What a summer it’s been! I finally realized that if I try to write a monthly newsletter I will at least get a quarterly one out. So here is the summer edition.

It’s interesting to now have been here longer than any other period of time I’ve spent in the UK. I’m entering new territory and finding myself both excited and uncertain about what the future holds. Settling in here has been a good and stretching season. I’ve been looking for a church since I arrived, and as I mentioned in my last letter, have really missed my home church and the many spiritual ‘mothers’ and ‘fathers’ I had all around me in Portland. Just two weeks ago I finally found a church I felt at home in, but I’m definitely a minority there as the congregation is mostly African and Caribbean. It gets a bit wilder than Father’s House, but I love it!

Work continues to challenge and excite me. I’m getting more and more used to working from home (and had to more since we lost the use of our donated office space in London in May!) and have seen my work grow to fill as many hours as I care to spend on it! One of the highlights of the summer was having the International Prayer Team’s once-a-year face-to-face meeting. One of our team came in from Canada and one from Switzerland to meet up with the rest of us that are based in England. There was such as sense of destiny as we prayed together and talked and strategized about the things we’re working toward this year. It’s hard to imagine what God could do when already we’ve seen over 7,200 prayer rooms registered on our website since 2000, and prayer in at least 103 nations to date. It’s incredible and humbling that He has brought me to this place at this time to be part of this movement!

My biggest project right now is helping to coordinate Magnify, 24-7 Prayer’s international gathering. We only hold one ever two years, but this one is especially significant since this year was 24-7’s tenth anniversary. We’ll be celebrating that landmark, as well as looking ahead to the next ten. I’m particularly excited that it’s being held in Edinburgh, my favorite city in the world, next to Portland. I was incredibly blessed to be able to join a team from Portland (made up of some of my best friends) in Edinburgh two weeks ago so we could set up a prayer room in conjunction with YWAM’s annual ‘Shine’ outreach during Fringe, the world’s largest performing arts festival. You can read an article I wrote about the trip here and see some of the pictures from our trip here (and while you’re at it you might as well look at the pictures from the rest of my summer here, including time spent in London, Chichester, Brighton, with friends and there’s even a picture of a coffee cake I made and a snapshot from our office move)

Answered Prayers…

Before I share with you some things to be praying about, I just wanted to give praise to God and encourage to all of us all that God has already been answering our prayers! Here are some things I asked you to pray about in my last letter that I’ve seen God answer:

 ▪ Relationships to be built and strengthened as I establish myself here.

Since my last letter I’ve had some great opportunities to spend time with friends within the 24-7 Prayer family in other cities, whether through work or play, and towns and really start to feel connected in relationships within Reading.

▪ Household items…I still need several things (a bed frame, a dresser, a desk, a free-standing closet/wardrobe)

When I last wrote I was struggling a bit with feeling at home and getting settled. A few weeks later, after praying with some of my girl friends about how I was struggling with so much transition and not being able to even afford furniture or a proper bed, two of them surprised me by showing up the next weekend with a van full of furniture and some cans of paint and gave me a beautiful bedroom makeover! I can’t tell you what a blessing it was to be so loved and cared for and to be able to spend my time since in my little space of pretty serenity. It was such a sweet reminder of how God knows just what we need and how best to provide it!

Prayer Points…

Here are some prayer points for those of you praying for me. I’ve got a few pressing things that I could really use your agreement through.

▪ Provision: My financial situation is incredibly tight. I am still looking for a second job but have not yet been successful. I am facing some serious financial challenges since our lease is up at the end of August and my household is moving. We are currently about £300 (roughly $500) short of what we needed because we had to go with a more expensive house than we anticipated being able to find. We don’t have anything else to go to, so we really need God to work a miracle between now and Friday!

▪ Moving: I find moving incredibly stressful, and having moved many, many times (this is 39 in 35 years, and the 8th move in 2½ years!) I am having to work very hard right now not to let anxiety of financial stress and uprooting again get a hold of me. It's a struggle right now and it's to the point that I’m not sleeping peacefully. Please pray for God's peace, and the ability to truly trust God with this situation.

▪ Please also continue to pray that God will bring older, seasoned prophetic and apostolic people into my intimate circle of friends, and for spiritual mothers and fathers that walk in wisdom and to whom I can go to for counsel and prayer.

Thank You…

Once again I just want to say thank you to all of you, my friends and family, who stand with me, pray for me and even support me financially. Please believe I really do feel all the prayers and love, and I really, really miss you all. In closing let me leave you with the prayer from Ephesians 3, which is my prayer for you…

“For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.”