together, we cannot be silent

Throughout June, I watched as the Black Lives Matter movement grew and swelled across the US and into England. Our protests were not as violent or as quick as the ones in the States, but age-old wounds were brought to light by our neighbours, and as a church, we listened and sought God's heart. And we weren't the only ones. Through conversations between pastors, the idea for a demonstration by Christians was born.

On Friday, we met with dozens of other churches and Christians from around the UK to have a time of peaceful protest and prayer in front of Parliament. There were no other protests happening; in fact, it was eerily quiet in Westminster. We all wore masks and tried to stay socially distant, but we weren't actually distant. Our churches have still not been able to meet together, and as we met across the street from Parliament and began to pray together, I realised that it was the first time that we've gathered together physically since March. It was such a privilege to get to be together to fight for God's heart in the midst of all of the unrest that is pouring across our planet.

We stood together for racial equality. In the past decade, several bills have been passed in Parliament that fight for racial equality, but they are not being upheld. We exhorted Parliament to uphold them, and we prayed that God would convict their hearts and ours as we learn what it means to fight racism, both systemic and in our own hearts.

Eventually, we made our way to Trafalgar Square, where we prayed together again and spoke to the few people who were out and about. I got to pray with some girls from Reading (a city near London) and to talk with men from around the nation. There was a little push-back from some men who felt that slavery should still be legal, but for the most part, COVID19 has made people much more willing to talk to strangers and to be more real about what is happening in their hearts. I was also walking on stilts, so I got to meet a few different children.

A year ago, a protest like this would have been an activity that was exciting, but as soon as it was over, I would have forgotten it. But everything is different now. I remembered an impression I felt last winter as our whole base prayed together in Trafalgar Square. We had been planning OneFest, an event for the churches to host together this month (which we had to cancel in April due to the pandemic). The impression was that what the noise that we made together would reverberate off of the embassies and offices that surround the Square and bounce across the UK and Europe. On Friday, our drums made just such a noise as we stood with other churches and Christians and asked God for His heart and to see Him move. I believe that God is doing something incredible in London this year. We have all felt that it is a year of revival, and God can do that as easily in our houses as He can in our church buildings and arenas.

So I have to tell you, four days after our demonstration at Parliament, I am still thinking about it and praying over it. And I feel expectant. 2020 has been full of so many surprises so far, but the one I am waiting for is to see how many people have met Jesus and had their hearts transformed in this time. Covid isn't all bad. I serve a God who can work all things together for good.

Missions in Self-Isolation

You may have heard that London is essentially on lock down, and you may be wondering how we are doing missions in self-isolation. Or perhaps you're just wondering how we are!

YWAM London Radiant is doing well at the moment. We don't have the virus, but we are staying inside our houses to avoid infection as the count has sky-rocketed in London in the past two days. But that hasn't stopped us from keeping on! We are carrying on with our internship as usual. We have teachings via a group video call, so everybody still interacts and responds to questions. We also still have ministry times every day, and on top of that, we've been deep cleaning and fixing things in our houses.

I think that it's really amazing to be going through this in a time where we are all still connected to each other, even though we are separated physically. Through social media, I've been able to spend this time talking to friends that I've lost touch with in recent years. We're all stuck at home, so we're actually taking the time to go deeper in relationships that have gotten shoved aside by what is happening in the here-and-now.

But nothing's happening in the here-and-now, so we have the time to actually be here. Now. My housemates and I are working, eating, cleaning, and having fun together. We've planned a disco party for Meli's birthday on Monday, and we're going to dress up and wear make up and barbecue hotdogs. I've started an Instagram photo challenge that allows me to meet people who I wouldn't ordinarily interact with, even on the internet. And we're praying together and diving deeply into God's Word, which was a goal we had as a team this year.

