Sunday, October 27, 2013

Viva Italia!

Tomorrow morning, I embark on a grand adventure. I will wake up early in the morning, take two buses and an airplane, and arrive in Italy to meet the rest of my counselling school. Together, we will go to Florence, where we will run meetings in tents for two weeks. We will teach the topics that we were taught during our counselling school. I am not an experienced teacher, but I am excited to give back what I received for three months.

We need a lot of prayer in this time. God told us to go to Italy, and the team saw a lot of fruit during the month that they were in Spain (during which time I was renewing my UK visa). However, we face several challenges while we are in Italy. Firstly, none of us speak Italian. We speak English and Spanish, though, which will help us communicate. Secondly, we still need finances to pay food and hospitality costs in Italy. We are following God's path in faith, but the truth is that we do not know where the money for our flights back to London will come from.

Please pray for our safety and provision in this time, and also that God will lead us to the people to whom we need to minister. And if God is leading you to contribute an offering to our cause, you can email me at deborahestevenson@gmail.com or my mother at susancookstevenson@gmail.com (for those of you who are Stateside).

To be completely honest, I need people to support me in this time. London is an expensive city, and Italy is even more expensive. Even small contributions help, especially for my Oyster card (the transportation card for London Underground and buses) and groceries. My visa is a religious worker's visa, which does not allow me to hold a job, so contributions from others are what keep me here. If you are led to support me, it will be an answer to my prayers.

I am also praying for a miracle regarding a new camera. As you probably know by now, I am a photographer. God gave me the gift completely, and four years ago, my parents gave me a camera that led to my discovery of that gift. Since then, I have used my Nikon d3000 almost daily. It has been an amazing camera. However, this next season of my life holds a lot of photography for me and my ministry, and my poor camera is petering out. I have grown beyond the capabilities of the Nikon d3000, and the camera that I would like to upgrade to is the Nikon d300 (or Nikon d700 or Nikon d7000, as long as we are talking about miracles and a limitless God). As you know, I am having to walk by faith just to pay my living expenses here, much less to buy a camera. If you could pray with me for God to provide a miracle in this area of my life, I would appreciate it.

I will probably be absent for three and a half weeks now, but when if you want to contact me, please don't hesitate to email me! I love hearing from you guys, as well.

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