Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Commanding the Lord's Blessing by Taking the Blended Way

I cannot describe with adequate feeling what the past two weeks have been like. Wednesdays (today) are all-London coordination meeting at Bower House. And having finished coordination at its regular time, we ended up coming back around 4 PM. That's when it hit. I have not been back home this early, ever, for the last two weeks or so. It's been a crazy, yet, such a rewarding time. There's no room for tiredness. There's no time for yourself. The Lord is moving, and if we are not following Him, we may miss our opportunity to participate in such a privileged time!

We are so blessed to be in the Lord's recovery, and to be in His recovery today. I have to admit, a few weeks ago, I was blind in how much the Lord is moving, especially here in Europe. The Lord truly desires to expedite His coming, and for that, He needs to gain this land as a testimony against the age.

Enough of my excited rambling. Let me give you a few reports. Over a thousand bibles, one-thousand one-hundred thirty-six to be exact, have been given out this past week to university students here in the London area. This is something beyond what every one of us have been expecting. We are not doing anything particularly special -- no drama, no rock band, no nothing. Just lovers of Christ, passing out the Word of God.

So, to be honest, I don't know why so many university students have been coming to our teeny table standing in the end of the sidewalk, asking for Bibles. Actually, scratch that, I think I may know of a crucial element that played a key role in creating such a hunger for the Word:

The Lord blesses the oneness, which is brought in by taking the blended way. We are not here just to carry out a successful campus work with structured organizations. We are here to build up the Body of Christ.

Prayer and fellowship time at the bookshop.
It all started out when a few dozen saints - students, full-time serving ones, and community - came to a small bookshop on Pentonville Road to enjoy the Lord together and pray for His move amongst the universities in London. Many paid not-a-small price in coming, time-wise and money-wise. 

So, I can try to analyze every single element in our Fresher's distributions, but I think just showing some pictures would be most entertaining.

Our first distribution. At the Westminster campus - 52 Bibles.
Queen Mary! This is the university where I'll be studying for the semester - 60 Bibles (ran out of Bibles). No picture, but South Bank distributed 80 Bibles before running out as well.
Sorry for the blurry picture -- after our double-hitter Wednesday (day we distributed at two campuses at the same time), we had a welcome dinner for the new ones. Food and fellowship was great! - Approx. 10 new ones or so.
Thursday @ University of Greenwich - 127 Bibles. We didn't run out of Bibles this time...because we got a second load! More Bibles were distributed on Friday as well.
Welcome Dinner @ University of Greenwich - 5 new ones or so. Another time of much enjoyment and really, really good food. There was also a second welcome dinner on Friday with more new ones!
Kingston on Friday. Kingston distributed 700 Bibles in total for the entire week! Amazing!!
Saturday Picnic @ Greenwich Park
Tuesday @ Brunel. 144 Bibles (ran out again) given out in 4 hours or so.
Brunel Welcome Dinner with 7 (or 8?) new ones. Again, really great food. We forgot songbooks so we just decided to sing verses from the Bible. Awesome time of fellowship.

Not to say that the Lord will not bear fruit this year, but even if we bore no fruit, I feel that there has been such a strong building up amongst the students here in London. And not just amongst the students, but with the full-time serving ones as well as the community saints. I truly believe that the Lord will grant us some remaining fruit this year. It's been an awesome opportunity to be part of such a laboring, paying a price for one another - praying for one another's campuses, going to each other's campuses, etc.. Blending really takes place when we are enjoying the Lord together, and there is no better way to enjoy the Lord together than singing with one another in the middle of the street!

And the things is, we are not finished yet! We are tackling one more campus twice this week, granting us two more days of blending with one another. The Lord is itching to gain more ground!

Monday, September 17, 2012

Greetings from London!

Hello there! It's been a while, a very looong while. I apologize. I have to admit that this last spring, I got a little burnt out and lost my motivation to blog, so I took a small hiatus. But I'm back now...on the other side of the pond! That's right, I'm currently on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean in the other "United" country (the UK). I'll be taking this next semester off to study at Queen Mary University. I actually have been in Europe since the end of August, but have been very occupied with other sorts of things. Like what? You may ask. Well, mainly traveling to many different cities around Europe to visit the saints.

I would really love to talk about every single event and city, but if I did, I would bore you to death. So, I'll let some pictures do the talking. They say that a picture is a thousand words right? So, I'm still writing a lot, just in different media. Enjoy:

Bower House. Our family took hospitality close to the Bower House. This is the training center where the Lord has been actively moving the last few months through the Bible distributions.

Buckingham Palace. Of course, our family had to do the touristy stuff around London. I'll post more pictures in a future blog, maybe. But for now, this will suffice.

Amanatrust bookshop and cafe.

The Kang's. Our families have known each other for a while. Brother Newman used to serve at San Diego before migrating here to London. This is right in front of Bower House.

Our journeys then led us north to the land of the Scots! This is up a hill in Edinburgh with our dear brother Haggai Kim.

With the Kim's family at their restaurant - Kim's Korean Mini Meals. If there was a chart that accounted best tasting Korean food vs. Distance from Korea, this place would be an outlier. Beats Chicagoan Korean food for sure.

London Bible Distributions. What a blessed time! I cannot describe that one Wednesday with words. People are hungry for God's word. The Lord blesses when the entire Body acts and moves in one accord. In this picture alone, three continents are represented.

Colosseum, Rome. My dad and I took a little tour to Rome, Italy. This little detour may deserve a blog post of its own. Let's see if it surfaces. More pictures to follow.

The church in Madrid. Our family reunited again in Madrid, Spain, where we were able to join the table meeting there.

Segovilla, Spain.

Segovilla, Spain. Touristy stuff. They say that castle in the background is what inspired the castle in Disneyland. It was a really cool castle.

Madrid, Spain. I have to say that Madrid is one of the cleanest cities in Europe.

Cordoba, Spain. This is the beginning of our long trek south to visit the churches in southern Spain! On the left is brother Jameson Chen who migrated to Spain a few years ago and was our indispensable guide for the trip. He speaks perfect Spanish.

Prayer meeting at the church in Cordoba. Here is where I was forced to speak Spanish.

Sevilla, Spain. Second from the left is sister Cynthia. She is a very young sister who is an indispensable pillar for the church in Sevilla. Due to some circumstances, the church in Sevilla was left to be a few families in number. Still, she has been a steady rock, still standing for the Lord's testimony in Sevilla. We have no excuse, and I mean it. If you think the church life is hard, you need to hear this sister's testimony.

The church in Malaga. The biggest locality in Spain, full of authentic Spaniards. Wish I could have spent more time here blending with the saints.

The Martinez family. Dear couple where we stayed for hospitality. These saints have been in the church life for so long!  Pillars who love the Lord and follow the ministry in an absolute way.