Byron Bay to Melbourne

God is good!! In Byron Bay we found a great little car within our price range... The car dealer got it ready to go the day after we first saw it (it wasn't registered yet).

So at 7am on Thursday 20th December we set off for Melbourne in our new wheels. We made many stops on the way to rest and eat, and we took turns driving, which helped us both a lot.

At 8pm (and after 1,000kms) we pulled into a caravan park in Goulburn, NSW and stayed in a cabin overnight (all the cheap caravans were taken, a fact Emma was glad of because she doesn't sleep as well in those compared to fixed structures). 7am Friday 21st December saw us setting off again to complete the 600kms that were left between us and our destination. The terrain between Gouldburn and Melbourne does not vary very much and is very sparsely populated compared to the NSW coast. The day before had been quite warm, but after lunch on Friday the rain hit us and didn't stop for the rest of our journey. [Photo, far right: Our new wheels parked in front of the YWAM base in Byron Bay.]

Kristin and Shalvin's wedding

Kristin was Emma's bridesmaid when we got married, so Em was really thankful that we could be at Kristin's wedding on Saturday 22nd Dec. She was honoured to read a Bible passage during the ceremony. [Em's the one on the far right, photo's not so good.]



Christmas Day

This year we celebrated Christmas by having a picnic on the Dandenong Ranges, complete with BBQ turkey & roast veges, reading the Christmas story, and the exchanging of gifts. The first photo on the right shows our view.





Catching up with old friends

Andy and Viv Harvey recently moved back to Melbourne and we have been blessed to be able to stay with them over Christmas. It was also great to catch up with Nigel and Rachel Tilley and their two boys. They are also many others whom we want to see and hopefully will get time to visit them in the New Year.

We are so thankful to God for all He has done for us and how He has safely brought us to Melbourne. We are enjoying being here again and are looking forward to seeing His plans for us here unfold.

Merry Christmas

May you know the peace and joy of Christmas as you celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ this year.

Jesus Christ was born - God came near.

Laidley to Byron Bay

In Laidley we spent some time with Emma's family - her Dad, brother Otto and one of her Uncles was there too. It was really great to see them all again. One day we climbed a small mountain with her Dad and his dog Zack. It was a very enjoyable day.

As we felt time moving on and our deadline for being in Melbourne getting closer, we looked for a way to get down to Byron Bay. Otto was going to Brisbane on Friday 7th December, so he could take us with him, which was a real blessing. From there we caught a bus to Byron, really cheaply, which was amazing.

In Byron the YWAMers were in the park having a free BBQ (which they do every week, we did this too when we were there two years ago), so we wandered over with our luggage and said G'day. They were happy to see us and welcomed us warmly.

The YWAM base is currently running a DTS (Discipleship Training School) so the house is full of staff and students (!). It was really different being in a familiar place again. Just over two years ago, we stayed here for three months and helped out as 'mission builders' after our DTS. A lot has changed. Our journey is so different from the DTS world now and so it seems odd to be in the middle of it again.

How do we get to Melbourne??

This was our biggest question since we arrived. We were wanting to have our own vehicle somehow, but we were open to flying or taking the bus if God closed all the other doors. So we were on the hunt for a car, trusting that God would give us the right one and that if it's not what He really wants then we wouldn't find one and have peace to fly. After checking out the local noticeboards for cheap used cars and getting nowhere, a friend took us to a local used car yard down the road from the base. A little red car with low kms and the right price caught our attention and after a short test-drive we took it. It's not registered, so they need a day or so to get it ready for us. By God's grace, we'll be off to Melbourne on Thursday at the latest.

Em - At first I didn't enjoy being in Byron again. I was feeling out of place and a bit overwhelmed by the amount of people who suddenly filled up our personal- and living-space. But through sharing my DTS and outreach experiences with the students here God has shown me what that season was about. I had never understood it or even thought about it before, but God had special little lessons in that season just for me. Thank you, Lord.

TRUST and FAITH are the two things that God continues to encourage us with and teach us about. It's so easy to lose hope when you look at circumstances that are beyond you, but when we lift our eyes to Him and remember again the faithfulness, compassion and loving care of our Heavenly Father, our spirits are lifted and hope is rekindled.

