on the road again

I’m going to cut to the chase, then go back to the details, if that’s all right with you.

In September, I am moving to York (north England) with three other women in order to re-pioneer the YWAM base there. We will be joined by a family that has been a part of YWAM York since their own DTSs.

As many of you will know, I moved to London eight years ago to join an arts team that eventually became YWAM London Radiant. I never put a time limit on how long I would be here. Instead, I said, “I’m here until God tells me to go elsewhere.”

Well, guess what. God’s called me to go elsewhere!

Late last year, my leaders here at Radiant asked me to pray about leading a team to re-pioneer the base in York. God gave me a strong “yes,” and my leaders and I prayed together and travelled to York a few times (my mother even visited it with me whilst she was here!), and we asked a few other people to consider coming along. They heard God’s “yes,” and also agreed to be a part of this new adventure!

So long story short, the three other ladies are in the States renewing visas and raising finances right now, and I am in London preparing to lead an outreach team up for a week at the end of July.  The York base has a building, a community centre that holds a small cafe and a dance studio/meeting room space, and we are going to spend a week cleaning and organising it to prepare for September. 

Over the next two months, I am also going to be going through a process (which has already begun) of learning the different things I need to know in order to lead a base - finances, data protection, communication, health and safety, etc, etc, etc. I’ve never done this before, and there are certainly a lot of things to learn! Luckily, my leaders at Radiant, Chris and Johanna, are walking with me through the process. They will continue to be my spiritual leaders when I move to York, and the York base is being re-pioneered by Radiant, so we will not be abandoned in any way. 

There are a lot of aspects of moving to York and re-pioneering the base that are large and could be a bit intimidating: we need to do some work in the base to prepare it for the activities that we will run for the community and for future training schools. We (by we, I mean the four of us ladies who are moving) also need to raise money for a deposit on a house for us to live in, which will probably be around £2,000. And of course, we need to come together as a team, to discern God’s vision and heart for both the city and for the base. 

This is a big transition for me, and you lot have been with me faithfully for the past eight years, so I am glad to finally be able to share it with you. A lot of the details are still up in the air (global pandemic, etc), but here are a few prayer points:

1. The visa offices are currently shut, and all three other ladies need to renew their visas to be in the UK. Please pray for the offices to open up and the girls to get their visas by September.
2. For the outreach that will go to York next week to prepare the base/get to know the area.
3. That I will meet the people, have the appointments, and receive the paperwork that I need as I prepare to move to York and the base.
4. For us to raise the finances that we need to put a deposit on a house to live in.
5. For the physical move from London to York.

If you have any questions about the move, you can email me at deborahestevenson@gmail.com. I am happy to share more with you about what is happening, or just to hear how you are doing or clarify anything I can.

Thank you all for your support, your prayers, your emails, and the way that you constantly surprise me. And thank you for being here as we transition from London to York!

a map of England including York and London (so you have an idea of the journey)

L-R - Renee, Nicole (who already lives in York with her husband and daughters), me, Raya. Yvonne, our fourth American lady, is not pictured.

York Minster at the end of a typical shopping street. It makes you want to come and visit, right?

A photo of York Minster grabbed from atop the medieval city walls (which you can walk round any time)

The tea shop where my mother and I had tea and scones

Inside the tea shop where we had tea and scones

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. 

the joy that comes

Autumn is firmly on its way now. Leaves clutter the kerb outside of our house, and we have had to unpack the cardigans and warm socks that we hid away in our summer optimism. But for me, the year turned two weeks ago, when we opened the door of Westbourne Grove Church on a Tuesday morning to find the streets of Notting Hill in their normal, tidy state. The chaos of the previous two days, when two million people descended on the neighbourhood for the Notting Hill Carnival, had disappeared literally overnight. 

Notting Hill Carnival and Bones Camp were different this year than they have been in the five previous years that I’ve taken part. For obvious reasons: we no longer host it at Notting Hill Community Church, and recent terrorist attacks as well as the Grenfell Tower fire in June have changed the atmosphere of Notting Hill. But to be honest, I was ready for a change. I had grown comfortable with Bones Camp (well, as much as one can in a camp that includes minimal sleep or showers), and I needed to be reminded of the purpose. Last year, we expanded Bones Camp to reach more of London. We continued that this year, and throughout the twelve days of Bones, we went to Notting Hill, Portobello Road Market, King’s Cross, Trafalgar Square, and Shoreditch. We all went to church together in Camden on the first Sunday, as well, which felt like taking an army into our Promised Land. 

Every year, you hear me say the same things about Bones. We created floats, we walked on stilts, we drummed. We did all of those things this year. But instead of creating a visual marvel this year, we did our floats and costumes on a smaller scale and focused on being intentional with people. I believe that God loves a spectacle that brings Him glory - if He didn’t, would have have vanquished His foes by luring them into the Red Sea and then drowning them all spectacularly? Would He have made Himself a cloud of fire to lead the Israelites by night, or sent massive plagues onto the nation of Egypt? But God is also the King of subtlety. He sent an earthquake and a whirlwind past Elijah, but He was in the whisper that came afterwards. And Jesus Himself did amazing miracles, but according to Isaiah, He wasn’t the most handsome, charismatic man. Different years of Notting Hill Carnival lead us to express different dimensions of God’s heart. 

