You Can Lead a Horse to Water But You Can't Make 'em Drink

So you know how when you go camping, you generally don't want to be soaked? Yeah, well thankfully, none of us had to be! Thank you to everyone who prayed for this last weekend of camping. The weather was great and it only rained when we were in our tents. And over here, their tents are actually waterproof, unlike the tents I've camped in in the States. Whew!

On another side of the camping trip, we had a turn up of 4 teen-aged boys. A bit of a disappointment after all the planning that went into it, but we figured that God can do great things with the smallest of groups. We went ahead as planned, although we reserved the right to take anyone home who was being troublesome.

We played a game of football (soccer) once we were all there and the boys are continuing to teach me new moves to use in the game, not that I'm even good at aiming. At one attempt of a new trick, I must confess, I slipped and ended up in my rear end. I don't think I'm very skilled at running in semi-wet grass, just saying....

But during the God talks we had some good discussions with these boys. Two of them go to Catholic School, so they know quite a lot about the Bible, but they don't actually believe in God... yet. The youngest of the group was 13, and he was the one who asked the most questions. He kept asking for proof of God's existence. Even though we'd told him countless stories of what God had done in our lives, this boy still wanted physical proof. Finally we told him that he had already made up his mind to not believe, and nothing we say will change his mind. So we told him to ask God to prove Himself.

One thing that was so frustrating about this situation was the fact that this boy is just reaching out for something to believe in and he wants to believe, but he won't let anything we say about the Holy Spirit and about what God has done in our lives influence his belief that he has to actually see proof that God is real.

Please pray that this young man will find the proof he needs from God. He is so hungry for God, but isn't sure of how to believe. Also, please continue to pray for all the kids we're working with in Tremorfa. We've had all sorts of troubles in the last few weeks, and we really need God to step in. Thank you so much for all your prayers. God is getting through!

Goin' Campin'

These last two weeks have been full of many ups and downs. Firstly, two of my pastors from my church back home flew over and were a part of a conference over here. One talked at it and the other lead worship for it. It was really great to have people form back home around. I love them both and just being able to talk about the happenings back in Indiana were a comfort to me. 

Having Pastor Ron come and speak reminded me of just how much influence he's had over my life. I've grown up listening to him preach and I've heard all of his "Ronisms" as they're so called by the church. These little snippets of truth that I've heard him repeat over the years have made it into my mind and heart to such a point that I've found myself quoting them in many of my writings for Ignite. 

Later this week, things have been... interesting. I taught Sunday school this last Sunday. Well, I say that I taught it. Actually it was more like me trying to get the kids to stop talking for 5 minutes so I could give them the short lesson I'd prepared. But one of the ladies who is a part of the Re:Gen Tremorfa team is incredible with these kids. They all adore her and they listen to nearly every word she says. You can just watch them imitating her. It is too cute. I know I would have hardly got a word in if she hadn't come into the class to help settle the kids down. While I love kids, I have not yet developed the skill of getting them to listen to me, but this lady has! They might not always do what she tells them, but they love her, even when she tells them no. How does she do it? This lady is so gifted with children.

We've had a lot of extra drama this week with our girls, so please pray that God will step into their lives to turn them around. When all hope seems lost, God can still turn things around. 

We're going on a camping trip with some of the kids this weekend, so please pray that God will touch the hearts of these kids and we will come home with more brothers in Christ! Also, please pray that we get sunny weather! If Jesus can calm the storm with His words and He's given us His authority, I think we can still call out good weather in Jesus' name! Amen!

The Battle for the Dance Class

So I don't actually know if that man came to church or not. To be honest, I don't really remember what he looked like, so I couldn't pick him out of a crowd, so he might have been there. Like, I remember what he was wearing, but his face didn't have any really notable features.... my bad.

This week I taught my first dance class in Tremorfa! Let me give you a bit of background before I tell you how it went:

My history involves a lot of dance. I've danced since I was 8 years old, and started assistant teaching by the age of 14. I've done mostly ballet and contemporary dance styles, but have dabbled with other styles, such as tap, hip hop, as well as ballroom. Basically, I love dance!

I'd really been itching to dance lately, and I'd been wanting to teach a class in Tremorfa for a while now. So we finally got a week that would work to put the class and now it was up to me to make it happen. And that's when the nerves set in. I felt nervous about teaching again because I haven't taught for a few years now, and there was no guarantee that whoever shows up would participate. I had to come up with a class that was active enough so that these kids wouldn't get bored, but also easy enough that a beginner could get it.

