Dusky imaginatorium goes to London

  Over the past few years, books have reigned in my adventures. I've traveled to exotic places, seen lots of incredible things, and met some wonderful people. This year I returned once more to Narnia and Hogwarts. I climbed mountains with Wild, I've solved crimes with The Fellowship of Fear, and was trapped in a maze with The Maze Runner but despite all of these adventures, experiencing life outside the pages for myself can be more dramatic and wonderful.
     So thus begins my own adventure. For the next three months, I'm off to Jolly Old London Town to work with YWAM (Youth With a Mission) to do an Arts Internship with them. We will be working through different Art Tracks such as music, drama, visual arts, dance, and fashion. Then with all the different tracks, we will put together  a performance piece to take on Outreach. Outreach will begin in the middle of July and continue through to the end of August. We will spend a couple weeks in Paris, some time in Edinburgh at the Fringe Arts festival and then in Glasgow for the Commonwealth Games. Lastly, we will be back in London to do an Arts Camp called Bones which culminates in an event called Carnival in London's Notting Hill. Needless to say, I've been excited and nervous about the trip since I was accepted in February.
     Upon arriving in London, making my way successfully through the tube system in the rain, I went to the coffee shop were I would be met by someone on the YWAM staff. Soon, Elin, who is from Finland, arrived with a big smile and a hug and instantly, all the nervous energy dissipated. We found Juliette, who is from Holland, and drove to the house. In the house, all of the interns and staff for the Arts Internship reside which means grace, patience, and a bit of organization is needed in a house with 17 people.
    When I arrived, most of the other interns had already come. We have people from Brazil, Holland, Mexico, Argentina, France, and Spain in the house. There are two other girls from the US on the team. One of them, Amanda, is one of my roommates, along with Elin, and the other lives at one of the other houses. YWAM Urban Key has three different houses in three different neighbourhoods in the city. However, they are all within walking distance of each other. We are welcomed to any of the houses at any time. Amongst the three houses, there are around 70 people involved in the YWAM base. We will come together as a whole base two times a week for worship.
       Immediately, the staff encouraged us to make the house our home and has provided such a family atmosphere. There is a sense of acceptance in the house and that people really take care of each other. The leaders of the house, Christian and Johanna, are intensely passionate about God, about reaching the city for Christ, and about the arts.
     We had our introduction to the internship and our very busy schedule. Along with training and working in our art areas, we will also be doing ministry in Camden Market, a place where there is a lot of really heavy and secular things. We took a tour of the area and you can just feel the oppression when you walk through. We will be there once a week for evangelism to pray over the area and talk with people. They have seen the impact of prayer as some of the darker shops have closed their doors since they began praying and walking the market. We will also do outreach in Soho, joining with a church who owns a coffee shop. In many ways, it sounds like it'll be similar to Coffee Van that I did in Australia; talking to people, serving coffee, and showing the love of Christ through our actions. There will also be work duties, teaching time, one-on-ones and small groups, all of which, I'm quite excited about . . well, maybe not the work duties all the time. :) We will also have French classes before we head into Paris. Chris and Johanna feel it's important we have a sense of the language as it makes it difficult to share and talk with people if you do not know the language.
    The second day of our internship, we took a tour of some of the major sites in London; the London Eye, the Tower of London, Trafalgar Square, and the London Bridge. It was good to begin to understand the public transportation and get a sense of the crazy busy-ness of the city as well. Yesterday, we went into the city centre to the Hillsong London church. After spending time in Australia, Hillsong is close to my heart. It was a great time of worship, refreshment, and even though it is a mega church, their heart for the city, for people, and passion for Christ is very evident. There's still a sense of family when you go which is unique for that big of church. Hopefully, we'll be able to frequent that church whilst we're here.
    Tomorrow we start our official schedule for the internship. Wake up at 8 and off we go to the church in Notting Hill where we spend time working on our tracks and have some teaching time. I'm excited to see what God does through our team and through the hearts of the people we come in contact with. It's been a great experience already getting to know the other people here, finding out where they come from, but also seeing their heart for missions, for people, for arts, and for the city. With Dusky Imaginatorium, we go to adventure in London . . . more to come.