Joy in the City Birmingham 2006

What a way to finish the year 2006. I participated in OM LUKE (Love United Kingdom Evangelism) outreach in Birmingham right after Christmas. The team consists of 40+ people from 14 different countries, 4 of them including me are from down under. It's good to hear from Aussie accent English once again. The outreach is very short, 27 Dec - 3 Jan, yet we were so encouraged by the testimonies we heard.

During this short week, we did many things together. Street evangelism where we gave out tracts and talked to the people on the street. I've learnt that it is not as hard as I thought it was. Birmingham is a melting pot of many cultures. There are a lot of Muslims who live here and most of them are very open to talk about their faith.

Open air performances were done in the public area, face painting to attract the kids, sketch board message & etc. One Muslim man I've spoken to believes in Jesus Christ is a prophet. I asked him does he believe everything that Jesus said? He said Yes. Then I asked him, Jesus said, ' I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. ' He was caught off guard, then he told me he believes every best part of humanity. I gave him a gospel tract and asked him to read it. On other occasion, I got to pray for the people I talked to.

Not all conversations went positive, one man who picked up that react from me. Stopped, after reading it, shouted at me quoting scriptures. The conversation went wrong when he started telling me some obscure theology about we are cells of God. His face was getting really close to mine and I could smell his alcohol breath. One team member came to the rescue and he left. Later, I've found out that other team members had similar experience from the same guy.

OM LUKE is partnering Birmingham Christian Centre for the outreach. BCC is part of the Elim Pentecostal churches in UK. Majority of the congregation members were from African and Jamaican backgrounds although there are many other nationalities represented in the church. The style of worship was very different to what I used to. I have never heard the song, 'You have made me glad' sung in a gospel style, very different. It was like Whitney leading worship.

What encouraged me during that week was that some non-English speaking background members working with LUKE. One of them told me that her English is not as good but believes that God brought her here for training and equipping her for the ministry back home.