Africa

There is something about Africa.

I never saw it coming, but it digs right in under your skin and sits there, waiting for the oddest moments when a smell, a sound, even just a feeling will throw you right back there.

Walking through the Kansas City Central library, I just had one of those moments, I think it was a smell. The other day it was something as simple as the feeling of closeness in the air. It’s odd when it happens, it feels like an almost holy moment. I want to stop and try and pinpoint exactly what it is that is taking me back to those red clay streets and bustling markets.

It’s just one of those things that I’m glad to always carry with me. I love how Africa intrudes on my day when I least expect it.

And, thankfully, it’s not always just going to be just a memory. This year for the DTS I’m going to be leading a team of four students to Rwanda and Burundi. I’m excited to get back to these countries, to catch up with some of the incredible people and children we met and to reunite with three of the students I went with last year who are now out there full time, Rowan, Alison and Meg.

I’m excited to relive the old memories and feelings from the past, and hopefully build and experience a few more.

Christmas Update!

Music suggestion: Billy Currington “Don’t” from the album “Little Bit of Everything”. I’ve written this entire blog to this song on repeat, so if you want to share in the experience of with me, how about listening to it while you read it? This has zero significance, personal, spiritual or otherwise… I just really like this song right now…. Click on the link below. Could I make this any easier for you?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtKhOWhwmOQ


Sometimes, you don’t realise how tired you are until you stop. I think I could say this has been the story of my life for the past few months!

I’ve finally managed to stop…Although, unfortunately it meant putting about 3000 miles between myself and everything that I had to do! I write this blog from the other side of the planet from most of you who read this regularly (and just across the street from others!). I am currently holed up in Kansas City, Kansas, where I’m spending Christmas and New Years this year. I was over here in the States for a good friend of mines wedding in North Carolina, and decided instead of turning straight back around and heading home that it was about time I tasted what an American Christmas had to offer! So here I am…

So, it’s been a crazy few months! I’m actually not even sure where to start! I suppose I could jump right into the DTS…

Lidia, one of the staff on the DTS keeps telling me that “The Lord is spoiling you”, and I have to agree with her! This group of students that we have this year is fantastic. From the very beginning of the school, their openness to learn, willingness to serve and readiness for whatever God has for them this year has blessed me, and made this group of people not just a joy to lead, but a whole lot of fun too. In my first year leading a school, I really do feel spoiled with the group of people that we have! Here’s a few photos of the past two months or so. Hopefully it’ll give you a little flavour of what’s been going on!

Group picture at the Big Fish in Belfast, I think i might have been confused as to where the camera was...

The boys

The girls

Our group with another year out team (from the Sword of the Spirit)…We’re jumping off chairs…not for any real reason. We're just cool like that...

Classroom shot...

We’ve had some great speakers imparting their wisdom and learning to us and the students, a few great trips away to get to know eachother better and some incredible times of meeting with God as a group and individually.

On the not so wonderful side, I have struggled with a few aspects of leading. I think it’s a matter of getting used to the role, and actually starting to walk into it, and also remembering that I'm not in this on my own, that God is the one who put me there, and He's the one who's going to make me able to do it! Although the group has been fantastic, it doesn’t diminsish the responsibility that is on us as a staff team, and me as a leader, and sometimes that can weigh heavy on me. So, the last couple of months haven’t been without their challenges, but with an incredibly supportive staff team, YWAM Belfast community and a great group of students, I think I’m coming out the other side hopefully having learnt a few lessons and better for it!

I’m trying to think of some non-YWAM news now… But, I’m actually not sure there is a whole lot! For the past few months or so, I’ve been going to a pretty great little group on a Monday night where we get together and read a bit of the Bible, chat about it and then pray together. Before we started, I was praying and felt the Lord giving me a picture of soil being tilled and being made fresh. I really feel like this has actually come into being. It’s a great group where we are becoming more comfortable with eachother and getting to know eachother as friends, and also a chance to encourage and challenge one another by what we’re reading in God’s word. It’s really become one of the highlights of my week (and not just because a few of them will read this!) but, because in my little world of YWAM Belfast which can get quite inward looking, this is a chance for me to get out of the bubble and share and be with a great group of people for one night a week. I really have felt my faith being stirred up by being with this group and a freshness from sharing and being with them.

And here I am in America. Contemplating the rest of this year. There are still about 5 months left for this current group of DTS students. What does that hold for us? We have another 2 months of lectures and local outreach in Belfast (including one week of outreach in a town or city somewhere in Ireland for the first week in February). Then, we’re heading off on big outreach. This year we are again taking out two groups. One will go to India and the other will be heading to Rwanda and Burundi.

The students have prayed about where they are meant to go, and made their decisions, and as staff, we have also done this. So the teams are together! I’m going to be going back to Rwanda and Burundi this year, which I’m actually starting to get excited about. I’m looking forward to being back in these beautiful countries, meeting people we met last year again, as well as catching up with some of the students (Meg, Rowan and Alison) who were students on the DTS last year and are now back out there in Africa full time. It’ll be good to talk to them and share in their journeys!

So, can I ask you to pray? (You can pray with or without Billy Currington…your choice!) There are a few specifics:

o For the DTS staff, we have actually found ourselves one staff member down for the rest of the DTS. So as we readjust to our new look staff team and the new year, would you ask God for an easy transition and for us to get things done well and the best they can be?
o For the students as they continue to grow and seek God. That they would grow in faith and in the ability to hear God’s voice (and the staff too!)
o For me, as I continue to grow into my role as the leader of this group (and for grace for the staff and students who are graciously being my guinea pigs for this year!)
o John and Megan Harris as they start out their married life (This has nothing to do with YWAM, but I thought I’d throw it in there…There’s a picture of them below to give you a visual!)

Thank you for your prayers up to now. The fact that the students are doing so well and growing in faith and love is, I am without a doubt, down to those and the goodness of the God who sustains us.

I’ll leave you with a few pictures from the current trip that I’m on in America. I pray that God will bless your Christmas and New Years, and that He will reveal Himself in the perfect way this season.

Esther, Catherine and Kyler

The Bridal party

John and Megan Harris

John and I

DTS is a go....

I wrote this article for the YWAM Ireland website a few weeks ago... Thought if it was good enough for there, it should be good enough for here!

