Trip Summary

Dear Prayer Partners,

Thank you so much for praying for our London team. This trip was amazing and God did some incredible things in us and through us during our 8 days in London. We are convinced that none of this would have been possible were it not for you and your daily prayers for our team. You and your prayers made this trip a success!

We had three major take aways from this trip.

The first is that God is faithful and opens doors where we do not see any. Up to this trip we have not found a local body of believers that were interested in God, scripture, and the gospel outside of Kings Cross Baptist. This has become a major prayer concern for us as we continued to search for like minded believers only to find trip after trip churches that were already closed, almost closed, or not able to reach out into their community. In this trip God lead us to discover not one but two churches that are like-minded and eager to reach their community. The first is Kentish Town Evangelical. Their pastors name is Eddie and he leads a congregation of around 30 people. The second church is Highgate Chapel and their pastor's name is Andrew. Please be in prayer for both congregations, for their pastors, and for how we can come along side of them to encourage and support their labor in the area.

The second take away was that the gospel is needed in London. We were able to get into more spiritual conversations during the week than ever before and time after time we heard the same response, "I have never heard this before." Many times we assume that the people of London surely have heard aspects of the gospel but that is a costly assumption that we can no longer afford to assume. London is in need of the gospel message! It is an area where people who live in the shadows of great cathedrals do not know who Jesus is outside of a person that existed at some point in history. Please continue to pray for the local congregations that we have mentioned above to continue in their task of living and speaking the gospel to those that they live with and around.

The third take away is that prayer is the most important thing we can be about. During this week we studied Luke chapter 10. In verse 2 of this chapter Jesus tells the 72 to be about prayer, specific prayer, to "pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest"! In other words it is not about us being the laborers right now it is about us being the prayers. To take seriously the opportunity and privilege to lift up and intercede on the behalf of London, Camden, Kings Cross, Kentish Town Evangelical, and Highgate Chapel.

With that we want to leave you with one last story of a cab driver some of our team came into contact with. Please intercede on his behalf as well as all the other names that we have told you about during our week in London. Thank you again for your prayers for us, and as always, we would love to have you join one of our teams leaving for London in 2010. If you are interested please let us know. Email Spencer Knight, spencerk@hsbc.org .



Begin forwarded message:

From: Grant Bruner
Date: October 25, 2009 4:31:15 PM CDT
To: Spencer Knight
Subject: London - Thursday, October 15 - Cab Driver



Thursday, October 15 – Cab Driver

Prayer walking Area 1, we met a cab driver, Les (pronounced Lez). He was attending his cab at his garage on Cranleigh Street. He lived in a different area nearby. He owned his own cab and had been driving a cab for 40+ years. Although he was about to buy new tires for his cab, he seemed eager to talk to us. He turned his cab off and talked to us for about 30 minutes.

We learned he is 77 years old. His children and grandchildren lived in and around London. He and his family are Church of England. Although he admitted he does not attend regularly. He goes to baptisms, weddings, and funerals. Much the story of the groundskeeper a day earlier. He said the C of E used to be a “center” of the community, but not so much now. He said “I do believe in God and all of that.”

He talked of the war and how the local school had become a mortuary during the war. He was sent to Germany during the war. His sergeant had told him he could pray in the trenches. And he did. Unfortunately, he seems to have interpreted that to mean he really did not need to attend church at all.

He also seemed a little bitter that many foreigners are moving into London and “getting a free ride”.

It was about time for lunch so we asked him to take us to a café nearby. He seemed to enjoy our company and commented that he had never run across Americans that were not as friendly as we were. Toward the end of our ride, we were able to let him know that we are all Christians, we agreed with his sergeant in that we can pray to God from anywhere, it is not about works, and what the Gospel is. He did not want to take a fare, but we insisted and tipped him well too.

Please pray that Les will seek a deeper walk with God, know the true Gospel, and understand the need for Christian fellowship in a local church.

Update

Dear London Prayer Partners,

Wednesday. Another blessed day! No rain. Yes! Thank you God!

We are now believers that London is more diverse than NY City. Everywhere you turn, on the street, on the bus, on the tube (underground rail), or in the shops and markets, you see people from many parts of the world - China, Japan, Pakistan, South America, South Africa, Congo, Nigeria, and I could go on and on. Many of these people groups are from areas of the world that are hard to reach from the perspective of sharing the Gospel. So what we feel God has done is bring these people to London for the purpose of hearing the Gospel. What an awesome opportunity that presents the local churches, permanent mission teams, and short-term mission teams like us! And that's the people that live here!

