Doors

For some reason couldn't sleep this morning, probably all the cheese I ate last night. Took this shot this morning, I am thinking it's one of my best yet.

Merry Christmas

¹In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

²The same was in the beginning with God.

³All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

⁴In him was life; and the life was the light of men.

⁵And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.

⁶There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.

⁷The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe.

⁸He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light.

⁹That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.

¹⁰He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.

¹¹He came unto his own, and his own received him not.

¹²But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:

¹³Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

¹⁴And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

Christmas summer report!!!

Sorry I haven't blogged in a while and now an epic!!!! This is an abbreviated version of our summer report, hope you enjoy it?

While statistics and numbers never fully tell a story, hopefully they do help to give an idea of the scale of our summer activities.

We have attempted to break down the different aspects of what we do, to help you understand a bit more of what happens and how we try to show love to the people where God has placed us.

The Centre

The centre was open for 24 weeks, from May 3^rd until October 22^nd , 5 days a week. Taking into consideration the quieter months of May and October we have on average 100 people a week dropping into the centre every week.

The introduction of Wednesday afternoon head, feet and hand massages for the girls was another popular addition. Dancers, female bar workers and prostitutes all received equal treatment. Some liked to chat but most liked to sit quietly, giving our girls the opportunity to pray quietly for the person they were treating.

The prayer room was renamed ‘The Chapel’ this year and was well used during centre hours. We talked and prayed with people in all sorts of different circumstances, including a lady working here as a prostitute who popped in weekly to sing and worship with a few of our girls.

Sunday night services and Prayer Meetings

Last year, we recognized the demand for a Sunday evening service, particularly from the Nigerian ladies that work here as prostitutes; we decided to offer this as another way to bless the people that we are developing relationships with. This was very well attended, not just by the Nigerian girls, but a whole variety of workers. The formula was simple and people seemed to gain real encouragement from this time. Our maximum number was 45 people, but on average we would say about 20 attended; most weeks at least 5 of these would be working girls. We have stopped the service for the winter months, but plan to recommence with the return of seasonal workers next May.

Street Work

The four main aspects of our streets work are prayer, rescue, bibles, and conversation.

Prayer

We cannot emphasise enough that everything else we do is founded and dependent on consistent and long term prayer.

Out on the street people will often share honestly and deeply about where they are at. We will always offer to pray for them; as many people decline as accept, but we have some beautiful moments to pray for those that accept. Some complete prayer request forms - over 300 people did this - but as much as we can, we try to pray with people then and there and those ones are not written down. This year we prayed with some people who gave their lives to Jesus, a guy’s knee was healed after prayer and many people took the opportunity to talk to God about their fears, worries, hopes and dreams.

While half of the team are out on the streets, the other half are praying back in the centre. On this split shift system, a group is praying for at least 4 hours – 5-6 in the busiest months - each night that we are in the West End. At a bare minimum, taking into consideration a minimum of 4 people praying at any time, this equates to at least 1600 hours of prayer

This prayer is the engine behind everything else; this continual talking to God is what drives us forward and keeps us safe. Many times, things are ‘unlocked’ in the prayer room – we are inspired to pray for specific situations or worries that people are in, and we walk out onto the street and encounter people in exactly those circumstances.

Rescue

On advice from the British consul in Ibiza we kept a log book of noting the people we took back to their hotel or hospital - those we drive and those we walk or take in a wheelchair.

These people are drunk, drugged, lost, disorientated, vulnerable, injured or distressed; sometimes alone, sometimes struggling to get home with friends. We find a lot as we walk around; others we respond to through a phone call from a worker or bar owner. We also receive calls from the local health centre phoning us to come and help; this could be to take someone home who has received treatment, help someone to get to the main hospital across the island or to help with communication problems.

This year with the van we recorded 235 of incidents involving 444 people. On foot/ wheelchair we recorded 124 incidencts involving 207 people.

In total we dealt with 359 separate incidents, helping 651 people. Each incident lasts for a minimum of 30 minutes up to 2 hours, occasionally longer where a trip to A & E is involved!

Bibles

This summer we had custom made version of The Message New Testament to give away; the front cover has a title “Jesus loves Ibiza”. We gave away 700 of these Bibles this summer, putting many of them into the hands of people who would not call themselves Christians. We had very positive feedback about the Bibles, people read them in the street, others took them home and then asked us about specific passages later on.

With every Bible we gave away we tried to write a personal message in the front to the recipient – a word of encouragement, a scripture to read - this also meant we were thoughtful in our approach to distribution.

We also gave away around 100 full copies of the Bible to the Nigerian ladies; they like to have a copy for themselves and some send them home to family in Nigeria. We probably could have given away even more than this; at the end of one service 4 girls were fighting over the last 2 Bibles.

None of us have ever before witnessed a fight for a copy of the Bible!

Conversations

One of the things we do the most is talk to people, often just about their work or their holiday. We have lots of these conversations, some brief, some longer, some intelligent conversations others through drunken slurred words. We believe that quantity time we put in on the streets leads to quality moments. It’s important for us to take the time to chat to and listen to people week after week - often being heard is what people need most, and only after they believe that you listen will they talk about the deeper things in their lives.

Teams

With a resident team of just 3 adults, our longer term summer volunteers were invaluable. Neil, Christine and Claire joined the resident team for the whole season; Poppy, Jud, Abby and Katie came for 2/3 months each. We could not have managed without them.