In our retreat in December, we talked about focussing in 2020. We spoke about making our houses ecosystems that sought God together. We talked about what it looks like to form families in our houses across London. And now we are really having time to dive into it. No, we can't go out into the streets right now, but that's okay, because the people aren't in the streets. They're on their phones, or their laptops, just like you probably are if you're reading this. They're alone and scared by the statistics and lack of surety. And we're on our laptops and phones, messaging, creating content that brings hope back into the mix, and shouting loudly about Who our hope is. Because He's right here in the middle of this virus. It hasn't taken Him by surprise. We don't know when we will be able to leave our houses, but until then, we are going to reach out in any way that we can!

The best last night

As a charity, we receive food donations from grocery stores who have surplus food. On New Year’s Eve, we received food from Marks and Spencer’s, a posh grocery store. We decided to push back all of our plans in order to pull out our giant yellow tent and to spend the last night of the year giving back to our community by handing out the food donations that we received.

In the end, I know that the food helped those who were homeless or who don’t have enough, but I think that it impacted the people who were on their way to New Year’s parties even more. They stopped to see what we were doing (we had enough sweets and bananas to hand out to everyone, not just to the homeless), and we ended up having conversations with them about what they were doing, what we were doing, and why we want to give back. We spoke to everyone who wanted to talk, from the homeless that we see regularly to the police officers who were brought into Camden specially for New Year’s Eve. Some people we spoke to about Jesus, and some we just listened to as they shared. It’s amazing the things people will open up about if you’ll give them space. Some of them need that more than they need food.

And also, I think that it impacted us to give the food away. We were focussed on winding down the year together and on what is coming in 2020, but it gave us a few hours to think in the present about the people around us. I love the holiday season, and I think that it’s great to have a chance to reflect, but sometimes we get caught up so much in reflecting on what has happened or will happen that we forget what is happening right now. And on New Year’s Eve, before we counted down to a new year, we got the chance to give away what had been given to us. We closed the year by reaching out to the people who live (or party or work) shoulder to shoulder with us in Camden Town. 

We still had plenty of time to celebrate the New Year together, but I think the real celebration began the moment we put out that giant yellow tent. 

(Also, a special shout out to my mum, who is in the third picture and who came along to help!)

2019 Update

A few weeks ago, Green Creek Baptist Church asked me to do a video update to share with their church. Throughout the week, I filmed in the different places where we do ministry throughout the week and made this wee video. Please feel free to share it, and if you want to know more about these stories, check out the posts in this blog!

the whirlwind summer

I have gone radio silent, and I am sorry for that! The London summer is short, and on our team, it is our busiest season.

July turned out to be a manic month. After searching long and hard for a new house to accommodate some of our 31 students in the July DTS, Rebecca, Meli and I moved to Hackney, East London in the first week of July. As a team, we've been praying to move to and be more involved in East London for a while now, and God came through (as per usual) in His perfect time that felt quite tight for us, which meant that we moved in only a week before nine new students arrived. But the team pulled together and built beds, assembled the makings of a kitchen, and helped us break in our new barbecue grill that came with the house.

I am still completely overwhelmed by the goodness of God - I've been praying for East London for several years now, and I see how He especially prepared me for it throughout the spring. On my birthday, I asked God to use my year straight to the edges. And let me tell you, He has been faithful to do just that! With all of the different ministries that we are up to, the events that we get to host and take part in, the schools and other training programmes, and with Think (our coffee shop) and Hope and Anchor, time is being stretched in new ways. I feel like we shouldn't be able to do it all, but God has been building our muscles over time. We don't want to miss any blessings that He has for us or any ways that He wants to use us, so instead of putting our own limits, we keep trusting.

Our current Discipleship Training School started the second week of July and has 31 students - it is the largest DTS ever in YWAM in London! We have six houses strung like pearls on a necklace across London, from West London to our house in Hackney, East London. When I look back three years and remember how excited we were to get our second house, this feels absolutely mad. Several teachers and pastors that came to visit us in the early years of Radiant said that it was time for us to stretch the edges of our tent, and they were right!

