Sybolism

Today was a fantastic day. From beginning to end.

We started the morning Prayerwalking again. We will follow the same schedule most of the days we are here. This time the team was Harley, Will, Fred and myself.  Very quickly I found myself distracted by the beauty of what we were seeing and particularly the flowers! They are just so gorgeous!! I kept wanting to stop and take pictures of them. So I asked God to keep me focused. Instead, He turned my distraction into symbols of His attributes. As I would come upon a new flower I would think about things such as:

• He is the sustainer of all things. From the flowers to the people of this city and they don’t even realize it.
•   The rain He provides is what keeps these flowers alive. His “living water” is the only thing that is going to make these people “live”.
•    He is the “Lilly of the Valley”
•  The grass in the fields of Caenarfon may wither and the flowers that I saw might fall, but His Word will stand forever.
•   How creative God is. He made all these different kinds of flowers and He made so many different kinds of people, including the people of Caenarafon and they don’t even know it.

Then I thought of the scripture in Matthew 6 where Jesus tells the people to look at the lilies of the field and tells them that if God loves this field so much, how much more does He love them!! Again, these people don’t know this. They don’t understand it. They are totally blinded to it.

I then asked God to open their hearts and their minds the way He causes the petals of a flower to open.

I also came across a yard that was really unkept and wild, so I took a picture of that one too. It was a picture that this is what this city is right now spiritually. It’s a mess, and until Christ comes in and does a renovation on the hearts of these people, that’s how it’s going to stay. Then I took a picture of a beautifully manicured yard with beautiful flowers and thought, this is how it could be…if only they wouldn’t be so turned off to the Gospel of Christ.

It felt like such a personal time with God this morning, and I love when I get to experience that. I could more often if I would just take the time to pray such intentional prayers. I’m really excited to be able to prayer walk when we get home.

When it was time for “listening prayer” we went to the top of “Twthill”, which is pronounced ‘too-till’. It’s just a very large hill and from it you can see the entire city, the strait, Anglesey, Snowden and many other outlying areas. Words really can’t describe how beautiful it was.

Since we were technically looking “down” at the city, the Spirit prompted me to pray that God would life them up out of the “miry clay” of their rebellion, that He would rescue them and that He would make their feet like the feet of a deer so that they can walk along the high places. I love when God gives me scripture to pray back to Him.

I find it difficult trying to concentrate so hard on praying for one specific people group, but God gave me another thought. Yeah, the Welsh people are different from us…very different. They have dealt with things that we as Americans living now, have never dealt with – at least on such a grand scale. But, while we are different, at the root of it – we are exactly the same. We are all sinners. We are all broken. And without Jesus, none of us will be anything more than that.

Then another great “symbol” came to my mind. To our left and near to us was a Catholic church. To our right and in the distance was the castle. From my perspective it looked like the church was larger than the castle. Now it isn’t, but that wasn’t the point. What I began to pray was that these people would see that God is bigger and greater and way more powerful than the oppression they have had to stare at all their lives.

I could have literally say/laid up there all day. It was so indescribable. If it wasn’t such a hard climb, I would totally do it again during free time. I wish I could take everyone up there.

Then there was lunch and during a conversation with David, God revealed some hurts that I didn’t even realize I had. I even cried a little bit. But I think it was a bit of a breakthrough for me. We then did narrative mapping but nothing major to talk about there. When free time came Harley and I got some gelato (which was amazing) and hung out in the square for a while. Then, Nik, Jeannette and I went and did some shopping. We met Shirley and Andrew!! They are the sweetest couple and own a chocolate shop. She is Welsh and he is English and they live here now. We thought that was an interesting dynamic. And they definitely seem to joke with each other about this fact. We talked to them for a long time, about all sorts of things. I was ready to go home at that point so we went back for dinner. Rebecca made Sloppy Joes but they were nothing like the ones we have at home. They were ridiculous! I had 2 of them.

I got to skype with my loves at home for a little while and then we went to the park to look for some kids to engage with. Some people played basketball and I tried playing soccer with a couple girls, one being half my age! Yeah, that didn’t go so great. I did kick better than I thought I would, but I was worn out way quicker. Some younger boys had come over with their scooters so I tried riding it on the half pipes. I looked absolutely stupid, but the video is pretty funny J David kept saying the wrong word to one of the kids and we have been joking about it all night. Over here “pants” are actually underwear and the word “trousers” is meant for “pants”. So when you say pants to someone, they are going to think you are talking about underwear. Well he kept trying to tell this one kid that his “pants” were going to fall off. One of our leaders kept looking at him and whispering “trousers”, but David wasn’t hearing it so he just kept on saying pants. Once he realized what he had said-he was kinda embarrassed, but it just became something to laugh about.

We left there about 10pm. It’s so crazy how these young kids stay out so late and it’s just no big deal.  And still so crazy that it’s light until past 11pm.

Tried to take a nice shower tonight, but the showers here are interesting. It was going to scalding to freezing and there wasn’t much in between so it became a much shorter shower than I had planned.

Just sat here and had a great conversation with Jeannette and after I finish this I am hoping to fall asleep easily J

Ready for another day…

Nos Da!!