Saturday, August 18, 2007

For those still reading...

I have had a lot of emails and people asking me if we ever found the Harvey's. The answer to that question is yes. They ended up having to take a flight the next day because one of their trains to the airport became delayed. Just thought I would put ease to any concern anyone might have still had!

Friday, August 17, 2007

Last Pictures...

Mike in front of Wimbledon (it was closed when we got there)








In front of The National Gallery (we saw DaVinci's, Van Gogh's and many more)







The Royal Observatory in Greenwich











Standing on the Prime Meridian (Mike in the Western Hemisphere and Nicole in the Eastern Hemisphere)










The church we went to on Sunday night (It was amazing!)








Eating in a 13th Century Pub (The Bear) in Oxford








Christ Church Cathedral and College








The Stairs in Christ Church where they filmed some scenes from Harry Potter (pretty sweet!)










Mike's meal at Wagamama











Standing in a Covent Garden cobblestone street

Pictures (Day Five & Six)

Haging Out in the Park


Some of our ladies dancing in a park


Joni taking a ride on the tire zip line


Mike and I at Tower Bridge


Standing next to the Royal Guard (No Fuzzy Hats!)

Thursday, August 16, 2007

More Pictures (Day Three & Four)

1.) Mike flipping one of the kids we worked wit











2.) Katie snipping some hair for the sock puppets the kids made










3.) Measuring out some hair for another sock puppet








4.) Listening to the Imam speak at the Mosque we went to.






.

5.) Sydni helping some girls put their stuffed pillows together.











6.) We prayer walked in this area in East London

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Pictures...Finally!! (Day One & Two)








4) Our team inside the Gurdwara








5) A very nice neighborhood in Ealing








6) Stuck in a tight space in the boot (trunk) of a van








7) Playing with the kids outside in the car park








1) Flying over London... You can see the Tower Bridge if you look closely.








2) A Sign for the Tube ride








3) The HUGE Sikh Gurdwara that we visited

Sorry that they are out of order. I don't know what happened!

We're Back!

As sad as I was to leave London, England it feels nice to be sitting at my own computer right now writing this!
We had a fairly smooth flight home and arrived right on time. It didn't take us long to get through customs and all our luggage made it from Heathrow to LAX. The only thing missing from our flight were a couple of Harvey's. Yes that's right apparently we lost them somewhere in Europe (J/K). Ron and Rene Harvey were supposed to be on our flight with us, but they never showed up for the flight. We asked a flight attendant if she could check and see if they made it on, but she told us that was impossible. At this moment in time we are still not sure if they are still in Paris, London or California. I'll let you know later when I post some pictures. I'll try posting some pictures (the ones that I can) a little later and throughout the next few days!

Monday, August 13, 2007

London - Almost Home

Ok, I've got just over 9 minutes on some way over-priced internet so here we go. Yesterday we cruised all over and checked out the Royal Observatory in Greenwich where the longitude is 0' 0' 00'. We also took the tube to Covent Garden where our hotel is. The place is pretty cool, really simple. Last night we checked out the market area of Covent Garden which is very cool. We also attended church at Holy Trinity Brompton. That was a really awesome and refreshing experience. We looked forever trying to find a Wagamama to eat at, but everything was closed early on Sunday and we couldn't find one anyways. So we ended up at McDonald's.

Today we took a train up to Oxford. It was great to see some of the English countryside you always hear about. We took a bus tour of the city and got to tour Christ Church and the Cathedral. We also checked out this really cool bookstore called Blackwell's. It looks tiny from the front, but is pretty huge inside. We headed back to London and did some shopping in Picadilly Circus. Then, we FINALLY found a Wagamama near there. We just had dinner there a little bit ago and are now back at the hotel.

Tomorrow we head back to California! This has been a great trip, but both of us are now about ready to be home. We have lots of stories to share and can't wait to tell many of you in person.