In no less than 4 days time the first of 12 students will be arriving in one of Belfast’s two airports. Laden down with luggage, we will welcome them into our community here in YWAM Belfast.

Next Monday begins the 7th DTS to be run in Belfast (at least this time around! I keep hearing rumour about a DTS that was run here in the 1970’s….) and I think the 4th to have a distinctly Reconciliation focus.

So what’s that all about? Why “reconciliation”? In many ways, reconciliation is becoming one of those buzz words, thrown out there to sound impressive though no one really knows what it means. Here in Belfast, we long to be serious about it. In a world where anger, violence and revenge are often the “go-to” tactics in conflict situations, we wonder whether there is another way?

We believe yes, and we’re going to be spending the next 7 months exploring this idea with this group of 12 students. YWAM’s motto is “To know God and make Him known” and one of our foundational values is “Do first, then teach”. There’s something special about knowing something personally before you move on to ministering out of that. In this time, we want to share with the students the God who came to them, who has reconciled Himself to them, and from that place of knowing God as a reconciler we can move on to trying to mirror His image and be peacemakers in these situations that surround us.

During the DTS students will have lectures, be involved in local outreach in the local community, have a chance to hear stories from people affected by conflict and learn from them, and also engage in a 10 week trip to a post or current conflict area to put what they are learning into practice.

Our vision is for a group of people to emerge from this DTS, trained in both discipleship and an awareness of their relationship to God, but also skilled to speak into conflict situations, to speak out “this is NOT the will of God!” To cry peace in a land of war, and forgiveness in the midst of revenge.

After all, we’ve been told to get on with it: “All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation” (2 Cor 5:18). We have a mandate…. This DTS exists to raise a generation of people willing to live it… Those willing to give up everything to see it come into being.

A Leap of Faith

So, I’m back in the “blogging” saddle after a few months away! I’ll write up a quick synopsis of my last few months in the next wee while, but for now I thought I’d share something that’s been on my mind this weekend.

On Friday night, I went to the Belfast Activity Centre with Fitzroy’s youth group. It had been a long week, and I wasn’t necessarily looking forward to the experience… Climbing up walls and jumping off high things wasn’t sounding too appealing! But, off we went.



As you can see from the pictures, we spent a good bit of timing climbing up this wall… It was pretty high, and heights aren’t altogether my favourite thing… But I managed it alright after a few goes and plenty of team encouragement!

BUT…. As with all things… Escalation was inevitable…

We moved on to a challenge called “the leap of faith”. This consisted of climbing up a tall telegraph pole (probably about 20 or more feet into the air), and then standing up on a little platform, and jumping off to catch a trapeze bar out in the middle of the air…


I was pretty sure that I was not going to attempt this… I had decided that the climbing wall was enough of an achievement for the evening.

Then I decided to give it a go… I’d love to say that I changed my mind, and just decided to be adventurous and go for it… But to be honest, it probably had more to do with the teenage girls (who themselves had already done it…) in my group gathering around me and telling me to “Be a man!”… Yeah….that definitely did it….

So, as I was being harnessed up for this challenge, I still wasn’t convinced that this was something I needed to do… Until Emmy, our instructor from New Zealand asked me a question.

Emmy: “Why are you afraid?”

Me: “Cos I don’t normally jump off poles into mid-air”

Emmy: “Is this a real risk, or a perceived risk?”

This struck me. What was I really afraid of in this situation? Was it of falling? If so, that was a bit of a ridiculous worry, I knew how well I was harnessed in, I’d seen about ten people go before me, leap out into mid air and come down gently, landing softly on the ground.

What was it?

I couldn’t really put my finger on why I was afraid. So off I went… I climbed up that post, stood atop that platform, and hurled myself out into the air to that trapeze. (All, admittedly without looking down a single time….not even a glimpse…)

But I did it.

I think I learnt a valuable lesson about faith on Friday night, a lesson that has been running around my head for the last few days.

When we “risk” something, stepping out on a limb, for God. Why do we worry? So often, I worry about things, I worry about the way they are going to work out. I worry about the things that God has called me to, worrying about whether they’re going to go well, and whether I’m even able to do them in the first place. I worry about failing. I think it probably comes down to the fact that I’m not always convinced God is there to catch me if I fall.

Is this real risk, or perceived risk?

Is trusting in God a real risk, or a perceived risk?

Is God not who He claims to be? Is He not who He has promised He is?

I believe that He has promised to stand with us, to go before us in times of trial and difficulty, that He will never call us to something that, with his strength, we are not able to do.

Is trusting God a risk, or is it just something we think is risky?

I’m beginning to realise that it’s just our minds. It’s just our own worries and insecurities that make us believe that God isn’t REALLY all that trustworthy. When the truth is, He is.

Another thing I learnt was that in taking a leap of faith. In stepping out for God in something, it doesn’t matter if we are feeling the best about it. As I climbed that pole, I can wholeheartedly say that I was not feeling the best I have ever felt… I was pretty scared!

I think the problem with our churches today, is that we are taught to play it safe. To only “risk” what we know for a fact we can achieve.

What would happen if more people started making leaps of faith. If more of us started jumping out into the unknown? Could this be a church that really starts to live?

It’s not about feeling good about it. But we know, that just as I had a safety harness that was not going to break and was always there to catch me throughout, God is our harness. The one who reaches down and gives us the strength to make the jump.

Here’s to more leaps of faith.

More big jumps into the unknown with a God who we KNOW is there to catch us.

Summer Adventures...

I write this blog entry sitting warming myself in my friend Karen’s house. I had a complete wardrobe change today when I got back from walking home from the shop, because I got wetter than I think I have EVER been…

Only yesterday morning I awoke to beautiful blue skies, devoid of any cloud cover, and with the promise of another sunny day at 35 degrees celcius… Unfortunately, I also awoke yesterday morning in Spain, and not Dublin.

I have spent the last 5 days of my July luxuriating on the south coast of Spain, on holiday with my family and two other families that we head away with (the Kirks and the Scotts). It was a break that couldn’t have come at a better time, giving me a great chance to get away from Belfast and just get my head showered, and start to get a few things sorted in my mind for next year.


The view from my bed (yes, that is my foot in the foreground)… This is what the sky looked like the whole time. I think I saw 3 clouds in the whole time I was there. Unlike now, as I look out the window and am searching for the blue sky…


The pool…I spent a lot of time in here!

