Saturday nights in Camden...

Read this the other day and was really encouraged:

But to be still more practical, we are to stand fast in the faith for the sake of our own happiness. There is no other way to be happy in a world like this except by standing fast in the faith. Doubts will come for certain; the enemy will attack you and try to shake you. Paul puts it perfectly when, in writing to the church at Ephesus, he tells them to put on the Christian armour, but, above all things, he says "Take the shield of faith wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the adversary." It is essential to "stand fast in the faith" when we are assailed by doubt. And it is essential as against feelings. If we trust to our feelings and to our moods, the time will come when we shall be feeling miserable. We shall wake up in the morning feeling tired and lethargic and the question will come to us, "Why go on with it? I do not feel like going on with it." There is only one answer when you feel like that. It is the faith, the truth! It is our only means to happiness. It is essential also against the facts of life. There come "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune". Illness comes, disappointment comes, difficult circumstances arise, a world war takes place, our profession is lost, our business is gone, sorrow knocks at the door of your home and someone dearer than life is taken away. Death comes, either in battle, or on the sea, or in the air, or quietly in a room. How can I face the facts of life? There is but one way: "Stand fast in the faith." It has envisaged all these things. It has provided for them all; it covers them all. It is the faith for life. It is the faith for death. It is the faith for all eternity. "Stand fast in the faith." -Martyn Lloyd-Jones (on 1 Corinthians 16:13-14, in "The Christian in an age of Terror")

Amy Winehouse

Amy Winehouse, a local Camdener, died on Saturday. Her security team found her dead in her house on Camden Square. Some of my teammates and I went by her house this afternoon to spend some time praying for her family and friends, and for the many other people in this area of London who struggle with drug and alcohol addictions. When a lot of people think of Amy Winehouse, they immediately think of her hit song "Rehab", which she wrote a few years ago as a response to people encouraging her to seek help for her addictions ("They tried to make me go to rehab, and I said 'No, no, no'."). We were talking today about how, in the midst of all the brokenness that we hear about from her life, she was a woman made in the image of God, and the Camden community saw pieces of that beauty in the way that she really loved and cared about this part of London. She was a hit singer with a lot of talent, who could have lived anywhere, and yet she took a firm stance in remaining in Camden, where her talent was first found. And she was often seen in the local grocery stores or pubs, hanging out with the locals here. It's really sad to hear of how she numbed herself to the pain and depression that existed in her life, though, and how she was so lost without Jesus, the only One who can heal the pain and be the ultimate Balm. Outside of her house, people have left notes that say "Heaven is rocking now. Jesus alone saves," and "Hope you have better luck in your next life", and "Amy is at peace now." It's obvious and sad that people are trying to numb their own selves to the reality of death, by glossing over this tragedy. They don't know how to respond. Amy is dead. I have been praying that she accepted Jesus into her heart before her death, but the reality is that if she didn't, she's not rocking in heaven now, and she won't have better luck in the "next life". I know that sounds really harsh, but this needs to be a wake-up call, not another numbing lotion, for people's hearts that our time can come at any time. And that there is so much pain in this world, but there is One who CAME DOWN and WALKED AMONG us to know first-hand what it's like here, and who then died for all of the brokenness here. It's also a wake-up call to us believers that we cannot be silent about Christ. We need to be hanging out with those people who are struggling and trying to numb themselves in whatever capacity and tell them the freeing news, not out of obligation, but out of compassion and love and a burden that we long for them to be rocking it out in heaven someday with Jesus too.

Text Messages from my bouncer friend J, after tea outreach tonight:

J: Thank you so much for the Bible that you gave me.

Me: My pleasure, J. I've found the promises and character of God that I read about in the Bible very comforting when I've been in hard situations. I'm sorry that things are so hard right now. I'm praying for you.

J: Thank you for your kind words. I just feel I may have sinned past the point of redemption and feel like my own worst enemy tonight, so I could definitely do with some guidance.

Me: I have been there, and I know that you are not past the point of redemption. That is why we need Jesus. Check out Romans 5 and 8 when you can tonight. Would it to be helpful to meet for coffee to talk more? I can bring my church minister, so that it is not awkward for you.

J: No, it wouldn't be awkward at all. I just need some sort of advice or guidance or something lol. I don't even know myself lol.

Me: Okay, when would work for all of us to get together this week?

J:I really don't know yet. Maybe we could discuss it Wednesday [WHEN OUR SKEPTICS STUDY MEETS!]?

Me: Okay, sounds great! Praying for you.

J: Thank you so much.

