US/UK Connection Continued

 Hi everyone! It was so good to see so many of you on my visit to the States earlier this month. It is always an encouraging reminder that there are so many people who are praying for and investing in York alongside me. So thank you!

I have been back in the UK for just over a week now, but it has been such a busy week, so I wanted to share briefly about the outreach team that we hosted this week.

The team came from Renee's church in Massachusetts, and they were all in their fifties and above - the oldest team member was 80! That made quite a change from the teenagers that we usually host on outreach teams. They wanted to learn how we do missions in our city, so they came alongside us as we held two outreach events: one in the city centre and one in Tang Hall, the neighbourhood we hope to move into soon. We brought out the bubbles, bracelet making supplies and poi and brought joy to the area as we got to know the people who came to see us.

City centre outreach and Tang Hall outreach are quite different. When we got the bubbles out in the city centre, there were suddenly more than ten children and their families surrounding us. They were from all over the world - the Netherlands, Turkey and more! Because they were in the city centre enjoying the sites, they were open to chatting and having a good time. Two of the youth that we mentor came along on the outreach, and they were amazing at monitoring the children at the bubbles whilst we had conversations. 

One of our youth and one of the outreach team making bubbles in front of the Minster

Our Tang Hall outreach was a bit different. We prayer walked around the neighbourhood, then took Tilly, Vanessa's daughter and our youngest YWAM volunteer, to the local park. She helped us to meet the families who were there. It took longer for them to warm up to us, but by the end, we had a group of ten or so gathered around, making bracelets and chatting. We are aware that it will take time to meet people and build relationships in Tang Hall, and we went into the day just hoping to meet some people. Tilly really helped with that - some of the small children went to our church's toddler group, which Vanessa runs and Tilly attends! We hope to meet these families again through our children and youth work, and just through being a part of the community.

Tilly takes in all of the bubbles and people at Tang Hall outreach

The outreach team heads back to the States today, and we head up to camp tomorrow! Please pray for us as we take the children and youth from York churches up to Scotland for a week of learning about Jesus. In every baptism that I have been to recently, YCYH (the camp) has come up as a definitive moment in the young people's faith. Pray for our energy, health, safety and for God to move through us and in their lives. And please pray that it doesn't rain the whole time! And once again, thank you so much for your prayer and support. It means a lot to know that you are all behind me!

further joy

 Two posts so close together? It must be good news!

And it is!

Mondays are generally our free day, but when we found out that Simon Guillebaud, a missionary to Burundi and evangelist, was holding a time of evangelism this afternoon, we decided to forego our free day and to spend the afternoon on the streets with him. He shared an app that will help to share the Gospel easily, then paired us off. 

Yvonne and her evangelism partner, Bobby

I had the opportunity to go out with a guy called Chris, who is from Hull (a city about an hour away) and who recently came to Christ from a rough background. It was a great opportunity to approach people who would normally not respond well to a woman alone, and he related really well with some of the homeless people we met. We were speaking to one of these men who had just been kicked out of his hostel, and after speaking for a while and sharing the Gospel, he decided to receive Jesus. So we prayed with him and gave him the information for how to get to my church on Friday afternoons for a meal and different courses (Alpha, a debt course, a life skills course, etc) and church on a Sunday. 

Simon Guillebaud praying with a man

I wanted to share that quickly because that's the second person I've seen come to Jesus within the span of a week - that's a record for my time in England! England has been notoriously hard ground for Gospel sharing, so I do feel that both of these are definitely encouragements and gifts from God. And I am so grateful!

You may also be wondering why I haven't been very vocal on this blog lately. Well, I began studying in September! I went away for a 5 day residential to kick of my graduate diploma studies in theology, where I had twelve hour days. It was incredible to learn about the Old Testament and spiritual formation with around 60 other classmates from across the UK and Ireland. Since then, we have had "hub night" once a week, where all of the York students (there are only three of us) come together to watch our recorded lectures and to have video calls with our lecturers. I also submitted my first essay - an exegesis on Genesis 2 - last week. As I cleaned up my annotations (the notes that I made in the Biblical text), I was so thankful to see how much I had learned and to realise how fun it had been! 

