August 24, 2006

I'm now over at YWAM Harpenden, just outside of London. I arrived from Cairo the day before yesterday, and it is such a blessing to be in this green, wet, refreshing place. I can sit around without sweating profusely, I can breathe without coughing, its so nice! I'm here for the YWAM Global Leadership Team meetings to help YWAM international do research for the Go-Manual survey. The GLT lasts 7 days, and afterwards I spend 2 days as a tourist in London before heading to my final destination, Amsterdam. It's a blast being at these meetings, I'm getting to connect with all these famous people like Loren Cunningham and others. Also, I'm getting exposed to the bigger picture of what YWAM is doing worldwide. Thank you Jesus!

Cairo was great, my team and I were able to do so much. It was difficult to say good bye to everyone, and I'm really excited for the rest of their outreach. Out of the many ministry opportunities I could be a part of in the city, I think one of the most important was the impartation we could bring to the Christian youth in many of the churches. We were able to teach and befriend many, many young people and encourage them in their walk with the Lord. I know that when YWAM leaves, its them that God is going to use for continued work in their city. They are future of Cairo.

There are so many stories I could share about my time there. Here is a brief testimony I wrote about a day when our mission was to go into Islamic Cairo and pray over as many mosques as we could for the revelation of Jesus to come:

"In the morning as we prepared for ministry and praying over mosques in Islamic Cairo, our leader gave us a word about being in great expectancy for what God would do. "Be expectant guys," she said, "who knows, maybe we can make it up to some minarets to pray over the city today." We hadn't had any luck with minarets in the past, in fact it was often difficult to get in the mosques at all, but we tried to muster up some additional expectancy nonetheless. As our group began walking the small streets surrounding the Citadel, almost immediately an Egyptian man walking in the same direction began speaking to me. I was starting to wonder what he wanted, when suddenly he said, "would you like to visit the oldest mosque in Islamic Cairo? I can take you up into the minaret from where you can see the whole city." It took me several seconds to process what I had heard. "Um, yes please," was all I could manage to say. He took us quite a way through back alleys until we came to an ancient looking mosque. They were more than happy to let us in and show us around. Out guide took us up to the top of the minaret, and we spend about 20 minutes up there interceding for the people of Cairo as we looked out over the entire city. While the other two prayed, I was able to share with our guide and teach him about God's character, the joys of knowing and serving Jesus, and about holy living. Praise God for the opportunities he provides when we are in expectancy!"

Thank you for your continued prayer and support!

SPF