-Mike and Nicole

Saturday, August 11, 2007

London Day 8

Well, we've only got 2 and a half more days here in England and then we head back home. We're now in full-blown tourist mode and have been checking stuff out. Today we went to the Tower of London, Tower Bridge, Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, Tate Modern, Trafalgar Square, National Gallery, Wimbledon (it was closed), and Chelsea Football Club stadium (the store there was supposed to close at 6 and was closed at 5:55....we're trying to get Nicole's brother a jersey.....back tomorrow). Tomorrow we move to our hotel in Covent Garden and will be doing some shopping. We're also hoping to attend services at Holy Trinity Brompton tomorrow night. On Monday we head to Oxford and then Tuesday is back home. We may not blog until we're back in California. Keep praying for us even though the "official" ministry is done. Also, pray that we don't get any more sick. I'm almost at 3 weeks now of having this cold and Nicole seems to have caught it too.

London Day 7

We finished up our ministry projects in the morning. It felt like we had just started them. Had a great time with the kids. Then, we had a picnic with the ladies who had been learning English and their kids. It was pretty cool. We had this fried chicken which tasted like Pioneer Chicken - a place I used to go to when I was a kid. There were also some different foods that the ladies had prepared and shared with us.

After the picnic, we headed to one of our hosts' house for a final debrief and dinner. It was a really good time of closure for the trip as we discussed what God had shown us. We also were able to hear from two newer believers who are from a country that would severely persecute them if the wrong people found out about their faith. I told Nicole that I was impressed with how much this believer had grown in the last year. She's more mature than most American Christians who've been believers for 20+ years.

It was a great time of ministry. I was also able to talk with one of our partners about a potential high school ministry trip back to London. I'm excited to begin to think and pray through the possibilities. London '08 may be coming.....

London Day 6

We had Thursday off for a day of touring London. It was great because we were pretty wiped out at this point. Ron went off golfing with a friend while most of the rest of us took off in a big group. Nicole and I split off after an hour or so. Here's everything we saw that day: Picadilly Circus, Leicester Square, Westminster Abbey, St. James Park, Big Ben, Houses of Parliament, London Eye, Buckingham Palace, the British Museum, Kensington Palace, and a Starbucks. Don't be too impressed with the amount of stuff, we didn't go in to too many places. We were able to go into the British Museum where we saw the Rosetta Stone, some sweet stuff from Egypt, Greece, and Rome along with some actual mummies. We tried to see Abbey Road but had a hard time following a certain person's directions. We spent a long time that night trying to find just the right place to eat and ended up at an Italian place in Ealing at around 9pm.

London Day 5

We spent the morning doing our ESL project and kids club at St. John's. We had A TON of kids that morning, but it went well. After lunch, we met up with a couple missionaries who had spent some time in Riverside a year or so ago. We prayer-walked a neighborhood in East London where they are doing ministry among the Vietnamese and Chinese population there. We also handed out some more prayer experiment cards there. Following that project we spent some time at the missionaries' home with some great snacks and time to hang out. Nicole had a chance to call home from there and talk to her mom (who didn't know who it was at first). One cool thing that happened there was we realized we had helped furnish a missionary house for this family while they were in Riverside. We had no idea who they were at the time, but they were able to use some of our furniture for a few months. Also, the Beechens had given them some plates that they'd had since Katie was small and we actually ate off those plates. Pretty cool.

Tuesday, August 7, 2007

Day Three & Four

Monday - We began our ministry project today. We didn't know what to expect as we arrived. How many children we would have and what they would be like. Our first day was pretty rough. We had about 14 children and there were about three older boys who were very defiant when you told them to stop doing things. We began outside with a game and they all seemed to be pretty responsive and enjoying the game. As soon as we stepped inside and they sat down on this inflatable furniture that was there they went crazy! They wouldn't listen, I had to raise my voice a lot and Mike had this look of defeat and frustration on his face. They finally seemed to settle down after we took the inflatable stuff away and we bribed a few with stickers. We all seemed to be tired at the end after only two hours with them. We decided to tweak our plans for teh next day and try to focus on that.

