I began this blog to write about my experiences of ministry in Bangladesh and beyond. Then the pandemic began, and the trip’s delay turned into cancellation – and a new trajectory in my life began. 

I wanted to go and serve somewhere facing particular and tangible practical need, but not because I knew how to resolve this (I didn’t), rather because I longed to do something that I could do – to share in another’s humanity. Whatever else we were due to do as a team in Bangladesh, I had just one personal goal: to sit with people, to look them in the eye, and for them to feel they are not alone.

I felt that although there were many things I couldn’t do, here was something I could do. Something that others with other commitments and pressures in life perhaps couldn’t. And then the world shut down and I couldn’t do it either. 

I shelved my desire to go and serve in this way and moved on with life, but it was a desire dormant. And with God, dormant always gets activated in the end. 

In January 2022 I joined a team from Bethel Global Response and Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry to serve alongside a pastor who has dedicated his life to serving refugees and migrants in Tijuana, Mexico. Against all odds, he fulfilled his vision to build a large church building at the end of a dirt track in a small valley. Like Noah building the ark, people wondered why this pastor would do such a strange thing. But the Lord had told him nations would come. Now, his church houses the largest migrant centre in Tijuana, a large city bordering the United States. People from Haiti, central and South America all gather here as they seek entry into the US, often escaping trauma and violence in their home countries. 

We joined a team of medics from Hand of Hope, part of Joyce Meyer Ministries, to help run a medical clinic. I was placed in the dental surgery, which is ironic because I am terrible at going to the dentist. (I didn’t tell these dentists about this.)

I can’t speak Spanish. I don’t know anything about dental medicine (obviously). And because I was wearing a mask even my face couldn’t be clearly seen. But I could be present, and could show compassion. I learnt to smile with my eyes so I could extend kindness while wearing a mask that covered my mouth. I’ve not felt so alive in the whole of my year here as I did stood watching the children play football on a rocky patch of dirt by the church, or hearing people’s stories and extending honour and compassion. 

What God put in my heart two years ago was finally reactivated. My heart is burning for the Kingdom of God to come through the church in places like Tijuana. I will return on another ministry trip there in April, and if you’d like to help support me in the cost of doing so you can donate to me via PayPal.me/adventureswithgod – the cost is $300 (£228). Thank you!

If there were dreams God gave you before the pandemic, may you know a time is coming and perhaps is here right now for those to be reactivated!

I wrote earlier this year about the value of our tears. An important part of my journey with God has been learning to grieve losses, because true grief is God’s mechanism for healing the pain of loss, and tears water the ground of our lives so new hope can rise up. I went through a journey of grieving three years ago, but that’s a story for another time. What happened as a result of that season is that I actually let out the tears that were inside, and in the years since I have discovered joy in new ways.

Earlier this year I was hearing one of the pastors at Bethel Church teach on joy and I felt the prompt of the Holy Spirit, saying to me, “You’ve thought people would love you if you’re sad, but actually, they’ll love you if you’re happy.” 

Comfort is important to me, and it is an important part of healing that also strengthens our connection with others. But in this moment, I realised that I believed if I had too much joy, people wouldn’t like me as much! I love Jesus very much, and the Scriptures tell us He was anointed with gladness above His companions. He had more joy than other people around Him! Yet I would suggest that although He has also been hated, no one in history has been more loved than Jesus Christ.

I’m learning not to push joy away. I’m learning to practice laughter each day. I’m learning to make joy my home.

The Scriptures tell us that the Kingdom of God is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Joy is (at least) one third of the Kingdom of God!

This December, if you’d like to partner with me on my joy journey, please pray and consider giving for these couple of things:

> Joy for me – like many of us during the pandemic, I haven’t actually had a holiday away from where I’m living for a couple of years now. Although I’m very grateful to be living in the US, I would love to actually explore some other parts of the country than where I live. Currently, all the money that has been donated to me has gone towards tuition and living expenses (accommodation and food). I’ve planned a couple of breaks away during December, and if you’d like to help cover the cost of these you can give here or post below if you’d like to give another way.

> Joy to spread – I am just about to embark on fundraising for a mission trip that I’ll be going on to Montana in March 2022. This trip involves supporting local church leaders and being part of amazing things God is doing among the Native American people of Montana. You can donate directly to this mission trip here.

I’ve written before about my life calling – that the church would be radiant. (Read more here.) The last year I spent intentionally in an environment where I witnessed what that could look like. Bill Johnson says that he never wanted to build a big ministry, he wanted to build big people. I can honestly say that Bethel is absolutely a church and a culture where that is put into practice. 

