throwing crowns

I thought it might be interesting to write a post from here in the midst of the pandemic of the corona virus, in the mayhem. And that maybe it would bring some hope. I have no idea what will happen in the next month, especially as the peak of the virus isn't meant to hit here until two weeks from now, but here we are.

The UK doesn't have as many sanctions as other nations in Europe, but starting next weekend, gatherings of more than 100 people will be discouraged (if not outright prohibited). We've decided that it would be prudent not to meet as a church or to do most of our church-wide activities throughout next week, so we are definitely giving it everything we've got this weekend, while we still can.

Let me tell you, the atmosphere over London is thick. As missionaries, it is always the crisis that make us think twice. While most people decide escape routes, we ask God for the wisdom in how to bring hope and light into situations. In the summer of the terror attacks, we had plans for if things went wrong, but we also decided not to evacuate London. We chose to stay, even had things escalated, to be where people needed Jesus most.

That leads us to corona virus. How can we be responsible, but not be afraid? Perfect love casts our fear, but God also asks us to be wise. So we scoured Camden for hand sanitiser and made signs to take out with us tonight that asked people if they wanted prayer for anxiety, health, mental health, worries, etc. And the turnout was more than we expected.

Before we even got outside, one of our longtime homeless friends stumbled into our shop, out of her mind with fear. We prayed and spoke with her for two hours as she said goodbye to things that had chained her and re-dedicated herself to Jesus. We even helped her get rid of some of a crystal that she was wearing to ward off evil spirits. Then we headed up to our yellow tent outside of Camden Town Station, where the rest of our Saturday night crew were spread out across the square, praying for people.

People are so open in London right now. Whether they want to lash out in anger or bravely admit their fear, they are open. So many people stopped who would normally have smiled and muttered something about the weather. We prayed, we invited them to church, and sometimes we even gave them a quick squeeze (and then doused ourselves in hand sanitiser). It's odd how people need so much reassurance when fear hangs so thickly in the air. And at the same time, it's a massive privilege to get to be the ones who reassure them. We have a hope (and an anchor...) that we can share with them, and here they are, ready to hear about him. Finally!

So yes, corona virus is a pandemic. It's frightening. But corona translates to crown, and I know exactly where I'm meant to put my crowns - at the feet of Jesus.

walking with history makers

I love the International Arts Gathering. From emailing participants ahead of time and getting to know about them to meeting them at the Gathering to learning about their hearts as they share the triumphs and struggles of being a Christian artist in the sphere and place God has put them, it is always a week that changes me. It gives me a more global viewpoint - I take my eyes off of my belly button of art here in London, and I see what it is like to be an arts pastor in Vienna, like one of our friends this year, or to start a new arts base in northern Italy, which is what another of our friends is doing.

This year, we held the Gathering in Rome. It was a challenge to find a place to meet together in Rome, because the city is largely Catholic. But the place that God provided for us, an evangelical church in one of the most beautiful neighbourhoods of the city, was even better than anything for which we hoped. The pastor told us that tradition says it is a place where Paul wrote one of his letters.

Even more precious than the location, though, was the opportunity to spend four days with other Christian artists who are fighting and planting and nurturing projects around Europe. We had participants from Norway, Hungary, Austria, Italy, Israel, England, and France, and those are just the nations where they are serving. There were several more nationalities represented. Several are pioneering new ministries or centres of artistic ministry, while others are going through hard circumstances in the places where they have been serving faithfully.

The worship transformed hearts, and not only our hearts. We opened the doors of the church and took the drummers and dancers outside, and we drummed with drumsticks on fire the dancers used fire pois to draw a crowd. Crowds gathered before we even began, and Christian preached to them with Sara, our Italian teammate, translating. I am used to crowds in London, who flee when Jesus is mentioned, and while we did have that reaction from visiting Brits, the Italians were keen to know more. We left the doors of the church open, and they followed us in and joined us for worship.

I believe that Rome is hungry for God, that centuries and millennia of religiosity have left them starved. The people are warm and open to talking, and they don't shy away from religious conversations. Or at least, the ones to whom I spoke did not.

