Hello from Denver! We are back. Our team arrived back in Colorado on Wednesday, July 4th, just in time to see a few fireworks. It has been wonderful seeing familiar faces and getting to tell about our experiences in Scotland over the last month. I just wanted to say thank you so much for keeping up with our blog and being interested in reading our thoughts and about our various adventures throughout the country. Your support has meant so much to us and we are so thankful to have you in our lives. Additionally, I think it has been good for each of us to have documented bits and pieces of our journeys along the way. It has been helpful to go back through and read and be reminded of the things we have gone through and all that God has done in our lives and all around us.
We were blessed to have met so many incredible people along the way, including staff, volunteers, and clients at Glasgow City Mission, staff and members of Glasgow Mosaic Church, Re:Hope Church, Queens Park Baptist Church, Carbrain Baptist Church in Cumbernauld, and various others. The amount of encouragement and welcome that we received was completely humbling and really blessed us during our time in Scotland. We were also invited over to several homes to share a meal together, which meant a lot to us all. As well, I know the work at the mission that we were able to participate in was very impacting on all of our lives.
Thank you again for all of your support, thoughts, prayers, questions, and time spent following our trip in Scotland. It has been and will continue to be invaluable to us. And if you would like to hear more about any part of our time, please ask us, as we would be happy to tell you more!
Love in Jesus,
Katie/Eagleslayer :)
07 July 2012
Honey, I'm home!
Hello, everyone.
As you probably already know, we have returned from our month-long trip to Scotland. I want to thank all of you who have kept up with this thing over the last month. It's a blessing just to know that you care about us enough to read about what was on our minds and hearts. It truly has been, and continues to be, a great encouragement.
Just as a sort of wrap up of our final days in Scotland, I will share a few things with you.
On Monday night, a few of us stayed up way too late. At face value, this seems like a decision of poor judgment. I believe otherwise. The four of us that stayed up and talked shared more about what God had been showing us. Of course, we had been doing this pretty regularly in our nightly debrief time, but this late night talk may have been even deeper. I know that I definitely shared more about what God has been opening my heart to over the past six months, especially during the trip. On Tuesday, we finally cleaned up after ourselves. After our cleaning fiesta, we went to Wes and Cindy's (Glasgow Mosaic) flat to have a meal and talk with them about their ministry as well as our experiences in Glasgow. We had a wonderful meal, chat, and prayer time with them. It was definitely one of the many highlights of the month. Later on Tuesday, we all went to a pub to say our goodbyes to staff and volunteers from the mission. Talk about humbling. The amount of wonderful people that took time out of their day to come and see us is mind-boggling.
If you did anything to support our trip, thank you.
Please continue to pray for us as we are still processing through the trip and how it has changed us.
I love you all.
In Jesus,
Jerred Olen Powell
As you probably already know, we have returned from our month-long trip to Scotland. I want to thank all of you who have kept up with this thing over the last month. It's a blessing just to know that you care about us enough to read about what was on our minds and hearts. It truly has been, and continues to be, a great encouragement.
Just as a sort of wrap up of our final days in Scotland, I will share a few things with you.
On Monday night, a few of us stayed up way too late. At face value, this seems like a decision of poor judgment. I believe otherwise. The four of us that stayed up and talked shared more about what God had been showing us. Of course, we had been doing this pretty regularly in our nightly debrief time, but this late night talk may have been even deeper. I know that I definitely shared more about what God has been opening my heart to over the past six months, especially during the trip. On Tuesday, we finally cleaned up after ourselves. After our cleaning fiesta, we went to Wes and Cindy's (Glasgow Mosaic) flat to have a meal and talk with them about their ministry as well as our experiences in Glasgow. We had a wonderful meal, chat, and prayer time with them. It was definitely one of the many highlights of the month. Later on Tuesday, we all went to a pub to say our goodbyes to staff and volunteers from the mission. Talk about humbling. The amount of wonderful people that took time out of their day to come and see us is mind-boggling.
If you did anything to support our trip, thank you.
Please continue to pray for us as we are still processing through the trip and how it has changed us.