So, after all that relaxing, why am I in Dublin and not back hard to work in the office in Belfast? Well, I’m taking all that rest that I’ve saved up this past week, and I’m about to blow it all on a youth trip to Germany! Bright and early on Saturday morning, I’m going to be heading away with my friend Karen’s youth group to TeenStreet, which is a Europe wide youth-conference run by the mission organisation OM (Operation Mobilisation). From what I’ve heard about it, I think it’s a little bit similar to Summer Madness…but on a bigger scale, so I’m looking forward to seeing it in action!

We’d love to be going to Germany with your prayers. The theme for the conference is “Blindsight” and talking about how Paul became blind but then regained his sight when he met with Jesus. We’ve also been praying about our time in Germany, and feel like this message has a lot to teach to the 7 young people that we’re going to be bringing! The idea that at the minute they may be blind to a lot of the spiritual world around them, but that God really wants to open their eyes and open them up to Him. It’s an exciting time!

Hopefully my return from Germany will also mark a return to regular blogging! I’ve been a little lax these past few months.

I leave you with this passage that God has given us as a team taking these young people to encourage us. Perhaps you can use it as an aid to pray for us.

tom

Mark 8:22-25
They came to Bethsaida, and some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. When he had spit on the man's eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, "Do you see anything?" He looked up and said, "I see people; they look like trees walking around."
Once more Jesus put his hands on the man's eyes. Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.

When I set my mind to something....

I thought it was about time to share with you, my blogging readers one of the proudest moments of my short life... Relevant Magazine is a Christian magazine in the USA, and every week the 4 editors get together to record a podcast that they then post on the internet. I love the Relevant Podcast....and so, last Summer I made it my goal to find my way onto it. Luckily, we had a way in... On occasion, people we send in food from the US and beyond for them to sample while they record the podcast.

We thought that no "snacks" feature would EVER be complete without the joy of Tayto crisps.... So, my co-conspirator Hannah and I went and toured the factory, documented our visit, and then sent them off to Relevant...
Enjoy....I know I did....

So, why am I sharing this with you now, a year after the event? Well... I woke up this morning to a message from Hannah saying that our "Relevant" exposure continues... In the magazine this month a girl from Belfast wrote in, they commented on her letter:

"Ireland, you say? Can you send us some Tayto crisps? The prawn-flavoured ones are shrimp-a-licious!"

My pride continues to grow....

The Latest

Here in YWAM Belfast we’ve had a busy few weeks. I realise that I’ve been pretty lax over the last month and a half at updating this blog, funny how when internet is scarce in Burundi I manage to do it pretty regularly, and when it’s plentiful here, I don’t do it!

I suppose I should just backtrack and catch you up…

Summer madness hit us at the end of June/start of July. This year at Summer Madness, YWAM had a big venue to operate from, whereas in the past we’ve only had a small stand, so it was a bit of a step up.



We ran a venue that we called “the Sacred and the Secular”, and in it we tried to address the issue of compartmentalisation that we see in Christianity sometimes today. How we see some things as “holy” and other things as “worldly”. We believe that everything is of God, and we aren’t to put God in a box, allowing him out at our leisure or pleasure. So, our venue had both things that seemed “secular” and “sacred” alongside one another. We had pool tables, playstation, a prayer tent, the stations of the cross, an art station and table tennis.
We also ran two evening shows called “Around the World in 80 Minutes” where we sought to inspire attendees at Summer Madness for the nations and show them a bit of the richness of culture that is outside their own.

(I realised as I was reading through this entry again that it looks like the above picture was one taken at the events we were running...they were well attended, but not THAT well... :) this is a picture from one of the main stage worships at the festival.)

I also had the privilege of helping Fitzroy Presbyterian take their youth group to the event, which included camping there on site….no fancy bed for me! I love Summer Madness and I first started going as a teenager, so I love being able to be a part of other young people’s journey there.

Following Summer Madness, I took part in an event called FWD (“Forward”, or Faith With Deeds). During this time, we served the area of Highfield in the Greater Shankill Area, cleaning gardens, cutting hedges, playing with kids and having a big community barbeque and open air concert. Something that I love about living here on the Shankill is when people come here on mission and seeing the difference that visiting teams make in the community. Streetreach (the model on which FWD was based on) has made a powerful impact on this community in the past 5 years, and so it was an honour to be able to be a part of this continuing on. God is at work on the Shankill, and it’s amazing to watch it happening, and exciting to see how it’s going to unfold…

During our time on FWD, I found myself doing a lot of reminiscing! Lots of the things that we did, funnily enough took me back to Burundi, and to some of the things that we did while we were there. It was a blessed time for me, and a wonderful time of looking back. Below are a few pictures and their contrasting ones… Interesting to see the differences!

Grass cutting: The Northern Irish way and the Burundian…you’d be surprised which one was quicker and more effective!



Carrying bricks…unfortunately the same in any country… Brute force!


So, that was a bit of a catch up for you...hopefully it's answered a few questions and maybe created a few more!

There’s some stuff rolling around in my head at the minute…so hopefully there’ll be somewhat of a more contemplative entry for you in the next while…watch this space!

Challenged?

When we were driving through Burundi, I was reading a book called "For What It's Worth: A Call to No Holds Barred Discipleship" by Simon Guillebaud. I've been re-reading this book since I got back here, and remembering the challenge that I got from reading it. It was an exciting time, driving through this amazing country on a bit of a crazy adventure, and just being challenged to radical living... Following is the most challenging story I read in it... Be warned that you might not see things in the same way after reading it...

On 4th July 1984, Charlie Peace was hanged. He was one of London's best-known criminals. As Peace was being led to the gallows, and Anglican clergyman followed him timidly, reading from the Prayer Book, "Those who die without Christ experience hell, which is the pain of forever dying without the release which death in itself can bring."
When Peace heard those horrific words, he turned around sharply and shouted in the clergyman's face. "Do you believe that? Do you really believe that?"
His surprised victim stuttered and stammered, "Well...I....suppose i do...."
"Well, I don't," said Peace, "but if i did, I'd get down on my hands and knees and and crawl all over Britain, even if it were paved with pieces of broken glass, if I could rescue just one person from what you just told me."

Challenged??

I know I am...

It's been a while...

Hi there,
Been a while since I posted anything on here! Below is an article i wrote for my churches magazine. Thought I'd share it on here too...
Happy reading!
tom

(p.s. I haven't forgotten my promise of photos...)