A couple of weeks ago, we held a community barbecue in the alley next to Think, and we had somewhere around 100 new friends come through. They were everyone from homeless to gypsies to families to our regular Think customers. At one point, I put down my camera and looked across the crowd to see all of our different ministries in one place: the barber from Think was giving a free haircut to our homeless friend Nobby, and our regular cafe customer Saranya was chatting to a woman from Hope and Anchor. Our DTS students sat on the dirty pavement in order to have conversations with some homeless that we'd never met before while one of our Hope and Anchor ladies made jollof rice (a Nigerian speciality) for everyone. And the next Sunday, some of our homeless friends even came to Hope and Anchor for the first time since we moved into the cinema location!

In two days, we begin Arise London/Bones Camp, our outreach to the city of London leading up to Notting Hill Carnival. If you've been on this journey with me for any amount of time, you are probably familiar with Bones. I love it, because it is our push all together as a base. We put other activities on pause in order to reach out to our city in a massive way. Could you pray for us as we step into it, that God would prepare the hearts of our team, of the campers who come from outside to join us, and for the people that we will meet in the streets? Will you pray for health, safety and for God to move? We saw many people get saved last year, and we are trusting that many more will encounter Jesus this year as we hit the streets! So that update is certainly coming up!

And finally, my Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) is nearly fully funded - thank you so much for giving so extravagantly! I will be applying for it when I return from the International Arts + Sports Gathering in NYC in October. So I will be back in September with an update on Arise London/Bones and to share about the Gathering (which I get to help organise, and which is one of my favourite events that we hold as a team).

But once again, thank you all for your prayers, for your support and for your faithfulness. We are in such an exciting time as God is opening up new sectors of life (business primarily!) for our team to touch, and the places that we find ourselves are always surprises. I couldn't have dreamt all of this for myself, so I'm so glad that God dreams for all of us and enables us to move as a family through it together. So thank you for being a part of this family with me, for loving God and trusting Him along with me. You guys are incredible!

ice lollies on a hot day

This is just a tiny update, because it delighted my heart and I want to share it with you.

We got a donation for Lazarus Project this week, and we decided to use it towards the food and coffee/tea that we give out to the homeless and needy on Saturday nights at Camden Town Station. Today is the hottest day of the year so far (34 degrees Celsius, so about 92 degrees Fahrenheit - with no air conditioning in sight), and we knew that the homeless wouldn't be hungry so much as they would need something nice to cool them down. So we went to the shop and bought ice lollies to go with the soup and bread that we already had.

One of the gentlemen is regularly quite gruff with us and refuses help, but when Josiah took him an ice lolly, he broke into a smile that he couldn't wipe off of his face. I hope I never forget how he looked.

Here's a picture of Paul with his ice lolly. A few weeks ago, Paul collapsed under our tent after consuming too many substances (I'm unsure of whether it was a combination of drugs and alcohol or just one or the other), and we had to call the ambulance. He's gotten into numerous scrapes since, but tonight he seemed content to just eat his ice lolly and chill.

So anyway, have a lovely evening, and I hope that this brings some joy to your weekend!

as a man Thinks

“What does Think mean?”

Introducing Think, our new cafe! The name is inspired by Proverbs 23:7, which says, “As a man thinks in his heart, so he is.” We want it to be a spot that encourages people to stop for a moment and think about their heart. We want them to find God in their searching, to realise they were created intentionally for something great.

But let me rewind a bit. We began building Think (referred to on this blog as “the cafe”) in the middle of January, and on the first day of May, we held our grand opening. I have the absolute privilege of being a barista at Think, which means that I went from construction on 30th April and the morning of 1 May straight into on-the-job training. We didn’t stop for a moment, but we discovered that our three months of building developed muscles and authority in the space that we will need to steward this space well.

