Priviledge

Monkey’s we found at Monkey Forest.

BANK HOLIDAY CRAZY
Had a fun holiday week around the ridiculous amount of bank holidays a couple of weeks ago, full of family, friends, monkey forest, alton towers, a baby shower, lovely walks, sun, many quizes, the lake district, a hammock, bbq’s and glasses of wine! Much fun had by all!

This should do the trick

BIGGER CAR NEEDED
The weeks are getting fuller and every weekend there is a frantic text round to sort out lifts for women & others from hostels that are wanting to come to church. We’re going to have to start praying for a 7 seater to fit everyone in, a few weeks ago Zac had to get out (of his own car!)and walk to church because there wasn’t enough room in the car!

AMAZING GOD

It’s so amazing to see women and men who’s live’s are chaotic, quite broken and often controlled by addiction, every week get to church and bit by bit we’re seeing they’re hearts and lives transformed by Jesus.

SAD NEWS

This week we heard the sad news that a man, who we’ve only known for a short while was hit by a car and died earlier in the week.  We’ve known his partner through outreach, for a couple of years, but it’s just been for the past 2 or 3 months various people from Streetwise and our church community AsYouGo have had more chances to meet and pray with them and bring them to church, where He responded to pray to give His life to Jesus.
I’ve spent a couple of afternoons with his partner since He died,  it is so sad to see her go through this, we went and laid flowers where he died and prayed together. There is a huge mix of sadness and gratitude to God that He was able to in the last few months of his life was able to begin to experience God’s love and respond to it. Please pray for this woman, for comfort in her grief and strength that her recovery and journey with God would keep moving forward.

It is a huge priviledge to be involved in these people’s lives and watch as God shows them His amazing love & faithfulness. Reminded of this Jesus words just now “  “Blessed are you who are poor,  for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who hunger now,  for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.” Luke 6.

The recent DTS team from Wrexham that came for a day.

COMING UP…
Over the next month I’ll be doing the stall at the Mind, Body, Spirit Fair in London(see last year’s post), on outreach&DTS gathering in Weymouth, as well as continuing here in Liverpool working with women, planning the SOE and running an Alpha Course with our church community AsYouGO. Please pray for God’s presence and provision in all that the work is growing to be!

Bless you all muchos!
Jude

Loving the one in front of you (boots, cheese&wine)

I spend a fair bit of time looking at my feet after my lovely b'day pressi from Zac!

I am now 31, the owner of a beautiful pair of red boots(thanks to Zac), have music in my car(thanks to Mum&Dad) and the planner of a School of Evangelism(thanks to Jesus) that will be happening on a boat in Liverpool in January 2012! Exciting times… red boots and working towards a dream job, what more can a girl ask for!!!

There’s a fair few things that need sorting out practically and admin wise, but I feel my passion growing to be meeting and loving people, working out more of how to be uncompromising & fearless with the truth, but still communicate the gospel  in a way that is clear & relevant. I think often when I’m not fearful, but step out in loving people, that’s when God can use me and can communicate the love, power and truth of the gospel clearly with people.
I’m determined not to be spending the next few months in an office making plans. Must meet more people! I like people very much!

Had wonderful times recently praying for healing a medium on a train, taking a muslim woman and another homeless guy to church.  Feel there’s so much more I can learn from the Holy Spirit, so just got to keep loving and chatting to people.

OK..so the streets of Wavertree didn't quite look like this when we went out, but maybe one day!

We had a fun time the other day in church, when Nic, who was speaking on local mission, said if there was anyone who just wanted to go and talk to people rather than hearing him talk could go out during the service. Over two services over 30 people came out to chat & pray with people in the area, every person came back encouraged having chatted, prayed with or blessed someone. Zac & I had a great time with the first two lads we saw, we chatted, prayed with them and had words from God that we shared with them.  At the end of the preach Nic got some people to say what had happened. It was amazing what God did in just 20 minutes, I estimate we spoke to or prayed for around 30 people.

We watched this in Beta group (the follow up from Alpha we’re helping run) this week- it’s great -click here , have a watch andkeep “loving the one in front of you.”

Much Love Jude xx

The Cheese and the Wine-Overwhelmed by the smell Zac just can't decide!

