It’s been a while since I updated. Every time i sat down to write, there was more pressing things on my to-do list. Let’s back up to September. The carnival outreach had finished and we had some time to adjust into the houses and schedule again. Some of our team went to Thailand for an international conference for our organisation called YWAM Together. While they were away, we continued with our students with teachings and track time for their artistic disciplines, preparing for exhibition in November. I had several opportunities to teach throughout the month on different biblical principles. At the end of the month, our ministry leaders/pastors were able to attend the Elevation Church conference in North Carolina, after a week in NYC scouting and setting locations for the 2019 Arts Gathering. There was a lot of breakthrough, and we have almost all the locations and accommodation sorted!
In the middle of October I was part of an outreach team to Italy. We spent four days in Bari, and two weeks in Naples. We had very last minute connections, so we did not know what to expect. In Bari we connected with an amazing pastor from the area who really loves the city and his church. We spent a few days preparing and then one whole day on the main shopping street inviting people to hear about Jesus and connect them with the local church. In Naples we worked with a prayer centre, who connected us with many local churches. We visited a different church almost every day, shared about ourselves, YWAM and some personal testimonies, and hung out with the church members. None of us spoke Italian, so it was quite the adventure, but Italians are so hospitable and social. We made some good contacts and hope to be back soon.
The exhibition was the third week of November, and it went really well! We were able to host it in a really nice space in East London, and the students really pushed themselves to produce their best work. Lots of people just passing by on the streets popped in and had a chat. We also got the coffee cart up and running! It was our first debut with our brand, THINK Coffee+Ink. This week the students graduated and headed off for the next steps in their walk with God. Many of them are coming back next season for the leadership school (which I am co-leading again) or the arts internship, and we are so excited. It’s always encouraging when God trusts us with another season and process of their lives.
Something that God has been teaching me these last months is that we don’t have time to waste. On being selfish, on comparison, on demanding our rights, even on seeing promises come through, because many times we are trying to do it in our own human strength. The only thing we have time for is following His plan, step by step. Comparing, demanding, all these things only drain us in the end and then we have no more energy to give for the things of God. I don’t want to waste more time, more headspace, more energy, on anything other than what He is asking me to do.
Prayer points:
-the next two months are dedicated ministry time, so pray for us all to get things done and organised for the next season, but also fresh passsion and creativity
-in the next months a few of us will be studying for our Life in the UK test, as part of the residency process. I will be applying in August 2019, cost of which is around $3000. Any support is most welcome!
-for the coffee shop/tattoo parlour. WE GOT A LOCATION!!!! After a bit of disappointment, God really came swooping in out of nowhere, and in the next weeks we will be signing for a property on the high street of Camden Town. We will begin remodel in January and be up and running ASAP. THANKYOU for all your prayers and support. We expect a need of around $40,000 for initial deposit and remodel costs, so if you’d like to invest in the kingdom with us, please get in touch!
Thursday, December 6, 2018
Monday, September 10, 2018
Summer Speed
Summer is normally the time where people slow down, take holiday, relax with family, enjoy resting and recuperating for some time. For us here in London it is the opposite. Summer is our busiest time of year, for many reasons. One is that England does not always have the nicest weather, so for activities and outreaches here in London, the summer months are our best shot at being out in the streets and bringing community together. Barbecues, outdoor music performances, street art, and many other things only are possible when it’s not chucking down with rain. Another reason is that students are off of school, and many people travel to London for holidays. The streets are packed with tourists, and people have more freedom to come and join us for our summer outreach activities.
This year again I had the privilege to co-lead our June Arts Internship. We had 7 lovely ladies bringing a mix of culture and diversity of artistic disciplines to our team. They were an extremely creative group, always pushing their limits with a lot of initiative. We only had one month of “lecture” phase in the house before we left for 2 months of outreach. Our first weeks were spent in London, hosting our annual International Arts Gathering back in our home city. The last few years we have had this gathering in other key cities in Europe, and it was exciting yet challenging to have it at home again. As an internship we hosted an exhibition during the gathering. It was an impressive display of what the girls had been learning skills-wise and processing with God throughout this season. After this we helped organise Dover Soul, kids summer bible camp (VBS for my American audience) with a theme of Power Up. We made loads of video game decorations, arts and craft projects, outdoor games, dramas, and little chats on who God is and how Jesus is the ultimate power up in life. It was so much fun for us to be with the kids, see how their little minds work, and just have a great time together. Straight from there we bussed down to Cornwall for a Christian music festival called Creation Fest. We volunteered in different areas from music venues, cafe, stewarding and security, to the skate park, prayer team, and a few other areas. This festival is a 5 day activity packed with things to do for all ages, and all of it free. Throughout the day there are different faith talks, an open skate park, music performances, all closing down with a great time of worship and preaching from different pastors around the UK. It’s alaways a huge privilege to be a part of someone else’s vision and help support the kingdom of God in different ways.