I am still leading YWAM in York, and we've been doing our usual kids and youth work. Last week, we had a "light night," where we gave away glow sticks and hot chocolates to the trick or treaters who came by. We had a lot of great conversations with local families. 

Izzy, a youth worker who helps us with our local youth work.

I am also preparing for citywide Alpha, which will run again in January. It takes a lot of planning and coordination to get around 15 churches across the city to begin their Alpha courses together, but last year, when around 100 people met together for the Holy Spirit weekend, all of the effort was well worth it. It is such a privilege to be able to share with people about God and to introduce them to how we worship Him together in church. We are asking God to prepare the hearts of the people who will come on to Alpha - could you pray with us? 

Next month, we are partnering with our church to bring The Christmas Journey, an interactive experience where we will walk primary school aged children through the Christmas story with Mary. I co-wrote the script with my friend Anna, and we will be spending a whole week doing the set up, acting and tear down from the event. Last year, this outreach reached many families in Tang Hall, the neighbourhood we hope to move to next year. We are hopeful that this year will reach even more children and families! Please pray for us as we finalise the set, props, script and bookings with the schools. 

And in the midst of all of this, I am still studying, photographing weddings, going to counselling with somebody who specialises in helping those who have been hurt doing religious work, in a relationship with a godly man and volunteering at church. My life is very full at the minute, but I am thankful to be able to both work and study as well as to be a part of seeing God move in York!

Receive to Give

Last year, when we were praying together about what God had for our base, we felt that we were going to be a base of hospitality and generosity. Those are big concepts for a small team, but we know that York is the third most touristic city in the UK and that we are equipped with an amazing building and a beautiful home, so we have the resources that we need to live those two words out. But it can be challenging to live that out when financial resources are running low, or when you are hosting an outreach team of 12 and three of your four team members are still having to self-isolate after coming back from the States. 

That was the specific circumstance that I found myself in last week (if you couldn’t tell already). But whilst praying for the YWAM Urban Key London (the base where I did my training a decade ago!) outreach team, I felt like God really wanted to pour into them as they poured into our city. As the York team, we had also been asking God to show us new ways to be generous and hospitable this year. So the girls held down the fort with doing our mountains of admin work at home, and I got to be with the London outreach team and show them our city. 

The London outreach team came with a heart to serve. From the first day that they were in York, they prayed for ways to bless the city. They joined in our day of evangelism with The Belfrey church, even though it was a balmy 0 degrees outside. They helped us host our youth nights (vital since we were down 3 people), joined our weekly evangelism, and prayer walked the city with us. And in between our activities, they also served a local church and did prayer walks and practical work of their own. It is so beautiful to see people come with a heart to bless your city, and I think that we were all amazed by their willingness to serve York.

But for me, the most beautiful part was the way that the church of York reached out to the team. I have been a YWAMer for a decade; I know that it is our heart as YWAM to serve and to bless the nations, so I expected that of the team. But what we do not often see is the local church pouring back into a team. And this week, without me even asking or orchestrating it, that happened. Our local church, York Community Church, welcomed the team to various activities and took time to pray for them and to give them lifts home. Our friend Vanessa organised a worship night for the team, and the House of Prayer brought their team over to join in and to minister to and with the outreach team. Our pastor, Simon, prayed for the team at numerous activities and got to know them. Our neighbours, Ruth and David, showed up to the base many times with blankets, heaters and more to make sure that the team was taken care of and helped lead the first prayer walk. Our worship night carried on even after it had officially ended, because the outreach team and the Yorkies were praying and talking to each other, and they were enjoying being together too much to go home, even though it was late. 

I think what amazes me the most about this is the way that God orchestrated it all without us. We had a lack of manpower, but we still had the heart to host the team well. What we couldn’t do ourselves, God did. He brought together a team that had a heart to serve the city and the people of the city who were so grateful to receive a team. It was bigger than us as YWAM York - it was the body of Christ mutually loving each other and pouring into a place together. I’ve been reading a lot about that mutual love and how it will show people Christ (John 15). And over the past two weeks, God has been teaching me about it by letting me see it in practice. Now we will go back to being a team of four, but the way God has moved will continue to affect this city for time to come. He is so good. 

