8 new people ready to seek God and discover more of Him in the talents that He gave them. We continued our weekly trips to Camden, an area of London that is subversive, alternative, and grunge (just our style). We go there at least once a week to pray, talk to people, and see what is happening in the area. As well, we are looking for a house there and making contacts with different church bodies. And actually, now this Sunday we are going to be a part of a new church body that is beginning there. As well with the interns we went to Soho, which is another area we focus on in London. It is the red light district, as well as where the West End (main place for theatre) is in London. We partner with a church that is a cafe, and we serve teas and coffees in the street late in the night. We talk with many amazing people, who just need the love of God, and share with them why we are standing outside in the middle of the night for them: because Jesus loved first. It is one of my favorite things that we do here in the city, and its crazy to see how it changes the area. One week, one of the drug dealers from the area bought us milk because he saw we were running out. I was blown away.
In the 6 weeks we had in London, we prepared for outreach music, dance, visual, photography skills, and much more. We travelled to Berlin, Prague, Vienna, and Milan for one month, a week each city. It was so interesting to see a whole other side of Europe, as many of these cities used to be under communist control.And actually, we didn't do anything. God did everything. Each thing we tried to plan, it seemed that God had a different idea. The first day in Berlin, we were supposed to do some evangelism in a heavily Muslim-populated area, but (not so randomly) we had the opportunity to go inside the Parliament and meet one of the Christian members and pray with him and for the government. It was crazy. One day in Prague, we had planned to perform in the street, carried all the instruments down, and it started to SNOW! So we had to improvise. We ended up splitting into pairs and going to different coffee shops and shopping malls in the area, and it turned out to be the best time of evangelism each person had the whole week. In Vienna, they told us that if we performed in the platz (plaza) without a permit, the police would come in seconds, and they would give you a huge fine. And on top of that, it was after the "quiet hour" in the city. But we just started playing some worship songs to close a , and all of the sudden, faster than anything I've ever seen, a huge crowd of people surrounded us. We started playing some of the covers we had practiced, and the people in the crowd were going nuts. We shared with them why we were there, and at the end spoke with a few people individually that had caught our eye. It was so from God, and so unplanned. And then in Milan, everything was up in the air! But by then, we were so comfortable to just let God do His thing. He taught me so much more how to just depend on Him, and to let go of all my plans, and how to stop defending myself when things go wrong. Sometimes, we can't know everything before we start to do things, and we have to just learn along the way, and learn from our mistakes. But that takes humility and vulnerability, to be able to look weak in front of others, and admit when we made a mistake.
Then we came back to London and had one week of preparing and finishing our work for an exhibition. We love to honor the interns and show the community what they have been working on, and what God has been doing in their lives. As well, we take it as an opportunity to share with people outside of our community, as that is what we are for anyways, right? So we opened the exhibition to the public, hung up all the visual art, photography, sculpture and mixed media works, creative writing; we placed the piano in the middle and had performances every 15 minutes to infuse the place with the presence of God; all the while we were talking with the people who came in to see. It went really well, and we even got to pray with one woman about a surgery she had coming up, and all the fear that comes with that. Then we had a small graduation ceremony with just the team for the interns, and closed an amazing season.
Now it is May, and supposedly we were going to have an internship starting next week. But because we did not have any students, we are not running the school. This gives us time to work more in developing our areas of the arts, as well to prepare for the next DTS in August and the theatre production we will be doing, and to work on the house. This time is really precious, and we try to take advantage to grow as a team and invest in the city. Things to be praying for:
-we are looking for a new house
-we are looking for commercial space to start a tattoo shop, and also a coffee shop
-opportunties to work, as my visa only allows me to work for churches or Christian charities
-opportunities to connect more in the city
-favor in the government as we continue to receive people on visas and process papers
Thankyou all so much for your prayers, love and support, and I am hoping to get better at this and post at least once a month how we are going as a team, and how God is working in my life personally. Bless you!
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