Afterwards we all hopped on a bus (which we take everywhere, multiple times) and road to a place called Ealing Broadway to exchange money. This took quite a while as this was a place that had the best exchange rate. Some of us ate Subway (others ate some other sandwiches) while we sat in a park.

When we were finished eating we took the Tube to South Kensington and walked over to Kensington Gardens. In case you are wondering this is the park where Kensington Palace is, former home of Princess Diana. There is a large Iranian population in this area and we took about an hour and a half ans prayered walked and passed out some cards to people. We were able to mwalk bym the Iranian Cosulate and pray for the people of Iran. The people of Iran are a very open people right now to hearing about Christianity. When we were finished we met back up in the park and walked over to Harrods. Now I'm not a shopper, so I wasn't very excited to go there, but it was very interesting. One, I felt extremely underdressed. Two, there were more Mercedes parked in the front than I've ever seen in my life. And three, the Saudi women were dressed extremely expensive while weqaring the scarves over their heads and black dresses to the floor. We're talking diamonds and gold on their scarves. It was amazing to see!!

We didn't get back to our hotle until about 9:30 or 9:45 and then we ate dinner. It was a long, tiring day, but fun all the same!

Tuesday - Today we had a great day at our ministry project. It was much more mellow and we made sock puppets which the kids loved. They were also much more engaged in the story and singing time. They all love to play with playdough and color and paint, so that makes it easy when we do those activities.

After our ministry project we took a bus to the other side of Southall and ate lunch at McDonald's. It was not the best, but I'm also not a fan of American McDonald's so that's not saying much. Across the street from the McDonalds was a Islamic Mosque. We were able to sit down in the room they pray in and speak with the Imam (he is the pastor-like guy who leads the church) and ask him any questions we would like. He is very intelligent and he is also a very young Imam at only 27 years old. He explained many things to us and was very open to our questions.

This afternoon we will be prayer walking again in another part of Ealing. I believe we will be praying mostly for the Somalians that live in this one Estate (this is what we would call the "projects"). It should be a good time!

Continue to pray that God would move the hearts of the people in London, especially in Ealing. Also, especially for the groups that are more closed off to hearing about God, such as the Somali and Afghani people. We thank you so much for you prayers already and know that they have been a HUGE blessing on us while we've been hear in London.

Sorry the post is so long, I'll go now!

-Nicole

London Day One/Two

Ok, so if you've been checking this blog, yes we did make it here and sorry we haven't posted. This is pretty much the first chance we've had to get to some internet access. The trip has been pretty cool so far. Let me walk you through Day One (FYI - I hate this keyboard, evidently British keyboards are spaced differently and I keep hitting the wrong keys).

Friday Night - we got to the airport and got on the plane with no problems. For some reason I thought it would be easier than it was to sleep for about 5 hours on the plane. So we kinda slept off and on for a few hours. That's about all I have to say about the plane ride.

Saturday - We got to London around 2:30pm, Local time. It took awhile to get through immigration and get all the stuff loaded in our hosts' vans. A couple hours after landing we'd ridden the Tube and made it to our hotel in Ealing, London. Had a nice dinner and then attempted to sleep for the night.

Sunday - We went to church in the morning at an Anglican church called St. John's in Southall. That's also the location of our ministry projects this week. Enjoyed the service. The regular vicar wasn't there, but the guy filling in was very funny, down to earth, and did a great job making things clear for visitors.

After church, we grabbed lunch at an Afghani restauraunt. It was my first time having Afghani food....nothing too weird, pretty good stuff. Then we headed out to a Hindu temple for a tour/observation. There was actually some sort of worship service in progress which hasn't usually happened to our hosts. It was interesting, but also a bit strange to observe. There are so many different gods that the Hindus are counting on to pull through for them. It was weird being in the back of the room observing all this.

