The last two weeks have just flown by. I've been meaning to post something about what we've been doing, since we arrived but we've been extremely busy since we arrived.
I'll try to bring you up to date with what we've found ourselves doing since we arrived in Islington ten days ago, but if I wrote about what we've been doing every day, then this would definately be the world's longest post. As I don't want bore you with a long post, here are some highlights of the last two weeks or so.
We arrived in Islington nine days ago and went straight into things. We've spent a lot of our time doing evangelism, which has been quite challenging for me because I find it quite s challenge going up to people to talk to them about God and what I believe in. Last Tuesday we were on the street talking to people. For some reason I'd put my South African hat (one of the hats I brought on outreach with me I picked up in South Africa and looks like a cowboy hat but made in South Africa and is extremely hardy) on that morning and this brought some curious questions up. I had good conversations with two of the Save the Children volunteers who were also on the street, trying to raise awareness about the lack of immunization in developing countries to stop preventable diseases (like measles and polio) from killing children.
Friday was another day that left a large impact on me. We spent the whole day evangelising is Soho, London's red light district. We were working with a church that operates out of a cafe. They set up a stall near the cafe and we helped handing out free tea and coffee. A lot of people said "no" or just ignored our invitation and thought that there was a catch involved. Though there were a few people who were interested in, and had something to drink. A number of the team were able to share their testimonies with people and were able to direct them to the cafe. Friday's ministry didn't stop there as in the evening we joined another church, who do open air evangelism outside St. Pancras and King's Cross Stations. We had a red box (which you can see in the picture) that had been brought by one of the men. How the evening ran was quite straightforward, someone who sing a song, to draw a bit of crowd and then there was a short testimony (or more than one very short testimony) before a five minute talk. The reason why I'm sharing this particular day with you is simple. More or less the entire DTS (Discipleship Training School) don't speak English as their first language, some even came to London not speaking any English at all (though there are a few who's english is almost fluent). Yet this didn't stop them from talking to people. It really impacted me deeply, that they really want to share the love of God with others. I'm really proud of them.
Tomorrow a new chapter of the outreach starts. The April DTS, along with Alina (one of my fellow leadership students) will be travelling to Germany to continue their outreach. I won't be joining them. One of the other LMD (School of Leadership and Ministry Development) students, Ezequiel (who's from Argentina) will be travelling to Scotland, this coming Thursday. We're going to be working with the July DTS until then. The King's Kids Wildfire team will be doing evangelism during the commonwealth games in Glasgow and the two of us, along with one of the staff, will be joining them. I'm really looking forwards to going to Scotland. I haven't been since I was eight, when my family travelled there on holiday (we were living in England at the time). I loved my time there. I'm really looking forwards to working alongside KKI (King's Kids International). We'll be travelling back to London at the end of the month. We'll probably be back in Islington to help out with Dover Soul, which is a kids program that is run annually by the church we've been working with this last week (we've been staying in their church building whilst we've been here).
I'll try to keep you posted. However, for more regular updates, do keep an eye on my blipfoto account. It where I post a photo every day with a caption about what we've been doing during the day.