Seven other teams joined with us this year, beginning with a prayer team of 6 people who came for one week in April to pray and lay spiritual foundations. This team helps us to focus spiritually and remind us of why we do what we do before we launch into the hectic summer.

From June to September we had 6 two week teams, bringing us 47 volunteers from England, Ireland, America, Australia and Germany, who all helped and served admirably. These teams gave themselves to prayer and street work for 8 of their 12 nights here and also danced and prayed in clubs, hung out on beaches, got to know workers and worshipped and prayed in various spots around the island.

In total there were 60 people who came to serve the work in one way or another. Without them the work of 24-7 prayer in Ibiza would not have moved forward; we need these people.

I am not an art critic, never have been. I would have loved to study history of art and I do enjoy painting. When I was younger I studied art at college but got asked to leave!!!

But I find that Art speaks to us, or artists speak to us through their art. I love the fact that we can all have a different interpretation of the same piece of art.

Egon was a very gifted artist he died young and had some mentoring from Gustav Klimt and they were friends, he died of influenza in 1918 aged 28.

What I like about his work is that I feel he paints it as it is. He actually reacted a lot agaisnt main stream art at one point likening it to potyomkin villages.

According to the myth, there were fake settlements purportedly erected at the direction of Russian minister Grigory Potyomkin to fool Empress Catherine II during her visit to Crimea in 1787. According to this story, Potyomkin, who led the Crimean military campaign, had hollow facades of villages constructed along the desolate banks of the Dnieper River in order to impress the monarch and her travel party with the value of her new conquests, thus enhancing his standing in the empress' eyes.

I feel that much of todays culture is like this, hollow facades!!!

life Transformation Group part 3

Life transformation groups was a boring blog series, I've scrapped it. Not doing the group just writing about it.

Hope you like the photo of me with my serrano?

Here are all the questions we ask each other every week to keep us focussed and growing as disciples:

Love God (live a life worthy of your calling)

1.Am I receiving God’s love for me and growing stronger in my relationship and obedience to Him? Am I daily seeking and listening to Jesus, intentionally spending time with Him, and involving Him in every aspect of my life?

(Different ways on different days)

Love One Another

2. Have I loved, served and preferred others above myself, specifically those closest to me? How can I grow in this? Have I withheld forgiveness, remained frustrated or damaged another person with my words?

Love The World

3. Am I taking opportunities to share Jesus and reproducing my life in others through making disciples? Am I praying for and remembering the sick, hurting and needy? Am I informed about global issues and seeking to advance God’s Kingdom in the nations of the earth.

Integrity Questions:

4. Strongholds and Patterns: Am I pursuing freedom from destructive patterns, strongholds and hopeless areas in my life? Explain.

5. Sexuality: Am I honoring God with my sexuality? Have I lusted after anyone and not valued God’s image in them? Have I exposed myself to sexually alluring material or allowed my mind to dwell on inappropriate thoughts?

6. Money: Am I being a faithful and generous steward of my (God’s) money and possessions? Am I worrying about or being controlled by a love for money or materialism, instead of trusting God?

Bible Reading and Prayer Questions:

7. Did I do my Bible Reading this week? (30 Chapters)

8. Did I have a daily personal rhythm of prayer this week?

9. Did I faithfully and regularly pray by Name for at least 3 people who are not yet in a relationship with Jesus?

Life Transformation Group part 2

As a disciple of Jesus I must love my neighbour, loving one another has to be at the core of who I am

Jesus said:

"My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you."

Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. (John 15:12-13)

For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. (Matt. 6:14)

Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building other up according to their needs. (Eph 4:29)

So here's the question we ask with regards to loving one another:

Have I loved, served and preferred others above myself, specifically those closest to me? How can I grow in this? Have I withheld forgiveness, remained frustrated or damaged another person with my words?

It's a challenge but once again something we need to get into our bones. Remaining frustrated, with holding forgiveness or damaging others with our words can happen so easily. We need to stay on top of our game with this one.

Loving, serving and preferring challenges self!!

I to be better at loving others.

Life Transformation Group part 1

There are 9 question sections to a life transformation group, bascially this should take you about an hour to an hour and a half every week. You should get with 2 other people and it can be done anywhere and the group does not need a leader or monitoring from some outside source. You just need a very basic commitment to honesty and living in the light. The idea isn't that you listen then provide answers and solutions but that you listen and allow each other to find their way.

This is about living a life worthy of your calling, basically "If I believe what the bible says I need to get busy in making it a reality in my life".

The first part of any life Transformation group is this.

"Love God"

This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. We love because he first loved us. (1 Jn. 4:10; 16;19) Come to me; hear me, that your soul may live. Your face, Lord, I will seek. (Is 55:3; Ps 27:8)

If we truly our His disciples we should be constantly growing in our understanding of His love for us and maturing in our love for Him.

So to ensure that we do this and are progressing in this the first set of questions we ask are these:

1.Am I receiving God’s love for me and growing stronger in my relationship and obedience to Him? Am I daily seeking and listening to Jesus, intentionally spending time with Him, and involving Him in every aspect of my life?

It's a big question, and you will find there are different ways on different days in which you receive His love. Once you get the question into your bones you will start to think about how you receive God's love, you will be challenged to get alone with God on a regular basis, to pray and ask God to be in every part of your day.

At first it can all feel a little contrived and wooden but my encouragement to you would be to keep going with it.

If you need any clarity feel free to ask.