My roommate, Liz, at the till

 

Part of our beautiful machine

Think is located on Camden High Street, just a few blocks from the Horse Stables that attract thousands of tourists each weekend. It is right in the middle of the neighbourhood where we’ve been praying and investing for years, and it marks the third leg of our ministry there. The first is the base house, where Chris and Johanna, our base directors, live with their family. The second is Hope and Anchor Community Church. And the third is this cafe, a place where we not only welcome the community in, but where we hope to build community. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

I haven’t worked in the hospitality industry in a while, but I haven’t forgotten those plastered-on smiles or how efficiency was the most praised practise. Think is entirely different. We are encouraged to have conversations with our customers, conversations that go deeper than the surface. And if one of us is in the conversation, the others cover and handle the practicalities of the cafe so that we can stay in the conversation. It is the opposite to every business model I’ve seen, but of course, this isn’t a business for us. This is a ministry. We talk openly about God. We offer to pray for people. We invite them to church. We hold our Connect Groups for church at the back tables. The coffee culture in London is booming, and we are welcoming people into our space. And our space is Kingdom space, so we don’t play by the normal rules. We get to play the King’s way.

Neil, the first customer I made a coffee for and my mate who runs the homeless drop-in I volunteer in on Tuesdays

But we aren’t just a normal cafe space. We want to give back to the community, as well, through using our hairstyling space to give the homeless free haircuts and eventually enable those coming out of prison or off the streets to learn a skill and hold down a job. Whenever one of us brings in somebody off the streets to talk more deeply, they get free coffee. Eventually we hope to use the outside wall of the shop to teach graffiti workshops so the youth have something to do other than sell drugs or play on smartphones. And more than anything, we want everyone who walks through the doors to encounter Jesus Christ.

The view from outside our shop, looking in.

Liz making coffee on opening night.

So would you please pray for us, family? We’re in a whole new game here in the business world. We need favour with the borough council, because they aren’t keen with what we’ve done to the outside of the place. Our hot water boiler has also just broken (turns out it was 15-20 years old), and it will take around £6000 to replace. We’re also keen to build up regular customers so that we can have deep relationships with them and disciple them as they meet Jesus. Basically, this is an all new endeavour, and we need a lot of wisdom from God on top of His grace.

And thank you, as well, for the prayer that you spend on us. Thank you for your faithfulness. We see the fruits of it here in London.

and finally, me!

Resurrection Weekend

I received an email last week from a friend who said, "As you celebrate our Savior's death and Resurrection, I pray you find joy in the gift of life we have through Jesus' gift to us, His life."

I thought about that line from the email for several days. Easter is a celebration, one that we often meet through somber reflection. But I wanted to celebrate this year. The same day that I received the email, I found at that, as Hope and Anchor Community Church, we were going to spend Good Friday reaching out for Camden. What actually ensued was much better.

On Friday, we set out our large church banners on each of the corners of the Camden High Street so that all of the people exiting Camden Town Underground Station couldn't miss us. We brought drums, a sound system, stilts and face painting, and people began stopping to talk to us. We stayed outside until nighttime, celebrating in the streets. It felt a bit weird to be celebrating on Good Friday, the day most people commemorate Jesus dying on the Cross. But He died for the people of Camden, and they need to know, so we danced and sang with the people who stopped. And many of them stopped and stayed with us for several hours, chatting to different people and joining in when we all danced to Mary Mary's "Shackles."

Camden Town Community Choir singing to draw the crowds and spread joy

The musicians singing covers

Chris meeting people where they are

Melo painting faces

Federico made a new friend whilst drumming

On Saturday, we visited Camden Stables Market with flyers to invite people to our Sunday celebration. We combed the stalls, inviting tourists and stall workers alike. Then we went handed out food to the homeless and needy by Camden Town Station again, and our group was so large that we managed to send out a team to the alleys where we know the homeless normally congregate.

This couple asked the girls, "Who is this Jesus we keep hearing about? Is he around here?"

