Hurricane Ike

Please pray for Chris' family who has evacuated their homes in Texas due to the approach of Hurricane Ike. Parents are near Port Arthur, TX. Brother and Sister-in-law in the Highlands (Houston). and Sister and Brother-in-law in Kemah (Houston-near Galveston). Pray for their safety and God's provision in all aspects of life. We will all assess the damage shortly.

East London Teens

Check out our latest blog post [08 Aug]. God is working in East London amongst these teenagers. Pray that the Holy Spirit will speak to them in clear ways.

Also, we will only be with this faith community until December. Please pray with us that someone from within the community will stand out as the next leader for these teenagers. Our influence is highly limited for multiple reasons (we live on the other side of the city, we aren't Chinese, Vietnamese, or even British, and we only see them once a month). These teenagers need caring adults in their life pointing them towards Jesus on a much more regular basis. If we continue to stay on, we will only be a crutch to effective discipleship from within the community. Pray that the adults will have a clear picture of all of this and take ownership of the spiritual growth of their children.

Angie's Health

For the past 6 weeks, Angie has had allergy problems nearly continually. About once a week she will have a day where her nasal drainage and sneezing are debilitating that all she can do is lie down. She has taken an over the counter allergy medication for a month now with no change. So Monday she has an appointment with the GP. Please pray that the GP will not dismiss this, but will put forth an abnormal amount of effort (for this country) to resolve whatever is causing her allergies.

Updates

You may or may not notice that the function of this page has changed a bit. In hopes to increase the reliability of our updates, Chris has spent some time making this section much easier to update. It is still in the works, but this post is proof that the changes so far will be highly beneficial. PLEASE keep us in your prayers. More importantly, carry the teenagers of London (and their families) on your heart and bring them to Christ as often as you remember us.

Students return to school this week in London. Would you pray that God will open up and direct us to doors of opportunity to connect with teenagers far from Jesus on a natural, regular basis?

Our schedules continue to be packed in, but they also seem to have more focus (at least most of the time). Keep praying this week over the updates below. We are praying for God's provision in the lives of everyone effected by Hurricane Gustav.

We're Back!

We feel like we've been away more than we've been home over the last month - at least Chris has been. After putting our interns on a plane, we enjoyed a weekend with some friends in the Midlands of England and a week with our colleagues who work throughout the UK and Ireland. Only a day after, Chris set out for two long days at Soul Survivor youth camp near Bristol, England (the largest youth camp in England by far - 10,000 teenagers each of 3 weeks!) to learn what teenagers are being taught, hear their stories, and continue to mentor one of the guys he has spent time with. The two had great coversation over the two days and look forward to those conversations materialising over the next several months. After returning from camp and only a few hours of sleep, we caught an early train to Paris to celebrate our Fifth Anniversary. We had a brilliant time! It's such a blessing to have the ability to experience such beautiful parts of the world.

Recaps

iWitness

Over the summer, 140 teenagers joined us in London to pilot a partnership with an organisation in the States. When it all came to an end, we learned loads and caught a glimpse of how God might use this partnership in the future. We saw one teenager from East London make a decision to journey with Jesus for the rest of her life. We are talking with two of the interns about joining us for a longer period. And countless American students began to understand how they can change the world with the love of Christ, starting with their friends.

TX Interns

Our Texas interns finished their 18 days in London on 29 Aug. They were a great example to some of the teenagers that we've been investig in. The highlight of their time here for us was a picture of what we're working towards in London. We met up with a few teenagers for lunch in the park. One of these teens is a believer and the other is not. We ate, threw the frisbee around, talked about life, and asked questions about God. We read a few chapters from Ecclesiastes and did life together. That is a picture of the church towards which we believe God calls us - not a one off event or weekly meeting, but doing life together, rubbing shoulders with followers of the way and those who follow their own way.

Youth Centre

Over the past several months, we have prayed over a vision that God has set before us. As we've experienced teen life and culture in London, we have found that there is a daunting lack of safe space for teenagers' informal development. One of the most blatant examples exists in Southall. You've heard us talk about Southall before. Now we look to take the next step.

While our Texas interns were with us, we spent a week praying on site at an empty garage that we believe God desires to develop into a youth centre. During our times of prayer, we met an employee from a meet shop across the road. We had been praying that God would help us find out who owned the garage. This employee told us who owns it and what it is used for. Remarkably enough, we had prayed that this wouldn't be an initiative of our own (from the outside in) but that we would be a catalyst for a youth centre developed by the community. As a businessman, the owner of the garage would potentially be a respected man in this community. We are now praying that he will catch the vision, donate the space, and connect other parts of the community with the development of this centre.

Please be in bold prayer that God will direct our steps, open the doors for this youth centre, develop partnerships within the community, and provide opportunities for us to walk alongside of teenagers in Southall.