May Update

Hey y’all,

I figured that I would send you my May update right at the end of the month so that you would get the full idea of what this last month has looked like for me.

Holiday

Right at the beginning of this month, with the incredible generosity of my parents I was able to go on a week’s holiday to a place called Kerala with my best friends out here. We honestly were so blessed with the favour of God and had one of the most relaxing and fun holiday’s I’ve ever had.

We travelled down on a sleeper bus overnight which was so much fun and arrived on the Monday morning

In the first two days we went to a place called Periyar and did the following:

• Elephant Rides

• Martial Arts Show (WITH FIRE)!!!!!

• Jungle Jeep Ride

• Ayurvedic Massage

• GREAT FOOD

On the third day we stayed and travelled around on a boat house in a place called Allepey

and got to have our first seafood since being out here which was amazing. They fished off the boat and got the seafood for us. We also got to swim across the lake and watch the sunset which was beautiful.

And on the final two days we were meant to stay in a certain resort but unfortunately it had flood damage so we got UPGRADED!!!! We paid a total of £25 each for two nights for rooms that cost over £100 per night. They were unbelievably beautiful and we had the most relaxed time in the infinity pool they had.

We also enjoyed time at the beach and the boys went out to find a beautiful restaurant that we went to on the last night. I had my first ever lobster and it was DELICIOUS!

The Cave

We then came back and went straight from the most relaxing week we’ve had to the busiest week.

Our Campus Pastors Luke and Sophie had been in the UK the week before at our annual church conference ‘The Cave”. Then, the week they returned was our turn. We were going to have the first ever Chennai Cave. Because I was in charge of all things worship and we changed a lot of the songs about 5 days before, it meant that I had a short amount of time to pull it all together.

Amazingly, we did manage to work incredibly well as a team and pull off a phenomenal event where people met with Jesus and connected with God in an unexplainable way.

We had stories of healing, people who gave their lives to Jesus for the first time and people who made the decision that Freedom Church was for them. It was a weekend that made every sacrifice, every plane ticket, every day away from family, every choice I’d made up to this point worth it.

Worship

I have seen my worship team grow and grow over the past 7 months but in particular over the last 4 months, worship has exploded in Freedom Chennai.

I now have a committed team of 7 people (including myself) on the team and it makes me feel so blessed that God would answer my prayers and completely exceed my expectations of what my team would look like from the beginning to now.

This is some of the locals on my team:

I also am now looking at how I’m going to transition out of worship leading in Freedom Chennai to be able to raise up new young leaders out here. So after much deliberation and figuring out who would suit this role best. Myself, Luke and Sophie came to the decision that the best person to take on worship when I leave would be Ben Abel.

He’s an incredible young man who’s been growing as a leader more and more out here and has been developing his musical gifting. He has stepped up in more ways than one and I cannot wait for him to take on what has been started out here. He’s originally from the UK team who came out here but plans to stay out here another year at least to be able to do the Freedom Academy in Chennai.

Preaching

I actually had the amazing opportunity to preach twice over the past month within Freedom Chennai. If you’d like me to send either of those preaches to you, please let me know and I will send the recording to you.

Next Steps

Finally, I thought I would let you know where and what I’m planning to do fairly soon.

At the end of December last year and towards the beginning of January this year, God began to do a work in my heart and he began to place the city of Brugge on my mind. I had thought about the possibility of moving to Brugge in the past but had never truly considered it as an option.

But more and more over the past few months, my heart for Europe and my want to support the incredible, yet broken hearts of Europe has been weighing pretty heavy and so I prayed about it, fasted, and spoke to both my leaders and family to see what they thought.

Eventually we all came to the decision that yes, this was a God thing and he was calling me to step out and step up into the city of Brugge, Belgium.

So, what that means is that I am going to be leaving India a little earlier than planned and moving to Brugge. I am going to heading back to the UK for two weeks on the 17th of August. I will be travelling around to see friends and family in the UK and then heading out to Brugge at the beginning of September.

My sister and brother in law have been amazing in offering me a place to stay with them for the first month so I can start looking for a job, planting my feet in the ground and looking for accommodation. This is a massive faith step for me because I will be going out there with no guarantee of a job, of accommodation or anything sustainable but I know that God doesn’t call the qualified, he qualifies the called. More than anything, I have seen that play out day by day in my life and I know that if he’s called me there, he will make a way.

I love you all and please let me know if there is ANYTHING I can be praying for, for each one of you. I love you, God loves you and I can’t wait to see you in two and a half months.

Ffion

#Holiday #Worship #Belgium