Christmas Outreach

 It is early in the morning here in York, and we are in the throes of a double pronged Christmas outreach (meaning that every day, we are reaching both the city at large through evangelism and our local community through specific community events), but I wanted to take a moment to share what we are doing!

Every week, we as a team have committed to do evangelism outside of the Minster (the Cathedral in York) and the Belfrey (the smaller Anglican church that is next to the Minster). Local churches know that we are there, and they occasionally come along to join us as we reach our city. For our Christmas outreach this year, we decided to do evangelism in front of the Belfrey every day and to invite all of the churches that we know along. On Wednesday, at One Voice, the pastors' unity meeting that we attend weekly, they commissioned us to go and reach our city this week. Several of the pastors and ministry leaders have also signed up to come along and join us over these days. 

Yesterday was our first afternoon out. The sun sets around 3:30 pm these days (that's how far north we are!), so we finish as the sun is setting. We have live music, carols, dance, testimonies and of course bubbles on hand to engage the throngs of tourists that have descended on York to visit the famous Christmas market. Whilst Laura, a local university student that I've had the pleasure of getting to know, played Christmas carols on the bazouki (an Irish folk instrument), I got to speak to several people, including a Chinese student who is studying in Leeds, the biggest city near us. She had gone into the Minster and encountered the Apocalypse Window, which recounts the stories of Revelation. 

Whilst talking to her, I had the privilege of being the first person to explain Jesus to her. I got to explain why Christians celebrate Christmas and Easter and what that means. Then we walked into the Belfrey, where I gave her a Gospel of Luke and told her a bit more about Jesus. I returned outside to continue the evangelism, and when she came out 45 minutes later, she told me that she'd already read about a quarter of Luke and that she would finish it at home. She has since messaged me on Instagram, indicating that she'd like to meet again.

It is amazing to me that God orchestrated it so that she went into the Minster, encountered stories of Jesus, and that I got to meet her afterwards to explain who He is. It can be difficult to explain Jesus to people who have no concept of Him, but it is also so good to remember why I love Him and how extraordinary faith is! It was even better to be able to give her a Bible, something that she doesn't have access to in her nation. We have been praying for weeks for the conversations that we will have over these next few days, that God would send us people who are ready to find out who He is!

Tonight we are hosting our community Christmas party in the Barnabas Centre. We have Covid precautions in place, but as the government is warning people off of meeting, we are praying that God still sends the right people to our party, and that they encounter love, community and God in our building. We are also praying for no Covid to be in that place, as the girls are meant to travel to their families next week and my parents are travelling here. 

Would you join us in praying for the people that we meet during this Christmas outreach? We want to see people meet Jesus and come to faith. We want to see the lonely caught up in family and the joy of Jesus fill our streets. And most of all, we want God to be glorified in York this Christmas season!

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.

joining the fight, grabbing the plough

From the moment that Cammy, a Church of Scotland minister, called me back in September, his excitement over getting to host our DTS at his church in Edinburgh was contagious. He was brimming with ideas for us to do in our week of outreach with his parish. And his excitement was contagious - as he shared his heart with us on our first night in Edinburgh, we began dreaming of the change that could come when the people of Edinburgh hear about Jesus. 

You see, 97% of people in Scotland only enter the church to marry or bury. As we walked up and down the streets of Gilmerton, Moredun, and Gracemount, we saw many Buddhas, faeries, and other idols in the gardens and windows of the houses, but we didn’t encounter many people who knew about Jesus. When we asked Janet, one of the church leaders, about them, she said that they were cheap decorations, and when people saw their neighbours with them, they got a Buddha for themselves. I think that they don’t want to feel alone (after all, emptiness and loneliness are the human condition - we weren’t created to be alone!), so they try to fill that space with a innocuous looking idol in their garden.

