I AMsterdam

The 2nd 24-7 Euro Gathering was held in Amsterdam this past weekend. Such an amazing time! Got to reconnect with old friends and to meet new ones. Had lots of time for wandering around the city which is beautiful! The Gathering itself was full of inspiring and challenging teaching and great times of worship and prayer. I felt like I had come home. Here are a few pictures from the weekend:

As far as sessions/teaching goes my highlight was an afternoon seminar on mission and culture in Europe. It was taught by Gerard Kelly (at least I think that's his last name) and I really appreciated what he had to say. He pulled a lot of stuff out about history and how important it is doing mission in Europe today to have an understanding of the past and the role that the church and Christianity has played in Europe's history. Vital questions: If the paganism in Europe today stems not from an ignorance but a rejection of Christianity, how do we make Jesus beautiful again? And, if the heart cry of Europe for generations has been for Freedom, Justice, and Truth, how can we expect to successfully share the gospel without answering this cry? Like I said, really challenging!

I stayed an extra day in Amsterdam to do a bit of touristy things. I went to the Rijksmuseum which was recommended in a couple guide books I flipped through. I'm wondering if they were displaying at full capacity because I was thoroughly disappointed. I was in and out in an hour and it cost 11 Euro! I tried to go to the Van Gogh Museum to make up for the disappointment, but was unable to. So I got to wander around the city and pop into a few used bookstores and some funny souvenir shops and fun things like that.

Since I flew through Dublin on my way here I officially entered the UK on my way home from Amsterdam. So my tourist entry will end on April 5th. A lot can happen between now and then and I'm excited to see what the Lord has in store!

Just to give you an idea of how great and intense the weekend was, I spent 5 hours on Tuesday journalling about it!

stirrings in czech

This is a post full of pictures. I don't feel my words will do a good job of telling the story of the week I spent in the Czech Republic. The pictures are in no particular order and come from the cities of Prague and Brno and the 24-7 Euro Gathering. I've also included random quotes of phrases that stuck out to me in the meetings.
"Planting a seed is a statement of faith."


"Thus says the Lord: 'Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.'" Jeremiah 6:16

"Where there is death we need to remember that there used to be life."

I've been remembering a lot of things the last few months. This is what I remembered at the Euro Gathering: asking my mom at our bi-annual missionary weeks why there were never any missionaries who went to Europe. Her answer was that Europe already had the gospel, they are already Christians. Even at the age of 10 or 11 I knew that was no longer true...

Something I discovered, I love travelling in Europe by train!

And I "saw" all the famous Czech people I "know;" Jan Hus, Jon Amos Comenius (Komensky in Czech), and Dvorak.

random picture post

I have finally uploaded a bunch of pictures that have been on my phone for ages, so this will be very random!
Open mic night at the John Hewitt my first night in Belfast. (April 7th) Wisteria in Guildford! (From this past Tuesday)
The sun is still shining and it's 8:00pm (from yesterday)
The very first proper English stile I ever climbed over (January)
Weeding at Sunbury Court (Almost two weeks ago) We spent this past weekend working on a community project called Ready 4 Action which mobilizes churches and youth groups from all over Guildford to do gardening and painting for people who for whatever reason are unable to do it for themselves. This is lunch on the first day and then the finished room. (As you can see the teams changed each day)

I got my face painted! (Ready 4 Action Fun Day, this past Monday)
A flower pot I painted at Fun Day and chocolate I won thanks to the boys entering me in the t-shirt contest against my will.
I maybe got a bit carried away with the face painting pictures...

And more wisteria (this is for Lacy!)

Last night at our Boiler Room meeting we talked about mission. Some of our friends, Phil and Anna Evans (blog link to the right) are preparing to go to Skopje, Macedonia in January/March 2009. We spent the evening hearing from and praying for them. Then, towards the end, there was a call for all of us to be missional with our lives. Phil reminded us that the question is not, "Should I go?" but "Can I stay?"

I spent the end of the meeting crying. I already know the answer to that question for me. I can't stay, I have to go. But sometimes, although I am so close, I still feel really far away. My heart breaks for Ireland. It's been a while since I've cried about it, that used to be a regular occurrence. It's really reassuring for the tears to come back.

I was just reading Brian Heasely's blog (http://www.brianheasley.blogspot.com/) he's a leader in 24-7. And his post this morning was on mission. He made a list of places that he would like to see communities planted. Guess what was #1... Ireland. Apparently it's the least evangelized English speaking country in the world. I didn't know that. It's not that surprising.

I'm aching to go.

mission week photos! (thanks Frances!)

does anybody have a testimony of grace?

Last week was this term's mission week. (Each term we have a week to get out of Guildford and do something "missional.") I was part of a group that went to a place in England called The Cotswold's. We stopped to pray as we were entering the valley we were visiting, asking the Lord for direction because we really didn't have any plans other than see what he wanted to do. Frances felt like we should get off the motorway and take the back roads and I had a word about seeking out old paths.

So Frances took the map and started navigating us away from the main roads. As we were looking for the right road we passed one called "Old Road" so we turned around and went down it. We decided to stop at this little old church to explore and pray a bit. While we were there a lady came in to do a lunch time prayer for Lent. We asked if we could join her and told her a bit of what we were doing.

She ended up asking us back to her house for tea and cake. While we were there she shared some of her story. She and her husband and a couple other families in the area had felt the Lord leading them to worship where they lived instead of traveling to bigger churches with more things happening in the spirit. So, for the last several years they had been attending this little Anglican church with ever dwindling numbers, praying for God to do something in their village.

She was so encouraged just to have us there, she said she had been praying for the Lord to do something just to show her that he was hearing their prayers. We prayed with her for a while before we left. It was really cool!

When we got back home I had a package waiting from my mom with all the stuff to do my taxes. (And some other fun stuff!) Over the summer I had used my credit cards to pay for Transit, trusting the Lord to provide the money to pay them off before I left. The money didn't come and I had whipped through my savings by January making payments on them. My parents aren't in a position to help me out and so I was planning to cash in some stock that was given to me when I quit my job to be able to make payments until the end of Transit. I was hoping my tax return would be enough to have a bit of spending money for the rest of the time, I was hoping for $500. When I did my taxes online my return came to almost $1400!!! Which should be enough to pay my credit cards through the end of Transit and have a bit of spending money too!

It's funny how difficult I make things sometimes. I worked really hard to stay in a place of peace and of trusting the Lord to provide, really, really hard. And then he did. And I felt a bit silly for all the effort I had to put into it! The lesson isn't quite over yet as I still don't know what is happening when Transit finishes (July 4th is our last day) and while the Lord provided enough to make payments for a while, I still have all that debt to pay off completely. Hopefully the trusting will be a bit easier this time!

PS, Pictures were taken but not by me, I'll post some when friends have put them on Facebook and I can steal them!