Cairns to Laidley

So here's some snaps of our Australian journey so far...

Cairns

Stoney Creek, a favourite swimming hole.








Ulf trying to camouflage himself as a kangaroo.










Rainforest - so beautiful and green, but very hot and sticky!







In the cemetary we found this large tree growing out of an old grave - a very meaningful picture of the kingdom of God - death and life.

Laidley

Emma and her Dad.









Otto's house. (Emma's brother) It looks like a shed (it is a couple of sheds together), but actually it's a house.






Otto and Ulf enjoying computer games.

Australia!!

On 28th November we flew from Frankfurt to Sydney and then onto Cairns!! The flight wasn't great for Emma as something she ate made her sick bigtime... but she's okay again now.

Australia is such a beautiful place and we're so thankful to be here. Even in Sydney Em was struck by the beauty of the sky - so blue!! And Cairns is even more beautiful - trees, flowers, birds, mountains, beach and ocean are all breathtaking here.

Emma's Mum is taking really good care of us and spending time with us and taking us to see some of the sights. We're staying in a caravan park for a week. Such a blessing!

On Friday 7th December we will fly down to Brisbane and stay at Em's brother Otto's place in a small town called Laidley. God has blessed us so much since we arrived - we a truly blown away.

The inner work of waiting

"There are no idle hours in My Kingdon. Waiting may seem a time of inactivity, as far as the outer world is concerned, but it can, and should, be a time of great activity in the inner life, and the surrounding material plane." - GodCalling, a dalily devotional, edited by A.J. Russel

This quote pretty much sums up our time in Wehrendorf. We had no idea how long God wanted us to stay here, we only knew that He wanted us here and that He would move us on when it was time. It's hard to put in words what God has done in us here, we just know that we are leaving this place having been deeply changed.

Already in the first couple of weeks God put something before us - we were invited to go to the Tabita House to pray, as they were in need of prayer support. This was a great opportunity as it meant that we had a place to go to be completely alone with God - like a prayer room all to ourselves. We also got involved with helping out at Tabita - sorting, packing, weighing second hand clothes and goods. They are receiving so much at the moment that it piles up into a mountain in the corner! [Tabita is a ministry which receives second clothes and goods (generally not furniture) and sends it to people in need in Romania, Ukraine, India, Brazil, as well as locally.] It has been a blessing for us to be part of this 'service' to others.

On the 30th of October we celebrated Ulf's 28th birthday! It was really nice for us to be able to celebrate another birthday with Ulf's family before we headed off to Australia.

Another blessing came out of the blue when Emma was asked to help a day-care Mum with her day-care kids (a paid job). After the first week, Ulf turned up as well and ended up being the one watching over the kids while Emma helped out around the house. We really enjoyed spending time with the kids, even though it wasn't always easy.

Baking Christmas cookies, cooking the occasional meal for the family, helping in the garden to get it ready for winter, spending time with Oma and Opa [see photo above], sharing with Mama (Ulf's mum), playing games with the family, long walks along the canal with God (Em), spending time by the fire with Belle [see photo, right], family birthdays, autumn colours, and getting up while it's still dark have all been part of our days in Wehrendorf.

We are all wretched, but we are also beautiful.

"Some of us have been told our whole lives that we are wretched, but the gospel reminds us that we are beautiful. Others of us have been told our whole lives that we are beautiful, but the gospel reminds us that we are also wretched. The church is a place where we can stand up and say we are wretched, and everyone will nod and agree and remind us that we are beautiful." - Shane Claibourne, 'The Irresistable Revolution.'

Autumn in Wehrendorf

Bad Essen, the nearest major town to Wehrendorf.

The slightly taller building in the middleground is an old storehouse on the canal.

We're not completely crazy about rabbits, but we did have a look at the local rabbit show, just for fun! We left our little Belle at home, though...!

Autumn colours - so beautiful!