The Church of Scotland churches in Moredun, Gilmerton, and Gracemount changed my perception of church. It’s odd how much of culture you don’t realise is specific to how you are raised until you encounter its opposite. Then you also have to realise that the way that you were raised isn’t necessarily correct. I’ve had ample opportunity of discovering this in YWAM, where we visit several churches around the world throughout the course of the year. I’ve been to an Ethiopian church in Glasgow, an Argentinian church in Italy, high Anglican and Catholic Churches, and churches meeting in warehouses and shop fronts. But I hadn’t realised that my expectations for church extended to the people. 

In the churches where we served, the people loved to make food for us.They made us haggis, a traditional dish, and it was delicious (so don’t let people tell you that it is disgusting!). There was one woman who is a whiz at whipping up cakes. There’s another who spends great chunks of time researching and implementing ways of saving the church money - through lowering the wattage of light bulbs to putting greenhouse plastic over the windows to keep the heat in. Many of the church volunteers have overcome drug addictions - recently. They are in a battle to regain their lives. There was one woman who is my age and has had five children, none of whom live with her anymore. She credits the church with helping her to have a purpose in life again - instead of sitting in her flat in a high rise building, thinking about what she’s lost, she has a family. She has people to take care of. And she dreams of opening her own cafe - she can do the baking, and she’s fabulous at taking care of people. 

Whilst in Edinburgh, we went door-to-door every day to invite people to the arts and sports workshops that we held in the evenings. Amazingly, many of the people that we invited came - and they came for more than one night! For a lot of them, it was their first time in the church. All of our activities (football, basketball, collaging, nails and make up, creative writing) were designed to let us spend time getting to know the people. We also hosted several barbecues, which are vital in a community that has so much food poverty. 

Scots are known for their friendliness and for being full of life. When they are living healthy lives, that is certainly true. Cammy had us rolling with all of his jokes and stories. At the same time, mental illnesses such as depression, anxiety, and alcoholism are rampant in the community where we served. The United Kingdom has plenty of resources, but what people really need to know is that they are loved. They aren’t alone. God created them and longs for a relationship with them. And also, the churches are empty, but the doors are still open there for them. And the churches in Southeast Edinburgh are desperate to welcome them in. It was an honour to serve with these brave, loving people in their churches. They are warriors. 

Autumn Catch-Up

It has grown cold in London.

I feel like I always begin with a weather update, which is true to our culture, so here it is: it is officially autumn.

I left a week and a half ago for a ministry trip to New York City to have meetings for the International Arts + Sports Gathering that we will be holding there from 7-11 October (check out here for more details and to sign up!), and when I left, it was still the end of summer. But I arrived back to 13 degrees and rain, so here we go!

Since it has grown cooler, we've transitioned from having our Hope and Anchor Community Church barbecues to giving out donuts, tea, and coffee outside during church. It creates a different atmosphere when you have a cuppa and hear worship music from the service flooding the street. I also found that we have a greater variety of people come for free teas and coffees than came for barbecue, and people are used to hot beverages being consumed in social situations. Sami, Lucas and I manned the table yesterday, and we each had deep conversations about God with the people that we met.

One man stopped dead in his tracks when he saw us, and he cried before he even made it upstairs into the service. He said he'd had a terrible day and turned down the alley that our church is on knowing that the only way forward was death. But when he saw us, he thought we were angels (which is flattering, but I think he actually encountered Jesus). He went to the service, then came down again to talk with Lucas and me, and we got to tell him about how God is pursuing him and loves him. We quoted Psalm 139, which he promised to read. I don't know if we will see him again, but it was still so beautiful to see God touch him.