Notting Hill is hurting this year. Grenfell Tower exposed the truth of the gap between rich and poor in Kensington and Chelsea. The tower is visible from all around Notting Hill, yet it may as well have been invisible for all the attention given it before the fire. Even now, after the fire, the gap between rich and poor is drastic. The people of Grenfell have had money thrown at them, but it isn’t helping them. In the case of our Dinner Club acquaintances who lived in the tower, it has led them into a spiral of buying drugs and remaining drunk. There isn’t anybody to help them cope with what has happened, so they are destroying themselves to try to forget what has happened and to fill the gaps left by the friends who didn’t make it out. During Bones Camp, we met with one man in particular who we used to hang out with at Dinner Club and around Notting Hill. He had brand new designer sneakers and a new phone, as well as new accommodation, but he also had a new drug addiction. His life is in worse shambles now than it was before.

One my favourite moments of Carnival was when we paraded up the street with signs and rhythms proclaiming joy and life. Grenfell rose behind us, a shadow of what has happened this year, but we got to make new proclamations over the ground. We spent the afternoons of the Carnival talking to people, handing them handwritten promises from the Bible like, “You are not alone,” and, “You are loved.” And we were there. That is what we are called to be: to be there, and to be Love. We were there to meet people as they tried to fill the emptiness of a year, as they tried to forget what has happened, as they tried to find a reason to celebrate, as they drank overpriced beer and danced pressed against strangers and took recreational drugs. 

I love photographing the Carnival, because it gives me a chance to step back and see what is really happening. But I also love going on stilts, because people love to stop and chat. In that moment, we get to give them love and truth. This year, I got to go on stilts in the second afternoon, and I had so much joy from God as I handed out promises to the hordes of people coming down the street. Many stopped to ask what they meant, and we all got to explain the truth about God that flies in the face of everything they’ve heard from the media, from society, from school, about who God is. He is Love, and He is in the middle of Carnival, ready to encounter them.

But isn’t that just like our Father, to be where we least expect Him, inviting us to run back to His open arms?

Eric riding one of our floats and drumming in the main Carnival parade.

a snap of me at Carnival

Alli and Gabby walking on stilts in the main Carnival parade.

two of the people that I spoke to in the Carnival

Melo and I doing evangelism in the Carnival

Parading through the streets of Notting Hill

Going up a street with the shell of Grenfell Tower in the background

Amanda with two of her co-workers, who came to the picnic that we had before Carnival

A performance that we gave for the neighbourhood before Carnival

One of the best parts of being on a housing estate (social housing) is the sense of community. We held a picnic/pre-Carnival party for them, and we spent the evening hanging out and getting to know them.

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)

open eyes, open hands

Today marks three weeks of being in Puerto Rico, of traveling the island in our four-van caravan, of visiting churches, schools, rehabilitation centers, public parks and squares, and even the beach and the rain forest!

One of the things that God has been teaching me while I have been here is to open my eyes to see the beautiful things that He is putting in each of my days. We are on outreach, which means that we are prepared to give up the comforts of our lives in London. However, the people of Puerto Rico have such generous hearts that they keep taking care of us in unexpected ways, whether it is through donations of clothing and flip flops or through feeding all thirty of us the traditional Puerto Rican meal of chicken or pork, rice, and beans. 

Puerto Ricans also love to get to know new people. Even as I was just in the queue at Starbucks, a man read the name on my cup and starting asking what I was doing and telling me about his life as a chef on the other side of the island. Evangelism is much different than it is in London, because people love to stop and chat for a while, and we leave with new friends. When we spent a week at a church in Caguas, a city near San Juan, the people of the church all came around to check on us and make sure that we had everything that we needed. The women all wanted the chance to cook for us, and they were upset when they didn't have a turn!

This is a culture of extremes, and while a lot of the people here go to church on Sundays, they often do not carry that into their weekday lives. It is heavy on our hearts to inspire the people of Puerto Rico to commit to Christ, to fall in love with Him and to pursue Him with their lives, rather than to go to church on Sunday and live the rest of their weeks in their own ways. Puerto Ricans have passion and perseverance that we desperately need in this battle that we fight to bring God's Kingdom to Earth. I believe that, as God stirs more of their hearts, and as we pray for them to commit their lives to Him and what He calls them to, we will see more Puerto Ricans being sent to bring nations back to the feet of the King.

There is only one more day left in 2015, and I am so glad that I will get to spend it here, looking back on the miracles that God has done, on the places that He has led our team to visit, on the ways that He has provided unexpectedly, and on the challenges that He has led us through. And I look forward to spending 2016 doing the same: meeting new people, traveling to different places, and following God.