Dear Praying Friends, I know that there are groups of you that pray specifically for the people we meet at our Saturday night tea outreaches. Please PLEASE pray for J this week. He told me tonight at tea that he is about to lose his job because of a mistake he made a few years ago, which he feels horrible about. He looked like a mess and was tearing up while he was talking with me. He said that he has been praying to God, but God doesn't seem to be answering. I bought him a Bible and gave it to him tonight (praise God for the timing!), and encouraged him to start in Romans and John. He asked me when our next skeptics study is, and I said Wednesday, and he said that he would be there. Please pray that he turns to Jesus Christ. I don't think it's a coincidence that he was asking all of those questions last week and just got this bad news about his job. The man is getting to the end of himself. Please pray that he would run to Jesus. Thank so much for praying!! God is really blessing our tea ministry!

This is what my team leader wrote to his supporters, which I'm just going to copy:)

But wait, there's more. As the women were leaving, someone knocked on O's door. It was a guy our team had met on the streets several weeks before. He had prayed with C and O, and for the first time in his life had acknowledged that Jesus was Lord and the only way to come to the Father. That day he was drunk. Last night he was completely sober. He had a crumpled flyer for the Jesus study in his hand, and a question for O burning in his mind. He has been sober since C prayed for him, and he has felt alive and eager to tell people about Jesus - and he wanted to know: What has happened to me?! O explained that when we put our trust in Jesus as Lord, he comes and lives in us - what he was experiencing was the presence of God's Holy Spirit in his life! He now wants to become part of the church and be baptized. How awesome is that?! Rejoice with us and with the angels that one of God's lost children has been found - and also pray for O and all of us in Lysan as we welcome this guy and grow together as disciples of Jesus.

Someone we've been spending time with just accepted Christ and wants to get baptized!!!

My flesh is really screaming at me this week. I am so tired of the ways that I feed my insecurities- wanting to buy more clothes, comparing my body figure to other women's, wanting guys to notice me, seeking affirmation like mad (Jeremiah 2:13). I've been thinking a lot about the verse in Psalm 127 that talks about "feeding on the bread of our anxious toil". I'm eating a lot of bread right now, and it's not life-giving and satisfying. My flesh is kind of like the shrieking eels from the epic film "The Princess Bride" (that'd be a good book title- "The Screaming Eels of our Flesh" :). And yet God is so merciful to me, and so faithful, when my heart is so quick to go wayward. That's why I'm called to a Lifestyle of Repentance... Not to beat myself over the head, but to acknowledge that I daily need the Holy Spirit to do a turn-around in my wayward heart, and bring me back to the living, life-giving Bread of Jesus. I'm feeling very thankful for the Gospel message this evening.

Aslan is on the move...

MY MARKET FRIEND CAME TO THE SKEPTICS STUDY TONIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And she said that she'll be back next week! And I got a text from my bouncer friend (love having friends who are bouncers!) J, who said that he couldn't make it tonight, but was wondering when we'd be having another study, and said, "Have fun saving souls." I was really encouraged by that, even if he didn't come, since he initiated contact with me and knows that we're meeting to talk about the Lord. I got to share the Gospel with him last Saturday night (see post below).
Thank you so much for praying, guys!! V was 30 minutes late, and we didn't think that anyone would show, and it was okay. We weren't that bummed this week... I think we're learning that we are called to be available, and that God is in control and will bring those He wants to bring. So I was pretty ecstatic when someone actually showed up.

I was thinking this morning about how great a blessing it is that I moved into this new flat in March, which has a spare bed in my room. Since coming here, I think someone's been sleeping in the extra bed at least once a week. Especially lately, it's really come in use for serving others who need a break or a place to stay. Last night I got a phonecall that there was a mix-up in the hostel booking for our dear female summer intern. She got back to her room last night to find all of her stuff put into garbage bags and hauled out of the room... Not fun. So she's staying here for a few days, which is so great! It's just been a good reminder to me of how God has blessed us with certain resources for a reason, even things as "small" as an extra bed. Sometimes I really need my downtime and space, and I think last year I would have really had a hard time with people coming through all the time. But it's been really amazing to experience Him working in my heart and really becoming a lot more chill, and growing in me a heart for hospitality, even in close quarters. That's something I'm thanking Him for today.

Ploughing ahead

Some of our team spent yesterday afternoon sitting along the canal, playing music and talking to people who stopped by. When our two interns stopped by my flat for dinner later on, I asked how the rest of their time there was. K said that she really felt like we were sitting among some very broken and despairing Camdeners. People were dealing drugs right next to us, smoking up, and getting drunk on whiskey, while our team talked with them. She said that it is so easy to feel like God is not at work here in Camden, and that she could see why it can get so discouraging. "How do we reach these people with the Gospel?" she said.


