God is Alive in England!

How do you say Hello in a British way? Oh yeah, Hello (said with a British accent)

Thought we were due to send you an update about our adventure here in good ol' England. Our adventure started on Saturday evening as we meandered through fans pouring out of airport sports bars with earnest pleas for the US team to score a goal...unfortunately that did not happen. We boarded our flight which seemed to literally fly by, although I did not sleep a wink. The 'adventure' part of our trip met a very tired and sleep deprived group with apparently no car rental!

So I, being the fearless and much controlled-never frustrated leader that I am, spent the next two and half hours walking back and forth from my sleepy team and the line of men holding large placards of names of those who had car rentals. Unfortunately never seeing My Name! Apparently, the 'trusted' company whom I had rented a vehicle with is merely a vehicle broker...and they had forgotten to email me saying that there was no car available. A minor detail left out.

Calling upon my years of UW curriculum, I remembered that ''...in all Great Comebacks there are desperate moments.'' Well what did you do in this very real desperate moment? I am so glad that you asked. I prayed! And you know what, God answered that prayer through an amazingly understanding and caring woman from a completely different agency. PTL

So the team piled into our nine passenger mini-bus and finally let their half-masted eyes descend into much needed sleep as I whisked us down the motor way towards the surprise Levi and I had in store for them.

After nearly two hours, we woke the team as we pulled off the road heading towards a pasture made famous only due the rock formation of Stonehenge. It was really quite neat to see the amazement and intrigue the team had at actually being at a place they had only seen pictures of and never thought they would ever go to. I had a little chuckle to myself at the simplicity of their emotions. Ps, Stonehenge is so much nicer during the summer...

We finally arrived in Bridgwater later that evening and enjoyed a dinner with our host families. The purpose of our trip here is first and foremost to run a training and then run a camp so those being trained would have a practical application to what they are learning. Unfortunately, the training aspect has not been well attended due to the timing, being before the summer even starts out here. But our camp has been amazing! The first night we had 34 kids show up, 15 were registered. And then on Tuesday, another 15 showed up! God is definitely the one that has been bringing the kids here and it has been fantastic to see how this has impacted the team so far.

A majority of the kids that are at the camp are unchurched and have never stepped foot into one. But there hearts are open and their ears are listening. On Thursday we shared the gospel and two kids, ages 5 and 8, decided that they wanted to ask Jesus to come into their lives and change them they way that He did for Paul.

The first half of our trip has come to end but not before another surprise. When I asked Sara, our contact here in Bridgwater, about how she thought the camp went, she looked up at me with a smile. She said that at the beginning of the week there were 25 kids registered...then 84 kids showed up throughout our week of camp! And she thought she didn't do a good job of advertising.

We head to Richmond near London tomorrow. Please pray that God will bring kids to the camp we will do on Monday and Tuesday. Ministry has been happening and we are looking forward to meeting some new kids and sharing Jesus with them.

Giving them Heaven,
Nate and the England Team