We take the Gathering to a different city every year, and for this very reason. We often get so caught up in what God is doing in and through us that we have no idea how God is moving elsewhere. But for the Gathering in Rome, and afterward when we got to participate in a combined meeting of all the evangelical churches in Rome to celebrate the 499th anniversary of the Reformation, I saw how God is moving in Italy. I know how to pray specifically for the city and nation, and when I go again, I will have a better idea of how to talk to people and of what we are fighting against. Rome is often considered the birthplace of Christianity, and I think that it is a time when Christianity is being birthed there again.

Chris giving a teaching at the Gathering.

The Tiber with the Vatican in the background

Jonny sharing about the ministry in Norway

Juliette dancing with fire pois

the Colosseum at night

a typical street in Trastevere, where we stayed

Chris playing the drums with drumsticks on fire

Melody doing fire pois

The creative writers writing during evangelism (and taking a break to watch the performance)

learning seasons

Several years ago, we began receiving words from people about multiplication. There were only a few of us in the ministry at the time, and for a while, we sat around the kitchen table and dreamt about what it would be like to have more people join us, to have more ministries and houses and locations.

Years later, we are in the season where we are learning to live out that promise that God gave us. And let me tell you, it certainly looks different from what we expected.

On 19 September, the team received our third house, which is in Kings Cross, the centre of the city. A few of the girls went to training with an organisation that works with women stuck in prostitution and sex trafficking, so we are going to start working with that in Kings Cross, as well.

Homelessness is also a big problem in the Kings Cross area, and indeed, around all of London. Last week, all of us had training with an organisation that works with the homeless to help us with our dinner club that we run at Notting Hill. The government is cutting benefits and help for the homeless, which means that more people are ending up on the streets. As winter approaches, it is dangerous for them to stay there. In London, there are a lot of hoops to jump through in order to get a spot in the winter shelters or to get other types of housing. It is something that weighs heavily on all of our hearts, and we wish that we could help them more than with just one meal a fortnight. But God is opening more doors for us to be involved with others working with homeless around the city.

In three days, we leave for Rome, where we are hosting this year's International Arts Gathering. We began working on the Gathering a year ago, but it took until last week for us to find a place to stay and to host the event. We must have talked to all of the evangelical church pastors in Rome by now! We had so many closed doors that we realised that God was going to have to do a miracle, and He has. It was certainly not in our preferred timing, but it was in the right timing.

Now we are running around to finish the final details before we go, from preparing videos and decor for the church to coordinating details with the participants. The participants are Christian artists from all over Europe, and meeting with them and hearing how they are influencing their countries for God is one of my favourite things that we do as a team. The more I travel around, the more I understand that proximity is not what is important in friendships. Having the same heart and desire, which we have with these artists, is much more important. Also, Europe is so small that we end up seeing each other throughout the year in different locations. On the one hand, I hate how small the Christian artistic community is in Europe, but on the other, I enjoy running into my friends in random nations, as well.

This is such a rushed update in the midst of everything else, but I wanted to let everybody know what we are doing so that you know what for what you can pray. Please pray for the Gathering, which is from 26-29 October in Rome. Pray for Melody and I, who are coordinating, along with the team that is going ahead of time to prepare the venue, and for our whole Discipleship Training School, who are attending this year. Please also pray for us as our base grows. God is opening more doors with us, and we are learning how to move in new ways. Walter, a friend from YWAM Argentina, spoke to us about having new wineskins for the new wine we are being given, and we want to learn to be flexible as God shows us what His will is in London.

Cancelo chatting with some of our homeless neighbours in the square outside our house.

Everybody's shoes in the front hall of the house on Friday, the day everybody comes to us.

St Pancras, the massive train station just down the street from the house

bridge building

One month. Four countries.

And now, a week and a half after returning to London, I am still finding the faithfulness of God through all of it. I am beginning to understand a bit of how He worked to prepare our team for each city and worked in each of our hearts as we traveled across central Europe together.

