Day 51

I’ve been helping the Rocke’s on a Wednesday mornings, to do anything that needs doing in the barn that they are converting. I haven’t done anything back breaking and wonderful yet but I have been painting and varnishing. My time with them is brilliant. I am welcomed into their family, I get to know all of them a little better and I get to look out over the beautiful views they have over the valley. I put the Ipod on with worship songs and thankfully the family go out shopping, working or to school and I can sing at the top of my very bad voice and praise the Lord!!

Please pray for the Rocke Family – Tim, Jane, Hannah, Will, Jamie, Johnnie and the baby bump (which is due at the end of July), please pray that the family can get ready for the imminent arrival of the baby (which they still don’t know is a boy or a girl), pray for the family to work well together and communicate well whilst different members of the Rocke family travel and work during the summer, pray for the whole family as they get used to the routine and stresses of welcoming guests into their guest house and finally please pray for the baby that it is delivered safely, is healthy, is welcomed into the family and is blessed by God from its first breath.

Day 45

My planning has been a little all over the place for the past 3 weeks because of the Prayer Walk “Overlord” which has been taking place in Normandy, run by John and Yvonne Pressdee. http://www.prayerexpeditions.org/?Walks:2007_Normandy_Beaches

I have managed to join in with 6 days of the 18 days that the team has walked, mainly on thursdays which are my days off. This isn’t as many as I would have like or had planned, but it was a privilege just to do the little I did. Prayer walking is something I had never really heard of and can’t really define. I would never have believed someone if they had explained it to me.

The days that I did…

Day 1 - Pegasus Bridge and Museum, Commissioning on old Pegasus Bridge with WW2 Veterans, Walk to Ranville Cemetery

Day 3 - Juno and Gold Beaches: Langrune sur Mer to Arromanche

Day 10 - St Jean de Daye to St Lô

Day 16 - Walk around Lisieux; home of La Source Church, Evening Celebration at La Source

Day 18 - Argentan to Mont Ormel, the Polish Memorial

Day 19 - Final morning celebration at Twelfth Century Church of Reconciliation in Coudehard, Finish at Museum, overlooking the Falaise Gap

Prayer walking isn’t anything amazing in terms of technique, length, qualifications, and spirituality: it is just a group of people getting together and walking as they pray.
The main principles around prayer walking are
*Prayer works and releases the power of the Holy Spirit
*God can change the effects that the past has on the present, through the power of the Cross of
Jesus
*Walking and praying can change situations and bring healing to the land
2 Chronicles 7 v 14
if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land
*Humility and apology disarm not only individuals and nations but principalities and powers too

As you walk through a country, or in an area we pray for its people and government, its history, its present and its future. We believe that as we walk and pray, we can ask God to bless and bring healing to that land. Prayer walking isn’t just about walking, or just about praying, or even the cumulative effect of the 2 put together: Prayer walking is personal, collective, powerful, joyful, renewing, painful, releasing, empowering, challenging, prophetic and spiritual warfare.

Please pray for John and Yvonne Pressdee, for their family and their church in Green Street Green (Bromley, Kent - www.gsgbaptist.org.uk), pray for all of the team; every person who has taken part in the walk weather for one day or the whole 3 weeks – that they will continue to walk with and battle for God, please pray for the future of Prayer Expeditions as John has threatened that this will be his last walk now he is 65!, please pray that the work that has been done during the last 3 weeks bears visible fruit as well as winning spiritual battles in the heavenlies, pray that the church in France rises up and within the next 5 years we see French churches doing the same walks fighting for their own church….

Day 41

In my study recently I have been looking at study, simplicity + solitude and submission + service. The first 2 weeks if this were fine but the last week hit me really hard. You would be surprised perhaps that Richard Foster considers some of these, and others I have previously listed, to fall under the category of "disciplines". You think to yourself ‘But that's so easy! I love doing that! How can you call that a 'discipline' if it's not hard and painful?’ Except that what comes easy for some people comes hard for others. To me, solitude is like a refreshing drink when I'm dying of thirst. To some, spending even a short time alone is "a fate worse than death." Therefore, I have found some of the things which the author discusses very easy to do while others have been more of a challenge.

Next week I am going to go over the concept of Christian Service again: this is a chapter which has really challenged me and I think that especially considering the role that I have at the moment through mission placement that I need to examine this in my heart.

As a Bless student I signed an agreement which contained the following explanation:

The P.A.R.I.S. framework for service in mission

The PARIS framework has been developed as a simple and memorable training tool to emphasise that all effective mission needs to be based on an attitude of a servant heart. The framework forms the basis of all Year2Bless and Go2Bless programmes, and asks participants to reflect on five core values.

#5 SERVANTHOOD is the concept that brings all the rest together. It is an easy thing to talk about, but is hard to deliver when you are tired, homesick, stressed, nervous, hungry and well past the end of your tether. Servanthood is the belief that the success, comfort, personal fulfilment and spiritual development of others come before your own. Servanthood recognises that whilst a mission trip may do you good - in terms of experience, development, growth, enjoyment and satisfaction - its primary purpose is to do some good in the location to which you have travelled. There is mutual benefit in mission, but there is also a clear sense of priority. Servanthood captures the ‘kenosis’ or self-emptying of mission attributed to Jesus in Philippians Chapter 2.

Philippians 2:5-8
Your attitude should be the same that Christ Jesus had. Though he was God, he did not demand and cling to his rights as God. He made himself nothing; he took the humble position of a slave and appeared in human form. And in human form he obediently humbled himself even further by dying a criminal's death on a cross.

This, and the chapter in the book, have really challenged me.

Please pray that as I approach this coming study day that I may have and open heart to what God wants to teach me, that I am able to see my faults and sins but also that God is gracious and helps me to see that His help and support is always available and His mercy will always help me to move forwards and change. Please pray that what I learn and hear from God goes into my heart and I have a true understanding of this that manifests itself in my daily life and attitude.

Day 33

The church has a mystery photo of the week. Can you guess this week's?

http://eglisedelasource.fr/component/option,com_wrapper/Itemid,39/

Day 26

Today was a Family service at church: theme was mothers as today is Mother's day in France!!

http://eglisedelasource.fr/component/option,com_wrapper/Itemid,39/