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Questions? Email dana.byers@bluedoor.tv. See you soon!
If you would like to come but feel finances or lack of time would prevent your trip, e-mail dana.byers@bluedoor.tv so we may add your name to our confidential prayer list.
I sent an e-mail to our prayer team earlier this week and we’re already seeing the positive results of those prayers! We’re gaining a sense of which LC.tv OPEN churches we’ll visit in August, had a wonderful 9am GMT Internet Campus service this morning, and tonight’s experience at The Open Door was very good as well.
While we did not have a large group, we had nearly all different attendees tonight and a ‘seeker’. This person liked the experience, plans to return, and has asked for prayer this week. There was a good sense of community and many, many positive comments about the message on “Habakkuk: When God Seems Unfair”. The feedback was the best we’ve ever had, in fact. We are also thrilled that 3 different people have now agreed to help provide live worship on occasion for The Open Door – something we’ve been seeking God in prayer for since February.
We’ve been processing every detail of this evening in our living room with Jayma this evening and are pleasantly surprised to discover that – even though we’d assumed it would be young families – the demographic we’re reaching and attracting is consistently single people in their 20s and 30s. This is good for many reasons, one being that we can actually hold off on providing children’s programming until a need arises. We’ve been seeking a children’s ministry leader but see that God’s not yet provided as it’s likely not going to be needed in the immediate future. Always very interesting to gain another piece of the puzzle…
We’re truly encouraged by tonight’s attendance, participation, and response to the message. I took a few photos to upload to our blog, but we continue having connection problems and I’m unable to get it done tonight. I’ll try getting them up again tomorrow. Just wanting to leave you with this update before I head to bed…YAWN!…
Love and thanks to each of you for your prayers!!
Well, we had a great evening at The Open Door tonight – but we didn’t even really have our service! From 5:30pm on we offered coffee and biscuits to the many people walking past. Everyone was friendly, but no takers. It was obvious that the large banners hung outside drew much attention from people walking past, and two young ladies who could not stay did drop in to ask me for information about The Open Door so they might return.
We had 8 adults and 5 kids attend – all friends who’d attended our previous two experiences. Some people wisely recommended we worship then gather to pray for the ministry and direction in reaching lonely, hurting, and spiritually lost people in London during the message time. The children joined us as we sat in a circle in prayer. We’re encouraged to come home tonight having faced this spiritual battle with prayer in community and gaining additional hope and anticipation for God’s plan as a result.
Thanks to you for being in prayer for us as well! We learned loads from walking through a new experience set up tonight, having one week of serving coffee to the community under out belts, and having had the practice of going through key parts of the service in preparation for next week.
God is good…all the time!
If you’re checking in before NOON OKC time, please pray through our needs below. I’ll post an update after the service!
* That people walking past our coffee gathering outdoors at 5:30pm (11:30am OKC) would be drawn to attend.
* For the Holy Spirit to prepare men’s hearts before they walk in the door to hear the saving message of Christ tonight and respond by committing their lives to Christ.
* That the Habakkuk (When God Seems Unfair) message would challenge and change those of us who are already believers.
* For God’s chosen people to volunteer to lead the children’s ministry and worship at The Open Door.
* That those volunteering in tonight’s service would be blessed by their participation and selfless service to the Lord.
Today we fulfilled a promise made to Blake last April - to ride the London Eye when we were back in England. Jayma (one of the family now) joined us for the ride.
We’re very excited to have our friend Keith from Wales (moving here in September) staying with us tonight. He’s come in town to attend and volunteer at The Open Door tomorrow night!
We’re preparing this week for the beginning of the Habakkuk series at The Open Door at 6pm, located at Hillside Church. I wish all of you could join us at 5:30pm in the car park for coffee and at 6pm for the service at 37 Worple Road, Wimbledon SW19 4JZ!
Please pray along with us for a good turnout so many people learn the Truth and put their hope in Christ.
It’s been fun settling in last week and beginning this week with a routine. We were able to resume Skype chats with our families last night but continue having temporary Internet connection problems. The issue is not the Internet service rather our cable company. You probably wouldn’t believe the issue if I told you – add it to the list of everyday things that cannot be done simply when you’re living overseas! Thank goodness Chris is creative and is on the case as usual.
Yesterday we had a sweet reunion with friends at Hillside Church and enjoyed sharing in their last week of One Prayer, during which the church viewed Craig’s One Prayer message, “Lord, Make Us One”. The theme of churches encouraging each other in ministry has launched us into deeper conversations between Chris and me and Hillside leadership to confirm the path for The Open Door (LC.tv Network Church service being held at Hillside) in its early stages. Please pray for our wisdom to we know what God would have us do regarding the extent of our connection to or autonomy from Hillside.
Happy First Day of School to our Blake today (see pic below of Blake in school uniform)! He woke up excited about beginning today and (though clearly exhausted when we picked him up) had a wonderful first day.
Chris joined some guys from Hillside Church on a bike ride Saturday morning (see pics below). 20 miles later he came home limping. Our return to walking as transportation (and now biking, for Chris) has us huffing and puffing away those pounds that magically appeared while in the US!
Since we began our new family schedule today, Jayma spent the morning with Mackenzie at home and I worked for a few hours. We’ll do this 3 days a week so I may focus with Chris on our 3 points of ministry: The Open Door, Expanding LC.tv’s 9am GMT Internet Campus service, and promoting LC.tv’s OPEN program in the UK. Because our Sundays are so full from start (LC.tv 9am GMT Internet Campus service from 8:15-10:30am), Hillside Church (10:30-12:30pm), The Open Door (4:30-??), we’ve established our Fridays every week as our family Sabbath on which Chris, the kids, and I spend the day together. Hoping that keeps the peace!
It seems God’s steering me more in the direction of fewer updates on our blog as the ministry expands here. We’ll likely roll our blog into our Blue Door Ministries website in the near future and include regular updates there for you/donors to read. We’ll also begin sending monthly prayer requests to those who joined our prayer team while we were in the US. (If you did not return a donor card to us having checked the “I’d like to be on your prayer team” box, send me an e-mail at danabyers@yahoo.com and I’ll add you to my list.)
We are thrilled to have had 3 surprise contacts this weekend from people we do not know but who are interested in attending The Open Door in Wimbledon! I believe God has been preparing others’ hearts to attend The Open Door these past 3 months as well.
Those are all of my scattered thoughts for now! I will post again as news happens and as our Internet connection allows! 
Have you seen our daughter’s missing pink sandals? We put them outside our first night here and the next morning they were gone…
Actually, later that day detective K found one of them back in some trees at the back of the yard. Though, the strap had been removed and the second shoe was still missing.
I had an idea of who the culprit was but wasn’t sure…until I looked out the window last night to see a red fox standing on top of the neighbors shed.
So keep your food and sweet smelling girl’s shoes inside. The foxes might eat them.
…apparently 10,000 foxes live inside the bounds of London / 16 for every square mile…
As of this morning, all have arrived in the UK. The Byers made it on Sunday and have been settling in (including some pain getting internet connected). We have seen a few friends and have been getting used to UK life again.
This morning Jayma arrived without any problems and made her first bus trip to our home.
We will be in touch more over the next days.
Thank you for all of your prayers over the past months. We have been excited about God’s work and look forward to all that is ahead.
Chris