There are also as many people from around the world that are visiting. Today we focused on those visiting. We prayer walked specific high traffic areas for visitors. We prayed for the visitors to see our God through the people here or through words like "For the glory of God" that you see on many monuments or entry ways. And we prayed that they would be stirred to seek to know our God, to know our God, and to take the Gospel to their country. Please pray that specifically for London that the world that "comes to" London whether for an education, to live, and for just a visit, that they will see our God, seek to know our God, come to know our God, and take the Gospel to their country.

Additionally, we had the opportunity to pray for London and specifically the leaders of the UK. The UK is a great partner to the US in many world views and efforts. We need them to remain strong with us in Christlike responses to and positions on the things of the world. Please pray for the leaders of this country. What an awesome opportunity to pray outside The Parliament House and Buckingham Palace! Please pray for the leaders of the UK to stand strong in our God with us.

And how fitting that we ended the evening in fellowship with our partner church, Kings Cross Baptist. Their congregation is as diverse as London. For the fellowship, everyone prepared and brought a dish representing their native country. We had food representing Congo, China, Romania, South Africa, Wales, and so on. Of course we did not want to go "empty handed", so we picked up some "Mickey D's" (McDonald's) and some KFC. Great US food! Of course the kids loved our US food and surprisingly, so did the Asians. Please pray for those attending the fellowship. Many are students who are not Christians. Please pray that they will stay connected to Kings Cross Baptist and become connected with Christ.

All for now. Big day ahead tomorrow. Please pray for our stamina, focus, and another day of NO RAIN so that we may finish strong. We feel your prayers and thank you for your prayers. All for the glory of God!

Update

Dear London Prayer Partners,

God is great! We have been so blessed with wonderful weather for prayer walking, and engaging people for information and opportunities to share the Gospel. And God continues to fill us with energy and drive for Him. We are half way through our mission. Please pray for us to finish strong!

Here are some names of people God placed in our paths yesterday and today, and with whom He led us to share the Gospel. Please pray for these people. Pray that God will stir them to seek and know Him. And please note the diversity of this group of people. London is truly a place where God has gathered many people groups that might otherwise not be reached.

1) David - British - to find the Truth
2) Alejandro - Columbian - he has a desire to know his purpose; pray he will find his purpose in God
3) Tom - British - God would stir in his mind and cause restlessness until he seeks and knows God
4) Nolan - British - homeless; to be restored to God, wife, and three children
5) Harry - Nigerian - medical issue and that his knowledge of God will grow deeper
6) Reg - British - does not believe in God or heaven; pray that someone will water the seed we planted
7) Petros - Chinese - family in China is Christian; he sleeps with a Holy Bible that his mom gave him under his pillow; but he does not understand the Gospel; pray that he will seek and know God
8) Fesehah - Ethiopian - said he was Christian and agreed with the Gospel we shared; but he has not been to church the 12 years he has been here in London; pray that God will stir him to reconnect with God
9) Daniel - Irish - troubled past; self reliant; pray he will realize he needs God
10) Ben - Nigerian - prayer for grandmother and that he will see God's power work in his grandmother's life
11) Three teenage girls attending Catholic school that do not understand Jesus and claim they have never heard the Gospel

Alejandro is a great example of God's sovereignty. We entered a beautiful park with outdoor workout equipment. We were drawn to three teenage boys pitching coins. Two of us approached and engaged the boys in conversation while one of us remained at a distance and prayed. We had them teach us the art of pitching coins, but they were not allowing us to engage. Based on the Luke 10 Principle, we turned our focus toward a young man working out. It was Alejandro. Alejandro is a Columbian in London for an education. One of us had actually been to Columbia and also enjoys working out a lot, so we had those commonalities. We learned that Alejandro's family in Columbia is Catholic and he is pressured by his mom to do the things required by Catholicism. He sees Catholicism as burdensome. God led us to share the Gospel emphasizing grace alone. And we invited Alejandro to learn more about being a Christ follower through a course at a local Christ following church. Turns out that church is more convenient for Alejandro than the Catholic church he sometimes attends. And God even allowed us to remove a barrier assuring Alejandro that there was no charge for the course when he asked. How reassuring to us it was to see God work in this situation through the application of what we learned in our training for this mission and to see God pulling all of the pieces to the puzzle together! How great is our God!

Please keep praying! And God bless you all!

Update

Dear London Prayer Partners

Today again was an amazing day. God is so good and has provided so much in our work in Camden. Each team today prayer walked another area in Camden and had several conversations with multiple people many times being able to share the gospel.