I remember hearing a well known speaker many years ago talk about how it was not about us – we were just designed to reflect God and not be anything ourselves. This sounds all well and good – it’s about God, not about us. Tick. No problem. But something never sat right with me about this message. Similarly some will say that John the Baptist’s words ‘He must increase, I must decrease’ are to be our own prayer. Sounds great. And certainly, I would like to have more of God in my life. I’m hungry for that.

But again, are we maybe missing something? You see, Jesus said to His followers ‘You are the light of the world’. Hang on a second, isn’t He the Light of the world? Yes, He certainly is, but He says we are. And John the Baptist, Jesus said, was ‘the greatest of all the prophets, but even the least in the Kingdom of heaven is greater than he’. John had to decrease because Jesus was ushering in a new Kingdom – and those of us who know Him are part of that. John had prepared the way for the Lord, now the Lord has come. We’re not in the same season in history as John was.

We’re not supposed to decrease. We’re supposed to increase, that Jesus would be made visible to the world who misses Him. We are the Light of the world, because He is within us and He is the Light. We’re supposed to increase, because we are in Christ and ‘of the increase of His government there will be no end’.

What I discovered while studying at Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry (BSSM) was a culture where people really believed in people. No doubt, it was a culture that believed in the power of God, but the power of God made perfect in human weakness; the treasure held within jars of clay. People who believed that we can allow Him to transform us into vessels for special purposes.

This is what makes for a radiant church. And in February this year, I was asking God about whether I should return to Bethel to do a second year of BSSM. Straight away in one worship time I heard the Lord say ‘stay’. I knew deep within that I needed more time. I was seeing radiant people and I needed more time to learn from them; to absorb their way of believing and living. And so in a few days’ time I will return to the US for a second year at BSSM!

This year is already stretching me in trusting Him – I still haven’t managed to secure somewhere to live, and still need to raise significant funds – so if you are able to support me in this next step either in prayer or financially, please let me know. You can comment below and just say ‘I’d like to support’ and I will be able to contact you by email.

Thank you for following this next step in my adventures with God!

During April I was able to join a team from BSSM on a mission trip to the Bay Area around San Francisco, and one day in Santa Cruz a few of us stepped inside a store. The lady who ran the store was positioned behind the till and some of our team struck up a conversation.

This lady epitomised the culture in Santa Cruz, spiritually seeking but with very little interest in orthodox Christianity. As we spoke to her she was open but when we talked about Jesus it was like the petals started to close up around the seed of faith in her life, and her defences activated a little. She countered with ‘I don’t really think there’s a specific god, I just want to be open to the universe’ vibes.

As we were chatting, I suddenly experienced a sharp pain in my arm, near my elbow. It stood out to me as it was such a random place to get a sudden pain, and I don’t normally have any kind of pain like that. Because I’m aware God sometimes shows us something He wants to heal in someone else, by giving us a pointer of pain like this, I asked the lady about it. I explained that sometimes God spoke through showing us something He wanted to heal, and I pointed to the part of my arm and said I had a sudden pain there when I spoke to her.

She looked taken aback and proceeded to tell our group that she had fallen over in her favourite store a couple of years ago, and really hurt her arm in that exact place. She said she didn’t normally have any pain there any more but what had really been hard is that when she fell, everyone in the store ignored her. She had felt alone and no one came to see if she was ok even though she was seriously hurt. I was able to tell her that God had highlighted this pain to me because He saw her in that moment, and she was not alone.

It struck me that the Lord knows each person’s story so well – He revealed something to this lady that emphasised He is a personal God. She didn’t need convincing that there was something spiritual ‘out there’; she needed to experience that God is personal and knows her as a person.

God sees us – because He cares, and because He’s not an impersonal force but is a personal God. We are people, made in His image.

Could you help me return to BSSM to learn and grow and share good news this coming year? I am looking for supporters in prayer and finances. You can give at PayPal.me/adventureswithgod or comment here to let me know you’d like to partner with me. Thanks so much for your support!

God was never taken by surprise when humanity fell short of the glorious life He planned for them. Has it ever occurred to you that the ability to cry is a strange thing? For tears to fall on our cheeks, and for this to be cathartic, part of our healing, there must have always been this provision in how we are made. Before there was ever any sin, there was the capacity for tears. 

There is a day when God promises He will wipe away every tear from our eyes. But for now, while we walk through this earthly life, there are tears. Some people find it hard to cry. They have been taught that it’s not strong, or they have learnt that they can get more done if they can hold it in. As I have journeyed with Christ, I discover that my tears are healthier and fall both more freely and dry more quickly the more I journey with Him. 