I love you all.
In Jesus,
Jerred Olen Powell
02 July 2012
Bitter Sweet
Hello from the Scotland
Well, this is a tough one to write. This was the last day serving at the mission. It has been very sad to say goodbye. But God has been moving even in the midst of us preparing to leave. Today we finished up as much of the construction we could. We were able to get the sewage line ran for the new toilet, and started dry walling the former toilet (New Office). We also had amazing talk with Andrew (Chief Exec, at GCM) at lunch. He has been knees deep in the mud during this construction task. But today during a home made lunch of Chili and Cornbread, he told us his story and how God has brought him through some terrible times, but has blessed him so much. His story was able touch many of us on a very personal level and allowed him to speak into some of our lives. We then went to serve at our final night meal. This was very tough, we have grown to really love the volunteers, staff, and clients here at GCM. There is such a presence of God in this place, its hard to leave. But our final night was amazing, a volunteer John prayed for a couple of other volunteers with shoulder pain, and they were healed. He also prayed John Favara. He said he felt a weight lifted off of him, and had peace in areas of his life he was struggling with. John also said this allowed him to feel Gods presence in way has not for years. This has been sort of a theme on this trip, at least for me. As God has brought me back to him, and felt his presence in ways I havent in years also. There has been so many prayers answered on this trip. Well agian i am writing this at 1:30am, so i need to get to sleep, we have a long day ahead of us, cleaning the housing site, having lunch with Wes from Mosiac, then we have our going away diner, where people are coming and saying goodbye, well night (well mid afternoon back in the states)
Well, this is a tough one to write. This was the last day serving at the mission. It has been very sad to say goodbye. But God has been moving even in the midst of us preparing to leave. Today we finished up as much of the construction we could. We were able to get the sewage line ran for the new toilet, and started dry walling the former toilet (New Office). We also had amazing talk with Andrew (Chief Exec, at GCM) at lunch. He has been knees deep in the mud during this construction task. But today during a home made lunch of Chili and Cornbread, he told us his story and how God has brought him through some terrible times, but has blessed him so much. His story was able touch many of us on a very personal level and allowed him to speak into some of our lives. We then went to serve at our final night meal. This was very tough, we have grown to really love the volunteers, staff, and clients here at GCM. There is such a presence of God in this place, its hard to leave. But our final night was amazing, a volunteer John prayed for a couple of other volunteers with shoulder pain, and they were healed. He also prayed John Favara. He said he felt a weight lifted off of him, and had peace in areas of his life he was struggling with. John also said this allowed him to feel Gods presence in way has not for years. This has been sort of a theme on this trip, at least for me. As God has brought me back to him, and felt his presence in ways I havent in years also. There has been so many prayers answered on this trip. Well agian i am writing this at 1:30am, so i need to get to sleep, we have a long day ahead of us, cleaning the housing site, having lunch with Wes from Mosiac, then we have our going away diner, where people are coming and saying goodbye, well night (well mid afternoon back in the states)
01 July 2012
Miracles and New Family Members
Hi all,
We are now winding down our trip. There is only two days left before we leave to return to the States and its been a flurry of activity. We've been squeezing in every last moment we have with seeing all the people that we've developed friendships with, and all of it has been both wonderful and incredibly sad. It's going to be hard to say goodbye to so many wonderful people who've blessed us so much and have poured so much into our lives with both their experience and their time.
Today I'm going to remind us a little of what this is all about. The church we've been working with, Mosaic, has recently had a new addition to its body of believers. Ali comes from a Muslim background and has been going to Mosaic for about 8 months. But in that time he's had some lifechanging things happen. The first thing he noticed about Mosaic was that one of the pastors was wearing shorts. This was so incredibly strange to him as he's spent so much time witnessing the conundrum of people dressing up for church. But if that wasn't enough he was immediatly enveloped in a big hug when he walked in. Ali is no stranger to hugs, but there was something different about the hug from Mosaic: he could tell that they really cared.