Later tonight we were able to spend time with some members of Kings Cross Baptist church in doing an evangelistic survey in a busy area around the church. It was a sweet time of building deeper relationships with their members as well as again gaining many opportunities to share the gospel with several people.

Please continue to be in prayer for our work. We will again hit the streets tomorrow in prayer as well as City Narrative Mapping. Please pray that God will go ahead of us and prepare people to hear the hope of the gospel as well as give us needed information in our attempt to better understand the people and cultures of this borough.

Thank you for your prayers, we feel them and continue to need them!

In Christ,

London Mission Team

1st Day

Dear Prayer Partners,

We all made it to London safely today. Some of us however have already had to experience the first rule of any trip and that is flexibility! Because of the cold front that was covering most of the Southwest US many of us were delayed in Birmingham and then again in Houston. This ultimately caused us to land in London an hour of schedule which wouldn't have been bad except for that fact that it put us on the 7th plane to land and go through customs. Needless to say we were in the back of a very long line.

Waiting seems to be the lesson for today. After finally getting through passport control we then had to wait to get tube tickets and then we the train finally left the building a team member realized that they had left their backpack. Which again caused us to wait. By the time we finally checked in to the hotel we were already 3 1/2 hours behind schedule...but who's counting time.

We finally got checked in (with all our baggage) and on our way to Camden Town. What a place! For most of us it was our first experience and we came away with heavy but energized hearts for the people in the area. We were able to walk the canal and encounter many of the locals which allowed us to see, smell, and hear many needs. We soon realized the need to "bump it up" and we started prayer walking the canal and surrounding area. It was a joy to lift up those needs in prayer and get an early peek on what we get to participate in this week.

Tomorrow we will begin a very long day. Please be in prayer for Johnny as he brings the message in the morning to our friends at Kings Cross Baptist Church, as well as Bryan, as he will be preaching Sunday night. After the service we will break up into our teams and start to prayer walk and City Narrative Map our assigned districts. Please pray that God will open our eyes to the needs in the area so that we may fully engaged in interceding for the people of Camden. Also pray that we will encounter people that will approach us and ask us why we are here so that we may not only learn more about them and the people of Camden, but that we may be able to speak the truth of the gospel into their lives.

We have much work to do, and we are already tired from our long flight and long day. Many of us are already showing signs of sickness along with aches and pains but God is good and has protected us along the way. One of the biggest ways in which He has protected us was in passport control. Many of the team members were questioned extensively and we have heard of some recent teams having members denied entry. God is good and through that we learned our second lesson of the day, which is dependence. We are here for His namesake and for His kingdom. We can not do this alone so we are desperately depending of God to open doors and give insight and for you with your prayers. Thank you for your prayers.

Yours in Christ,

London Mission Team

Trip Update

Dear Prayer Partners,

Today was a great day to be in the house of our Lord worshipping with brothers and sisters from many nations! We thank you for your prayers. We started the day at Kings Cross Baptist church where Johnny preached from Acts 4 and reminded us all about the power of prayer and what can happen when we ask for boldness. It was a great service of worship and reuniting with our friends at Kings Cross. As usual, Big Al (picture 1) prayed in the service and sent chills up all of our spines. What a prayer warrior. Please be in prayer for this church, its pastor, Andrew and for boldness for them as a lighthouse in this community.

After the service we then split up into four different teams. Each team prayer walked a different district of Camden. While it did rain a little on us, it was a blessing that it only rained a little and it was only a drizzle. God was good in allowing us to walk the streets and to pray with insight. Spencer and Johnny were able to meet with the pastor of Kentish Town Evangelical. This is a Great Commission congregation and we throughly enjoyed our time with Pastor Eddie. Pastor Eddie was able to give great insight into the area. This church was once partnering with two other churches to reach the area of Crescent Market, sadly though, the other two churches have recently closed down leaving his church alone in its efforts to reach the area. Please pray for boldness for this church as they reach out to their area in Camden.

Our partners from Southside were able to walk an area and then leave for Bryan to preach tonight at another London congregation. They were able to make some great contacts tonight and Bryan did a "brilliant" job in teaching on the full armor of God and standing firm. We are very appreciative of their help and their encouragement. Please continue to pray for them as they seek God to help them discover where in London they need to plant themselves and serve for His namesake.