Wehrendorf-Hurlach-Amsterdam-Wehrendorf

We landed safely in Bremen, Germany, last Monday and have hardly stopped since! The first few days were restful and Emma was recovering from a cold. We planned to go south to Hurlach the first weekend after we returned to Germany, to sort through some of our things we had stored there and to farewell some friends who were moving to Amsterdam. Despite Emma's niggling cold, we felt from God that we should still make the journey south for that particular weekend.

Seasons

Thursday night we found ourselves once again at YWAM Hurlach's Castle evening, and much to our surprise all of the former Mobile Team members were also there! The little things God plans and does without us knowing it are just amazing!

It was a really good time for us to see old faces again, especially our good friends Volker, Nara and Samuel. We were able to be a part of their farewell from the YWAM Hurlach base. The interesting things is, that everyone from the old Mobile Team either has moved on or is moving on from the base. It's amazing to see God moving His children through seasons in this way. His ways are higher than our ways!

It was also a very good time for Emma in Hurlach as God showed her some things about her time in the Mobile Team and gave her closure and peace about that chapter in her journey. Thank You, Lord.

Flea Market

We also were able to take about half of our stored possessions to the flea market and we managed sell most of it, praise the Lord! Our goal was not to make money, rather to get rid of stuff, so we are very happy with the result! There are more things that we wish we had the chance to give away or sell, but our time was too limited.

Amsterdam

It came about that our friend Volker needed a ride to Amsterdam on Monday, the same day that we planned to leave Hurlach for Wehrendorf, so we decided to drive him there. We wanted to visit Amsterdam anyway, so this was a perfect opportunity. Another friend, Tilman, also came with us, which was great because he shared the driving with Ulf (9 hours!). We hadn't booked any accommodation with the YWAM base in Amsterdam, but we went anyway and were allowed to sleep on the floor with friends for one night.

The next day we attended the YWAM staff meeting in which our friends were officially introduced and prayed over as new staff/a new team for the base. Their team has a heart for the Dutch island of Curacao. For more info see http://www.myspace.com/ywamcuracao but their blog entries are only in German at the moment. We also checked out the city and had a ferry ride too! Amsterdam is beautiful, and in our eyes, a taste of Venice only more alive! [Photo: From left to right - Ulf with Samuel on his shoulders, Volker and Tobi in the front, then Salome, and Nara on the very right.]

Yesterday we drove back to Wehrendorf, only three hours from Amsterdam! We'd really like to go back for a longer visit, but we'll have to wait and see...

Christmas 2007

At the tail end of our stay in England we started to feel more and more that God was saying something about being in Australia for Christmas this year. We know nothing more than that as yet.

Travelling without a plan...!!!

Hmmmm, well we never made it to Amsterdam... Firstly the train+ferry+train deal was too complicated and too expensive and too hard to even book! Also, the YWAM base in Amsterdam, which has a 24-7 prayer room called the Tabernacle of the Nations, didn't have any room for us to come and stay, not even for one night. We didn't feel right about persuing Amsterdam any further at this time. Finally, we settled on catching a coach (bus) back to Luton to spend time with our friends Robert and Denise and their family and then fly out of Luton airport to Germany.

That's what can happen when you travel without any plans and are relying totally on God to lead the way! Our own ideas confuse us and get in the way, and it takes some time before we realize what His will is!

So we're safe and sound, back at Luton, and happy to be here. We have peace about leaving England in this way and being back in Germany soon. :-)

Blessings come in buckets at Stanford

When we arrived here at the Boiler Room in Stanford le Hope, England, we were told about a prophetic impression someone had seen in the prayer room of water/rain coming down the walls. After the people here heard this, they had the impression to place buckets around the room to catch the water! (Which they did.) On the art room wall is a drawing of a mug with water overflowing out of it and the words 'my cup overfloweth.' Someone else attached a post-it note to it saying, 'In Stanford we do buckets'! We really feel that the spiritual blessings that God is pouring out in this place have touched our lives also.

As our time in Stanford le Hope is coming to an end, we felt we should share a bit about what being here has been like for us.