Cheese and Wine Losers

Cheese and Wine Winners

A few photo’s from a recent Cheese and Wine competition! Great fun had by all, my house still smells of strong cheese!

Holidays, Christmas & Landing in 2011

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!  With last years attempt at starting a blog a few people suggested I wrote a shorter blog post more often. So I shall attempt to write shorter and more frequent blogs and see what happens this year. (This one can almost be read without scrolling down-I’m doing better!)

Towards the end of last year I felt I wasn’t moving anywhere. With the plans for the post-rehab house not progressing anywhere and still no more team members here, I was confused. After a few rants, tears, and some listening time, God started to speak — from every direction, “Stick to what I’ve called you to — evangelism!” Not that I should move away from loving and investing in the lives of the women I work with. (Since that is evangelism!) But I should also look wider to see evangelism develop in my own life, in the city and beyond. In some ways I don’t really know exactly what all that looks like, but I committed to pursuing what God is saying.

Just after this we heard that the Next Wave (YWAM’s training ship) is coming back to Liverpool in 2011. The ship’s DTS lecture phase will be finishing and there will be opportunities to do outreach from the boat while it’s docked in Liverpool. After that, in 2012,  there will be a  School of Evangelism (SOE) running on the ship and they’ve asked me to pray about leading it. I’m excited, nervous so please pray. I’ll let you know what happens. 

Good friends & cocktail drinkers Chris & Nobby

Mmm Wine Tasting with Nat and Taz

God also provided some lovely time out- I’ve been away in South Africa a wonderful holiday paid towards by amazing friends for my 30th birthday. Had a lovely warm time (not to make you jealous) catching up with good friends there, wine tasting, getting very sunburnt-mostly just on the right ear and side of my face when I fell asleep sunbathing (but discovered a new remedy for not peeling is to wash in vinegar- makes you smell a treat!).

I had the best Christmas, with lovely time spread between my family & Zac’s family then went out to North Africa for a friends wedding over New Year, had an amazing time there hanging out with good friends, eating much delicious Moroccan food and still catching up from New Year’s eve & the all nighter wedding & being served with half a sheep at 1am for the wedding feast now!

So I’m just about landed in 2011, moved into a lovely new office at the Cathedral & ready for a fantastic year! And for now will leave the blog there and will post again soon with progress!!

Much love Jude xx

 

Zac & me- very pleased with my tan at Christmas!

Happy September

September is looking good!  The sun is shining and I’m really looking forward to things picking up workwise after the summer lull. I feel excited about this term and know there’s some challenges ahead, but I love a good challenge!

SUMMER 2010

Soul Survivor crazy big worship

It’s been a fun summer! I survived 2 weeks at Soul Survivor.  It’s a Christian summer festival in Somerset that attracts around 10,000 young people each week and quite a few other aged people who sneak in because it’s fun! We stayed in tents and enjoyed the meteor shower on the 1st week, but not the camping showers by the 2nd week!  Together with others from YWAM England we ran seminars about evangelism, then in the afternoon took the young people out into the local town of Shepton Mallet to put into practice what they’d learnt.

We chatted with many young girls about Jesus and had spontaneous question and answer sessions in the park.  The Soul Survivor young people and I would tag team in answering their great questions about God and Christianity- a couple of quotes from these conversations:
“What?.. so I don’t have to kneel down and put my hands together if I pray?”
and my favourite ” I saw this program on TV where they said one of the disciples was a big white rabbit??” Turns out she’d been watching SouthPark and had somehow taken it seriously!

It was wonderful to be able to sit with these 10-11 year olds and laugh and chat with them, it’s amazing how much they thought about spiritual things- they were actually complaining that they didn’t hear enough about Christianity at school. Maybe we could do more there?

Another highlight for me was a challenging moment when I got to chat with a couple who had recently separated, they had 6 children. Within 5 minutes of meeting them they had spilled out all the details of their story of their marriage breakdown. We talked for a long time and finished by praying together. I felt completely unqualified to help them in their marriage and relationship, but felt God giving me the words to say anyway. The woman has been in touch since and would like to be connect with a church near her.

THE HOUSE

This is NOT the house that we're praying to get, but please join us praying in a smaller one!!

Just before summer I started talking with the YMCA about the possibility of joining with them to get a house for women to live in who have just come out of prison or rehab.