As I mentioned briefly, Christian, Johanna, their kids, and I went to New York City for a week to meet with pastors and ministries about the International Arts + Sports Gathering that will be held next October. We went to NYC in March to hold the initial meetings, and this time, we saw God move in an incredible way. By the time we left NYC, we had both several locations to hold the various sessions in as well as housing and other details sorted. It is difficult to plan an event of this magnitude from so far away, but God has been very present in the details and in opening doors for us. But it hasn't just been us pursuing it; our friends and family have been connecting us to people and churches, as well. We've seen so much generosity. We always say that the Church is one body, but I've actually seen that put into motion through this, and it is really beautiful. We may lament what is happening to the church today, but the church is also alive in New York City. They are reaching the millions of inhabitants in different creative ways, and there are many of the churches that work together. It is quite something to see.

As for the rest of YWAM London Radiant, we have been as busy as usual lately! There is currently one DTS running that began in July, and they leave on outreach to Scotland, Spain, and Italy next week. I will be joining them for the Scottish portion. We'll be serving and staying in a church on an estate (think council housing) in southeast Edinburgh. It is our first time working with this church, so we are looking forward to our activities with the community there. For both Scotland and Italy, churches that we haven't met opened their doors for us. Could you pray for our DTS and staff as we make our way around Europe this autumn?

Chasm Magazine also came out with its first issue! Courtney and Carrissa have been working faithfully for over a year on this project, and there have been several crazy roadblocks in the way. They have definitely been learning perseverance, but it has paid off, and Issue One is here. Several of us contributed (I did a photography essay), and now we get to hold it in our hands! You can order a copy and have it delivered to wherever in the world you live - this is their website.

There's also a band working on their first EP (more on that to come) in our music studio, Lazarus Project planning a spa night for the homeless ladies of Kings Cross (our Instagram is here), our fashion ministry which went to fashion week, and our sports ministry running the Royal Parks Half Marathon. I am running the Half Marathon again this year, and I need to raise £150 for our charity (YWAM London Radiant). I am dreadfully behind in fundraising, so if you could take a moment to support me, even for just £10, I'd be so grateful. Here is my fundraising page. All of the money that I raise will go straight to our charity.

There are a dozen more things happening in our base and in Hope and Anchor Community Church, from a community choir on Thursday nights to our university ministry being started as one of the girls studies Human Rights at UCL to our creative writing ministry putting out a poetry book to our barista ministry and construction ministry creating a coffee cart and looking for spaces in markets around London. I hope that this post has given you a small glimpse into some of the things that we are doing this autumn - if you'd like to see more, you can follow our base instagram or my personal instagram. And you can always email me at deborahestevenson@gmail.com if you have any questions or would like to chat. I can give you my WhatsApp via email, and we can keep in contact.

Finally, it was so nice to meet and spend time with several of you this past weekend at Calvary Temple, and to receive a card from the ladies of Second Baptist. Thank you so much for all of your care and prayers.

A Brief Summer-y

Does it feel like autumn to you?

Tuesday night ended both our Bones Camp/Notting Hill Carnival outreach and the Discipleship Training School that I was co-leading with Melo and Andres, and the leaves have begun to litter the kerbs, which leads me to believe that autumn is here. But perhaps you are in warmer climes, and you are still enjoying the heat of summer (shoutout to my parents and grandparents). 

Anyway, now that the British summer is over, I finally have the chance to sit down and share what we did (aka a summer-y). 

This summer, I helped to lead a two-month outreach around England for our March DTS and June Internship. We went to Notting Hill, where we did prayer walks and evangelism in preparation for our Notting Hill Carnival festivities. Afterwards, we traveled to Islington in North London, where we stayed whilst our base hosted the International Arts + Sports Gathering for artists from around the world. The week after that, we helped New River Baptist Church to run a holiday club (aka a VBS) for children on the estate where we were staying (an estate is social housing). Some of us got to create and pioneer the teen portion of the holiday club, and we taught the teenagers parkour, football (aka soccer), fashion design, and writing as well as having film night and American culture night. It was amazingly comedic to watch them learn to play American football. From there, we travelled to Cornwall (the western-most part of England) to volunteer at Creation Fest, a week-long Christian festival. Afterwards, it was back home to London and Bones Camp, which, as I said, finished three days ago.

And there you have it, a two-month outreach in one paragraph.

