From 10 degrees C to 45 degrees C

Oh !ndia. Here I am again. Round three in my city of hyderabad. A small part of me feels like I could almost claim parts of this city as like my neighborhood because I have come so much. I am excited to be back to the smells, color, and life of India. It was quite a shock to the body though, to go from London 10 degree weather to Hyderabad 45 degree. =) Goodbye rain, Hello sweat! 

So not to jump ahead, lets talk about London! What an experience to live in one of the most influential cities in the world for 7 weeks.  I feel like I just got a taste of the history, culture, and creativity that lies in this city. 

We finished up our time in the city with a bang! We were able to take several churches out into the city to have some pretty epic evangelism times, then we were able still continue to meet new churches and join in with their ministry, and even saw two churches come together for the same evangelism time. (they both have churches on the same major street - so it was exciting to see them join forces for their community and area.) 

One of the best times was one Saturday night. We had a church that got fired up to go out and share Jesus, and do evangelism. They had 45 people that volunteered to come out with us one night. Since we had such a big group of people, we decided to do a flash mob, draw in a crowd, and then do an “open air” (public proclamation) of the gospel and testimonies. This church, despite their nervousness, joined in and were champs doing this silly song that I’m sure you have heard at any american highschool football game... The cheerleaders usually say something like “let me see your ...” and the crowd responds “whats that you say?” then you act out the appropriate actions... 

So our last line for the song is “let me see your dead cockroach” then we respond by all lying on our backs with our hands and feet in the air, waving them franticly like a dead cockroach. Pretty ridiculous, but always a good crowd catcher... People think it is funny to watch you act stupid. 

So after the evangelism time I was talking to the pastor, who is this 50 yr old asian man, thanking him for letting us join in with his church, for his hospitality, trying to be very professional when he inturrpted me saying “did you see me?” I was a bit shocked, and stuttered “um um see you?!” smiling proudly he said, “yea did you see me? I did the dead cockroach!” It was the best moment of the night. This pastor was amazing at leading his church out into the street to show the love of God, but also leading out in how to be a dead cockroach! 

My team and I said goodbye a week ago. I gave up four of my student to other teams and picked up four different students to take a new team to India. Confusing, yea I know. I get confused and I am leading them! =) 

So my new team and I are here back in my neighborhood of hyderabad working with some amazing people at their HIV/AIDs clinic. We are doing things like praying for the patients, playing with the kids, teaching the patients, teaching the staff, praying for the clinic, worship, and some street evangelism. 

We have already seen God show up in might ways. This clinic is an incredible story of how to be obedient to God and serve and love people. The couple that started the clinic are incredibly obedient and just trust. They know God has it all under control. The more I read the promised God has for us, His intention for us in creating us, and how His heart delights in those that draw near to Him, I wonder how I could ever doubt and not trust in Him?! This couple here are such inspiring examples of it, and really challenge me and my words matching up with my life. When talking about God, His character, the plans and purposes He has for me, do I live out of that or am I still trying to do it all on my own?! What a silly way to let the enemy steal from us, to not trust in the magnitude of God - just because sometimes we don’t see it with our eyes. I never saw myself coming to India - here I am again for the third time. 

you are blessed to be a blessing

Is it Spring or Winter?!

I think London gets confused on what spring weather should be. okay google defines spring weather as:
Warmth cause by the turning of an axis (something something, blah blah) WARMTH... ha.

We have not had much warmth from the weather, but we have had some fabulous days here in London. Even though it isn't warm and maybe for three of the days we have been here has been warm, the flower still continue to come and bloom. So spring is underway, fighting past the cold and rain.

We have finished up almost five weeks here and have only two weeks left! I can't believe it.

London is incredible with it's activity and people. It has exciting things like the 'tube' which I currently have a love/hate relationship with. We as a team, have to take the 'underground tube' to get from point A to B all the time. It saves us a lot of time and walking, but it costs us heaps, and does not sit well with my claustrophobia... haha.. This is why we are on a love/hate basis. I love getting places quickly. I hate being in that tiny tube underground, especially when it all the sudden stops and you just sit there and all you can see out the window is the wall about 10 inches from the outside of the tube. We are literally in a tiny hole running through the underground world of tunnels. It is crazy. I try not to think about it to much.

We have been working with 6 different churches in the borough of westminster. We have really been able to build relationship with all of them. It makes me smile sometimes when I think about what God is up too, and I hear people talk about how it is impossible to work with so many people, in such a short time. Praise the Lord, God is a big God!

We have been going out in the streets to meet people. It is amazing the different people you can encounter and it has been sad and hard to see all the loneliness amongst so many people. It is interesting that in such a busy, big city, where in some parts of the city you have thousands of people constantly pressing in around you, there are people that are lonely. They have no one. They have no feeling of acceptance, family, or love.

It has been a challenging thing, and one of the things that God has spoken to us about to combat this is to share about God's father heart for people. The acceptance, and love He has for them. I got the words before we ever came to London that we would "paint the town red for Jesus." So we have printed off this love letter that is from God on red paper and we literally 'paint' the town with these letters. What it is, is a bunch of scriptures that talk about His love towards us. If you want to see an example you can click here:
http://www.cse.ust.hk/~scc/KnowingGodasFather.pdf

So we printed off hundred or so of these letters and have been putting them up in the city, giving them to people, putting them in postboxes. Painting the city with the truth about God's love for people, his acceptance, of them. It was so funny to me the way that God spoke about this and then developed the idea a few weeks later. I love it! We have so much fun putting these out everywhere.

Well, many more stories to share. We have testimonies we put up every week on our website. Go here for more stories from our time here:
http://www.facebook.com/megacities

More to come later. =)

you are blessed to be a blessing

Finally back in a country that has Dr. Pepper! 

Going into the deep abyss of the underground! I mean I think we go like miles underground.. :/

We pass by Ben on our way around a lot =) 

This was a big youth event that ywam was asked to help run. It was commissioning out 2012 young people to the streets to do evangelism for the 90 pre-olympics. So we had 2700 young people show up to worship together, share in scripture, and then be prayed over to share Jesus for the next 90 days. This was a picture of all the people helping with the head bishop of the anglican church of England. I'm in there somewhere in the front row, only a few people from the bishop. FUN.

okay I can't resist sharing a story - this event was incredible. They held it at the st. paul's cathedral, which in and of itself it incredible. Then you get Tim Hughs leading us in worship, and all these young people singing praise to Jesus, ready and wanting to say yes to what  He has called all of us to do - share. It was incredible to be apart of this event. Yah Jesus and yah London for seeing God move!