We end every internship with an outreach, and to end the Winter 2015 internship, we traveled to Berlin, Prague, Vienna, and Milan. I had the pleasure of going to three countries I'd never thought I'd get to travel to, and to return to Italy and feel sun on my skin for the first time in seven months. But more than that, I was amazed at the openness of the people to speak to us. I have grown used to people in London, to being ever-so-politely told that I am wrong, that God does not exist, and that the church is an out-dated institution. But in the four cities that we travelled to, I found myself shoving aside language barriers, tripping over Spanish words, learning to listen to Italian, and hearing the pains of people's hearts.

People don't want to talk about their happiest moments with strangers. I don't know why that is, but I have found that often, if you take the time to see them with eyes of Love, they will share with you the things that are most hurting them. I wasn't prepared for it the first time a woman spilled her heart to me in Spanish, and I didn't have the words to translate to my intern, but she saw the tears in Gloria's eyes, and she knew. So we prayed in incorrect verb tenses and tried not to let our mascara run, and in the middle of a square in Prague, I watched Gloria hear from God.

In Berlin, I talked with several people who had never before met a Christian. The city is so new, the same age as me, and in its rebuilding, they are glorifying the past pain. There are memorials to the Berlin Wall everywhere, and markers still divide East Berlin from West Berlin. When I found myself singing "Hometown Glory" where the Berlin Wall used to stand, I saw God's hand. Because I am a girl from the USA, but He placed me there, singing a song about a united city to a city that is still struggling to come together, and I know that it was the result of following Him. I could not have planned that moment. On our team, we come from countries that have fought against each other numerous times across history, yet we live in one house together. We are God's unification in action.

Vienna was a time of refreshing for me, because we stayed at an International House of Prayer with a worship and prayer room that we could use whenever we wanted. After being on outreach for three weeks, it was wonderful to spend time just sitting with God, writing new songs, and remembering to listen. One evening, we went out to Stephansplatz to perform and do evangelism, and within two minutes of beginning, we were surrounded by a crowd. They sang along and made videos, and in the midst of it, we told them all about the God who created them and the Saviour who loves them desperately. They were so excited to find out more about Him. We also saw several people come to Christ in Vienna.

In Italy, we got to work with both the YWAM team and with a church, and they took amazing care of us. The church made us dinner every night (In Italy, pasta is just the first course), and afterwards, we went out to do evangelism at Milan Design Week. Italian culture makes it perfectly normal to stand around and chat to strangers, so we met a lot of people as we performed and did evangelism. It was also really impressive to see the church members out there with us, talking to people and praying with them. And we finally got to visit the YWAM team in Milan, who came to Bones with us in 2013. They planned so many events for us before we even got there and made sure that things ran smoothly.

When we came back from outreach, we had five days to prepare our end of internship exhibition. It took a lot of work, but on Thursday night, we saw a lot of people that we'd never met come into the church to see our art. One of the nursery teachers from next door to the church asked me if we were doing it to show everyone how amazing we were. I got to tell her that we were doing it to show the amazing change that God had worked in our lives over the last three months.

For me, that's the most gratifying part of looking back over the outreach. Not only did God change me and hand me back hope and joy, but He used me to speak to people from dozens of nations. He used me in languages that I don't speak well and in places I never thought that I'd get to go. It's so exciting to get to be a part of God's Kingdom here on Earth and to realise that the King of the Universe takes the time to transform sinners and rebels and uses them to do His work here.

On our first day in Berlin, we got to go into the Parliament with a member of Parliament. At the end, we got to pray with him and for his work in the country.

In Berlin, we also performed in various places in the city. This was in a plaza right where the Berlin Wall used to stand.

In Prague, we washed windows at a local school.

We also took advantage of all of the tourists to talk to people everywhere.

Vienna had some of my favourite times of evangelism and performance in the trip. On our last day, we got to work with YWAM Norway to do performances in Stephansplatz with a permit and a sound system.

This is Christian preaching during the impromptu performance in Stephansplatz on our first day in Vienna, where the crowd came and took video and stayed, asking us to do more. We got to talk with so many of them about Jesus's love for them.

In Milan, we held a seminar to teach the church about using arts in evangelism to bring God's Kingdom to Milan. Several of us taught on various topics, such as Improvisation in Leadership (my lesson), to Teamwork (Carrie and Peri taught what they learned by leading this school together). After the lessons, we taught them the artistic skills we use in evangelism.