But what I really want to share with all of you is a conversation that I had with God several times this summer. After all of the evangelism that we did in Notting Hill in early July, I began to get a bit frustrated. Conversations weren’t going anywhere, and I realised that it had been a long time since I had gotten to be with somebody as they made a faith decision. Sure, I’ve had a hand in the process. I’ve gotten to disciple and watch many people’s lives as they chose to change for Christ. But I haven’t seen the moment when a person chooses to give Jesus everything. And it was really starting to frustrate me. 

At Creation Fest, we were each assigned to teams that we worked in for the week. My team was the Connect Team, or the team that prayed with people at the end of the “Big Shed” sessions (the main talks that most of the 4,000 people on site at the festival attended in the morning and night every day). I thought that surely I’d get to help somebody receive Christ, since that was what the whole festival was geared towards. Families literally brought their unsaved neighbours to camp with them for a week just so that their neighbours would meet Jesus. It was incredible. But as the days went on and I had the opportunity to minister to many, still nobody made a decision to follow Christ.

Enter Connie. Connie is well-known across YWAM England as an evangelist. When she enters a place, people receive Jesus. I remember being with her on a street in Glasgow and watching her talk to people. Large groups or one-on-one, they all decided to meet Jesus. Connie had breakfast with me one morning at Creation Fest, and she asked how many people had met Jesus. I had to tell her that nobody had. Then she gave me one of the salvation bracelets that she uses to tell people about Jesus and told me that I’d need it.

Later that day, I got to be a part of three women’s faith decisions. That night, as I was standing in the back of the Big Shed, a teenager came to me, desperate for Jesus. It turns out that he’d gotten in trouble with the police at the festival skate park and realised how much he needed to meet Jesus. There wasn’t a Bible around, so I used the bracelet Connie had given me to explain salvation. He wore it around his wrist as he went to re-join the teens for Milkshake Night.

It didn’t end there. I was excited, but I wasn’t satisfied. And do you know why? Because I realised that I’d never seen somebody receive Christ at Notting Hill Carnival. When Chris met with us before Bones Camp began, he told us to raise our expectations. He said that God wanted to do something incredible. So for several days, I wrestled with that. I wanted to see salvation, but I didn’t have a lot of hope for it. 

On the Saturday night before Carnival, we were outside until 3:30 am, preparing the angel costumes. I watched Chris lead a man to Christ in front of us. The man came up with marijuana and somehow ended up leaving with Jesus. It gave me hope, and when I came out of the church again a few hours later to take photos, I stopped to talk to the first man that I saw. He was an older Belgian man. At the point in the conversation where I normally would have said goodbye, I decided to stay and ask him why he didn’t believe in Jesus. Fast forward a few (very  awkward) minutes, and he received Jesus.

On the Monday afternoon of Carnival, whilst I was on stilts in an angel costume, Peri and I talked to another man. We asked him if he believed in Jesus, and he said no. But as we talked to him about how much Jesus loves him, he started to cry. He really wanted to receive Jesus, and he prayed to receive him before we could even work up to leading him in the prayer. It was incredible to stand in that swirling chaos of high and drunk people and to watch a man give his life to Jesus.

This summer is a crazy blur. When I look back at everything that God did, I am amazed. We had artists come from all over to share their hearts for God and the arts. We got to help several different churches and organisations in their summer activities. And we got to be God’s hands and feet across this city. I am well tired now, but it was worth every night of little sleep. It is always worth it to see God move in mighty ways. 

Floris, one of my DTS students, praying for a man at Hope and Anchor Community Church

Talking to some of our new friends at a Hope and Anchor barbecue

a session of The International Arts + Sports Gathering

Everybody in this picture is called Deborah (from our teen camp in Islington)

Camping expectations vs reality (from Creation Fest in Cornwall, where we camped for nearly two weeks)

Raising our 5 metre Cross in Shoreditch during evangelism/barbecue time in a park

Courtney in the angel costume for Carnival

Sharing during Notting Hill evangelism at Bones Camp

(thank you to Joseph, Alexa, and Nestor for the photographs of me!)