Greetings from England!
It’s amazing how adaptable we humans actually are. Over the course of this last year our lives have changed dramatically, yet oddly it all feels perfectly normal and natural. The level of peace that comes with knowing you are walking exactly where the Lord is leading you is profound.
After over two months here on our assigned mission field in Cornwall, we have adjusted well and a sense of routine is finally beginning to settle in. We have taken on various support roles within Souls Harbour Church to provide much needed help to Pastor David Flanders so that the ministry here can grow and expand and have greater impact on this community and the surrounding areas. There is a great field for harvest here, and we are so honored and excited that God is allowing us to be a part of the preparation for reaping that harvest! We have also been privileged to lead the praise and worship for the Sunday services throughout this month. Going forward from here, we will continue to be very involved in that ministry, though more details on that will be provided in a future update.
You might recall from our last post that we are in the very beginning stages of our first School of Worship! We are running a “boot camp” style session during the month of August exclusively for teens. We have about 8 to 10 teenage students who are participating in this first session. We are providing one-on-one coaching for voice and instruments to several, then all of those students plus a few others are coming together for our weekly group training sessions on Friday evenings. (Click HERE for more on that!) Though this is only in its infancy, we are already getting a glimpse of the God-sized potential and are SO excited to see where He takes it from here. As you’ll hear us mention often, we are being very careful to stay faithful to God’s original directives to us and we don’t want to make any assumptions about what He has planned or get ahead of Him in any way. So we are taking things slow, one day at a time – letting God forge the path as He opens some doors and closes others.
Even in just the short time we’ve been here, God has crossed our paths with so many other fellow ministers who also believe that God will soon bring revival to His people here in this country and that a great spiritual awakening will spread across the United Kingdom. Through these connections, there are likely to be many opportunities to support broader outreach and evangelism! Even though we are now here, we still don’t fully know what the next three years hold and are so excited to watch it unfold.
On a personal note, we are enjoying the cool weather and continuing to build relationships with our new church family here. We have been welcomed into many homes for meals and such, and we continue to be blessed by the warm hospitality that so many have provided. Being far away from everything we’ve ever known has been very hard and we are homesick, but the people here have been so kind and it’s helped tremendously. Small town life is different to be sure, but we are adjusting. Trevor has handled the latest new adventure of driving here like a pro. These crazy-tiny roads can be a little scary (okay… a lot scary!), but it helps that our car is really tiny too!
Also, we are SO excited that we’ll soon be welcoming our first official visitors from home! Yes, our dear friends Jason and Meredith Hoover will be joining us for about a week in the first part of September! We’ll take a few days to join them in London to see clocks, bridges, palaces and the like, then they’ll come back with us to Camelford to experience a few days of life here, including a Sunday service! I’m sure we’ll have many great adventures while they are here… just squeezing all 5 of us into our tiny little car will be an adventure in itself!
Being on this side of our journey, it’s hard to comprehend what it looks like from the outside… from your point of view. But our hope and prayer is that through all of this, you are blessed, encouraged and inspired to step out in faith as the Lord leads you. Whether you have been called to minister on the other side of the world or just across the street, you are a crucial member of God’s army and whatever task He puts before you, He will make a way for you to accomplish it. It may not be in the way or time that you envision or expect, but it will be for His purpose and His glory, which is all that really matters.
Blessings to all of you and a special “thank you” to those who have chosen to join us on this journey through prayer and/or financial support.
Blessings and more to come soon,
Connie, Trevor & Brooklyn