First of all, the people have been amazingly friendly, welcoming and hospitable! We really have felt like we are a part of this community. Since being here, we have been to a 50th birthday party, a 16th birthday party, a hen's night and bucks night and the accompanying wedding! What a blessing it has been to be part of these people's lives! [Right: Us in front of one of the wedding cars - a Mark IX Jaguar. Our friends own it, and we were blessed with a ride home in it! (No, Ulf didn't drive it.)]

One of our biggest challenges whilst being here was our uncertainty about when we should leave. Everything is so nice here but we knew that it was not forever. We were often seeking God about the next place He had for us, but in doing so we hadn't yet grasped what He had for us here. Over and over again, God told us to 'rest' - the kind of rest that trusts in Him, and seeks to be with Him wherever we are and no matter what is happening around us. We found ourselves pulled deeper into God's heart, and allowing Him to do some more heart surgery! This was a very painful experience, but the freedom and peace which came afterward was all worth it - buckets of blessings! Praise the Lord!

During our time here we have received so much from the Lord, and another thing that He has begun to challenge us with is giving. Not just giving money (that's easy), but giving ourselves - our time, our gifts, etc., as a conscious act of worship to Him. He wants us to worship Him with our outer being as well as our inner being.

In Matthew 5:47,48 (NIV) Jesus says, "If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?"

We will probably leave Stanford le Hope this weekend. We'll be taking a train, ferry, then another train from London to Amsterdam. Woo hoo!

Pilgrimage

"Tourists travel to experience and to collect. True pilgrims travel to find something of God and when they find Him they give themselves away in worship." - Pete Greig.

London Big Day Out 10-09-07

On Monday we took the train into London. After a quick glance at the Tower of London (below)incl. Tower Bridge, we headed by 'tube' towards the 'City of London Boiler Room'.











On our way there we had a peek into John Wesley's chapel (left) and museum, which is just down the road from the boiler room.




The boiler room itself is in the basement of an office building on Tabernacle street (below). On top of that they found out that the building is on the exact spot where John Wesley had his headquarters (a factory called 'the foundary'). Seems like God likes that place and wants to 'tabernacle' there...

And that was exactly the impression that we had when we entered the basement and spent time in the prayer room. There is no daylight in that basement and somehow it felt like the whole world was shut out and there was nothing and no-one left but you and God. And we felt so at home there. We went away with such refreshment and peace, having tasted something of God's heart for the city of London.

Down the road to the boiler room (on Tabernacle St) is The Worship and The Prophet, both restuarants, so we went to check them out. The Worship looked good, so we stopped there for some lunch and Ulf had a Worship Burger!

The rest of the day was spent going from one sight to the next, and the amazing thing is that we didn't feel tired or heavy from the crowds or the noise. We just felt energized by God's presence and His love for the city. Here are some more snaopshots:

Left: Em and the London skyline.

Right: London Eye (modern ferris wheel) and the Big Ben.

Left: Outside Westminster Abbey


Right: Buckingham Palace - cool gates, but no so impressive

Left: St Paul's Cathedral - great organ music if you can catch the evening service

Right: Superman Ulf

Below: Tower of London at night.

Funny things about Thurrock

When someone around here (Thurrock, Essex, England) greets me, they say " 'Allo, ya right?", which in full is "Hello, Are you alright?" Which, to me, is the funniest way to say hello and ask me how I am. They do actually mean "How are you?" People have also said " 'Allo, ya okay?" !?!?!

Another unsual thing they say here is 'brilliant', which they use instead of 'awesome' or 'great'. To say "that's great", you might hear, "that's brilliant!" I even hear the short form "brill"!!! :-0

New Movements...?

So we've been here at the Stanford le Hope Boiler Room for three weeks now and during the third week we felt like we should be moving on. And that's what we thought God was saying to us as well (Maybe because it's so nice here and we felt guilty for staying, maybe also because if we stayed any longer then we wouldn't be travelling anymore, maybe because we felt like we're supposed to be visiting Boiler Rooms so we should move on to another one...?). The Boiler Room in Liverpool had caught our attention, so we had booked some time there from the 11th to 21st of September and this would have marked the end of our time here in Stanford. But it just didn't feel right to be going at that time. The travel costs and the length of our stay in Liverpool also didn't feel right. There are other reasons, too, that it doesn't feel like we should go, and so we have decided to stay here until God gives us a green light to go (A big one!).