Henrik kept cars from hitting this man as he sat drunkenly in the street

Finally, on Sunday, after our service (at which we met many of our friends from Friday and Saturday again), we hit the streets to invite people to the barbecue and film-viewing that we were having. A lot of the more rough-and-tumble Camden crowd came, and as I looked up and down Greenland Street during the barbecue, I was delighted by the diversity. There was everyone from an 89-year-old Irish woman with her shopping trolley to two men who got stuck in the punk scene of the 90s, from the homeless to the families passing by. I love moments like that, where I look around at our church and see a snapshot of our city.

Camden Town Community Choir performed in church

Resurrection Sunday worship

Inviting people to our barbecue

In case they didn't look up to see the barbecue

Part of our eclectic bunch

Some new friends with Federico

Our barbecue in the streets of Camden

This weekend was a weekend of joy. And when I observed the people that gathered with us, I realised that joy attracts lonely people. So many of them started appearing at the fringes of our group on the streets, and the person nearest them would turn around and pull them in. And isn't that part of what Jesus came to do? He saved us, yes. He gave us family. And still today, He is calling the lonely to Himself, from the streets of Camden to wherever you are living right now. It was such a joy to get to welcome the lonely home.

the other side

At Hope and Anchor on Sunday, Chris said that we often ask God for the promise, but when we get to the other side of the promise, we don't know what to do.

I've been thinking about that, and about the weight that comes with blessings, over the past few weeks as we've been working on the cafe. We were all focussed at first on finding a place, but once the papers were signed, we quickly realised we'd forgotten to envision the time that it would take for us to create a proper cafe. Now that we are two months into the building process, we are dreaming of the day that the cafe opens. But never in those dreams am I exhausted from early morning shifts or frustrated at customers or worried about supplies orders or a machine gone wonky. We've not gotten the promise yet, but we've also not gotten the responsibility that goes with it.

Chris finished his thought on Sunday by saying that we need to know Who brings us through the promise. Looking back on these past months, it is quite clear that God is preparing us for something big. We are trusting Him in the area of financial provision in a way we've not had to before. We need Him to provide for the countertops and other supplies so we can finish the cafe, not to mention all of the ways that we will need to see Him when the doors open to the public. But we believe Him and that He can make His dreams come to life. And honestly, it's exciting to live a life of faith together as a team in this area.

Anyway, I actually began this post to share with you the newsletter that we made for Lazarus. We've realised that Lazarus isn't always clear to people. Is it a person? A homeless feeding programme? An activity we do once a week? The answer is all and none to those, so here's our Lazarus Project newsletter (spoiler: Lazarus Project is the mercy ministry of YWAM London Radiant. To see what that means, click the link!).

So in short, we are still building, still trusting, still praying and seeking God. We are meeting with borough councils and members of the House of Lords and the homeless and pastors and many people in between and seeing God's dreams for London take shape in so many different ways. It feels like a fight on many different fronts this month as Brexit still looms and the people of London grow more worried and frightened - after all, we are a nation of immigrants with few native foods. It looks like we'll be eating cabbage and mutton for a while until this all gets sorted. But we are praying for our government as well and trusting that God's will will be done. And if His will is for us to have a hard Brexit and to learn what that means, then at least we are here, in the middle of London, ready to listen to Him and to share with our fellow Londoners what God is saying.

hurricane days

I thought that January would be quiet, that a lack of students would mean time to be creative and slow down a bit. All of us at Radiant did. But boy, were we wrong. Within a few days of each other, two massive things that we were praying for came to life, and we had to start hustling.

In the beginning of January, we got the keys to an empty shop in Camden. For years, we have been praying and seeking God's heart for a coffee/tattoo/hairstyling shop in Camden. And over the past year, we've seen several different properties. Peri and Chris have been scouring the internet and the streets for locations that could work. We've even gotten close to having a few of them, but they kept falling through. But this former hairdresser on Camden High Street? It didn't fall through. So Chris and Johanna signed the papers and got the keys, and we got to work.