Where do I start to capture in just a few words the time I spent in
Rwanda and Burundi as part of a team of 8 people with "Youth With a
Mission"? Were I to share everything that happened and that we
experienced, it would take a much sturdier staple in this issue of the
Link to bind it together. So, here I sit, searching through my mind to
think of one story that will encapsulate our time, one story to show
the beauty of the countries and cultures that we had the privilege of
catching a glimpse of for a short period of time. One story. Is that
even possible?

Our time in Africa was a busy one, we travelled a lot, meeting many
incredible contacts along the way. At one stage we taught about the
issues of Reconciliation and Forgiveness, challenging 70 pastors
during a week-long conference to think about these issues and take
them back to their congregations and areas. The decision they made at
the end of the week to work together as churches to promote this
principle was an incredibly moving one. Is this the story I want to
share with you?

Or, how about the time we visited an elderly woman in an "Internally
Displaced Peoples" camp; seeing the place that she lived, barely more
than mud bricks and sticks for a roof, and not a scrap of food in the
bare room described to us as the kitchen? The warning to be careful
not to let other people see the £10 gift we gave to her, because, if
people knew, she would be killed for this meagre amount by nightfall?
Do I tell you about the incredible, unexpected joy that I saw in her
eyes? The strength of her spirit and the open arms of welcome we
received from her?

Do I share the laughter breaking in the face of an abandoned HIV
positive baby, now receiving the care and love he deserves at the
hands of an adoptive mother; or the sorrow and desperation in the eyes
of a woman walking alongside our bus, pleading, with arms outstretched
for money to feed her starving children? Do I tell you about God's
incredible provision seen at an orphanage growing in numbers and
facilities; or our confusion at God's apparent 'neglect' of a group of
Congolese refugees, who, having managed to escape across the Lake into
Burundi, weren't allowed further, having merely been existing on a
small patch of grass for 4 months and counting. The love of a group of
young orphans who we had loved, played and laughed with for a week
laying their hands on us and praying for our safety as we continued on
our journey; or the hatred we saw as a remaining rebel group shelled
the city of Bujumbura, killing innocent people and continuing a cycle
of violence that has existed for many years. The pure delight as we
played parachute games with a large group of children, or the immense
grief as we stood and prayed with one of our hosts on the plot of land
where she grew up, and on this spot 15 years ago, 32 members of her
close family were brutally murdered in the Burundian genocide.

So many stories, and so few words to tell them.

In Rwanda and Burundi, there is a lot of need, and a lot of hurt. It's
easy to be overwhelmed by some of these stories, to get caught up in
the horror and the deprivation, to convince yourself that this is what
characterizes a nation.

The most difficult part is to see past these things and to see the
good that is happening; that right in the midst of all these horrific
things is a God who hates them more than we know and is hurt by what
he sees more than we could fathom. This same God is on the move in
these situations and in these places, and for every terrible story we
heard, was a contrary story of beauty and God's intervention.

This is the image of Rwanda and Burundi that I will hold in my mind;
one of hope. A place where people are aware of their difficulties, but
are willing, and able, to see beyond it. To see with God's eyes the
situations unfolding around them and not their own.

To stand with the woman whose 32 relatives were killed and hear
nothing but love for the country and its people in her voice is an
incredible thing. It's something that I know for a fact can only come
from God; a God whose desire for forgiveness and love is far beyond
our own, calling us up from out of the depths of our own despair to
try and emulate and maintain His image.

So, what can I tell you? I honestly did intend when I sat down to
write this account to share only one story, planning to share more at
a coming date; but I now find myself sitting here having given away
most of them! Although a few pages can't encapsulate an experience, I
hope this has given you a flavour of our time.

Without a doubt we met with the power and movement of God, and were
privileged to see and experience both those we met and ourselves
changing as a result.

Youth for Christ, Gitega

Here's a little insight into what our evenings were like when we spent time at the Youth for Christ orphanage in Gitega, Burundi.... plenty of dancing and lots of good times!

Back in Belfast

I'm in a dilema....

I'm sitting here trying to figure out if Belfast is actually cold, or if it's just the fact that I've been in near-equatorial Africa for 6 weeks that is skewing my judgement.... Regardless, it's colder here! Though I think i'm okay with that, it's funny how you miss things like clouds!

So, I'd say you can guess from that last paragraph that I've arrived safely home on Northern Irish ground! It was quite the trip with a few overnights gaining us a few extra stamps on our passports, but before we knew it, we were flying high over Loch Neagh, preparing to land!

I'm staying at home tonight before heading off to Closkelt tomorrow (the other YWAM NI base) to debrief with the DTS before they leave next weekend. It's hard to believe that this busy year is coming to an end, at least this part of it.

This blog has been missing pictures for a few months... So, here's a very select few just for now!

Rwanda & Burundi team at Lake Tanganyika in Bujumbura.

The pastors from the conference in Buhiga:


Playing with the parachute at the orphanage!


Prepare for a few more great pictures to appear over the next few weeks on this place, none really taken by me! Our team had some talented photographers...

But for now, I'll leave you with a little comedy... You may remember a few weeks ago when I told you about the over-zealous Burundian Westlife fan I met in the internet cafe? Well, I received an email from him where he makes it clear he still believes I'm holding out on him with their addresses... An excerpt can be found below:

Hello .
My friend it's me Tonny Billy Clinton the small boy that you talked about westlife in the cyber . Now I wanna that you'll be my best friend as the westlife Please tell them everywhere you see them that in Burundi there is a boy who love them.
Bye bye

I'm afraid I'm likely not going to be able to pass on the message...but if there's anyone out there with access, be sure to pass it on to the boys!

Blessings,

Tom (Back in Belfast!)

Shortest update....

This is going to be a quick one! I have 9 minutes left at the internet cafe.... So, we just arrived back in Rwanda safely after our time in Burundi and then a few days relaxing and debriefing by Lake Kivu, a beautiful place.

It's been a busy time, and we're just about ready to get on a plane to head back to (i hear tell of) sunny Belfast! It's been a great few weeks since i last got to internet. We've had some incredible times of ministry, and some great experiences of God here in these countries. I realise this is pretty brief...but i can't even start to think of recounting tales!

