Monday, June 15, 2009

Today is our last off day in the UK. It was so wonderful to sleep in and get a full night's rest. It's easy to sleep when God has been so good to our team.

We were in Walsall, England last week. God opened so many doors for us.

We were in 2 schools all week. We gave presentations in the Religious Education classes and throughout the week we met with every student. We were allowed to share the Gospel with the students. Altar calls were discouraged, but our contact said that if we did and anyone had an issue with it, he would clean up the mess later. So we did, and it was fine. One of schools allowed for us to do Encounter, our production, for a morning assembly for one grade. It was incredible. The students responded better than any of us expected.

When Jeremy asked who of them wanted to give their lives to Jesus, nearly 80% of them enthusiastically put up their hands!! Our host, Danny, was shocked beyond belief. He said that he has been working in this school for many years and had never seen them respond to Jesus like that before.

There also were quite a few Muslims there that morning as well. The town of Walsall is becoming very Muslim. One of the schools is over 50% Muslim. Many of the extremist terrorist groups have cells that live in that town as well. Thank God that some of the young people heard about Jesus!We were so blessed by the church that hosted us in Walsall.

They were very kind and hospitable people, the kind you stay friends with forever. We will for sure work with them again! Edinburgh has been great as well. We are working with the Rock Elim Church again this year.

They are so different than when we were here last year. Since our team left last year, they have created a culture of evangelism in their church. Outreach is a regularly scheduled activity. They bought a giant double decker bus and a bouncy castle for their outreaches too!

They planned a big outreach Thursday-Sunday involving their church and us. They were able to get permits to set up big tents and a giant sound system in the main spots in city centre. It was incredible that they had favor with the city council, because they never ever ever let Christians do that kind of thing.

We have been making follow up appointments with every person that prays with us or is interested in hearing more about Jesus. The church is really interested in personally meeting each one and is on it!

On another random note, there is a Christian rapper that we love named Dwayne Triumph. He raps in this song called, "Don't Waste Your Life" and "Don't Pack a Matic." We have listened to him at all our random worship/dance/go crazy/have fun parties. Anyways when we were still in Boston, we saw that he was from London. I told Jeremy to write him on facebook to tell him about us and to see if he wanted to do some ministry with us. He is a legit evangelist.

We never heard back from him until last week. He wrote Jeremy back and gave him his mobile number. So long story short...he is coming today!!! He is gonna chill with us until we leave here on Thursday! Just another way that God has been so good to us!!!

Please pray that it works out for us to do the production on Wednesday night. The venue has not yet been confirmed. We have been telling people that it might happen and they seem interested in coming. Dwayne will also be here for that, and will open for us. (How funny is that?!) Also we want him to see it, so that next year he could maybe hook us up with some shows in London.

Since we have been in the UK, traveling through Belfast, Glasgow, Walsall, and now Edinburgh, we have seen 1,156 people make decisions to follow Jesus for the first time! and 62 people rededicate their lives to Jesus! Yay!!!! His Kingdom is growing! We are so blessed to be working with Him-creatively connecting for transformed hearts and changed lives!!!!

Reflecting His Glory,Jessi

2 comments:

  1. Wow! So many things to report...so much glory to God! And the amazing thing is that you can't possibly know the domino affect your visit will have. It just blows me away! We'll be praying here in Wyoming that God will take care of all the details to make your Wednesday production happen. I hear it's awesome! :)

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  2. It's just so good to read about the Body, The family of God, working together. I am always excited to tell others that there's a new post to read. We are praying...for good health, strength, to stay full on where you are even though it's close to heading back to Boston.

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