We have looked at some possible properties that may be available in a fantastic area just around the corner frommy church.  We should hear more in October, when funding decisions are made.
I’ve also begun to visit various services in Liverpool which are available for women who are coming out of addiction or sex work, so that in the future we can refer women to services that we are not skilled in. Next week I will go into the local women’s prison to a forum to meet others working with women prisoners who have been involved in sex work, this will hopefully lead to being able to women from this prison being referred to us to come and live in the house.
I’m also hoping to go to do some training down in Luton once a week for the next 2 months. The training is for people who work with women involved in sex work, I would really love to learn from those who are delivering the training and have set up a fantastic ministry working with women in Luton.

FOCUS

Me trying to focus.

The focus thing is never something I’ve been particularly great at- I love to have a number of things on the go- but I’m trying to stay focussed on just a few things.  Getting the house started is the main one.

I’m also befriending women I meet on outreach like Streetwise and I get involved in outreaches like the Soul Survivor one and DTS gatherings.  These outreaches keep me sane and let me have the bigger team experience every so often.
I’m not sure I’ll ever transform into the ‘just does one thing at a time’ type person- but as I’m on my own at the moment (while praying for a team!) I think I’m becoming slightly more focussed on what God has here and now, rather than trying to pursue every dream and thought of Drop In centres, Outreaches, Community Projects, Schools of Evangelism,  right now although it’s still very tempting!!   Hopefully those things will come at a later date when there are more YWAM team here.

Ok-enough for now, just a few things to pray for if you’d like to join me …

PLEASE PRAY

• Ÿ  For God to bring team members to work with me, and for me to know how to find them!
• I’m doing fundraising for personal support and for the work I’m doing-Need to see how God want’s to provide.
• For the house- that the funding decisions made in October would mean it’s a go ahead!

Mind, Body, Spirit London Fun…

Just a quickie- this week YWAM have a stand at a Mind, Body, Spirit Fair in central London.  There is many different stands at the fair- with all sorts of spiritual ideas, therapies, readings etc etc being offered. We’re really excited to be offering Creation Prayer- sitting with people, who are (mostly) really open to God and asking the Holy Spirit who God created them to be and what they were created to do….we’re here till Monday- please pray for the teams, and all the amazing people we get to meet…

Here’s a story from yesterday…

We chatted to a woman named Pat as we were wandering round.  We asked if she wanted us to pray a blessing for her and at first she said no, but then we had a good conversation about spiritual things and what Christianity really is, she really softened and God seemed to remove some wrong thinking about Christianity and Jesus. A couple of hours later she found the stall and asked if we could do the Creation Prayer. We had a word about her still having disappointment from her teenage years and then God also gave the word ‘dance’(and spoke some other things over her as well).  The lady was crying and said that when she was younger she had a dream to dance and been the Royal Ballet School, but then after trouble with her parents she was told she was too tall and had to leave. She was still disappointed about this even though it must have been about 40 years ago.

We prayed for healing for her heart and it was an amazing time. She said she felt much more hopeful and that she felt lighter and had seen bright light when we prayed for her. It was a fantastic time of God showing his heart to her and for her and the start of Him bringing her out of the disappointment.  Pray that her journey will continue to get to know Jesus more…

Bless you all much

BREAKING NEWS (that has nothing to do with the elections) :o)

It’s been an interesting couple of months – with excitement, challenge, fun, steep learning curves, some reaaallly slow days, some crazy busy weeks and lots of laughs and a few tears along the way (all for good reason!) Generally I’m enjoying life and where it’s heading.

So here’s some of what I’ve been up to…

CARDIFF

The week before Easter many of YWAM England’s Discipleship Training Schools (DTSs) got together in Cardiff (Capital of Wales!) for outreach. Every six months we will be doing a week teaching and leading them in evangelism. The outreaches will be in the UK cities that will be hosting some of the 2012 Olympic games. It will build up to major outreaches in London in 2012 – and will include a bit of preparation for planting evangelism teams in those places as well.

Second dinner at 2am-I was the van driver for the band and just had to join in!

During the day there’s evangelism teaching for the DTSs – but it’s on the job training getting out onto the streets of Cardiff to chat and pray with people. In the evening we had a band play in pubs and bars while we’d go and chat with people listening.

