On a journey...

Friday 7 October 2011 My week in Belo Horizonte (BH) was so many things. It’s hard to even know how to start writing a “summary” of my time there. It was only a week, but I come back feeling like I’ve been gone forever, yet realizing that it wasn’t really that long. It was special being back in BH which has changed, yet is still the same 13 years down the road. I spent a month there in 1998 when I was doing my “Year For God”. As part of the conference celebrating the 25 years of the base we had a tour of some of the ministry houses (YWAM BH has 8 houses each representing part of the people that are reached through the work). Going back to Luzeiro, a community development project was really impacting. Seeing the slum which is located on hillsides and how it’s changed was such a privilege. And seeing how the project has developed and meeting some of the people who are loving Jesus in that place really blessed my heart. It was also special to see some people I remember from that...

Sunday 2 October 2011 Today I want to write about today. Today my heart was moved by God’s heart. Moved with God’s heart for the women who live in prostitution here in Belo Horizonte (BH). I’m here for a week and today I participated in a lunch for the ladies which is organized by a team in the city. It really impacted my heart. The past years my eyes and heart have been opened in a greater degree to the lives women in prostitution lead and a desire to speak value and dignity to them and see them encounter the love of Jesus. The past few days the team had been going out with invitations to lunch today, and so today we went along again, divided into teams, to visit the ladies and invite them (or remind those who were already invited). Here in BH one of the areas of prostitution has many “hotels” where the ladies rent rooms and the men come to them to “buy their services”. The buildings have doormen and it’s a very organized establishment. It really impacted me to enter these bui...

Tuesday 25 September 2011 I love the city. I was born in a city (well, technically a town, but still a place with lots of people and easy access everywhere). I have lived most of my life in cities (Manchester, Sandnes (my town), Leeds, Plymouth, Fortaleza, Kansas City (didn’t feel like a city but is a city), Amsterdam (for a short stint). My heart comes alive when I’m in cities. I love the smells and the sounds. I love the different people on their way to or from somewhere. I love the life I see in the city. And so it was really fun to spend some time with my friends Andrew and Claudia who live in the city. I stayed in their lovely flat (with dark wooden floors) and we had such a good time together. As I went for a stroll I was reminded once again of the city that I lived in for so many years, and still carry in my heart. My mind and heart was impacted by the contrasts between the poor and the right, yet for both, they are living the life they have mostly always known. I didn’t ...

Monday 12 September 2011 Sharing and living. The sun has set as it always does, right at 6 pm, and it coincides with the awakening of the mosquitoes. Oh, the joys of living in the Brazilian countryside. I’m sat at my little glass kitchen table eating requeijāo (Brazilian runny cream cheese) on cream crackers (read: cremi craker) with a cup of PG tips tea (brought from Norway in my slightly overloaded luggage). I can’t believe I’ve already been here a month. Time is going quickly! It’s been a really good week, but hard in places, but then that’s life in general- good and hard days. I shared at the staff meeting last week and it went really well. I was faithful to share what was on my heart and I trust it encouraged the staff here. It was also an exciting meeting as they laid out the plans for the main YWAM base property (which currently is empty in need of some restoration). As part of the plans is to build a prayer room where the chapel building is now. It’s so exciting to see how pray...

Tuesday 6 September 2011 It’s amazing how addicted I’ve become to internet. Or maybe “addicted” isn’t really the right word, I guess “dependent” is a better way to express my connection to the internet. We’ve been without internet access for a week now. Well, we might have had access Wednesday and Thursday, but those days I was out from early morning till late at night. It’s quite frustrating. Makes me feel cut off from the world, and I think what is most frustrating is how I feel cut off from communicating with friends and family. I’d marked several chats on skype this week, and obviously I didn’t have them... I wasn’t even able to let the people know. My only access this past week was on Friday when I had a quick check of my emails at an internet cafe. It was a surreal experience to be sat at a computer with the clock counting down how much time I had left and trying to type as quickly as possible on an unfamiliar keyboard. It brought back memories from when internet cafe was...