Greetings from the team! Hoping you have enjoyed the summer months and all that they bring with them. Before we swing back into the regularity of base and school timetable, we thought we would share some highlights of our summer in London.
Throughout July and August we have managed to take a slower pace to daily life but we didn’t just take the time off and as a result we enjoyed some pretty amazing times.
One of the first highlights of the summer was taking part in baptizing some young people from one of the local churches we work with. Rosana and Marta have been working with the junior youth group teaching on baptism and mid July we saw the fruits of this and the hard work of dedicated Sunday School teachers when 3 young people committed themselves including our very own Yasmin Galarza!
The Wildfire Team had a fantastic two week camp based at the Kings Lodge in Nuneaton. The London team joined with other young people from Egypt, Korea, North Dacota (US), Poland and the UK for a loud, arty, creative and very fun time. Our own children came back full of life recounting many stories from the camp and with a huge list of new friends. An excellent time for all.
Having a heart for worship and a desire to have more of the presence of God, Jose Maria invited Marc James for a Worship Evening at one of our local churches. Marc is a good friend of the family and is also front man for the band ‘Verra Cruz’ and the writer of worship song ‘I Surrender’. This worship evening was a fantastic time where we just bathed in God’s presence and had a chance to practice worshiping freely as musicians and singers. We are hoping to schedule more of these worship evenings and invite other worship leaders and team members from the area.
Almost at the end of August we hosted the Heartbridge Arts team - a 50 strong YWAM group from the Hawaii base - most DTS students with some second level school students and of course their leaders. Staying for just under one week the team spent their last week of outreach in the heart of Notting Hill. Having been on tour for 8 weeks throughout Europe & Morocco, they had some fantastic stories to tell and an excellent production to present. Their days were spent going on the streets doing short dances and drumming and inviting people to the performances and in the afternoons they opened the doors for free dance, theatre and music workshops ending their week with three performances through Friday and Saturday.
Considering it was a very quiet week due to the holidays the team did a fantastic job of engaging people. We had around 30-40 people in the church who were not part of our group or connected to the church and all these people got treated to amazing dance, music and theatre and also heard about God’s father heart for them. From being present at the performances I could see that the production had a very powerful effect. People did not want to leave afterwards but instead stayed to talk with the performers and the rest of us, some asking for prayer but mostly just savouring the love and God’s presence that was so evident in the place.
One gentleman said this “…before I came here there was a brick wall between me and God. After the performance I felt some of those bricks come down.”
This team’s passionate heart for worship and the arts really permeated the area and we could sense a significant difference in the atmosphere at the end of the week…just in time for the Notting Hill Carnival!
You can check out some of their performances and get more information on the team at www.goheartbridge.com.
So fresh from the performing arts team we headed straight on into the two day fiesta that is known as Notting Hill Carnival. Hosted August bank holiday every year it is billed as Europe’s biggest carnival and there are certainly a lot of people there to lend weight to that statement! The team volunteer with two other churches who host a music corner at the carnival for both days and also did some outreach outside Notting Hill Community Church.
I would say that this year was certainly the year that we realised just how much we could really do during this time. With all the pressure of licences and process and commitees to go through to be part of the carnival itself we forget about keeping it simple. Hugo and Gaby, two of our team had simple and effective evangelism ideas that we tested out. After volunteering with the other church on the Sunday we gathered together at midnight and took a small table outside to offer tea and coffee to the masses still clinging to the streets. We also took out a brooms to help clear away the piles and piles of rubbish that had accumulated during just that day. These simple things brought us attention as people watched us clear away and approached some of the team to talk.
The second day I would say was the most fruitful of the two. This time we set up the tea, coffee and water table just outside the Church. A couple of days before we had prepared some handmade roses to give to people in ‘exchange’ for a prayer request. We painted our faces and made ourselves visible and available for people to come and take free refreshments, prayers and engaging conversation. Some of the team also went into the crowd to tackle the question ‘what is your future’. At the end of our few hours on the streets we talked to many people, prayed for more and even had 5 commitments made to Christ. Such a victory with such a small activity made us dream of a much bigger team and more activities for the next year which will hopefully result in a bigger harvest.
This was a very exciting time and completely worthwhile. Though the carnival itself is a challenging place to be in we would love to invite people to come and evangelise and serve with the team and other local churches to help, particular art groups and others with creative ideas that could capture people’s attention and bring light into the prominent darkness there. If you are interested in getting involved please email jose@ywamlondon.com and let him know how you can and are willing to serve at next year’s carnival.
There is a harvest to be taken…come and be part of it!
So the end of the summer months ended with a bang but there were also birthdays celebrated, holidays taken and even a wedding during this time so we have re-charged our energy and are now preparing to launch into the DTS starting at the end of September. God is good!