Some more pics

Left: Enjoying German plum cake with Robb and Sally and their boys, Simeon, Ellis and Christi.

Right: Emma concentrating hard to remove the strings on her tie-died pillow case.



Left: Emma in one of the BESOM storage rooms, where donated items are sorted. See last post for info on BESOM, or click on 'The BESOM'link on the left.




Right: Ulf mowing the lawn.

Stanford le Hope Boiler Room 10-08 -7 to ?

We are currently visiting a 24-7 Boiler Room in Stanford le Hope, east of London, on the River Thames and we really like it here. The Boiler Room is in a 100 year old house [see photo right] and it's really nicely kept. There's a prayer room, a creative arts room, guest bedrooms upstairs, big kitchen and a dining room. We have the house to ourselves, though people come to pray in the prayer room or in the creative arts room, at regular intervals throughout the day. The people are so lovely and hospitable and inviting that we just feel at home here.

What's the Boiler Room about?

The 24-7 Boiler Room is a place where people pray at any time of the day or night. It was born out of a community of people who were engaging in 24-7 prayer regularly in their church and felt that a Boiler Room (a permenant place of prayer) was to be the next step. Many churches in the area are also engaging in 24-7 prayer in some form and God is using our 'common' need for prayer to draw people together. The Boiler Room in Stanford-le-Hope is not a live-in community, but a group of people who live in the area, who attend different churches, whom God has drawn to prayer. The main aim of the Boiler Room is, of course, 24-7 prayer, but the community is not quite large enough yet to uphold a state of continuous 24-7 prayer. '24-7 prayer weeks' are held every few months, which draws a wider community of people to prayer than just the core group. These are full weeks of 24-7 prayer, in which someone is praying at every hour and minute of that week. In order to persevere in 'the down time', between 24-7 prayer weeks, the community has established a 'rhythm of prayer', in which people come to pray at the Boiler Room at three set times a day from Monday to Friday.

Prayer builds community...

Em - My first impression of the prayer room (the Boiler Room itself) was people and community. Everywhere I looked, I saw people and the connections or relationships between people - people caring for people by praying for them. On one wall (the prayer wall, see photo left) are post-it notes and pieces of paper of all shapes and sizes with prayer requests on them. The wall is filled with people and their needs and I could sense in my heart that God cared for these people - that He was listening to their prayers. On the opposite wall is a display for the Bar'N'Bus ministry (explained below, see photo right), with paper cut-outs of the hands of all the kids that visit the bus and of the workers too. Below it is another display of people and children that attend a local preschool. The prayer request don't stop in the prayer room, either! They also hang in the dining room where people get together, in the hall, and on the walls of the creative arts room! The house is just full of prayer! And when you pray for someone from your heart, you can't help caring for that person. I think it's just how God made it to be and it's beautiful.

Prayer leads to action...

There are several things that the Boiler Room community engages with (on an individual basis) in ministry to others and this week we got involved in those things too...

On Tuesday we helped with a local mercy ministry (BESOM) which delivers household items to people in need and does things like painting and maintenance for those who need it. On Thursday night we helped 'man' a double decker bus called Bar'N'Bus (Barnabas) where local kids come for a free drink, to play board games, card games, playstation, hang out and talk, or get prayed for in a little prayer room in the top of the bus. It's great because the Christians who serve there are from at least three different churches and about 40 kids come to the bus each week! Praise the Lord!

Where are we?

Below is a map showing Luton (the blue marker), north of London, and Stanford le Hope (the orange marker), east of London. For those of you not familiar with Europe, it might help to look up an atlas (or Google Earth if you have it) to get 'the bigger picture.' The river just south of Stanford le Hope is the Thames.

We originally planned to stay here for two weeks, from the 10th to the 24th of August, but we are feeling like it might be longer! We have no idea or sense of where to go next, so we're really just waiting for God to let us know where and when.