little changes

It is the middle of September, and it already feels (and looks!) like autumn in London. The season is changing outside, and in the blue house on All Souls Avenue, we are in a new season, as well. This is a time that we have been anticipating for a year now: the first month of our ministry's first Discipleship Training School (DTS).

We have twelve students in the DTS (four continents, five nations), and in addition to growing to know God more, they are also spending time going deeper in their arts. I am leading the theatre and photography/media tracks, which means that I get to spend my time helping write a play and learning video editing as well as teaching the students about how I do theatre and photography for God, and more importantly, how they can use it to know God more intimately and to make Him known to their sphere of influence.

It's a season of growing and maturing for me. Our staff is fairly small at the moment, and I am having to learn how to lead in new areas, but also how to serve in new areas. I am learning a lot about how God's power rests on me in the areas in which I am weak. For example, I am not very good at home-maintenance. If you ask my father, he'll probably tell you that I'm actually quite rubbish at it. But I am helping lead work duties for the DTS now, which means that I have to figure out home maintenance (with the help of Google and my fellow staff members) quickly. God is helping me a lot, although not with the skills needed. He is increasing my patience, so that when I have had to try to fix the same miniature disaster with the plumbing four times this week, I have actually been able to do it instead of walking away in frustration or tears. Perhaps an increase of patience is better than an increase in my handiness skills, because it requires me to go to Him instead of depending on myself. If I want God's power to rest on me the way it talks about in 2 Corinthians, I have to give it room to work.

Last weekend we had our base-wide retreat in Harpenden, a small village about an hour outside of London. It was a beautiful weekend of worship, teachings and time together as a base. We were so busy up until the retreat that I forgot that it was coming, and the way that God spoke so clearly in that time was almost a surprise to me. While seasons of growth and going deeper with God can be painful, because it means that God points out things to be worked on, it is also beautiful, because it means that I have to reach for His presence so much more often.

It is autumn in London, and the leaves are falling, and the sun is setting earlier, and I am wearing my cardigans every day, and it is such a beautiful season, because the Spirit of God is near and at work. His work will not come back empty.

six little thankfuls

I have been on outreach with my team for the past month and a half, and whenever I am in an outreach phase, my priorities shift from those that I have during normal living. There's such a trend for "living simply," and while I don't necessarily subscribe to that, I do love when my heart is re-aligned to thankfulness for small things. I don't shower often or sleep in a bed these days, but that does not mean that God's blessings are not bountiful and exquisite.

Today, I am thankful for:
1. Quiet spaces
    Even time that is a space of quiet. We have done a lot of camps this outreach, in Paris, Glasgow, Edinburgh, and now in London, which means that we have been around a lot of people. I am thankful for even five minutes of walking to Tesco alone, and because that time is precious, it means that I often grab it to speak to God, to check in with Him, and to let Him refresh my heart and eyes.

2. Showers
    Of any sort, really, whether there are several in a room together, one shower for forty girls, or my shower at home that requires a trek. It's so nice to actually shower, to have your whole body clean at one time. It's possible to be clean without showers, but it takes a lot more effort, and it makes a ten minute shower feel like dancing in heaven.

3. Multiple languages
    If you know me at all, then you know that I have been trying to learn Spanish for ages. I am finally at a point where I can communicate, even with people who don't speak English, and I am so happy to be able to be in places with so many nationalities. There are several people living at the camp with me now who don't speak much English, so I've gotten to sit with them and stretch my Spanish to learn more about them, about their heart for God, and also how to figure out how to say "The cabbage needs to go above the cabinet." My Italian is also expanding this week, and my Swedish, and I love sitting in the middle of a room and hearing so many different languages being spoken by people with one passion.

4. Worship
     I am so thankful to live with worshipers. And that God didn't make music the only way to worship. Seriously, worship is what saves me during days with little sleep and lots of questions thrown at me. It puts God in His proper place and turns my heart from murmuring to gratitude, because the God of all creation (of water, earth, and sky :p) knows my heart and welcomes me into intimacy with Him all of the time. I only have to turn my eyes to Him. I think that's what the lyric "Keep my eyes above the waves" from Hillsong United's "Oceans" means, anyway. It's hard to stay in my own belly button of self pity when my eyes are focused on such beauty.

