please pray that the
churches are strengthened, equipped, and emboldened to go out into the streets and bring people
in for relationship and discipleship!
*Revival. This is a nation with many, many wounds. But somehow, God's preserved their soft
hearts! Pray that they would recognise their need for God and turn to Him.
Thanks so much for your prayers! I look forward to updating you all when I get home, but I hope
this has encouraged you in the meantime!
Happy New Year!