(If you are still reading, God bless you! Haha)
Coming back to London we jumped straight into our largest activity of the year, the Notting Hill Carnival. For those who don’t know, this Carnival was born out of an attempt to bring cultural awareness to London. In the late 50’s there were race riots targeting the influx of Afro-Carribbean immigrants that came to help rebuild the UK after World War II. In response, the people created the Carnival to celebrate their culture. Over the years it has developed into a huge street party, the largest in the world just after Rio de Janeiro’s Carnival. Full of music, costumes, street food, and party hubs, this is a place where people come to celebrate but also to lose themselves in drugs, alcohol, and sex. There’s always some hat come to stir up trouble as well and we hear reports of stabbings, knife confiscations, and stampedes caused during these two days. Arise London is our summer of service camp, and within this the outreach for Carnival is called Bones after the passage in Ezekiel 37, calling the dry bones to life. We believe that God is relentlessly pursing the hearts of every individual, very much including all those who attend Carnival. We spent the week before preparing costumes, music, and hand-written promises, but also reaching out to different areas of north, central, and east London. The first day of Carnival it was pouring rain, so we went out in the afternoon simply to just walk the area, pray, and chat with the people in the streets. The second day we loaded up with our 5 meter tall cross, stilts, drums, costumes, and hearts full of the Lord and headed out. We did a small parade route before planting ourselves in one of the roundabouts for the rest of the day. We took time playing music, handing out promises, and declaring God’s love and truth over the city and the people. With one of my friends I got to be part of one man’s process in coming back to relationship with God, letting go of his control and fear of what the future will bring, and trusting in God’s promises. It was amazing! There are many other testimonies from that day that I don’t have space to write down.
After Carnival our schools graduated, and I officially moved into my new place! I spent a week unpacking with my housemates (also teammates) and making the house a home. This next season I will be working alongside the DTS (discipleship training school) that we have until December. I am still focusing in visual arts and barista, and giving some classes in these areas as well as some biblical teachings for the whole school. As always I am so grateful for what God has done these last months, and looking forward to the next ones. He has amazing things in store!
Prayer Points (if you made it all the way here, congrats for your perseverance!)
-DTS outreach in October, we are still in need of host locations
-finances: next September I will be applying for permanent residence here, which will cost around £2700, which is roughly $3500. I am saving as much as possible, but any prayers and donations are very welcome.
-the coffee shop! We are bidding on a property right now, which is the real push into getting this thing started
-for our team to continue walking in God’s will and growing in love for each other, our students, and the city of London
Thank you all so much for your love and support, and patience with my inconsistent updates.
God bless!!!
This year again I had the privilege to co-lead our June Arts Internship. We had 7 lovely ladies bringing a mix of culture and diversity of artistic disciplines to our team. They were an extremely creative group, always pushing their limits with a lot of initiative. We only had one month of “lecture” phase in the house before we left for 2 months of outreach. Our first weeks were spent in London, hosting our annual International Arts Gathering back in our home city. The last few years we have had this gathering in other key cities in Europe, and it was exciting yet challenging to have it at home again. As an internship we hosted an exhibition during the gathering. It was an impressive display of what the girls had been learning skills-wise and processing with God throughout this season. After this we helped organise Dover Soul, kids summer bible camp (VBS for my American audience) with a theme of Power Up. We made loads of video game decorations, arts and craft projects, outdoor games, dramas, and little chats on who God is and how Jesus is the ultimate power up in life. It was so much fun for us to be with the kids, see how their little minds work, and just have a great time together. Straight from there we bussed down to Cornwall for a Christian music festival called Creation Fest. We volunteered in different areas from music venues, cafe, stewarding and security, to the skate park, prayer team, and a few other areas. This festival is a 5 day activity packed with things to do for all ages, and all of it free. Throughout the day there are different faith talks, an open skate park, music performances, all closing down with a great time of worship and preaching from different pastors around the UK. It’s alaways a huge privilege to be a part of someone else’s vision and help support the kingdom of God in different ways.
