Trusting in Love

Hello everyone! The autumn has definitely come to London, time for boots and sweaters already! We are two months in to the DTS (discipleship training school) now, and they are soon leaving on outreach to Italy. After we finished the Carnival outreach, they had almost 2 weeks of a mini-outreach in Brighton, a seaside city here in England. Partnering with a local church, they spent the days with worship, teaching, intercession, and evangelism. We had many testimonies of the students experiencing people receiving healing for the first time, and just overall good conversations with people and very open hearts. They saw a lot of blessings from God, and came back so encouraged to continue the school. During these weeks, a few of the staff stayed in the houses in London to continue the projects we have running, and I was one of them. It was also a time to settle again after the Carnival, to work bit, and finish a lot of practical things (newsletters, taxes, etc). A few days after the students returned, we moved into our third house in Kings Cross!!! This is an amazing miracle, and the house is located only 10 minutes walking from one of the biggest international train stations in London, and so close to many other areas we work in, and in ZONE 1 of London! We have been praying for so long to get further in to the city to key locations, and in this we can see God's timing is perfect and His faithfulness is abundant.
The last weeks we have had many good teachings. We began with hearing from the students on topics that God had put in their hearts. They each had a time to share, and it was so beautiful to see them open their hearts, share testimonies, and challenge all of us to go deeper in many areas of our lives with God. We also had two good friends come from Spain, one teaching on the Father heart of God, and the other about the importance of renewing our mind. Living in YWAM, its easy to get used to hearing these teachings, but God really brought something fresh for each of us, and a lot of revelation and breakthrough for the students as well.
This last weekend we had the privilege to be a part of two of our beautiful friends' wedding. It isa always hard work to decorate and plan and organise these sort of events, but also a huge blessing and privilege to be a part of their wedding and celebrate with them. It was a great time with friends and their families, and I also was able to make the cake for them! It was a challenge, but ended up well.
A few things personally that God has been showing me is mostly about love, and trust, and commitment. Because I tend to be very task oriented, I focus on the commitments I have made, what I need to do, and how well I can do it. But something I heard in a preaching recently is that LOVE overcomes all things, but our COMMITMENT dies with the tasks. This has challenged me a lot to see how I am loving people, not just how I am able to serve or work. What is commitment if we lose out on building real relationships based on godly love? This also challenges my trust, because to love is to trust someone else with your heart, and giving them the ability to love or hurt you, it's a risk. This goes for God, as well as for others, and I have been shown my heart a bit more clearly than before, and how much I don't really trust, and therefore hold things back. But God is always good, and His love is perfect. With all of this, my biggest desire is to learn how to grow in the areas God is challenging me, without becoming the center of the universe and losing focus on the ways God is moving in the students, and the projects, and the city. He has been so good and so gentle in showing my heart.
A few things to pray for
-outreach to Italy (we still need a LOT of breakthrough with places to stay!!!)
-visa process (still haven't heard anything back)
-thanks for the miracle of the three houses!
-wisdom, grace, and favor for our leaders (Chris and Johanna) in general, but also as they apply for British Citizenship for their family

Thank you all for the love and support, and if you ever would like to donate, or are curious for more information, my email is pericarlson228@gmail.com or just message me on Facebook!