Monday, December 31, 2012

There and Back Again...


 Merry Christmas everyone and Happy New Year!

It has been far to long since I last posted, but better late than never I suppose.

We have been back from England now for at least three months, and God is still working in Luton where we had our ministry. While I could fill a book with all the experiences, thoughts, and feelings from England (which I did while I was there) this post will only capture the highlights of the trip. I hope you can praise God after reading about what He did in England this last summer. Cheers!

 When we arrived in England, we were running on nothing but coffee and packaged air plane food. Being packed into a plane for ten hours is NOT a pleasant experience, however, the destination was worth it. We met with the Galbraiths, loaded our suitcases into a trailer, then loaded ourselves into a minibus that would be our part-time home during the trip. 

Seeing England for the first time was not breath taking as I had first expected, but the deeper into the country we drove through out our many travels during those two weeks, the country I had only every dreamed of finally became a reality. 

Our first day was a "meet and greet" of sorts. We met with Stan and Paula Boelman at their adorable little English house. We were sent to our hosts homes to meet them for the first time. The whole team could not stay together, due to our size, so we were split into smaller groups. Another girl and I were taken to our host house and as much as they advised us not to, we finally crashed under the weight of jet lag. After a short nap, we were reunited with our team for tea (which is English for "supper"). 

That first weekend, we spent time looking for team "uniforms" at the wonderful store called Primark (think Walmart or Kmart). We also spent a good deal of time leafleting. By that, I mean we stood in the street way of a mall in Luton and passed out flyers and invited anyone and everyone to our Holiday Bible Club. We were not alone however. While we passed out our flyers to anyone who would take them, other groups were there as well doing things like passing out their literature, street preaching, or asking for charitable gifts.
My roommate and I worked together at this, and at one point, we found ourselves surrounded by the group of "street preachers" so we moved down a bit. After we passed out a good deal of our leaflets and FINALLY found our "uniforms" we went back to the elementary school where Fellowship Baptist Church meets to set up for Sunday and the rest of the week.

The week of ministry is one that I will not soon forget. Every morning we were up and at the school by 9 for team devos. After a Talk by either Stan or Glen, we would pray for our day and divide into our stations. I did games with another guy on our team. Unfortunately  game time was the LAST thing on the schedule every day, but we always found ways to help with our extra time. Part of the time I passed out leaflets with another girl, or I would talk with Stand and Paula, or I would chat with one of the ladies from the church who made our lunches every day, or I would pray with some of the other teammates.

Game time was always a blast! We usually had a pretty good idea of what we wanted the kiddos to do...and part of the time we made it up right before. *Disclaimer - we always had a plan, but part of the time we decided to tweek things...so when I say "we made it up right before" I do NOT mean we did not take time to plan things for the ministry.* One of the games they LOVED the most was water balloon volleyball. Such a simple game, but they absolutely adored it! 

By the end of the week, the kiddos had heard the Gospel at least a dozen times. Our theme was the colors of the wordless book as they correlated with the colors of the Olympics. (rather clever eh?) On the last day, my teammate and I were outside preparing for our last game of the week, when another teammate came out and said two of the boys had just made professions of faith! PRAISE THE LORD! When the two boys ran outside, one of them ran up to my teammate and gave him a bear hug. It was one of the most special moments of my life. At the end of that week, we had two new brothers in Christ. 

Two other ministries we had were two different concerts, one at Portsmouth and one at Fellowship Baptist Church in Luton. Both times were drastically different. The first, we prepared a whole programe and preformed in the open air beside Bethel Church in Portsmouth, but only one man stopped to listen, and that for only a few minutes. The second concert, in contrast, was met with a full house, including some of the parents of the kiddos who came to our Holiday Bible Club. After seeing both sides of ministry in England, I learned this one thing: God does not ask us to be successful, just to be faithful. In both situations, He was glorified. 

The last few days, we spent in London! Stan said it best when he said, "When you are tired of London, you are tired of living." It is SO true! Although I may be slightly biased, I believe that London is the most WONDERFUL city in the world. We saw everything from Buckinham Palace, to Trafalgar Square, to Baker Street, to Windsor Castle, to the British Museum  and so much more!  It was terribly lovely.


Here is a link to the pictures that I took while we were there. These are just from my camera, but all together we must have taken thousands of pictures while we were there.    


Thus concludes the chronicle of our adventure in England. The long expected journey is now over, but I will always remember England. I may have the opportunity to go back in a few years, but until then, keep praying for the ministry over there. God IS at work.