There is an incredible Scripture found in the song book of eternity, Psalms. It says that the Lord collects our tears in His bottle. The other day I was thinking about this and I realised that in order for Him to collect them in His bottle, we can’t bottle them up. If we bottle up our griefs and never cry them out to Him and others, there are no tears for Him to collect. In order for Him to collect them, we must release them, and we must do that specifically with an awareness of Him – even if it feels He must be distant. In my experience, it’s often then that I know He has come close. 

Why is He collecting our tears in His bottle? In the movie, The Shack, God’s response to this question is ‘We all collect things we value, don’t we?’ In the story we see Sarayu, who personifies the Holy Spirit, use the tears she has collected to water the ground of the human character’s life. He collects instead of wasting. We see this trait in the heart of Jesus when all the leftover broken pieces of food are collected after He has fed the 5,000 and 4,000. In a way, it is strange that the One who has unlimited resources would take such care to collect what would easily fall to the ground and be wasted. But it is perhaps His value for what is broken. 

Have you let Him collect your tears in His bottle? Are you aware of how He is watering your life with them?

As I write, I am in my government-mandated quarantine, following my journey back from California. I’ve had jet-lag-fuelled waking hours with my head full of ideas, but thankfully night times are becoming more restful and today I’m sat reflecting on my time at Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry, pondering the things I’ve discovered and have written about in my journal. Very soon on this blog I’ll be writing about my year, about what next in my life, and about some of the things the Lord has spoken to me about. But for today I am reflecting on the opportunity to return and to reset.

Returning to the UK is returning to familiar: Dairy Milk, green fields, red brick terraces, dear friends. I am also recognising it’s an opportunity to return to some rhythms I had in my life during the lockdown season a year ago: a rhythm of prayer through the day, reading slowly, time to create. A year ago this month I gave a talk to a group (online) about the opportunity to reset. As vaccines rollout and restrictions roll back, as churches re-group and groups re-gather, now is a time for resetting. Starting again differently, with a renewed focus on why we are doing what we’re doing.

During the summer as well as working on a couple of jobs, I am wanting to offer consulting to churches who are looking to come out of covid and work in new ways with youth and young adults – perhaps by setting up ministry for the first time, or perhaps by reimagining it for the season ahead. If you know of a UK church that would like help with this, or you have it in your heart to begin something new, comment below and I’ll be in touch!

People are God’s most incredible idea and His greatest treasure in all creation! One of the things I love about the journey God has taken me on is the privilege of knowing people. And this year at Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry (BSSM) I have met some remarkable people. I want to honour a few of them today in this post, because I want you to know what makes this place so special. 

Many people hear about the ways God is moving at Bethel, and there are a few leaders here who are known across the world. Undoubtedly, the journeys they’ve had with God are remarkable and I’m learning a great deal from them. But perhaps the more surprising thing is that actually there’s a whole army of remarkable people – marked by the ‘yes’ they’ve given to God and His ‘yes’ over their lives – who make this a special place.

At BSSM where I’m a student, I am part of a ‘revival group’ – a smaller community of around 50 students – which is led by a Bethel pastor and a number of BSSM third year students. Before I made it out to California these people led some online sessions that I joined, and they were a big part of the reason for my decision to try and get out here in person, even with all the challenges of Covid. Of the third year students, I reasoned ‘if this is how your life looks when you spend two years at Bethel, I want to come out here and learn!’ Each third year student is such an incredibly gifted leader, so full of passion and wisdom.

And I want to honour our pastor, Dean Ras. I have had the privilege of working with many great leaders over the years, but even with that, there is so much I am learning from Dean. After one revival group session where several group members shared personal stories about their journeys with God, Dean’s responses brought me to tears. Watching someone display such wisdom and compassion for people, unlocking the true nature of people made in God’s image, and unearthing treasure that has been buried in the ordinary and the brokenness of life. I spoke to Dean the following week and told him, ‘Even if there was never another miracle to point to God, just compassion like you showed would change the world!’ Dean, I honour your kindness and the way you pastor people. You are part of what makes this place a city on a hill, because you find treasure inside of people and put it on display. As the light catches this treasure inside of each person, many cities are going to shine!

There is a great need for each of us who knows Jesus to connect with the heart of God for others, and begin to display His kindness. The whole creation is eagerly waiting for the children of God to be revealed, and we can begin to unearth the treasure within others today! When we recognise people’s value rather than just their accomplishments, we empower their true voice – a voice the world needs and that God loves to hear.

Who could you find to encourage and ask God to show you how He sees them?