Before I could get the choreography finished, I had another battle to face. This was more of a mental/spiritual battle. The entirety of last weekend was a battle. I kept getting doubts. I kept hearing whispers in my ear telling me nobody will show up, or don't get your hopes up, or you're not good enough.

It was an incredibly difficult week. I had thought about giving up countless times; just calling it quits and not bothering to do the class. I didn't have much hope of anyone showing up. But somewhere at the beginning of this struggle I had told a friend about my idea for this class and about my doubts for it, too. She told me that if God's calling me to do this, I should just do it in obedience. Whether anyone show up or not, if I've done my best in preparation I will have been obedient, and that's all that God asks of us. Then throughout the week she sent me notes of encouragement about the class. What a sweetheart.

I decided to let go and let God. I went for it and choreographed the dance. We put out flyers invited the girls in Tremorfa to come.

And they did! Well, 2 of them did anyways. They showed up at the door, we let them in, and one of them sat down to be on her phone, and the other didn't go further than the doorway. These 2 are regulars at the club, and I wasn't sure they would join in at all. I was about to pack up and go home because they weren't participating when one of the girls I work with who was there to help suggested that I show the girls what the dance looks like. So I showed them on the condition that they had to both learn 5 moves from the dance.

Once I had shown them the dance, they both stood up to learn the 5 moves promised and they got so into it that we went way beyond the 5 moves they said they would do! We did it with the music and they got excited about how it all went together! Praise God!

I consider it a small miracle for both of these girls to join in something like this. The one girls you can hardly get her to join in a short game, let alone actually moving your whole body in dance! And the other one likes to be the crazy person in the room and not behave, but they both did really well for a first try!

Thank you to everyone who's prayed for me and given me encouragement this week. I really needed it. And I believe that God has something good in mind for this dance stuff. Keep up the prayers!

Give up the Guilt

Happy Easter!

Let me tell you a bit about my day. It started out joining one of the churches I've been going to and doing a flash mob on the streets of the Cardiff city centre. We danced to the song by Mary Mary, "Shackles"! It was lots of fun. The church was also handing out hot cross buns and flyers in honor of Easter. The flyers explained a bit of the Easter story, as well as an invitation to come to church tomorrow. A friend had jokingly given me one of the flyers, and I had meant to hand it to someone, but ended up just sticking it in my bag.

Afterwards we hung out and talked for a bit, but then I was left with deciding what I was going to do for the rest of the day. Where I'd normally just go home, I decided to take a bike ride down some of the paths in the park nearby. It was a beautiful day out, and a good 60+ degrees. I went to the park and took some photos of the blossoming trees and such.

Then God stepped in. As I was enjoying the view I noticed this man sitting on a bench by himself and he seemed to be talking to himself. As I got nearer, he seemed to get more frustrated and louder as he stood up, and I realized that he was saying the same thing over and over again. He was chanting "I can't believe I did that! I can't believe I did that!" etc.

I had passed by the time I understood what he was saying, but I had a feeling that this man was in need. I had to talk to him and at least ask if he was alright. I turned around and came back to him, asking if he was alright. He seemed surprised that I asked, but thanked me for stopping. He said I was the only one who stopped to see if he was okay. He told me that of course he wasn't alright, because if he had been alright he wouldn't be saying that over and over.He told me a bit of his problem, that he had made a huge mistake financially and that he believed he was ruined. 

He thanked me again for stopping, as if expecting me to leave, but I had the feeling I should give him that flyer from the church. I told him that if he'd like to meet more people who'll care to come to church tomorrow. He told me that funnily enough he'd turned to religion out of desperation. He said that he'd read the pamphlet, but he'd already committed "the 7 deadly sins" and he was beyond hope.(This told me that he had actually read a Jehovah's Witness pamphlet, not really scripture.) 

This opened up the conversation to actually telling this man about God's goodness and why we celebrate Easter. Some of you may not believe this, but this was the first time when I've found myself in a conversation that was practically begging me to tell the salvation story. And around Easter as well? This had to be God. This man then told me about how all these different "coincidences" kept coming up and pointing him to God. But he knew it wasn't just a coincidence. I told him that it was God! That things might be hard, and he may have done things wrong, but God has a plan for him and that God loves him. Maybe it's not him being punished like he thought, but maybe it's God giving him a wake up call. He admitted that it's really woken him up. He seemed filled with regret, wishing that he had done things differently. I told him that it's not the end! His hearts still beating, there's life ahead! He didn't seem too hopeful. He couldn't get his mind around the idea that he doesn't have to carry guilt around but just give it to God. 

