Missions (that isn't) Locked Down

 So, you may have heard that England is in another lockdown: our third lockdown. At first, we were all a bit despondent, especially when it came to light that we may be in a lockdown until the end of March. But now, we are involved in so many different activities that our days are filled end-to-end, and in some ways I am thankful that we have time to do everything!

Obviously, reaching out to people in the traditional sense isn’t possible in a lockdown which has the aim of keeping people from meeting together. However, as a charity, we have leave to continue our charitable work outside of our homes (the nation is under a stay-at-home order, which means you should only leave home for exercise or essential shopping). We have been helping our local food bank to collect food donations and to distribute food to our neighbours who are self-isolating. This has resulted in some amazing conversations with our neighbours. One neighbour overheard us worshiping in our garden, which opened the way for conversations, sharing a Gospel of John, and prayer. Please pray for him as we walk through this lockdown alongside him - there has been a lot of tragedy in his life recently, but his heart is opening to Jesus!

Radiant is also using this lockdown as an opportunity to do a staff leadership school, which we are all taking part in via Zoom. Not only do we get to see our London family twice a week, but we also get to take part in teachings with YWAM leaders from around the globe. As much as we complain about Zoom, there are so many conferences and meetings that have a global aspect now that wasn’t possible in person. 

We are also using this time to improve the Barnabas Centre, the community centre that belongs to the base. It is an old building that needs repairs, and while we are a small team, we are doing what we can! We hope that different outreach teams from YWAM England will come to York, both to take part in what God is doing in our city, and also to give us a hand in the building. Luckily, somebody (it was me…and Lucas from Radiant. Okay, it was mostly Lucas. Thank you, Lucas.) built a shower, so the building is perfectly suited to hosting teams. 

The challenge of the Barnabas Centre is that, during this year of COVID, it hasn’t been able to be rented out to dance classes, churches, and other activities, so we don’t have the income we need to pay the bills and to pay back the debt on the building. While there isn’t a rush to finish paying off the debt, it is something that we are consciously trying to be faithful in and to pay off. There are also different improvements needed - if we are going to continue cafe work, the espresso machine needs to be updated or replaced, the dance floor needs to be sanded, etc. If you could pray for us and send us any ideas you have for how we can raise funds for this, we would appreciate it. We have definitely thought of bake sales, but it would take a lot of bake sales, and COVID has made them quite impossible! But we so want this building to be a blessing to our community, to be a place in which people are welcomed and safe and can meet each other and, most importantly, Jesus. It is the only building of its kind in our neighbourhood. We are so blessed to have it! And we are looking forward to seeing how our God is going to move in this area - since we can't comprehend it in our logical minds, I think we're well poised to see Him come through in one of His amazing ways!

Another thing that we are starting in this lockdown is online workshops. We are all artists, so we are beginning workshops in our different art areas - Yvonne and Renee are doing dance workshops for children, Raya is doing story and character development, and I’ll be teaching photography workshops. The idea is to start them online and to create a little virtual community, and then to move them to real life when restrictions are lifted. People are desperate for community, so we want to reach them however we can. In order to do this, we do need a professional Zoom account, which is £120 a year. We have also begun hosting weekly Zoom prayer times with people in our community and across Yorkshire, and so far we’ve been using a basic plan, which is fine, but it does limit us to just 40 minutes. Having a professional Zoom account would definitely give us more freedom in our various online community activities!

A way that you can be praying for us is that we are currently in the process of becoming our own charity. Right now, YWAM York is a daughter charity of YWAM Radiant in London, which is amazing for getting us started. But in order for us to have a bank account, property, or anything of that nature, we need to be our own charity. I have begun the paperwork, and it is complicated to say the least. Luckily, Carrie from Radiant has been guiding us (thank you, Carrie!). Raya has also been tackling some budgeting stuff for the base property, which means sorting through vast quantities of paperwork from the past decade, and it is not easy! We are trying to put on our professional brains for all of this, but let’s face it. We thrive when we are with people, telling them about Jesus and walking through life with them. Paperwork is not our strength. So please pray for us as we do this, that our brains would be alert and that small details wouldn’t trip us up. 

A final way that you can be praying and fighting on our side is for finances. God is a God of provision - we have seen this in every way. Just this past week, a piano was given to us. I have been praying for a piano since before we moved, since it is my main instrument and having worship times with a guitar has not been going well. We looked at different options online, but nothing was really working. We were finally about to settle for a partial keyboard for beginners, since it was in our budget, when we were told that a lady from church was clearing out her mum’s house and had an electric keyboard that we could use. It has 88 weighted keys and a built-in stand, and it fits perfectly in our office. God has provided for us again and again, and this is only the most recent way! 

That being said, some of our team are still waiting to see full support each month. I’m just going to drop everyone’s Paypal info here, and if God puts it on your hearts to support them, they will definitely be blessed by it! I will also put mine there so that you can donate towards the Zoom account if you’d like. And if you can’t give financially (COVID has touched us all), prayer is not a second option. It is a first option, and one that we have seen change circumstances in our lives incredibly. We are blessed by the way that you fight for us in prayer!