For a long time Ali spent his time in a strange place. He felt so incredibly different at Mosaic than he felt anywhere else. There was a strange and permeating sense of peace as well as new realization that he just couldn't place his finger on. There was something altogether different that didn't make sense. He spent most of that time in tears, and he didn't even know why. But what he really cherished about this time is that the people of Mosaic left him to figure it out on his own. They helped him up when he needed it, and were friends, and made him feel that it was altogether safe to go about investigating this in his own way.
It wasn't long before Ali found his way into a bible study called 25th Hour led by a Romanian named Ovi. Ovi's passion was to use film, story and art to try and find ways of connecting with the bible. Ovi and Ali quickly became good friends, and Ovi was able to come alongside and help Ali wrestle with many of the tough questions he had. And all the way the realization that this was just a better form of life than he'd ever had, that it was real and strange was growing inside Ali. It was a difficult decision. Ali loves people, and he loves his family especially. The last thing he wanted to do was to hurt them or cause them pain, but he knew the decision he had to make. Today Ali shared that he has given his life to the Lord, knowing fully what it might cost. He's asked for the support of the entire community of Mosaic because of the overwhelming way in which they've loved him.
It was incredibly special to see this event happening in our midst. God is truly a God of miracles. Even on Friday I was myself feeling caught in despair seeing so many people trapped in the bondage of bad decisions, alcohol and even just guilt: unable or unwilling to make any kind of decision that would lead them to a new and better life. To see Ali quickly and powerfully drawn to God just proves that He is still very much active. But it also shows the value that the church has and what a community of love can accomplish.
Best,
John
We are now winding down our trip. There is only two days left before we leave to return to the States and its been a flurry of activity. We've been squeezing in every last moment we have with seeing all the people that we've developed friendships with, and all of it has been both wonderful and incredibly sad. It's going to be hard to say goodbye to so many wonderful people who've blessed us so much and have poured so much into our lives with both their experience and their time.
Today I'm going to remind us a little of what this is all about. The church we've been working with, Mosaic, has recently had a new addition to its body of believers. Ali comes from a Muslim background and has been going to Mosaic for about 8 months. But in that time he's had some lifechanging things happen. The first thing he noticed about Mosaic was that one of the pastors was wearing shorts. This was so incredibly strange to him as he's spent so much time witnessing the conundrum of people dressing up for church. But if that wasn't enough he was immediatly enveloped in a big hug when he walked in. Ali is no stranger to hugs, but there was something different about the hug from Mosaic: he could tell that they really cared.
For a long time Ali spent his time in a strange place. He felt so incredibly different at Mosaic than he felt anywhere else. There was a strange and permeating sense of peace as well as new realization that he just couldn't place his finger on. There was something altogether different that didn't make sense. He spent most of that time in tears, and he didn't even know why. But what he really cherished about this time is that the people of Mosaic left him to figure it out on his own. They helped him up when he needed it, and were friends, and made him feel that it was altogether safe to go about investigating this in his own way.
It wasn't long before Ali found his way into a bible study called 25th Hour led by a Romanian named Ovi. Ovi's passion was to use film, story and art to try and find ways of connecting with the bible. Ovi and Ali quickly became good friends, and Ovi was able to come alongside and help Ali wrestle with many of the tough questions he had. And all the way the realization that this was just a better form of life than he'd ever had, that it was real and strange was growing inside Ali. It was a difficult decision. Ali loves people, and he loves his family especially. The last thing he wanted to do was to hurt them or cause them pain, but he knew the decision he had to make. Today Ali shared that he has given his life to the Lord, knowing fully what it might cost. He's asked for the support of the entire community of Mosaic because of the overwhelming way in which they've loved him.
It was incredibly special to see this event happening in our midst. God is truly a God of miracles. Even on Friday I was myself feeling caught in despair seeing so many people trapped in the bondage of bad decisions, alcohol and even just guilt: unable or unwilling to make any kind of decision that would lead them to a new and better life. To see Ali quickly and powerfully drawn to God just proves that He is still very much active. But it also shows the value that the church has and what a community of love can accomplish.
Best,
John
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