Friends from Brazil and 24 hours of prayer...

I heard a joke recently. It goes like this:

Donald Rumsfeld enters the Oval office to brief the President. He says "Mr. President, I have some bad news. Today in Iraq, three Brazilan soldiers were killed." President Bush turns white as a sheet. He begins to sob, and sob. In the midst of his tears, the President is trying to find the words to describe how terrible he feels. After a few moments, he finally composes himself. After a brief moment, a puzzled look crosses his face, and he leans over to Rumsfeld and says "Exactly how many is a Brazillion?"

This past week was a tough one for me. I have been here 10 months, and somwhow I imagined that by this time I would be at ease with the pressures of leadership and the weight of responsibility. I thought that my heart for home would have lessoned, and that bonds of trust with new friends would be grounded. But some things in life don't really go as you plan, do they?

So last Wed. I was feeling fairly down. I went to go visit one of my newer friends named Guga (pronounced Googa), over at the Baptist church. Guga is from Brazil and has been in the UK for 6 years now. As we talked about the challenges of being in ministry, I gained some new perspectives.

Guga shared that for his first year here he didn't know the language, and had very few friends. He said that for the first year here, all he could do was watch and listen and learn. He had to learn the culture, the language and the way things are done. I could hear in his voice that life was a struggle in that first year.

After spending days praying and pondering my situation, I came to a point of realizing that God may have other things in mind for me, and my plans may need to take a back seat. What that all means, I don't know. I do know that with an uncertain short term future (the next 3 to 6 months) I'm once again waiting on God to give direction.

The nice thing though, is that I have some down time between now and the Big Three of summer. Our youth night on Wed. is on break for a bit, we just had our last Youth Alpha this past Sunday, so that really opens up a few nights for me. It's a welcome change of pace to say the least.

This past weekend we had a 24 hour prayer weekend. Kate (one of the DNA students) really had a heart for 24 hour prayer when she came back from a trip to Germany about 7 weeks ago. It was amazing to see her take the lead and pull together a rota to cover each hour in prayer from Friday night to Sunday morning. I can't wait to see what God does in response to the prayers this past weekend.

Please do continue to pray for me and the church here. It's been a hard few months for us as a body, and the strain is hard on everyone at the moment. I believe that God is faithful, and his Love and grace will always endure even in the toughest of circumstances. I believe that together with your continued prayers will we make it through this season of challenge and change.

I hope this entry finds you all well and enjoying life wherever you are.

Paul