We leave on Thursday from Kigali, spend the night in Ethiopia, then fly to London, spend the night there, and back to Belfast on Saturday! So, it's going to be a long travel! Please pray for us as we travel, for safety and that all our connections would be met in time!

Blessings from Kigali.

tom


God is good, all the time.
All the time, God is good.

And now for something completely different....

So, i realised that with the exception of that last 'westlife' related blog, the last few entries have been pretty serious, so i thought i would make you aware of a few good things that have been happening here in Burundi, good...and weird...

- Discovering on the plane that chocolate jelly isn't nearly as delicious as it sounds....not even close...

- Lying underneath the darkening sky on concrete heated by the hot african sun and a back worn out from a day lugging bricks around, watching the stars pop out one by one, reading the passage in Job (somewhere around Job 39 i think...) about how the Lord is the creator of the Heavens.

- Sitting outside the house in the early morning and seeing items such as buckets, bunches of hundreds of bananas and bags of sweet potatoes 'walking' by. (Our fence is about ( and a half feet tall, the height of the average burundian woman walking by with a full load on her head!)

- Buying 15ft of sugar cane for 25p...that should keep us going for a while!

- Seeing the look of peoples faces when they realize that reconciliation really could work and just might be the answer for the country...

- The house we stay in being inundated by HUNDREDS of large flying insects during a particularly heavy evening rainstorm... i think i saw a side to amalia i never knew existed...and didn't want to!

- Washing dishes in buckets with the sun on our backs and a breeze on our faces.

- Singing goodnight songs together as a group to Danny, one of the orphaned babies at a place we were staying.

- a whole lot of laughter!

This is just a snapshot, and i gotta go here, but i look forward to being a little more specific, and also sharing pictures sometime in the near future!

You should know that things are well here, the team is safe and well, burundi is still a little uneasy, but things are great and we're walking in the will and power of God, so keep praying for us, and we'll let you know how things progress!

Please pray in particular for me as i try and figure out what it means to lead this outreach not in MY power, but in God's.

Nagasaga from Burundi!

Unexpected conversations...

You can leave the island, but you can't escape it...

I'm sitting in this internet cafe listening to westlife on my computer, and i cant turn it off! I told the guy that they were from the same island and now he's trying to convince me to give him their email addresses.. he thinks im holding out on him... i am not... "I would give you them if i knew them", I promise earnestly!

He did however want me to write down their names for him.. i worringly remember nicky, mark and kian... i think im missing one...

Answers on a postcard to the internet cafe in Gitega!

Go in Peace?

Finally found some internet! In fact, not just internet, but electricity! We've been out in the sticks for the last week, so facebook and all those luxuries have been hard to come by! But it's been a great week. We have been running a pastors conference in reconciliation and peacebuilding, and it was an incredible time. The team has done amazingly, really stepping up to the plate and preparing so well for the talks we've been taking. I've been so impressed and blessed by seeing them work so well as a team and also individuals this week!

However, the interesting thing is that it was a week that very nearly didn't happen!

Cast your mind back a week to Sunday morning. Rema Ministries, the team running the conference has arrived and is packing our stuff on top of their landrover ready to leave in a few minutes. At this point in time, someone hands me the number for the US embassy in Bujumbura. I call them to make sure that it was okay for us to travel upcountry, what with the trouble that had been going on. He tells me that there is NO WAY we should be travelling upcountry, and that they are currently ''hunkered down'' in town! So, this changes things for us.... I gathered the team together and we sat down and talked and prayed about this recent development. As you can imagine, we were a little on edge...

We prayed and felt God telling us to ''go in peace and protection", but i remained very aware of this warning from the embassy... We asked the head of the ministry Theo, an incredible man, what he thought. He called the 2nd in command of the police in Burundi! We're running in well connected circles! And HE said the compelte opposite of the embassy, that upcountry was completey safe and the city is the dangerous place! So, we are faced with this crazy decision... Two pretty reputable sources saying completely differnet things! So, what could we do?
We went to prayer again, and heard the same thing, that we should go in peace. After a quick early morning wake up call to the head of YWAM NI back in Belfast to confirm our decision, we decided to go with the advice of those on the ground in Bujumbura, and who likely know the situation, and headed upcountry!

We believe we made a wise decision and one based on God and His plan for this outreach. And we were so blessed by this past week of ministry and the pastors we met, that we realised that this truly was God's plan for us this past week.

We recognize God's hand in our outreach and the things that have happened, that He truly has been our protector! Things are still touch and go in Burundi, so we appreciate your continued prayer and thoughts!

We are staying and working in an incredible Youth for Christ orphanage this week, the kids are amazing, and we're looking forward to playing with and learning from them, seeing God's face in them this week after the pastors last week!

Hope all is well wherever you read this from,

Blessings,

tom

The Reality of Reconciliation

Hi friends,

Burundi is not a place that often makes it onto the news, for some reason the problems and issues here never really make it onto the world scene. So, I’m sure you aren’t aware of the last few days in Bujumbura. Here’s an excerpt from an email that an amazing contact of ours here Simon Guillebaud sent out, before you read it though, know that we are all safe and sound on the team:

‘Last night was the biggest attack on the capital for several years. Earlier in the day policemen were stationed on every street corner and rumours were flying around. Then at about 8:45pm gunfire and shelling kicked off in a big way as the FNL rebels embarked on an audacious/futile attack on various military installations about town. We had fourteen people in our lounge for home-group at the time. It is a surreal thing to listen to the big thuds of shells landing, the occasional whoosh of a rocket hurtling through the air, and the rattling of machine gunfire whilst knowing that it is all real, that people are dying - maybe friends - certainly plenty of innocents caught in the crossfire.

This morning I rang various people to check they were OK. American friends across town had a gun battle going on right next to them on the street. They shifted their 3-year-old and newborn into the corridor on the floor and the kids managed to sleep through the incredibly loud noises. Ours slept through as well, but it was all a bit further away from our part of town. Shadrach, who works for us, came to work and asked to be excused. Two of his children were missing, as they’d fled during the night and got separated. He’s looking for them right now.’

So, there it is. As you can hear it’s been a crazy few days. We could hear these events unfolding pretty clearly from where we’re staying in the capital. This is something that for us isn’t commonplace at all, but for those whom we are working and staying with, this used to be an everyday way of life that everyone hoped would stay in the past.