Tonight in our debrief of the day we were able to celebrate Amy's birthday. It was a fun time of fellowship and a great cake from a local bakery (we all thanked Amy for having her birthday today). It was a special day for her and she summed up the day best when she stated that the best thing about today was feeling the Spirit of God all day and in every step.

We thank you for your continued prayers. Please pray for our health, our energy, for our conversations, and for insight in our prayers and conversations.

Prayer Schedule

Here is a list of the team members and what to pray for on each day.

Team Members: Al Taylor, Stephanie Taylor, Bryan Martin, Johnny Clint, Clint Collins, Brent Kendrick, Grant Bruner, Amy Hawkins, Drew Lyons, Spencer Knight

Friday:
Pray health for the team and their family members that are staying in Birmingham, for travel mercies, and that even through travel we begin making it a habit of praying for the people we see and keep our eyes open to the predetermined divine appointments

Saturday:
Pray for health for the team and their family members that are staying in Birmingham, we will be adjusted to the time change and be ready go (we arrive at 9:30am (BST)), We will be safe as we walk the streets of the Camden Market, that our prayers will be focused

Sunday:
Pray for service at Kings Cross Baptist church, health for the team and their family members that are staying in Birmingham, prayer walking from 1-8pm

Monday
Pray for health for the team and their family members that are staying in Birmingham, prayer walking from 9am-3:30pm and from 6pm - till

Tuesday
Pray for health for the team and their family members that are staying in Birmingham, prayer walking from 10am-3pm

Wednesday
Pray for health for the team and their family members that are staying in Birmingham, prayer walking at Westminster from 9am-7pm

Thursday
Pray for health for the team and their family members that are staying in Birmingham, prayer walking from 10am-3pm

Friday
Pray for health for the team and their family members that are staying in Birmingham, free day but hope regardless of what we do that we will all stay focused on praying for the lost people of London.

Saturday
Pray for health for the team and their family members that are staying in Birmingham, travel mercies and that we arrive home on time at 5:37pm CST!!!


Thanks for the commitment to lift our team up in prayer.

Prayer Requests

We have a team leaving for London this Friday October 9th. I wanted to post some specific prayer requests for the team:
1. That God will bring peace for team members and calm any anxiety.
2. Safe travel and good health for all the team.
3. God will already be working in the hearts of the people of Camden.
4. For God to watch over family members of the team.
We will be posting updates from the team while they are in London. Please feel free to leave any comments or prayer requests.

Update

Dear Friends,

Thank you so much for all you prayers throughout the last 10 days! I am sorry there was no update Weds. or Thurs. as the days got very long and then there was no internet access at our Paris hotel.

Wednesday was a great day as we walked throughout the tourist areas, praying over each one. It was amazing to see the buildings that we have heard about, but never seen... Parliament, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, Buckingham Palace. President Obama was actually in Buckingham Palace as we walked around it and prayed, having tea with the Queen! God was good and provided us protection as we walked these areas... we were not even aware that there were protesters (of the G20 and several economic decisions being made) near the areas we were in. We saw a few protesters, but were not in the areas that had 100 or so arrests. We really felt that there was a reason God chose this day to have us walk and pray throughout these areas of the city. Although it was interesting to see these areas, I felt my heart desiring to walk among the Camden burrough and the local Londoners that we had met in the previous days.

Thursday was our last day walking the Camden burrough. We felt a sense of urgency that we needed to pray over several areas that God had placed on our hearts throughout the week. Our team began in the upper, northwestern side. This was the area that was full of schools. God has seemed to place on our hearts the children of this area. We prayed for teachers, nannies and the schools in this area as we walked. We then walked to the northern section and prayed over Heath Street Baptist. Pastor Andrew (from Kings Cross) has a heart for this church and God has given us a burden to pray over this church this entire week. I think there has been a team that has walked by this church, praying, at least once a day (even when it is not the area that was 'assigned' for the day). We prayed over St. Johns Church in this area also... this is the one church that has seemed that it may have a true message to the people of this area. It was one of the few churches that seemed to be teaching truth in the four areas we walked this trip. And we completed our walk in area 3, the north-eastern side of the burrough. God prompted us to just stop and observe in this area. There are numerous Muslim people in this area that so need God!

I have tried, in the emails to let you know where we are walking Camden, but even the miles and miles we walked, we only walked a small portion of this burrough!

I have a love for the city of London now, particularly this area, Camden. I love that I can continue to pray for this area and know specifics of what and who to pray for. But, our prayer is that God will continue to let us remember to utilize this prayer life as we come back home in our own city and neighborhoods. We see the vast lostness of the world, but sometimes forget to look at who and what is around us. Think of how God can work in our own city!