He seemed  inclined to take up the invite to church. I know that God has something great in mind for this man. Please pray that he does come and that God seals the deal and brings this man the peace and hope he's lacking. God is so good. He's great at setting these things up. 

The Truth is Getting Out!

Wow! What a week.
Sorry for the late post, but these weeks has been crazier than usual, it feels.
What have we been doing that has made it so crazy?

For the last week or so some of us at Ignite have gone into 2 of the high schools here in Cardiff and have been telling the story of Jesus' last 24 hours before His death. The program we were doing was called "24 Hours That Saved the World".

As a part of the session, we would take a couple minutes and have the kids discuss things like, "How do you decide if something is true or not?" Some of the kids answered that they Google things to see what's true or not, while others were a bit more sensible and said, "I'd want witnesses and evidence before deciding." We even put out the point of saying "If this stuff isn't true, than we might as well forget about Christianity, but if it IS true, then this is really a big deal." And we make a point of quoting the Gospel of John when he said "I saw this with my own eyes, so I know that it's true."

One part of the school lessons that I really enjoyed was in the beginning we would all introduce ourselves and give an interesting fact about ourselves. I tried using something unique to the US and said that my mother had been Amish in the past. I didn't quite get the reaction I wanted simply because most of the kids didn't even know what Amish was.

So I changed my fact to "I've been in prisons more times than I can count." That got their attention! And I left it at that! Then at the end of the session, when we would encourage the kids to ask questions either about the lesson or one of us, they'd usually ask why I went to prison. (For those who don't know me personally, my family goes into prisons to share Jesus through our music. I've never been arrested or spent the night in a prison.)

For TYC this week, I spoke a bit about Jesus' resurrection, but more about why He did what He did on the cross. I told the kids that before they were born, God had placed a value on their heads, and that value will never change no matter what they do. I told them that God says they are worth the death of His own Son. I told them that God wants them to come to Heaven when they die, so He paid the price for them to come, but the only way that payment is valid is if they accept it for themselves. Jesus was that payment. And He went willingly to die on the cross because He wants you to come to Heaven too. Because He loves you.

Later that night we had one of the kids completely kick off and she started swearing and hitting and throwing a chair and the whole shebang. We had to tell her to go home. I'm wondering if this might be the enemy's attack, trying to fight the Gospel that is making it's way into the hearts of our young people here in Tremorfa. We have been feeling a lot of opposition in the natural, but we're pretty sure it's coming from the spiritual realm.

You may or may not believe in the spiritual side of our fight for Christ, but that doesn't make it less real. That is why I'm calling all you prayer warriors to pray for Tremorfa and the rest of Wales as well. God is definitely doing something and the enemy doesn't want it to come about. So please pray against any spiritual attacks of the enemy, either on the workers or on the kids and people we're working with.

Thank you for praying.

Laughing at Ourselves and Daring to Dream

We've created a new game this week called Keep it Going. It involves a ping pong ball and 2 paddles, and it may or may not involve the ping pong table. Basically the game started out with me and one of the boys playing (or attempting to play) ping pong, but we couldn't seem to keep it on the table! So we started playing where you'd just keep the game going, even if it hit the floor or the ceiling, or just stayed in the air while we hit it back and forth. It was a fun challenge to keep the ball bouncing, especially when it was so near to the ground.

One of the best parts about this new game though, was the fact that you didn't have to be good at it! So when neither me or this boy were good at ping pong, we could play this game and just laugh at ourselves and not be embarrassed by our lack of skill. And then when we did almost manage to look like we were playing a proper game of ping pong, we could congratulate ourselves.

I love being able to see these kids use their skills in various areas. When you get used to seeing people in a certain environment, you can forget that they might not be the best at this one thing, but they are a genius at something else. So when some of these kids might not be good at reading or football (soccer), they might be really good at keeping a ping pong ball bouncing on their paddle.