So, this blog is a call out for prayer for our team, and also for this country. We as a team have prayed about our program over the next few weeks, and we feel God telling us to keep it the way it is. He is our protector and our provider, our strength and our shield. Please pray as we travel upcountry that we will have a safe journey surrounded by God’s overwhelming presence.

Some of you may think us crazy for staying, but you should know that as Simon said, hopefully this is an isolated incident. Also, unfortunately this is the consequence of seeking to work in reconciliation. Divison and violence is real and exists in the world today, and this is just a small part of it here in this corner. As the word says, God ‘gave us the ministry of reconciliation’ (2 Cor 5:18) and to truly be involved in this ministry, to be peacemakers, I suppose it means that we have to go to the places that are in need of peace.

You should however know that we are not taking unnecessary risks or putting ourselves in places of obvious danger. We seek to be as 'wise as serpents and innocent as doves' (Matthew 10:16), wise in the way of making smart decisions about things like this, and innocent in remembering that we have a God who is assuredly our protector, living in the realisation that being here in Bujumbura at this time and in the will of God is a much safer place that safely back at home in Belfast outside of His will. Our God is a faithful God, and we believe in His sovereignty and love for us.

Please pray for us as we live and minister here, and also for those who live here and those perpetrating this violence, that they would be convicted of their actions and lay down their weapons.

One quick story…

Around about 8:30 the other night, a few students and I sat down to discuss a few things that have been causing conflict on the team, a slightly tense situation ensued, and then the fighting started in the background. Although we realised that we couldn’t continue on without these team issues being solved, this fighting in the background served us as a reminder that we are here in Burundi as a team, that if we can’t sort out these relatively minor issues here, then what chance does this country have of even beginning to address it’s history of conflict? What chance does OUR country of Northern Ireland have? We seek to live lives that not only teach about reconciliation, but LIVE it too. A group that loves each other deeply and ministers out of this spirit of unity and love.

Namahoro from Bujumbura!

Greetings from an oddly rainy africa!

i never expected africa to be so rainy! thankfully though, its the good warm kind of rain and not the cold miserable variety we in Belfast are used to!

apologies for the lack of puncutuation of pretty much any kind, and no doubt before this is over spelling mistakes, but keyboards are pretty different here, and im not sure its worth the effort....
anways, things are going great here. the team are doing well, and ministry is exciting. we just finished a morning of walking a group of students through the forgiveness journey, a separate ministry of ywam belfast. it was a good time of interacting between our two teams, and they had lots of questions that we attempted to answer! please pray for this group of young men as we seek to lead them in this journey.

the next few weeks are going to be pretty busy! this week we're with these students and also doing some outreach in a slum of Bujumbura. Next week we will be going up country to run a pastor's conference on reconciliation, please pray for wisdom for us as we speak to these pastors, that God would give us grqce and words to say that would inspire and challenge them, and likewise that they would do the same for us! After that we go to work with a youth for Christ orphanage for a week and then for the following week on to other ministries in the rural area such as prison and militqry camp ministry. It's a packed time!

Please pray for the staff of this outreach, that we would knozw how to lead well and to inspire and disciple these students as best we can, and for the students that they would have a good mission experience and also be open to God changing and moving them.

How about a few random highlights to finish??

¤ Catching up with the team at YWAM Kigali, hearing all their adventures up to then and looking forward to being a part of some more.

¤ Some quality bonding time with the affectionately named "Sparky the Cockroach" in mine and Rowan's bedroom...

¤ Being inspired by some INCREDIBLE people we've met here. In particular, a guy called Simon and a lady called Georgette.. Remind me to tell you more about both of them.

¤ Standing in front of a Burundian church singing a song i wrote about reconciliation in Kirundi, the local language, and seeing the looks of surprise on peoples faces. Pretty fantastic!

¤ Realising that in Africa, time is really more of a suggestion rather than something concrete!

¤ The bird that sits outside my bedroom window and sounds EXACTLY like the beeping clock in 24. Fans will know what I mean by that!

Okay, we're going to meet as a team in a few minutes and i'm still in the city centre! Will update again soon hopefully,

Until then,

t

Greetings from Heathrow (and thankfully NOT Terminal 5!)

Heathrow airport is great...apart from one thing, there are hardly any seats to be found, and so, I'm consigned to a space on the floor for the 4 hours before i can check in to my flight which leaves this evening.
So far, this journey has been nothing if not hassle free...a few moments have even had me rejoicing in the goodness of our God. Sometimes, the little things in life that could seem like coincidences are the places that I like to see God working...a few examples of which I've seen in the last few hours!

My bag is pretty full for my trip over here, I'm taking a few extra things which means that I don't actually have a lot of room for my own stuff! On top of the necessities for an African adventure, I have a guitar and a kids play parachute (the latter of which is taking up no less than HALF of my rucksack). The flight from Belfast to Heathrow had a baggage allowance of 20kg, and despite my best efforts a month ago to try and convince them to give us a little bit more, this was where our allowance stayed. The unfortunate thing was that they told me my guitar also had to be taken into account in this 20kg allowance, and it weighs about 8kg alone.

Now, when i weighed these two items last night, they came out at around 25kg total, and after adding a few things to the bag this morning, I just decided not to weigh it again for fear of actually knowing how overweight I was going to be.

Amazingly, on arriving at the airport today, the girl at the check in desk weighed my bag and sent it through and didn't give a second glance at the guitar before waving it through too. She didn't weigh my guitar and add it on to the amount, which saved me about £50! (It's £7 extra for any extra kilogram you have in your luggage)

Then, I got to Heathrow, and, as I said, no seats... I just came into this internet point, intending on spending £2 for 2o minutes of internet (pricey!) I went up to a machine, which proceeded to eat my £2.... Then I realised that someone had already put in £6 and then left. I only had to add another £2 into the machine for it to give me a voucher for 120 minutes of internet (which guarantees me, not only internet until i check in...but a seat too! :D)

These things are small. These are small moments in a day that it's easy to miss, when it's easy to miss the working of God. But my prayer is that my life won't be a series of small moments of seeing God's power, rather, that I will see God working in BIG ways, in incredible ways, ways that I couldn't have imagined. Ephesians says:

"I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms." Eph 1:18-20

The same God that raised Christ from the dead is that God who is present right now. The God who did this great work, is the same God who can do the same today. We just don't expect as much. In 1 Corinthians 4:20, it says "The kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power", and in my Bible, I have written beside this verse 'Let's see the power then!' This is what I want, I want this trip I'm just embarking on to be a time when I experience God power in it's fullness, not just in these small, seemingly insignificant things, but in the BIG things. The things I read about in the Bible and wonder if they could ever really happen to me.