Paypal Emails:
Yvonne: Yvonsip@gmail.com
Raya: Madsenray@protonmail.com
Renee: Reneeosborne410@gmail.com
Deborah: deborahestevenson@gmail.com

I would just like to finish this off by sharing that it is snowing in York today. That isn’t abnormal (we are in the North now), but it does remind me that God is doing a new thing in this time. He won’t let this season be wasted. There are some things that won’t come out of this pandemic. There are old ways, old mindsets, dead traditions that we will leave behind. And there are new things that He is teaching us that we will take out of it. It is so exciting to be able to follow God through this: our first year as a base here in York and in a global pandemic. I am constantly reminded of Isaiah 43:19: “Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” He is the God who guides us, who provides for us, and who will bring us through this season more covered in His glory, if we will continue to listen and follow Him. What a privilege it is to see His new way and to work with Him to make it our reality!

 

A room in the base that we re-painted!

What team meetings look like via Zoom + toddlers

We baked cookies for the local bus drivers

We also wrote cards to NHS (National Health Service) workers

Our Thursday Zoom prayer meetings with people from across the country

Cookies for the neighbours 

Delivering food to a homeless hostel in town

Delivering food to our wonderful neighbour

Doorstep chats with our neighbours

Prayer time with our neighbours on 31 December

We all four went to Scarborough, a seaside town, right before we went into lockdown

On Christmas Day, we got to celebrate (gasp: inside houses) with our whole team together

Naomi, my running buddy

Walks with friends (okay, this was back when we were allowed to be more than one-on-one)

Our Christmas bubble - YWAM York all together in one house!

Savannah is our childcare bubble, so we get to hang out with her, even in lockdown!

The video of our Christmas outreach to the city centre.

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

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!

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!)

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.

in the fire and the flood

It has been two weeks since we woke up to the news of the Grenfell Tower fire. I found out by receiving a text from a friend who wanted to know if I was safe - she knew that I was often in the Notting Hill area and that one of our team houses was there. 

At first, we were shocked and didn’t know quite what to do. We have been investing in the Notting Hill community for years now, from attending church there to running Bones Camp at the Notting Hill Carnival to hosting a dinner club for the homeless and needy to many of our team members working in the cafes and shops in the area. We worked, celebrated, and made friends with the stall owners in Portobello Road Market, where we do weekly evangelism. So while we didn’t know what to do, we knew that we had to be there. 

We went down to the site of the tower. Latymer Community Church, a church that we occasionally work with, is near the foot of the tower, and they became the centre for food donations. When we arrived on Wednesday afternoon, donations were flooding into the neighbourhood. We jumped in where we were needed, from receiving and sorting donations to serving the residents dinner to cleaning the tables from all of the ash in the air. But what was needed most was a listening ear. 

As the days went on, I found myself by the tower every day. On Wednesday, the community pulled together to do whatever was needed to support those who had been displaced by the fire. However, by Thursday, tempers were raised, and answers were not forthcoming. I went into the area with my camera, but I ended up putting it away rather quickly, because it wasn’t the time to photograph people. It was the time to listen, to pray, to give hugs and compassion. To hear the people who were angry and weren’t being given a voice. You see, the borough of Kensington and Chelsea, where the fire happened, has a massive gap between the richest and poorest people. It is dotted with celebrities and business tycoons, but it also has loads of council housing with people who are living below poverty levels. They literally live in the shadow of the rich and famous, but they are invisible. The very cladding that caught fire so quickly was put up because the rich of Notting Hill didn’t want an ugly tower block bringing down the value of their properties. 

With all of this happening, it was tempting to try to go down to Grenfell Tower to win souls. 

I know that it sounds like a controversial statement, because if there was ever a time when people were searching and hurting, it was in the wake of this fire. But we don’t love conditionally or give a listening ear transactionally. We can’t say, “Tell me what you are going through, but only if you will then listen to this Gospel presentation.” I am learning that loving your neighbour means choosing love over what I want for their lives. I want these people to know Jesus. It is why I am here in London. But I also know that to push the Gospel onto them when they are vulnerable could lead to conversions that aren’t true. It could lead to emotional decisions but unchanged hearts. And I want people to meet Jesus when it is the right time, when they truly want to give their lives to Him, and not just when they are scared and hurting for a few days. 

As a team, we want to make disciples. That is why we are here: to make disciples of all nations. Not to make temporary converts who we can check off a list. Because people aren’t numbers; they are souls and spirits and bodies that are desperately loved by Jesus. If Jesus died for them, then they are worth more than a ten minute “quick save.”

We have to invest in these people. We went down to the tower site and prayed with other Christians. We went to the multi-faith vigil and cried out to our Father whom we know heals and saves and loves and sees what is happening. We listened to the hurting and served with our hands and feet. And we aren’t abandoning them now that the media has gone away. We are committed to Notting Hill, just as we have been. We are learning faithfulness and steadfastness, which are two qualities that are hard for our generation to learn. But we can be faithful in Notting Hill. And with God’s help, and through this tragedy, we are learning to be.