The building that we started with is not the one that we are working in now. We tore down walls and two false ceilings to reveal over an extra metre of height. We also found a leak, shoddy electrical wiring, a false front, and more. We've been spending our days in the shop together, clearing the old out and beginning to build the new. The layout has changed multiple times, and some days are slower than others, but I love that it is team-building in the most literal sense. We don't need games or ice-breakers. We just tear down ceilings and build new walls. It is also a time when I am thanking God for the men that He sent to the team - I remember building projects where the girls had to wield the drills and carry the heavy objects, but this time, we have several guys who are really good at construction at the helm. What an absolute blessing.

Many of us will be baristas in the shop (me included!), so we've also begun coffee training. And hygiene and food training (which I also needed for Lazarus Project and our homeless feeding programmes, so it's a win/win situation for me). I really love all of the training, because they are tangible tools for reaching the people of Camden. Chris always says that more blessings bring more responsibility, and he is definitely right. We have a lot of responsibilities now that we've not had to think of before, but God is training our muscles to carry these dreams.

If you'd like to know more about our cafe, Think, check out the Instagram or the Facebook. They share our heart for making a space for community in the centre of Camden and the different dreams and plans that we have for the space that God has given us. Please also pray for us, because this is our first time navigating the treacherous terrain of council permits and the like. We trust what God is asking from us, and we can't wait to see the cafe opened to the public soon!

Tearing down ceilings in Think.

All of the Radiant staff in the shop!

In January, we also signed the contract for Hope and Anchor Community Church to move into the Odeon Cinema. We use a 175 person screen for our Sunday meetings every week now. I know. It's massive. But we outgrew the Upper Room (which we still use for other activities), and after looking around Camden for a venue that was big enough for us, we were thrilled when the Odeon was keen to host us. When God said that it was time to expand the edges of our tent, we had no idea how much!

This past Sunday was our first in the Odeon, and while we had many empty seats, we are excited to be intentional in our community as they are filled. Because they won't fill by magic - they will fill as we share God's heart with the people of Camden. And we love doing that. We are already reaching out through the Camden Town Community Choir, which is searching for a rehearsal venue in the centre of Camden Town in order to be near the local residents. Our Connect Groups are also moving to the Camden area so that we can share together mid-week as well. So between the two church venues, the Radiant base flat, and the shop, we have four locations in Camden within a year and a half. It took seven years of praying in Camden and seeing no results, but God is moving in a massive way!

This week is also the first week of our February Arts Internship and our School of Leadership and Urban Ministry Development. I am staffing the leadership school and also getting to walk alongside and mentor two of our arts interns, so I've had the excitement of a lot of new things this week. But those aren't the only new things in the works - Chasm Magazine is releasing issue two in the next few days, and it is available for pre-order already. They ship to different countries, so please check it out! And the guys (plus Sara) have been working on recording the first EP for Tidal in our recording studio. I had no idea how much work goes into making on EP, but holy cow. I can't wait for them to release it so we can play it constantly.

So this has been a long post, but a brief overview of a crazy month. I will be back soon to share what's going on with Lazarus, more updates about Think and Hope and Anchor, and more. But thank you, thank you for being on this journey with me. Your prayers have hands and feet here in London.

Christmas for Camden (Part II)

"Was this Your dream all along?"

Sometimes I think that we're so scared to take a step because we think that, if we make the wrong decision, or if we don't hear God say, "Thou shalt do this," we will be out of His will and screw everything up. So we don't move at all, and we stay in the same place, which is rarely (I think) what He intends.

So we moved. We dreamed big for how to touch all of London for Jesus' birthday, and we assembled 10,000 gifts of small anchor badges to give out to Londoners, and we passed them out in the council estates and supermarkets around Camden and invited people to Christmas dinner. The Christmas dinner wasn't our original plan, but in the end, through closed doors and rethinking and more closed doors, I think that we made it to what God dreamed for Camden. And the heart was the same - a safe place for the people of Camden to come spend Christmas together. A place where the material pressures of the season were set aside, where class and social divides were torn down, where we could all be together.