Next, we cruised over to a Sikh Gurdwara for a tour. I wasn't too familiar with Sikhism before this trip, but it's in some ways a blend between Hinduism and Islam. There is a book that they believe is the Living Guru and everyone faces towards it during times of worship. You have to be sure the bottoms of your feet don't face it while you're sitting there. Both men and women cover their heads and remove their shoes while in the Gurdwara.

Following the Gurdwara tour we headed to one of our hosts' home for sandwiches and dessert. It was a good time to relax after a long day.

- Mike

Friday, August 3, 2007

Today is the Day...

We're off to jolly old England in just a few hours. We will try to post pictures and thoughts as often as possible while we are gone, so keep checking the blog! Cheerio!!

Thursday, August 2, 2007

I'm Going Too!

Nicole has reminded me a few times that I haven't posted yet on this blog. I'm finally getting to it know. I'm excited about the trip. I am a little nervous about our ministry project, but not too seriously.

Here are some things I am hoping happen:
  • I hope that the experience of running a kids club with mostly Muslim kids will be one that God uses to stretch me.
  • I hope to explore if this would be a good trip to take a high school team to sometime in 2008.
  • Along those same lines, I'd love to make some sort of youth ministry connection in London. That's not in any of our official plans, but I hope that happens so that we might be able to network for a future training opportunity. I'd love to do a one-day PDYM seminar in London next year.
Keep praying for us!

Friday, July 27, 2007

What will we be doing?

I wanted to take a little time to let you know what exactly we will be doing in the great city of London starting one week from today.
We have one large team of 13 people going. Seven of our team will be teaching ESL classes to women of different people groups (mainly Somali and Afghani women). The other six (which is the team we are on) will be running a Kids Club for the children of these women. As of right now it looks as though we will have close to 36 children (ages 1-12). We have lots of fun things planned and lots of stories to share with them. We are not allowed to speak about Christianity with them because they come from different religious backgrounds (mostly Muslim). We will be running the club for 2 hours a day for a week and I am sure doing other things in between. We will also be visiting a Sikh Temple, a Mosque and a Hindu Temple at the beginning of the week, I assume to give us a feel for what these people believe in. This part is a little scary, but quite necessary in order to better understand the lives we will be encountering while there.
We are getting more excited each day!
Please continue to pray for our health before we leave and while we're there.

-Nicole

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Oh! That yucky feeling!!!



For anyone who is already reading this blog, please pray for our health before we go. Mike is pretty sick right now and I am feeling the sickness coming on. Not good since we leave to travel to London in a week and a half. Thank You!!!

-Nicole

Saturday, July 14, 2007

Why London?

You may ask yourself, "Why are Mike and Nicole Lovato going to London?" Or maybe you haven't even thought about it at all (that's okay, we forgive you).

About 5 months ago there was a little announcement that our church was doing a mission trip to London in August for a week. I passed it over without much thought. The next weekend I saw the announcement again and this time I read it a bit more thoroughly. I decided to begin praying about what God wanted me to do for this trip. Was I supposed to go? Was I supposed to give money to it? What? I ran it by Mike and I told him that if I went I would love it if he could come too. We both prayed about it some more and finally decided that God had in mind for us to go on the trip. We sat down with the pastor who is leading the team and he gave us a few more details about the trip and the dates of the next meetings and we were off and running.

Our teams consist of two groups (which I will explain in a coming post) and a total of 13 people. Three of the people are students, which I am more excited about than anything. We will be mainly working with Muslims, Sikhs, and Hindus.

I know that God has called us to go on this trip and that everything will work as He has planned! We are still trying to raise a bit of money for our trip, so for anyone who reads this please be praying that all will be provided before we leave on August 3rd. Thanks!!

-Nicole

Friday, July 13, 2007

London Countdown


We leave for London in 20 days. Three weeks from right now (at 9:45pm) we will be about a little over one hour into our ten hour flight to jolly old England! We will try to keep this blog updated while we are in London and we will also try informing you of the ministry we will be doing while in the beautiful country of England!

-Nicole