It was a brilliant time – I loved seeing all the DTS peeps get stuck in. And, although many of them hadn’t done much evangelism before, and some of them were quite new believers, they just went for it and we had much fun chatting with the Cardiffians!

Had a great time with a lovely Polish woman who, over a couple of meetings, went from telling us she was anti-religious to asking, “How do I get to God?”. It was amazing being able to listen to the Holy Spirit while chatting and praying with her and see her take steps on her journey to knowing God. Even though it’s so exciting (and absolutely in my ‘top 5′ of things to do) when we actually get to lead people to Jesus there and then – we haven’t seen or heard from her since. We’ve got to keep trusting Him to finish off what He’s started but very excited I got to be part of the process.

This is probably the Geordie man I met, only he didn't have a gun and was less blue.

One day we joined a fantastic church in Cardiff on their outreach. People from the church live on every street in the area, doing everyday life and being intentional about serving and loving their nieghbours! During the year the church do brilliant and fun things to bless and serve the community. We were involved with a ‘water drop’, where we gave out bottles of water up and down the high street – including running and throwing through car windows (open!!) that were stopped at traffic lights. Each bottle had a friendly message from the church and an offer of help with any needs. And we’d chat and pray with people along the way. Had a great time having a meaty chat with a fun Geordie atheist who seemed to have some sort of tail coming out the bottom of his jacket…. I refrained from asking him to turn round so I could stare, but think he may have been from the cast of Avatar.

HERE IN LIVERPOOL

Liverpool

Back home, God is giving me more opportunities with the women I work with. There are now 3 or 4 women I’m in regular contact with, although it’s normally a long journey to get from texting and calling to actually meeting up with them.. It takes a long time to deepen friendship with them and while I do, there are all the issues of drug/alcohol dependency and the chaotic lifestyle that brings to work through.

As my relationship with some of the women is getting deeper, I’m having to learn lots quick. Like saying ‘No’ to things they think they desperately need or want from me; setting boundaries, but still keeping the value of love, friendship and family in what we do; knowing how to respond when they share horrific things that have happened in their lives with God’s love and practical help.

As I get closer to the women, I have to be more involved with their lives and their pain. With every new thing I’m learning and some of the new (sometimes surreal!) situations I find myself in, I need to be closer to God and learn to listen to the Holy Spirit’s guiding more, rather than rushing around trying to make things happen.  Also being able to process it all with Jesus – to ask all the whys and get angry about the things I see and hear about, but keep on knowing God is completely good and He has a totally different plan for each one of their lives. He has the solutions when I have no clue.

Some days I love my job and sometimes I hate it.

I hate it because I’ve already heard too many stories of abuse, rape, discrimination, poverty, broken families and seen the destruction that drug addiction can bring to the women and their families. None of that should ever be normal, but to some, that’s what life’s become.

I love it because these are beautiful women, I love getting to know them more, and being a part of the journey showing them how loved they are and who God created them to be. I love it when I see God do something to encourage them or when He begins to bring change for them.

We’ve recently got back in touch with a woman on outreach who has started coming back to church and we meet regularly to chat and pray together. Life is still really hectic and painful for her, but she says she can feel God’s peace and love when she prays at home and is in church. God is doing something real in her life and we’re in the process of trying to find a rehab centre she could go to. Please pray for her.

BAPTISMS – News just in!

Loving the baptisms

On Sunday at church we had a baptism service. We had 8 baptisms planned in two services, but the pool was opened to anyone who wanted to be baptised and at the end of the day we had 22 baptisms! Fantastic. I love a bit of spontaneous Holy Spirit fun! By far my favourite baptism was the one I got wet for – I had the privilege of helping dunk my amazing friend Gemma! She’s a wonderful woman who became a Christian last year and is an amazing example of God’s grace and transformation! Sometime soon she says she’ll write down her story and maybe share it on my blog!

OK we’ll leave it there, as I’ve already rambled on far too long, I’ll just put a few prayer needs at the bottom

Thanks for reading, Bless you all much, get in touch and let me know what you’re up to

Jude

Things to pray for when you have a moment:

* For the women who do street sex work in Liverpool. I want more opportunities to share God’s love with them, pray with them and have deeper levels of friendship with them, and for God to do some miracles in their lives.