5. People's Flexibility
    When you do camps, you see people all day (and night, if you're creepy and watch them sleep...which I am not.). That gives you plenty of time to see both good and bad, and to have both your good and bad bits exposed. But one thing that has amazed me this outreach is how flexible people are. Sleeping on floors is not something that people normally do, but for the sake of furthering the gospel, I have seen several hundred people sleep on floors this summer. I have seen them go without bathing, internet, and their usual eating habits. In Bones, the camp that my team runs for Notting Hill Carnival, we wake up at 8 and work until midnight with few moments for breathing in between. And do you know that people pay to come do that with us? They pay to sleep in a church, to not shower, to eat the (delicious) food made for 70 people, to go out every day and evangelise, and to learn to walk on stilts or do percussion for the parade that we do at the Carnival. That's crazy! I love people who do insane things for the Lover of their souls.

6. Coffee
    But not the instant kind. I don't know why God allowed instant coffee to be invented, to be honest. However, people are gracious with me, and they sometimes bring me coffee, or share their coffee with me, or make me coffee, and I don't know about you, but for me, there's just something about coffee that reminds me that Jesus loves me utterly.

Life on the Fringe

I am sleeping in a bed again!

Only for two more nights, but still.

For the two weeks of outreach in Scotland, our team slept on the floors of churches in Glasgow and Edinburgh. In three days, we move into our own home church as we run a camp for Notting Hill Carnival and begin our Arts Revolution DTS.

It is an exciting time to be in London!

But back to Scotland.

For the first week that we were in Scotland, my teammates and I unexpectedly found ourselves participating in a Kings Kids Wildfire camp. Kings Kids is the youth ministry of YWAM, and the camp was run to do evangelism during the Commonwealth Games (kind of a mini Olympics for the 70-odd nations and territories that are part of the Commonwealth) in Glasgow.

I have to admit that I was not thrilled to find myself a part of a kids' camp. But to be honest, it turned out to be amazing. Those kids were on fire for God! We were there to be the performances that drew the crowd to whom the kids could speak. We performed the same show that we did in Paris, and afterwards, we got to tell the people gathered about Jesus.

Glasgow was so much more receptive to Jesus than it was two years ago, when I was on my DTS outreach. We had over twenty salvations in the week of the camp, and I led three girls to Jesus! It was so exciting to kneel on the high road in Glasgow and pray with them.

After our week at the camp, we went to Edinburgh to participate in the Fringe Festival. I've dreamt of going to the Fringe since I was a child, since it's the largest theatre festival in the world, and I was not disappointed. Not only did we get free tickets for all of us to a musical, but we also got to talk to and pray for a lot of the cast members of the shows. Our sound system took an unexpected journey to a camp outside of Glasgow without us, so we spent several days doing evangelism on the Royal Mile instead of performing. When Melo rescued our sound system, we got a busking license and began performing our show about real joy and the journey to finding it with Christ. We performed in the street without asking for money, and it gave us the opportunity to share with a lot of the visitors to the Fringe.

I love outreach, when we get to share God with people all over the world. I love how we use arts with evangelism to share Christ with people in a way that hits their hearts as well as their understanding.

And there are more than two weeks of outreach still to go!

Having my make up put on before a performance

With other members of our team.

The whole team in Edinburgh

Performing at the Fringe.

The view of the crowd at the Fringe.

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.

Two Sides of Home

After two months back in the States, the time is here again: on Wednesday, July 9th, I leave from Savannah, and on Thursday, July 10th, I will arrive back in London.

The past two months have been amazing. I have traveled all around the Southeast to spend time with various churches that have been a part of my life and people who are still big parts of my life, despite the ocean that normally separates us. I know that people always say this, but it really has been humbling to meet the people who pray for and support me. For a while, your names were names I saw in emails and prayed in prayers of thanksgiving to God, but this summer, I got to pray with you in person and hug you and thank you face to face. It was a humbling experience because I saw how big God is, and how, although I am just one person, there are so many people who consistently lift up my name to God, who pray for the work I do, and who don't forget me, no matter where in the world I am.

