Living in a new country is so different from visiting it for a few weeks. We knew it would be different, but I don’t think I quite understood how mentally challenging it would be at times. The transit system here is so much better than what we have in America – or at least local to Greenville, SC anyway. Here we have trains and buses, and there is an abundance of taxis too. In the past when we visited, we always stayed in the city centre near the train station, so it was a quick walk to the train station to get to various places. Living here though, we are in a more residential area, and so we have to take the buses to get to the train station, the (big) grocery stores, shopping, food, etc. I think we have finally figured out the bus system enough to be able to get to different places, thankfully! We were not prepared on Saturday, however, when a “free Palestine” march slowed down the transit system by 30-plus minutes. There were no notices in the app, so here we were just standing there waiting for a bus that wasn’t coming. We didn’t figure it out until it was too late to catch our train to Bradford. Thankfully, Fountains was forgiving when we showed up 30 minutes later than we were supposed to be there! It usually takes an hour and a half for us to go 7 miles on the transit system- either by bus or by train. In a car here, 7 miles still can take 30 minutes just because of all the traffic. Cars are not as expensive here – you can get a decent reliable one for around 2,000 pounds, so we had considered purchasing a vehicle for a moment just to save us some time, but then we decided against it because the gas over here is extremely expensive- even compared to the 3.00 a gallon prices in America, and we would have to have car insurance too, which would be high for an American, so we will hold off on that for now until we get a Visa figured out to get resident status.
One thing we have said so much this week is how blessed we have been. We have definitely seen the favor of the Lord at every turn. Both Fountains Church and New Life Community Church – the two main churches we have been a part of thus far have been so accommodating to us, providing meals, having us over for fellowship, letting us stay with them, etc… We came here to serve them, and in return, the Lord is blessing us! God is so good!
We are so enjoying our time working with the Saturday Gathering folks. People in the community are beginning to recognize us now, know our names, and are beginning to trust us a little bit. This past Saturday I had the opportunity to pray with a couple of them one on one for specific needs they had.
We have also done a lot of one one-on-one ministry as the Lord provides opportunity. We have prayed with several people for specific needs – emotional and physical healing, salvation for family members, etc. As much as we dislike taking the bus to various places, God has placed us in the right place at the right time on more than one occasion. We have the opportunity to pray for people on the bus and speak into their lives. Just the other day, Billy had a word of knowledge for one of the local bus drivers here about going into ministry. Even that was a unique story. On the day the buses had been so delayed because of the march, we were coming home really late from Bradford, and it was already dark outside. It is one mile from our local train station to our house and in the past we have just walked it, but because it was dark and cold, we decided we would wait for the bus instead. The travel back home required us to get on one bus and then transfer to another bus shortly after getting on the first one. I had been praying on the train that the bus would be on time and it wouldn’t cause us to miss the next bus because we only had a narrow amount of time to switch buses on the way home and all the bus schedules had been wrong all day. We got on the first bus on time, and when we got to the stop to change buses, I asked the bus driver if that was the right stop because my app had frozen and wasnt loading at the moment, and he said no, it was actually in two stops so we stayed on the bus. In actuality though, that really was our stop, and so I was worried about how we were now going to get back home. When I was discussing it with the driver, we figured out that his bus was actually the bus we were going to catch at that stop because he had reached the end of his line and was now changing to another bus route. The Lord did that. What looked like a gross error at the moment was actually such a sweet godwink to us. We didn’t have to get off the bus and stand in the cold and dark for 5 minutes, and it allowed us the opportunity to be on the bus alone with the driver, and it was at this moment that Billy ministered to him. Turns out, he was a fellow Christian, and the word Billy had for him was a confirmation of the next steps in his life. He was extremely appreciative and he even said the Holy Spirit led you to stay on this bus! We have moments and experiences like this all the time here. I wish I could tell you all the God connections we have had. Every day, the Lord confirms for us that we are right where we are supposed to be.
We are continuing to pray for a Visa if this is what the Lord wants, so continue to agree with us that the Lord will make it plain the next steps for this. There are a few possible connections that we have learned of that we are beginning to research now. Also, the Lord keeps highlighting Scotland to us here, so we plan to make time to get up to Scotland to see what God connections lay in wait for us there. Pray that we hear the Lord clearly and discern the right path for this. At this point, we do not have any accommodations set up past June 30th, so we may visit Scotland at that point.
We have several speaking engagements coming up beginning this week, and into May and June as well, so please pray for us as we minister and share our hearts at those meetings, that the Lord would have his way. I’ll be posting these on our Events page in the coming days, but due to the time constraints, I wanted to go ahead and mention that we will be sharing this Sunday, April 21st, at New Life Community Church in Yeadon, at 10:30am. We pray that the Lord would use us however he desires to minister to the people as we share our hearts. We are so thankful for the opportunity!
Fridays or Mondays seem to usually be the best two days for me to try and update you all, so be on the lookout for new blogs and updates on one of those days each week.
Click on the video below to see the weekly picture update!