In the middle of the busyness (I would say chaos, but it wasn't. Everybody did their different roles diligently and with love), I stood in the back corner by the kitchen and looked across the room. Our neighbours were engaged in conversation with each other and with our church family. Some of them listened to the worship music with uncharacteristic stillness. Hymn, a chalk graffiti artist whose poems decorate the pavements and buildings of Camden, tried to leave to finish his shopping, but came back and sat completely silently through the worship and carols. I've never seen him so quiet before. There was a woman spilling her heart to Carrie, a mum and daughter sat talking to Ina, several homeless men that have become our mates talking with the guys, and more, and more.

"Was this Your dream all along?" I asked God.

And I knew that it was. To have us all together, worshipping Him, loving each other in a practical way. While God is complex, I don't think that He is complicated. To me, it sounds like the type of birthday party He wanted all along. 

And that's all we wanted, isn't it? To give Him glory and praise and honour, on His birthday, but also today. He's worth it. Christmas for Camden was for Camden, yes. But it was also for more of Him.

The boys barbecuing the meat outside

The tables set and ready for friends!

The choir practising carols

Some of our mates (Hymn is on the left) enjoying the worship

Christmas for Camden

There was a moment on Friday night, as four of my Radiant mates and I knocked on doors of the council estate nearest Hope and Anchor Community Church, that I forgot about the cold and dark and genuinely just enjoyed getting to be God's hands and feet in Camden. When we knocked on the doors, we never knew the reception that we would get. Some women refused to answer, even when they pushed back the curtain and saw Victoria and me smiling back at them with gifts in our hands. One man opened the door in nothing but his underpants. In London in December. His heating must work very well. And there was one man who opened the door ready to knock our living daylights out. But then we gave him the gifts for his family, and he nearly cried.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me explain why it was that we were on an estate after dark handing out mysterious gifts.

Back in early November, after a weekend of paperwork and interviews and inspections, we were drained and decided to think of a way that we could bring Christmas to London on a big scale. One thing led to another, and before our week officially even began, we had ordered 10,000 anchor pins to distribute to the people of London. But just giving them a pin wasn't good enough. We wanted to give them gifts. So we ordered straw and boxes and stickers, and last week, our Radiant offices became an assembly line as we constructed boxes and packed pins to take to the people of London.

This Christmas season has seemed especially dismal in London. Maybe it has something to do with the Brexit chaos that our Parliament is sorting, or the fact that we nearly lost our Prime Minister last week. Or maybe it's that 2018 was a rough year. And the holidays are always rough. It's a time of hope, but the emphasis on hope seems to also highlight what we don't have. We originally wanted to have a street party for the people of Camden, so that we could come together as a community in a time of loneliness. It would be full of free food and live music, a camel, gifts for everyone. It would celebrate the true Christmas spirit, that God fulfilled His greatest promise to the people that He loves. But the permits didn't come through, and we planned instead a Christmas dinner for anyone who will come.

Back to knocking on doors. It's the first time we've gone door-to-door in Camden. People in London aren't necessarily warm and friendly (as I'm sure you've gathered). They don't take kindly to having their dinner or telly time interrupted by strangers. But Friday night found us laden with boxes of gifts and numb fingers that made it a comedy sketch every time we fumbled for boxes and Christmas dinner invitations. In the midst of it all, as I watched Federico cajole passersby into taking a gift from a stranger, or as Victoria, Sara, and Elin chased down strangers at bus stops, or as Sergio pulled the gifts out three at a time, I was struck by the privilege of it. This is something that God dreamt of. I truly believe that it thrills Him to see His children chase down others with a little box of hope.

And we have at least 9,000 gifts left to give out this week. The best is yet to come!

The process of creating the gifts:

The final product:

A happy recipient!