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