 The musicians and drummers singing worship songs on the streets of Bayamon.

 Luis, a man that I spoke to for a long time in Bayamon. He sees evidence of God in creation and captures it in words.

A little girl in a school in Caguas who didn't want to dance, but was keen to learn photography instead.

 Christian speaking at a church in Carolina.

 The dancers and musicians at a Christmas festival in Cayey.

 The ferry from Culebra, an island off the coast of Puerto Rico.

Old San Juan

Sent -->

I have heard several messages lately on the topic of being sent to be God's Kingdom here on Earth. That is something that has been on our team's heart recently, as well. We are artists and missionaries here in London, but we also have a heart to reach the other cities in Europe. With the DTS that we are running right now, we are focusing on visiting artistic cities in the United Kingdom.

In November, we took the DTS to Brighton and to Bristol, both in the south of England. The outreaches were short, with the primary purpose of scouting the arts scenes in the cities with the aim to do longer outreaches in the future. One of my favourite parts of outreach is the realisation that our time in any given place is limited. We only had a few days in each city, so we put all of our effort into talking to as many people as possible. We let go of the inhibitions that can make evangelism and building relationships seem daunting in London. I love seeing the freedom and zeal that come with knowing that we have kingdom work to do and a limited amount of time to do it.

I was struck by how open people were to talk to us. I went into a lot of arts shops around the cities and just started speaking to people that I found inside, and more often than not, I'd end up talking with the people for a while and praying with them. This was not unique to me; a lot of our team had the same experience. We came together after times of evangelism with lists of names of new friends.

At the church in Bristol, the pastor talked to our team about being willing to be Jesus to the city of Bristol. He told us that often, Jesus did not tell people who He was; instead, He showed them. He challenged us to show Jesus to Bristol instead of focusing on forcing the Gospel and a decision of salvation down their throats. He reminded us of the passage in the Bible that talks about God's word not returning empty. It was almost more challenging to go into the streets with that in mind: how do I let my actions shout loud for Jesus, even if I don't get the chance to tell a person how they can be saved? To be honest, that is a challenge, because it means watching your own behaviour instead of trying to force new behaviour on another person. It means that I actually have to love my neighbour and do good to those who hurt me and show others that they are more important than me. I can't rely on quoting the Romans Road or John 3:16; I have to live the love of God and let it pour out of me. I have to become less of my fleshy self so that more of God's Spirit can pour out of me. After all, I go to these cities so that the people in them can encounter God. I don't go so that the people of Brighton and Bristol can encounter me.

On the outreaches, God also impressed upon me the privilege that I have to travel around this land in His name. I spent Thanksgiving in Bristol, and even though I ate (delicious) pasta instead of turkey and dressing, I got to do the work of my Heavenly Father. I got to live the life that He created me to live. My mother texted me to tell me that she is glad that I wasn't home, because it meant that I was where God wanted me to be. She's right. I am so thankful to be right here, living in London and travelling around Europe and getting the opportunity to be God's hands and feet and kingdom here on Earth.

Our DTS students in Brighton!

I got to play a mountain dulcimer (which my grandpa taught me) and talk to the shop owners in a shop in Brighton

One of the guys gave food and his coat to this homeless man.

Andy, a new friend in Brighton

Evangelism in Bristol

A new friend in Bristol.

                                                    Performing songs in Bristol.

Oui were in Paris!

This is just a brief update on our time in Paris, since I have been home for five hours and leave again in less than an hour for Glasgow and Edinburgh, Scotland, for the Commonwealth Games and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

In Paris, we worked with Paris Je T'aime, a festival/camp that does open air performances around Paris in the evenings. Our team performed dance, musical, and theatrical numbers, then spread through the audience to speak to the people who stopped to watch. I performed three songs that my teammates wrote while I was renewing my visa. The fashion interns made a beautiful costume, and Melody, our team make up artist, did different make up on me and Laura, my theatre intern, every night. It was a blast to perform and get to speak to the audience members.

I do not speak French, but Melody helped me, and in Belleville, a bit of a dangerous neighbourhood (and on the night there was a shooting in the Metro and protests all over Paris), we spoke to a man who had never heard that Jesus did not just die for Christians, but also died for him. He asked me why, and when I told him that Jesus died for him because He loves him, the man nearly cried. I have never before looked into somebody's eyes as they realise the love of Jesus, but it is a sight that I don't think I will ever forget.

I was truly amazed by the people in Paris Je T'aime. They came from countries all over the world, and they gave two weeks of their time to pay to fly to Paris and to do evangelism. They had such good hearts about it, too, and they were excited to give their time for Jesus. It inspired me and gave me new excitement about the awesome life God has called me to. I get to do this again for two weeks in Scotland!

And before I dash off, here are some photographs of Paris (I was not the photographer this time, so the photographs of performances will have to come later):

The Eiffel Tower

 

My make up after the first performance

The Arc de Triomph

Leading worship at the camp meeting.

On the rooftop of Lafayette.