* For wisdom from God as we set up this project. Especially learning from the many other similar projects which I’m visiting over the next few months. And in particular about the opportunity to visit women in prison which will probably come up soon.

* Helen is sadly leaving Liverpool   Pray for a team to work with us here in Liverpool and resources/space/money to do what we have to do.

A few other photos for fun

The AMAZING Norwegian outreach team & some other person dressed as St. George. At Norwegian's Leaving Party St. Georges special. They were here for 3 months did a fab job and I miss them much!

Leaping with friends at a day out at Delamere

Jonas & Leia- are now taller than a lighthouse- My! how they've grown!

God is THE BEST! I was given this brilliant little green car- and thought it looked particularly good against the big blue sky!

Dublin-Praying for people and pulling pints

I won’t be writing every week, but quite a lot has happened this week, so here’s some news…

I spent last week in Dublin with some good YWAM friends and nearly 200 others who are working in Europe. It was a great time-hearing about new teams starting in places, having a heart for their cities, loving people and introducing them to Jesus.  I love being with people who love to love people.

God is brilliant and spoke to me much, challenged and encouraged me from every angle.  It’s hard to explain sometimes when God speaks- but basically it was all about keeping on going, carrying on doing what He’s asked me to do, even if it costs and hurts, keep on going. (I wasn’t even thinking about giving up, but love that God would encourage me anyway-He is SO good!)

Dublin at sunrise(nearly)

Dublin is a fab city- in some ways it felt so rich(not neseccarily in a material way), but also had great need all at the same time. People have real beauty in them, so friendly, so open, very easy to chat to, but also the huge amount of obvious homelessness and addiction seemed crazy. It was easy to feel torn all the while when enjoying coffee, friends, life, but then to constantly be faced with people in great need.

Think God showed me more of, even it’s confusing, try to keep it simple, I need to have compassion, know His joy is our strength and keep listening and obeying.

One Small Story
One of the days my friend Lucy and I were walking through Dublin and spotted a guy on  crutches with his friend, we stopped and chatted for a while, and then asked if we could pray for them- we not only pray for healing for John Pauls foot, but also a whole list of other things for him and his friend Gerrard. Lucy spotted another guy had been watching- so we went and chatted to him, David asked if we could pray that he could stop being addicted to heroin. It was such a priviledge to pray with these guys, and trust that God is answering.  But I cannot wait for the day we see God show up often in crazy, amazing ways- I think it’s totally about knowing more of God and His presence, which I reckon also involves getting stuck in and praying with more people.

Pulling Pints

Another major achievment of the week, was visiting the guiness factory and pulling my own pint I will, however, not be having a career change and getting a job in a bar… yet.

So I’m back in Liverpool and over the weekend was  involved in Stop the Traffik flashmob (check it out), Streetwise (outreach to street sex workers)had a brill time with some women chatting, laughing and praying.

Right now I’m in Derby for the day where we’ve been meeting together with others involved in Evangelism teams and Schools of Evangelism in Europe, chatting about how we can grow what we are doing and see more of what God wants to do. Exciting times ahead!

I like this

Thanks for reading, have a brilliant week,
with much fun involved!

Much love
Jude

Hey from Dublin-let’s begin the blog!!

My recent birthday cake- absolutely nothing to do with this post, but I like it:)

It is strange writing this-feels a little bit ” blah, blah, blah, me, me, me”,  but the reason for this is an attempt to keep more up to date with getting news out to all you wonderful people who are supporting me in anyway-financially, praying or by being a brill friend or family!

Please go to UP TILL NOW or to NOW for a little news about now or up till now!!

Here I will try to post regularly, but hopefully not tediously fill you in on things I’ve been up to, I’ll try to be brief, but if you want to know more send me an email or leave a comment! I’m sick of the sound of my own voice (or sight of my own typing), so please write comments on here as well )

I’m writing today from the basement of a Dublin guesthouse. I’m here for the Western European Leadership Consultation (WELC)- it all sounds grand, but really i think it’s a big bunch of YWAMers in Western Europe gathering together to see what God’s been doing and hear from Him and chat with each other about what He wants to do over the next years. It’s great to be here and I’ll fill you in on more another time (cos it hasn’t even started yet)!!

Dublin is great- why have I not been here before?!

Thanks for joining me, Bless you Much

Jude xx