East Africa Outreach: Luton Outreach

December 18 – 22, 2011

On Sunday, we left the base around 9am for a church service in Luton. The church is New Covenant Fellowship church and it’s a fairly new church (only two months). Taryn and Bianca helped lead worship and afterwards, everyone participated in a skit of the Christmas edition of Family feud. The fictional characters (Santa Clause, Mrs. Clause, an elf, Rudolph) played against the Biblical/Historical characters (Joseph, Mary, a shepherd, a wiseman). And the question of the game was, “What is Christmas all about?” In the skit, the fictional characters win with answers like shopping and presents. Afterwards, Peter preached a sermon on the true meaning of Christmas and the idea that God still speaks today, not just 2,000 years ago. After the church service, we were served a wonderful meal and waited until late in the afternoon to head over to another church for a carol service. When we were dropped off in the front of the church, we were wondering if we were meant to go in or not, as the door was closed. But according to Immaculee 'the door [said] welcome' so we went in and prepared for the service.

On Monday, Eva and Henrique (leaders of the church) drove us back to the church where we started with some prayer and intercession (led by Peter) for the city of Luton. Afterwards, we drove to a church members house for lunch (which was absolutely amazing) and continued with praying for that house and the church’s original design. Needless to say, we were all pretty wiped after that day. When we got back to the base, we had to say goodbye to the beautiful Thailand team who were leaving that night.

On Tuesday, we got to the church, got some tea and headed to The Mall in Luton. We got out to a square just outside, Taryn pulled out her guitar, and we started to sing Christmas and worship songs on the street while others were handing out flyers for the new church. Twice, in between the songs, Peter made a quick speech of the meaning of Christmas and where all of the outreach people were from (England, Brazil, Canada, United States, Germany, India, Rwanda). After another glorious lunch from Eva, we finished the day with more intercession and worship (led by Rebecca).

On Wednesday, we spent the morning with some more intercession for the city of Luton and England. In the afternoon, we went out with some more flyers in the surrounding neighbourhood of the church and gave out flyers to the houses. Sarah and Kaitlin met some sketchy houses and a few of us actually got the flyers (as we were putting them through the slot) attacked and taken away by barking dogs. Later, a few of us went to The Mall to pick up arts supplies and candy for the children in the orphanages that we’ll be going to in Rwanda and Ethiopia.

Thursday was our last day for outreach in Luton. We spent the first half of the morning praying and had some more worship (led by Rebecca). The last half of the morning, Eva’s daughter came to help us with our dramas and teach us some new ones for Africa. Last year she went to a performing arts DTS in Chile and had to learn almost 20 different dramas for her outreach. After lunch, Rebecca, Kaitlin and Sarah took a digestive nap next to the radiator (it's best to lay on the left side for maximum digestion). Later, we went back on to the streets of Luton and began singing Christian Christmas songs while Peter preached the Christmas story in between the songs and some handed out more flyers. The people in Luton were even more receptive to the flyers than they were Tuesday and would even stop for a few comments before they left. There were lots of people interested in where the church was and when it started, so we're excited to come back from outreach and see how much the church has grown in that time.

There are some cool testimonies to be shared that we’ll get up later in the week. But on Christmas day we leave for Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and we still need to see some more funds come in for our leaders, Immaculee and Richard. Please be praying for us as we leave! :)

Signed, Immaculee’s Babies