Last night we all met up for our weekly tea outreach. Like every Saturday night, I ventured over to The World's End pub to hang out with my bouncer friends. J, who was manning one of the doors, gave me a big hug, and I asked him how he was doing this week. He said that he has been pretty sick this week and was in the hospital. We gave him his tea, and I asked if I could pray for his ears. He said, "No one has ever prayed for me before. I feel kind of weird about it. How does it work?" I said that I was just going to talk to God outloud and ask Him to heal J. He let me pray for him, and then something really amazing happened. J said, "May I ask you guys a question? Are you Catholic, Protestant, or born again? I know that there must be a God. I look out the window and see the trees and know that Someone had to create it. I have so much brokenness and have messed up so much, so does that mean that I'm going to hell?" I HAVE BEEN HANDING THIS GUY TEA FOR ALMOST A YEAR, AND I'VE BEEN LONGING FOR THIS DAY FOR SO LONG!!! And it finally happened! He finally opened up and I got to share the Gospel with him and talk about the cross and God's love and forgiveness towards J through Jesus Christ, and that he just needs to have faith in Christ!!! We talked for so long and he kept saying, "I'm sorry, I have another question." I said, "J, don't apologize. I`ve been waiting to have this conversation with you for a year!`` Thank You, Lord God! We exchanged numbers, and I invited him to our skeptics study, and he said to please text him this week to remind him of it. I left jumping up and down. The soil here is so hard, and I get so discouraged, but what a reminder that God is at work. He is able to break through the concrete. It might take a year and 50 cups of tea before someone starts opening up, but it is happening!

Last week I tried a kangaroo burger at the Camden market!

Next week will be ostrich. :)

"So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires. You will say to me then, 'Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?' On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, 'Why did you make me like this,' will it? Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honourable use and another for common use? What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and make His power known, endured with patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory, even us, whom He called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles." Romans 9:18-24

Upon first reading this today, I initially gulped, to be honest. That's been one of the big questions I've been asking God lately- "Why, if You are all-powerful God, can't you just break through and open more people's eyes here? Why do some people have to be 'vessels of wrath'?" But then I finished reading the passage, and saw the words "endured with patience", "molded vs molder", "riches of glory". And I thought about what Paul wrote earlier in this letter (5:8), "But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that WHILE we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." WE were the ones who disobeyed Him. We were the ones who turned our backs on Him in the garden, when He was offering us perfection. He was the One who was obedient to His Father. He was the One who turned His back on His perfect Son. He was the One who offered us forgiveness and healing. That's the love and mercy of God. So who am I to say that it's not fair that not everyone is going to be a vessel of mercy? We all disobeyed God. It's only by HIS mercy that I can even be called a "vessel of mercy". If it wasn't for Jesus absorbing God's wrath, I'd be a vessel of wrath today. So if anything, this should not leave me in a place of despair and complacency, but move me to a place of humility and urgency for my friends. But not a stressful, "it's on me" urgency, because He knows who He "prepared beforehand for His glory." God is enduring in patience towards us. I don't know who He has called. I'm just now called to be a vessel of His mercy towards others and preach this beautiful and upside-down and merciful message.

A fellow apprentice friend reminded me of this today...

‎"Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger, than when a human, no longer desiring, but intending, to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys." C.S.Lewis in Screwtape Letters

Something beautiful

On Monday, a 93 year old South African man stopped by the book table and asked if we had any French Bibles. I told him that we just had the Gospel of John in French, but if he left his contact info, I would get him a French Bible and send it to him. Instead, he said that he would come back today, while we're doing book table. Today at 2pm, I was walking down Camden High Street, past The World's End pub. It was raining quite a lot, so we were delayed in getting the table set up. As I walked past the pub, I looked up to see D standing there, waiting. I walked up to him grinning. "You followed through and came," he responded. "Oh course I did! This book changed my life," I said laughing. I gave him the French Bible, and we stood there, in the rain, for 45 minutes talking about the Gospel. It was a beautiful time. He told me that he had travelled all the way from the Isle of Dogs (on the other side of London) to meet me today for the Bible. My phone rang a few times, and I didn't care. Listening to this old man tell me some of his story and share about how hard it is to believe in God when he's seen so many horrible things done in the name of God (I can only imagine- he's lived through many global and local wars, including being a black man during Apartheid), was heart-wrenching. I told him that he made me think of Simeon, from the Gospels, who waited his whole life to see the Messiah, and that once he had met Jesus, he was able to die peacefully. D is 93. He doesn't profess faith in Christ yet, but he is searching and hungry and asking a lot of questions. I'm praying that the Lord's word falls on an open heart, and that the Holy Spirit opens this dear man's eyes, and that he'll soon be celebrating like Simeon did when he met Jesus. Come Lord Jesus.