If you are just joining my journey, welcome! There is a post here that will tell you how to support me via Paypal, but other than that, this is a place where I tell everyone what I am up to, where in the world I am, or what God is working on in my life. You can leave a comment to talk to me, or you can email me directly at deborahestevenson@gmail.com

Anyway, back to my update. In three days, I arrive in London, and on July 13th, the whole arts ministry leaves for Paris, where we will be performing in a festival in front of the Eiffel Tower. As we perform, members of our team will also be in the audience, telling people about Jesus. I have wanted to participate in this festival since I heard about it over a year ago, and I am so excited to be able to be there for it this year.

After the festival in Paris, we will head up to Scotland for the Fringe Festival, then back down to London to host Bones, a camp to which we invite people from all nations to come join us for Notting Hill Carnival. I will try to keep this blog updated, but I will not be in London for more than a few days until the middle of August.

But before I leave, here are some pictures from my time in the States!

My first weekend in Savannah, Georgia, my brother came up, and my whole family went out to find alligators. We saw 39.

I learned my way around Savannah, since my parents moved here while I was in London.

 At Donielle's wedding in May in Greenville, SC.

I got to take part in Shandon Baptist's VBS in Columbia, SC by acting and writing the script for the worship time.

 

Spending time with Donielle in Raleigh, NC

One of my favourite little buddies, who I reunited with in Columbia, SC.

I spent the 4th of July visiting my brother in Orlando, Florida.

 

It has been nice to be back in the Land that I Love, the Home of the Free and the Brave (can you see that I enjoyed the 4th of July? It was my first one in the States since 2011!), but I am excited to return to London. Please pray for the safety of me and my team as we embark on our summer outreach, and please also pray that we stay energised and excited. If you could also pray that I remember my French while I'm in Paris, I would really appreciate it.

 

Bye, America! It's been lovely! 

 

Hello, London!

How to Support Me

I have prepared a step-by-step guide to using Paypal to support me financially. If you would like a tax credit, then supporting me via Paypal is the easiest way to do it. The money goes directly onto my account at YWAM London.

8 Steps to Supporting me Via PayPal:

1. Log in to Paypal (if you do not have a Paypal account, you must first make an account)
2. Send money to art.in.london@live.com Taboo Arts Ministry
3.  Amount USD - US Dollars
4. What are you sending money for? I'm sending money to family and friend. Continue.
5. Send Money
6. Email to recipient. Message: For Deborah Stevenson's support.
7. Send Money
8. The money has been sent. Print Receipt.

If you do not want a tax receipt, then you can send checks to 49 Belle Gate Court/Pooler, GA 31322, and the money will go directly into my bank account, where I can use it for transportation, food, clothing, and other expenses that come from living abroad.

You can contact me at deborahestevenson@gmail.com with any other questions.

born in the USA

I am back in the USA! I have been here for a week now, running between appointments and a job interview, and my brother surprised my whole family by arriving at the airport. For a while, all four of us were together again for the first time since Christmas 2011.

I am in the States for the summer to renew my visa, and this time, I will be applying for a Tier 2 visa, which is a bit more difficult to get than my last visa, but which also allows me to accumulate years so that I can apply for UK Residency after 5 years. The visa is quite expensive and challenging to receive, so if you could pray for me to receive it, I would appreciate it.

I am also traveling around to various churches in Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina to speak about what I am doing and my heart for missions in Europe. As the summer goes on, I plan to elaborate more about that here. If you would like for me to speak at your church, and you live in the Southeast, please email me at deborahestevenson@gmail.com. I'd love to come pay a visit!

I will also be doing a post to describe how to send money to support me. The easiest way to do it (and the way that allows you to receive a tax deduction) is via Paypal. I'll walk you through the process step-by-step. I'll also elaborate areas for which I need specific prayer. For right now, the biggest prayer requests that I have are for me to be granted a Tier 2 visa to the UK and for safety and openness as I travel to various churches.

My whole family together (and the alligator that we saw)

Thanks to gifts from some people, I had enough money to buy the new camera I've been praying about! It came with lens extensions, tripod, memory card, bag, and other goodies, as well!