(If you are still reading, God bless you! Haha)
Coming back to London we jumped straight into our largest activity of the year, the Notting Hill Carnival. For those who don’t know, this Carnival was born out of an attempt to bring cultural awareness to London. In the late 50’s there were race riots targeting the influx of Afro-Carribbean immigrants that came to help rebuild the UK after World War II. In response, the people created the Carnival to celebrate their culture. Over the years it has developed into a huge street party, the largest in the world just after Rio de Janeiro’s Carnival. Full of music, costumes, street food, and party hubs, this is a place where people come to celebrate but also to lose themselves in drugs, alcohol, and sex. There’s always some hat come to stir up trouble as well and we hear reports of stabbings, knife confiscations, and stampedes caused during these two days. Arise London is our summer of service camp, and within this the outreach for Carnival is called Bones after the passage in Ezekiel 37, calling the dry bones to life. We believe that God is relentlessly pursing the hearts of every individual, very much including all those who attend Carnival. We spent the week before preparing costumes, music, and hand-written promises, but also reaching out to different areas of north, central, and east London. The first day of Carnival it was pouring rain, so we went out in the afternoon simply to just walk the area, pray, and chat with the people in the streets. The second day we loaded up with our 5 meter tall cross, stilts, drums, costumes, and hearts full of the Lord and headed out. We did a small parade route before planting ourselves in one of the roundabouts for the rest of the day. We took time playing music, handing out promises, and declaring God’s love and truth over the city and the people. With one of my friends I got to be part of one man’s process in coming back to relationship with God, letting go of his control and fear of what the future will bring, and trusting in God’s promises. It was amazing! There are many other testimonies from that day that I don’t have space to write down.
After Carnival our schools graduated, and I officially moved into my new place! I spent a week unpacking with my housemates (also teammates) and making the house a home. This next season I will be working alongside the DTS (discipleship training school) that we have until December. I am still focusing in visual arts and barista, and giving some classes in these areas as well as some biblical teachings for the whole school. As always I am so grateful for what God has done these last months, and looking forward to the next ones. He has amazing things in store!
Prayer Points (if you made it all the way here, congrats for your perseverance!)
-DTS outreach in October, we are still in need of host locations
-finances: next September I will be applying for permanent residence here, which will cost around £2700, which is roughly $3500. I am saving as much as possible, but any prayers and donations are very welcome.
-the coffee shop! We are bidding on a property right now, which is the real push into getting this thing started
-for our team to continue walking in God’s will and growing in love for each other, our students, and the city of London
Thank you all so much for your love and support, and patience with my inconsistent updates.
God bless!!!
Saturday, April 14, 2018
Winter Passing
It’s been a good few months since I last updated on my life here in London. It's been quite a long winter, with plenty of cold snowy days. We have been running a leadership school focused on urban ministry development, alongside or classic arts internship. Being part of the leadership school staff team has been great. It is the first time we do this school, so of course we are figuring out what works and what doesn’t, but it has been so good. The interns are really pushing to learn and grow, while developing their own ministry projects that vary from recording studio to music festival to coffee shop to social justice programs. They are so creative and really working together to see each project come to life.
This last month I have been in New York City on a scouting trip, and Buenos Aires for two weeks of outreach with the leadership school. In NYC, a small group of us met with pastors and ministry leaders for 10 days, to make connections for future outreaches and possibly the International Arts Gathering in 2019. Generally people think of New Yorkers as being rude, but we found nothing but super generous and helpful people. We ended up being invited to a lunch for church-planters that coincidentally only happens once a month and we managed to be there for it...God is so crazy good. We also just hit the streets, getting the lay of the land and finding strategic locations and hubs of life.
Heading to Buenos Aires was a change of weather, culture, and speed. With the leadership school, we spent the first week receiving teachings from a loved friend of our base, Angelica, based from Romans 12 on the renewing of our mind. I want to share what we "learned" but really what happened was that our hearts were soaked in truth. The truth that we have been formed by culture, upbringing, society, family, media, and many other influences that have taken us away from the truth of God and who we are in Him. It's a daily thing to look to Jesus to be our source. Our source of faith, hope, truth, life, identity, passion, and so much more. It's a daily thing to walk in who He says we are. After these morning teachings, we spent the afternoons painting and fixing things around the base to bless our family there. The second week we went to the "countryside" of Buenos Aires for the national conference for YWAM Argentina. We spent time in fellowship, teachings, worship, hearing about ministries and church plants, and much more. It was a good chance to see once again where our leaders come from, and to met up with old friends and make new ones.
Back in London now, the leadership interns are finishing up their ministry projects, while we have also begun a new DTS (discipleship training school). At the end of the month we will have an exhibition with the arts internship that will also be finishing their time with us, and a dual graduation party. This week we have begun moving into our new office space (hooray!!!) and were able to attend the London Coffee Festival (even more hooray!!!). God is moving here in the city and its amazing to be a part of it. For sure it comes with its struggles and hardships, but also with growth and victory! We keep pressing on, full of hope that the One who called us will be faithful to fulfill His word and carry us through. He is amazing! Thank you all for your love and support. Without that, this would be much harder of a journey.
Lots of love!