Last night we hosted our second Skeptics Bible study. And for the 2nd week in a row, no one showed up. People cancelled at the last minute or weren't reachable right beforehand to confirm their coming. My teammate O and I sat there for a while, feeling pretty discouraged. We spent a while praying and asking God if He wanted us to do something different. We were pretty honest with Him about how hard it is to see this happen a second week in a row. Having a skeptics Bible study just seems like a logical step in sharing the good news of Jesus with our friends, in an environment where it's not rushed, there's little distraction, and where others are there to also talk and disagree and be honest. We're here. We want to see people come to know the amazing message of the Gospel. We want to be used for His name's sake. And He tells us that we just need faith the size of a mustard seed, and I told God last night that I think we have that. So why isn't He bringing in people? I know that He's all-powerful, and that He's able to overhaul and change people's apathetic and cynical hearts, so why aren't we seeing Him doing that more?
Then this morning, I was reminded that when Jesus went to the cross and died, it probably looked pretty foolish and senseless to a lot of people who were there. And some of His followers must have felt pretty stupid right after He died, before He showed up on the road to Emmaus, even though He promised that He'd rise from the dead. Cleopas, one of the travellers, even asked the "stranger" if He was completely unaware of what had been happening in Jerusalem in the last 3 days.
And when Stephen was crying out "Behold, I see the heavens opened up and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God", the Jews covered their ears and ran towards him, and drove him out of the city, stoning him. At the time, his martyrdom probably didn't make sense to a lot of people around him, including Saul. And to have stones thrown at you after you've proclaimed so thoroughly that the giving of the law through Moses to the Jews was the sign of the covenant, and that Jesus was the seal of the covevant, I would imagine must have been discouraging. And even from a physical war perspective, when the allied troops landed on the shores of Normandy on D Day, and they were completely massacred and saw their comrades bodies strewn in the ocean, they had no idea that they were on the brink of overriding the enemy. God's kingdom is everlasting. Satan's kingdom is crumbling. He is on the move. And we are called to stand firm and steadfast and continue proclaiming His truth, whether people come to our study or not. We have no idea what is just around the corner, but we do have a Living Hope, whose name is Jesus, and He has promised that He will come back again, in triumph!

O Canada at Trafalgar Square

Yesterday was Canada's 144th birthday, and I had the wonderful pleasure of meeting up with some Canadian friends from my church back home (who are all working over here in London right now). For those of you who don't know what Canada's national anthem sounds like, or just want to see some Canadians belting it out in England, I thought I would share a bit of it with you. :)

A dear friend just posted this on her facebook wall, and I thought I would share it. It was an encouragement for me to read this morning. It's from the Gospel Coalition blog (http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/scottysmith/2011/07/01/a-prayer-for-hoping-in-gods-steadfast-love/)

SCOTTY SMITH|4:55 AM CT
A Prayer for Hoping in God’s Steadfast Love
The king is not saved by his great army; a warrior is not delivered by his great strength. The war horse is a false hope for salvation, and by its great might it cannot rescue. Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him, on those who hope in his steadfast love. Ps. 33:16–18

Dear heavenly Father, though it’s not fun, it’s a good thing to come to the end of ourselves—to be in situations where all of our resources, all of our “goodness” and all of our idols begin to fail us. Indeed, it’s a gospel thing to feel the pain of knowing whatever worked in the past is not working in the present; to feel the confusion of not knowing what to do next; to feel the helplessness of being out of control. It hurts, but it hurts real good and for our good.

For only in those moments do we abandon ourselves to the God who alone can part Red Seas when our enemies are pursuing us; serve fresh quail in the wilderness to his hungry thankless children (Exodus 16); overthrow whole Midianite armies with three hundred gun-less soldiers (Judges 7); take down Goliaths by young shepherds armed with pebbles (1 Samuel 17); deliver his people from the fire or through the fire (Daniel 3); feed multitudes with a few fish and pieces of bread (Matthew 14); raise a dead man for the salvation of his people and the transformation of the cosmos.

Lord Jesus, you are that dead man who now lives and we abandon ourselves to you today. You are the One who is redeeming his bride and making all things new. It is your steadfast love that we can and must hope in today. There is no other supply sufficient to the need. There is no other strength sufficient for the task. There is no other balm sufficient for the pain. There is no other rest sufficient for the exhaustion. There is no other hope sufficient for our cries and crises. Hoping in you alone holds the promise of the end of all disappointment and shame (Romans 5:1-5 ESV), for you were shamed for us on the cross, and raised for our salvation and deliverance (Hebrews 12:1-3).

So we bring our wounded and broken hearts to you. We bring our struggling marriages to you. We bring our jobless families to you. We bring our chronic pain to you. We bring our divided churches to you. We bring our ever besetting sins and addictions to you. We bring our conflicted relationships to you. We bring our wayward children to you. We bring our unbelieving friends to you. We bring the needs of our community to you. We bring it all to you, Jesus. We will trust in you and your steadfast love. Where else can we go? Astonish us by bringing much glory to yourself in the coming hours, days and months. So very Amen we pray, in your merciful and mighty name.