'Look among the nations, and see; wonder and be astounded. For I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told.' Habakkuk 1:5

I, and our team, are so thankful for all the prayers this week. It was amazing to see God work in ALL aspects of this trip. We saw God in even the smallest details. We were blessed with safe travel, good health, favorable weather, God-encounters with so many people of this city, a great sense of cooperation and unity among our team and we were able to focus on God throughout this trip, even when the distractions of our life would pop up! Thank you God!


Love,

Jennifer

'Oh, give thanks to the Lord, call upon His name; Make know His deeds among the peoples. Sing to Him, sing praises to Him; Speak of all His wondrous works! Glory in His holy name; Let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice!' Psalm 105:1-3

Awesome! Day 2 Update

Dear Friends,

Our Monday Camden prayer walking is complete. We are having our team
Bible study soon and then heading to downtown London to prayer-walk some
areas down there.

One thing I wish I had told you about yesterday was the thought that
crossed my mind as we worshipped at Kings Cross Baptist. We were
singing a song about all the nations worshipping, and as I looked
around, you saw so many nationalities all worshipping together... my
thought was that what an amazing example on earth of what we will have
in heaven as we all worship our Father together. What a wonderful
picture!

Prayer walking the upper-western section of Camden was a little harder
today. We began our walk praying for God to let us know when we should
engage an individual. Within the first few blocks, a woman, Susan,
stopped us and ask if we were lost. Our conversation with her was full
of information about this area...definitely an area of the arts, music,
poetry. We were told again that the 'church' is primarily a social
place and also a place that gave to multiple charities. She was such a
searcher. She said several times she has a lot of guilt. She asked us
some specific questions about prayer... can you only pray in church,
etc. We were able to share the gospel with her, although not as
in-depth as we wished we could. When we would go a little deeper with
her, she would begin to talk about something else- not sure if this was
because she didn't want to go deeper, or if it was a personality thing-
she was very easily distracted during the conversation. My prayer for
her is that God will place Christians in her life here in London that
will be able to continue to answer her questions and direct her to the
Bible (she actually told us of one of her good friends who was a 'strong
christian' and she had told her the only way to talk to God is through
Jesus). She gave us glimpses that there may be a secularism stronghold
in this part of the community- maybe with a new age mix... we saw yoga
and accupuncture and herbal remedies advertised and Susan talked with us
about tai-chi and meditation. Other than Susan, we did not encounter
anyone else to engage. We did pray a lot and a few verses that we
continued to come back to were:

"The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working."
James 5:16b

"Look among the nations, and see wonder and be astounded. For I am
doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told." Habakkuk
1:5

God is so faithful- He knows exactly what to tell you when you need it.
We continued to talk about God doing a work in this area that we would
not believe if we were told!

One praise (a BIG one) is thankfulness for the weather. From Friday
until today, the weather has been favorable. A little rain on Sat. and
then none yesterday and today was the best with hardly a cloud in the
sky.

Please continue to pray for our focus as we prayer walk.

Thank you, thank you for your continued prayers!

Update

Yes, we made it through with no hiccups. We had a great day today worship with Kings Cross and then prayer-walking and engaging people. Kings Cross played the London Project dvd today and challenged themselves with getting out into the community and enaging people. It was a neat blessing to be here and see them watch the video.

Keep praying - great team!

Prayer Requests

1. Pray for the team March 27th-April 6th
2. Pray for health and safe travel
3. Pray for boldness
4. Pray for team members families while they are away
5. Pray for the people of Camden and people we meet along the way
6. Pray for future London teams

These are specific requests from Spencer

Here are some other specific prayer request for
Clarity on the exact areas we need to work in
Preparation in the fine details of logistics
Notebooks, Individual Maps, and other tools that need to be accomplished
Wisdom in daily objectives & logistics so that our time & other resources are not wasted but at the same time we are not overly exhausted.

Prayer Requests

Please pray for the individuals getting ready to embark on the next trip to Camden.  Please pray for Amy, Sara, Davis, Spencer, Mark, Jennifer, & Nancy.  Pray for any anxiety regarding the travel.  That God will give a peace to each individual that only he can.

Our Only Hope

What a great time to kick off the London Prayer site.  This was a great weekend as missionaries gathered from around the world at HSBC.  The foundation for mission work is prayer.  We will continue to post prayer requests for missionaries, mission trips, and other relevant subjects.  We can start by praying for the Europe missionary gathering going on at HSBC Monday and Tuesday.