This last month I have been in New York City on a scouting trip, and Buenos Aires for two weeks of outreach with the leadership school. In NYC, a small group of us met with pastors and ministry leaders for 10 days, to make connections for future outreaches and possibly the International Arts Gathering in 2019. Generally people think of New Yorkers as being rude, but we found nothing but super generous and helpful people. We ended up being invited to a lunch for church-planters that coincidentally only happens once a month and we managed to be there for it...God is so crazy good. We also just hit the streets, getting the lay of the land and finding strategic locations and hubs of life.
Heading to Buenos Aires was a change of weather, culture, and speed. With the leadership school, we spent the first week receiving teachings from a loved friend of our base, Angelica, based from Romans 12 on the renewing of our mind. I want to share what we "learned" but really what happened was that our hearts were soaked in truth. The truth that we have been formed by culture, upbringing, society, family, media, and many other influences that have taken us away from the truth of God and who we are in Him. It's a daily thing to look to Jesus to be our source. Our source of faith, hope, truth, life, identity, passion, and so much more. It's a daily thing to walk in who He says we are. After these morning teachings, we spent the afternoons painting and fixing things around the base to bless our family there. The second week we went to the "countryside" of Buenos Aires for the national conference for YWAM Argentina. We spent time in fellowship, teachings, worship, hearing about ministries and church plants, and much more. It was a good chance to see once again where our leaders come from, and to met up with old friends and make new ones.
Back in London now, the leadership interns are finishing up their ministry projects, while we have also begun a new DTS (discipleship training school). At the end of the month we will have an exhibition with the arts internship that will also be finishing their time with us, and a dual graduation party. This week we have begun moving into our new office space (hooray!!!) and were able to attend the London Coffee Festival (even more hooray!!!). God is moving here in the city and its amazing to be a part of it. For sure it comes with its struggles and hardships, but also with growth and victory! We keep pressing on, full of hope that the One who called us will be faithful to fulfill His word and carry us through. He is amazing! Thank you all for your love and support. Without that, this would be much harder of a journey.
Lots of love!
Wednesday, January 10, 2018
On To The Next
Always at the New Year, we want to look back and see our last one. What was good, what was hard, what didn't quite manage to kill us, and what we can project into the next year. 2017 for me was a year of healing. 2016 was a year that knocked me down again and again, many old personal enemies holding me down and reminding me of hurts and shames. But this last year, I have seen God move me into a place of rest and freedom. Not in a big, all of a sudden, musical production sort of way. It's been a slow, gentle, floating down a river kind of way. I've learned this last year that the way we choose to act is crucial. Even if everything in us screams to react, to fight back, to seek justice, we can still choose to walk humbly, choose love, and learn along the way. Change is slow, healing is a process, and it all begins with a decision. It's like changing our habits. It takes 7 days to make a habit and 28 days to break it, according to studies, and it all starts by making conscious decisions. I've learned this year that we are not defined by the things that we do. We cannot undo our actions, but we can move on and continue growing and learning. I've learned this year the importance of letting go, even of good things. We cannot keep anything in this life, the good or the bad. Sometimes when we hold on to something too tight, we end up losing it faster. Letting go, giving it back to God, is the safest places for our dreams and blessings to rest.
2018, I have a feeling, is going to be a year of action. One of the projects I am currently a part of is our first leadership school. It has a focus on urban ministry development, and will be from February to May. We are planning the outreach to New York City, and Buenos Aires, Argentina. We will be scouting NYC for future outreach locations, and possibly hosting the Arts Gathering there in 2019. In Buenos Aires we will get to spend some time with the people that invested in our leaders many years ago, and also participate in the national YWAM gathering. This is a pretty big outreach though, and requires a lot of finances. The plane ticket alone is at least £800, and then hospitality costs and food. If you would consider contributing to this in any way, big or small, it would be a great help.
Thank you all for the love and support, it really does a great deal more than you know. If you would like more info, or are looking to contribute anything please get in touch, on Facebook or by email to pericarlson228@gmail.com
2018, I have a feeling, is going to be a year of action. One of the projects I am currently a part of is our first leadership school. It has a focus on urban ministry development, and will be from February to May. We are planning the outreach to New York City, and Buenos Aires, Argentina. We will be scouting NYC for future outreach locations, and possibly hosting the Arts Gathering there in 2019. In Buenos Aires we will get to spend some time with the people that invested in our leaders many years ago, and also participate in the national YWAM gathering. This is a pretty big outreach though, and requires a lot of finances. The plane ticket alone is at least £800, and then hospitality costs and food. If you would consider contributing to this in any way, big or small, it would be a great help.
Thank you all for the love and support, it really does a great deal more than you know. If you would like more info, or are looking to contribute anything please get in touch, on Facebook or by email to pericarlson228@gmail.com
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