Let's see the power.

Is that a veil or a mosquito net?!

Although they may look somewhat similar, these two things are obviously used for very different things, and yet both have played a part in my last few days! Yesterday was my sister Gemma's (or, the now "Mrs Bingham's"!) wedding. It was an incredible day, the service was lovely and everything for the rest of the day went without a hitch! A great day was had by everyone who came I think! Here's just a few photos of the day:





And, so, that's where the mosquito net comes in! I stayed behind here in Northern Ireland so I could be at this wedding, and so, now that it's over, I'm pulling my rucksack onto my back at lunchtime tomorrow and starting off on a pretty long trip to Mid-Africa (a journey that will see me touching ground in the following places in a period of about 36 hours.... Belfast-London-Uganda-Ethiopia-Rwanda and then the following day, a 9-hour bus trip to Burundi!) So, needless to say I've stocked up on some good books and music to keep me busy on this journey!

I can't believe that I'm actually going now! Seeing the teams off at the airport nearly two weeks ago was one thing, it seemed a little unreal then, like it wasn't really happening, and yet now, here I stand about to head off....and this time, it's me....and it's for real!

As I sit here on this blustery April afternoon, snow is falling outside my house! It seems unreal to me that this time in two days I will be standing in 30 degree heat in the middle of Africa.

What a crazy life!

I've been talking to Erin, the DTS school leader about this sort of thing recently. Something I hear a lot is that people fight again Christianity or becoming a Christian because they think their lives are going to be boring.... Honestly, I can't imagine living a more exciting life than the one I lead right now! Not that this is the reason why I believe what I believe, but it certainly doesn't stand against it!

I've been realising the honour that it is for me to be able to serve God in this way. The honour that it is for me to be called by Him to this place for this time. And yet, the responsibility of such a privilege also lays heavy on me.

Please pray for me as I leave this city tomorrow, that I would be able to be ever increasingly appreciative and thankful for the honour that it is to serve God in this exciting life.

And if you think about them, lift up a prayer (and a glass?!) for the newly married Chris & Gemma!

Team RnB are on the way!

I'm just off the phone with Team Rwanda & Burundi! They left this morning for their journey to Rwanda and are currently wandering through Heathrow airport trying to convince the airline to take their bags a little bit earlier so they don't have to sit with them for their 9 hour wait until the next plane!

As we dropped the team to the airport this morning, it was an odd feeling. Not just because I'm not going with them just yet, but because that moment in the airport really has been the focus of the last 7 months of my life. This is the reason why we on DTS staff do what we do. We're here to get these guys ready for mission, to prepare them (and ourselves!) to live lives set apart for God. That moment in the airport is a pretty momentous one. It's exciting to watch the team as they stand on the cusp of this adventure, knowing that the next time I see them, we trust that God will have done some pretty incredible things in their lives. Please pray that He will do a great work in these students as they travel and seek to be His hands and feet in these countries!

(back row: Lindsey, Jon, Tom & Rowan
front row: Meg, Amalia, Alison, Laura & Kellen)

Meg will be our official communicator for the trip. If you'd like to receive her emails (and, be in no doubt that you DO want to receive them...see her blog for an example of what you can expect) you can sign up for them at:

http://mail.ywamni.com/mailman/listinfo/team-rnb-updates_ywamni.com

Good Friday

Today was Good Friday and we had a chance to be a part of a peace and reconciliation walk with churches in North Belfast. It was a pretty special time, and as we walked, it hit me just how radical and pretty incredible a thing it was that Catholics and Protestants walk up and down the Shankill and Falls and through the peace walls together. It really is an incredible testimony to the reconciliation that we can see if we focus not on earthly issues, but on God.

A pretty special experience for our team in particular was that this walk is the only time in the whole year that the peace wall gate right beside our house is opened up. So we finally got to walk through it after living beside it for a year! (Although, the whole thing was nearly hampered by Erin, who parked her car in front of the gates and the guys opening it had to come and find her on the march to get her to move it so they could open the gates before we got there! These are the moments I will think back on and laugh to myself in years to come).

Amalia leading the march holding the cross that went in front:


The march goes through the gate beside the houses:

Outreach musings...

Last week I was having a funny week. The life of a DTS staffer is a funny one, in some ways, it feels like I shouldn't feel busy or complain about a busy life. There aren't many things I'd like to do more than spend my days with these 12 people who have come here to Belfast in search of God and to discover what it means to be a follower of Him.

But particularly around this time of year, things get pretty busy... At the minute, I'm trying to do a few things at once, finish the lecture phase of the DTS well, start to think about next years DTS (which, I recently was asked to lead...and said yes...but that's another story for another day!), and all of this while having this trip to Rwanda and Burundi to plan for (never mind PACK for....i haven't even THOUGHT about that yet...)

A few weeks ago I found myself getting pretty overwhelmed by a lot of things, particularly the idea of this outreach. While talking to a friend, I came up with a bit of an analogy for it.

It's almost like the plans for outreach are like a big plate of spaghetti, everything that we need to do, all our contacts and the plans that we have are all sitting here in front of me, but sometimes it feels like when I sit down to look at it, like it's just a big plate of spaghetti, everything is overlapping and pretty overwhelming...I'm not sure if I'm making sense! I think what i need to do is take this plate of spaghetti one strand at a time, but sometimes it can be difficult to not look at the big picture when everything needs sorted!

Things have been going well since I had this revelation...the spaghetti seems to be somewhat unravelling, but there's always room for more!

As such, I'd really appreciate it if you would be able to pray, here's a few points that would help to direct your prayers:

• Praise God for the things that have come together already and that we have a place to stay and ministries to work with for a lot of our time away
  
• Pray that the rest of the time we have unfilled would fill up, that i would effectively communicate with our contacts and be able to fit all these pieces together
• That I wouldn't be overwhelmed by this big plate of spaghetti!
• Bonding for our team as we prepare to head off

Thanks a lot! Your prayers are very much appreciated!

