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.