Our visual artists did performance art in Milan, as well, and talking to people while they did it. I love watching them use their skills in public for God.

Me with two of my photos (the ones to the right) at the exhibition that we held in Notting Hill.

Here are some pictures from my time in Italy. The post detailing my time there is here.

In Florence, Italy, we stayed in a Christian camp. This is the container that we stayed in - Florence, Italy

The toilet in the camp (aka, a hole) - Florence, Italy. I used this for two weeks.

In Florence, Italy, we did daily street evangelism.

This is me in the Tuscan hills that appeared right behind the camp. I ran or walked here almost daily to talk to God.

Ezra and I led worship for the services nightly in the camp.

Sometimes I also sang during evangelism.

This is Florence in mid-morning, with the Duomo dominating the skyline.

This is our team in Ancona, Italy, a town on the Adriatic Sea.

The church that we served in had a radio station in the church.

This is me in the town where accordions were invented. The church took us to the museum and everything.

The church also drove us to Loreto, which is called the Second Vatican.

This is the beautiful coast of Ancona. 

Oh Mamma!

I have been back from my counselling school outreach in Italy for a week, and people keep asking me how it was. When they do, I never know quite what to say. Italy was the very top of my list of places I wanted to go, but it was still unlike my expectations. We ate pasta for lunch and dinner every day - as the first course. Bread, vegetables, and meat followed. Gelato is one of the most delicious delicacies I have ever had the privilege of tasting. The boys on the team picked olives in Tuscany, and they were given a bottle of fresh olive oil in return. It is exquisite.

But Italy is more than food. In one of the teachings that I gave, God told me to read Ezekiel 37, the passage about the dry bones. As I read it aloud (and waited for the translation), I realised that the passage describes Italy. There are so many dry bones in Italy, so many people who wander around, brushing by religion daily, but remaining lifeless. The Catholic Church reigns supreme, but there is not a god to be seen. The true god of Italy is probably seduction, which permeates magazines, advertisements, and the streets. Italy is known for love, but I would define it as lust. Women are a commodity to be bought and put to work, and to a certain extent, I experienced that within the culture. I am a Southern girl, and I am used to being a little bit taken care of. I am not surprised when doors are opened for me, when men walk me home after dark, or when I am helped to carry heavy things. But in Italy, those behaviours are not normal.

The outreach that I was doing in Italy was my counselling school outreach, and as such, I was frequently invited into people's homes. It was such an interesting experience, to be welcomed into various homes, to eat with families, and to watch the way that they interacted. Italy is a warm country, culturally, and is different from both England and the place that I was raised. Families are in and out of each others' homes constantly, and a problem in a family is often the business of the whole community.

I had the privilege, while we were in Italy, of seeing a man come to Christ in his home. His wife accepted Christ two months previously, and I got to watch her face as he prayed to receive Christ. It was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen; the lines actually fled off of her face.

Ezra (my classmate from Minnesota) and I also led worship every night, and on some nights, we led some of the songs in Italian. That was one of the areas during which God showed up and ministered the most to my heart. I trained in opera growing up, and I was surprised by how easily I could sing in Italian again (and by how much of it I understood). God spoke to me through my rudimentary understanding of the songs, and I was so blessed to be able to worship with people of different nationalities, in a language that I do not speak, and to see how the Holy Spirit can sweep through a room, regardless of the language or my own comprehension.

I also did quite a bit of teaching on the outreach. Teaching is not my favourite activity, ministry-wise, but it is an area in which God always stretches me. When I taught about worship and heard the story of God humbling me in worship translated from English to Spanish, and then Spanish to Italian, I was reminded of the way that God always has a plan for me, and of how He has taken me away from my own plans and back to His plans for my life.

The counselling school was such an important five months in my life. It was hard; God pruned a lot of unhealthy things out of my life. He even pruned some things that were not bad, but that were keeping me from following His plan. On the other hand, God also showed me some next steps for my life, and He amazed me by how He has been preparing me uniquely since I was a tiny girl. So many of my interests, talents, and even childhood games have been preparing me for where God is leading me.