Table Quiz

I think i completely forgot to do something that would probably have been a good idea...which was to put up a shout-out up for the table quiz that we had to fundraise for our trip to Rwanda & Burundi....hopefully any of you who read this and would have been able to come heard from some other source!

We had a really great night...table quizzes are great craic, and there was some healthy (or unhealthy?) competition going on between a few of the tables....neither of which ended up taking home the crown though. This honour belonged to the slightly less vocal dark horses of the competition, a table from Bible College. They always did train them smart up there...though i may be biased...

So it was a great night with a load of people coming, and an incredible £463.21 (and $5...) raised for ministries that we're going to be involved in in Africa. Thanks to everyone who came and supported our team, it was a great night when we felt really well surrounded by people who were behind us in what we're doing.

Same time next year....?

Don't be a Dummy!

Greetings from the windy north coast of Donegal! Team RnB are spending the weekend up here in a seafront caravan to spend a bit of time together as a team, getting ready for outreach (exactly one month away…)

Here’s a picture of our DTS students who will be going to Rwanda and Burundi, from left to right, Alison, Meg, Rowan, Kellen & Lindsey:


Every few weeks I meet with a guy called Richard to chat and pray. This is something I’ve been doing for about a year now, but back in autumn when I started back with YWAM I started to neglect and stop doing. I really felt the effects of not having this accountable and prayerful relationship, and so about a month ago, we started intentionally meeting up again.

Something that I really appreciate about our time is the closeness to God in prayer I feel when we pray together. Have you ever had an experience of prayer when you can just very quickly feel the presence of God, tangibly taste and feel Him in the room? Well, it seems that this happens when we pray, and I always come away feeling refreshed and ready to face another busy week in YWAM Belfast, knowing that there is someone faithful and prayerful behind me and interceding for me.

When I was over at his house the other night, I think I was coming with a lot of baggage, there was a lot swimming around in my head, a lot going on inside, and so I wasn’t really feeling in that prayerful a mood. We talked for a while, and then we started to pray. Immediately I felt the presence of God, and then as we prayed, God gave me a picture of something that really impacted me.

I saw myself sitting on a chair on a stage. In my arms was a ventriloquist dummy, and through this dummy I was speaking to the people around me. I was using this dummy as my method of communicating with the world around me.

I thought about this vision, and started to pray into it, and God just opened the meaning of it up to me

I’ve just been very challenged by the idea of what image I present of myself to the world. Am I presenting this idea of “Tom Tate: Super Person”? I think it’s easy for me to outwardly seem very sorted, to have this appearance of being all nicely sorted out, and yet on the inside to feel completely the opposite!

Jesus had something to say about this where it talks about the two-faced nature of the Pharisees:

“You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness.”
Matthew 23: 26-7

As the leaders of the people, the Pharisees were putting on this façade of perfection, and yet their insides didn’t reflect the outside at all, quite the opposite.

I’ve been challenged in my own leadership in not putting on this façade myself of sorted-ness, of perfection, because, the truth is (not that this is going to come as a shock to any of you…) I’m not perfect…not even close! None of us are, and yet, one of the hardest things for us to do is to admit our faults or our mistakes in front of one another. We don’t want to be perceived as weak or faulty.

This is particularly a problem I see in the Christian world. On a Sunday morning we come to church with smiles on our faces, and all pretend like we’re doing great, like the problems of the world don’t faze us, because we’re Christians! We like to think that we’re somehow immune to the things that non-Christians struggle with… Sorry friends, but this just isn’t true!

This is one of the reasons that ‘broken’ people struggle to come into the church, or are so wary of Christians. We scare them away with our “perfect” exterior, they think they can’t join us because they don’t have this idyllic life so many of us show to the world. If only they knew that most of the time, underneath this perfect exterior on show to the congregation on a Sunday morning is a soul broken just as much as their own.

This picture of the ventriloquist and his dummy has confronted me. It’s challenged me to not filter my words and my actions through my brain, thinking “how is this going to make me look?” because, you know what, this is just my pride, my worry about how people are going to see me and not wanting to look bad. Instead therefore, the challenge for myself is to live in this attitude of humility, acting out of my faith and my relationship with God, not this pride and attitude of self-promotion.

The author and apostle Peter has the following to say about this:

“Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
1 Peter 5:5

We are called to cover ourselves with humility, like our very clothing. The humility that we walk in should be as obvious as the jumper I’m wearing right now.

I’d much rather be known this God-given humility than any of these pride-induced fantasy exteriors I project to the world.

Meet the Students!

So, i know that some of you may wonder if these students of mine actually exist? I keep talking about them and posting these pictures of random people... well, for your information (and entertainment!) here's a little video of our 12 fantastic students in their natural environment....

Mid-lecture phase Outreach

Last week, as you may or may not have known, we spent four days in the West of Northern Ireland in Londonderry/Derry. Amazingly I had never actually been here before, and for some reason, wasn’t really expecting much of it. I was therefore surprised to find myself falling a little bit in love with this small city.

Everywhere we went, I seemed to enjoy the atmosphere, the surroundings and enjoy the people that we met and the ministries that we were involved in helping out with.

It was a week with a lot of stories that could be told, but maybe I’ll just share the one with you!

We were working in this community centre that’s been up and running for about 35 years, and they were having a visit from a government minister the following week (today, as I write this actually!) and so, we were just helping out to get the place looking good again, washing windows, floors, and even walls! To be honest, it didn’t feel like we were doing much in the place! We were just there to try and serve a bit in the community, but the lady who was in charge of the centre couldn’t get over the fact that these 17 people were willing to give their time to help her out for free (or at least, for some ham sandwiches at lunch time!). She watched us for these two days with an odd look of delight and confusion.
At the end of our time there, we were all just sitting around, and Erin asked if we could pray for her. She agreed, and so we proceeded to pray.

We finished and when we opened our eyes, she started to cry and said “The work you’ve done has been great, but I have never had an experience like that before”. Now, I’m not sure where she’s at with God, I don’t know what she would call herself, a Christian or not, but I think that the exciting thing in that moment was that God was clearly moving in her.

And THAT is what makes all that cleaning worthwhile.

Here’s a few photos of our time:

The view that greeted us when we arrived..there’s not much better!



The team enjoying the aforementioned ham sandwiches:




And finally, I leave you with a picture of the bedroom where the boys slept! Thank you St. Augustine’s church for a magical nights sleep!