I met up with one of the girls for coffee yesterday, just to chat and hang out. This is one girl who has come to the Lord, but when she and her mother moved to another side of Cardiff, she had a difficult time staying plugged into church. During our conversation I asked her "If you could have any job in the world, what would it be?" I like to ask things like this just to open up the  kids' minds to the possibility of something different in life; daring them to dream. 

Her answer greatly surprised me. She said that she would like to be either a police woman or a prison guard. Now, understand that this girl, while she might be 17 looks to be about 13. She's petite, mild mannered and maybe an inch over 5 foot. It boggled my mind that this little lady wanted to be a prison guard! Not wanting to squelch any dream she has, I changed the subject, but I brought it up later. 

I asked her, "Why do you want to be a prison guard?" She answered that she wants to help people who have had troubled lives in the past and help them to start again new. 

Now I get the idea! I am then blown away by this girl's heart and her motivation behind her answer. Still unable to see her working as a prison guard, I suggest that if that's how she wants to help people, why not try helping at a half-way house? It's a place where prisoners might go to help bring them back into society. Or, if she's determined to help people who are currently imprisoned, she could try being a chaplain.

She seemed to really like that idea. We got distracted by then, so we didn't fully finish that conversation, but I am so encouraged by that meeting. She not only revealed her heart for broken people, but also her courage! I am so proud of her, for wanting to live her life for Christ. I encouraged her to ask God where He wants to take her, and that He will provide the way there.

Thank you all for your prayers over this city. Please pray for this young woman as she embarks on this new adventure with the Lord.

Hurting for the Hurt

A lot has happened this week. We had the beginning of the Thrive course, youth club, mentoring, as well as an afternoon hangout time with some of the girls in Tremorfa.

At mentoring, it has been getting easier now that we’ve gotten to know the kids better. Now we can start to plan the sessions more around the individuals rather than as a group. I had each of them write a list of 5 goals they would like to achieve either in their lifetime or in the next year. I explained again what I was there to do as a mentor: to help them set goals and help them achieve goals. One girl sat up straight when I said this, like she just now got what we were there for. She then got really excited and quickly picked up her pen and started writing her goals.

I then went down the list and asked about each one, “What would it take to accomplish this goal?”  She wrote that she wanted to get more confident at gymnastics and when I asked her the question she responded, “I guess stretching and conditioning?”

This was one thing I feel I can actually lend my expertise in since I have such a history with dance. So we ended up sitting on the floor demonstrating different exercises we can do to condition our muscles. It was great because she really clicked with this and she realized I can practically help her with something she wants to do. She was excited to come in again next week and work on that some more! It’s so encouraging to be able to help this girl with something she wants to do because I’ve been through the stretching and conditioning with dance.

Later that day, some of us with who work at the youth club in Tremorfa invited some of our girls to come over for hot chocolate and girl talk. We wanted to talk to them about how valuable they are and how they don’t need to give their bodies away to receive love. Some of the girls have put themselves in very vulnerable positions in looking for a boyfriend, and we wanted to tell them off a little bit, but mostly, tell them how much they are worth.

We had a notecard with each girl’s name on it and then we passed the cards around the table and had the girls write only positive things on each other’s cards. It was amazing how difficult it was to get the girls to write anything positive about their friends. Some even refused to write something as shallow as “pretty” because they didn’t want to say that their friend was pretty! Good grief!

Some of the girls were as young as 11, and when they got bored they just up and left. But what happened after that couldn’t have happened if the younger ones were there. The 2 girls we had left had both confessed to self-harming, and one of them showed us her arm with the scratches still there. We spent time just talking to them about other ways they can express their pain aside from self-harming, then we spent some time praying for them. 

Neither of these girls are saved yet, and they weren’t quite sure what to do while we prayed, but I think they took it okay.

I am gifted with this thing where I’ll cry for others who have hardened their hearts to a point where they don’t cry anymore. Like, they can’t cry anymore. Maybe they don’t even realize just how big of a deal some of the stuff they are dealing with is. But I cry. I cry for them. I’m not entirely sure what it does, but I think it can help these hardened people to realize that what has happened to them is not okay, and that it’s okay to hurt. So, of course, I was crying as I prayed for these girls who aren’t older than 15. I explained to them after the prayer that I cry because God in Heaven is crying for them; He is hurting for them and with them.

Please pray with me for these girls who have been so hurt in their short lives. Please pray that the self-harming would end, and that they would find Jesus. Pray that their hearts would be softened.

Thank you for your prayers.