August Newsletter!

Dear Family and Friends

I hope you are keeping cool this Summer.  For those of you in America, please keep Europe in your prayers as we continue to see heatwaves that are now causing serious fires as well as deaths due to the heat in many countries across Europe.  Here in London, it has cooled down a little, but it is still way above temperatures that most people are used to so people are suffering and the country is now in drought.

I am now 9 weeks post-surgery and my incision has healed praise God, and I have had my first week of radiation.  I have radiation Monday–Friday for 3 weeks.  The main side effects of radiation are skin irritation and exhaustion.  So far I am feeling good but I would appreciate your prayers for the next few months regarding this because the side effects are normally worse at the end of radiation and for weeks or months afterwards.  Also, please continue to pray that my gene results come back negative!

I have been working over the past 4 weeks, which has been so refreshing for me.  July is normally a month where we begin to pause regular meetings to allow August to be a time of rest and refreshing before the new season starts with church courses, missions, university terms and a lot more!

Two of the meetings that have been put on pause for me is the monthly cluster I have with some of our female campus(university) missionaries across Europe.  These ladies are heroes as they engage with university students across their cities leading them to Jesus and helping them grow in their relationship with Him and raising them up as leaders to pass on what they have received!

Another meeting that has been put on pause is my Connect Group.  These ladies are a part of my church community from different countries living and working here in London.

We also had a few weeks of World Cup fever here in London.  With so many nations represented in the city and our church, we have had BBQ’s after church, watch parties at people’s houses and when England played against Argentina, Dina and I decided to join a group of our university students at a local pub to cheer them on.

Some of our students have been graduating over the past few weeks.  One of them is Nix who was studying at the London School of Fashion where she also had to present 2 designs at a fashion show for her final presentation.  Nix is here in the white shirt with those of many of us who came to support her on the day.  One exciting thing about Nix, is that she is taking a gap year to intern with us starting in September.  She is one of 7 young interns taking a step of faith this next year to pursue God in a deeper way and exploring whether He is calling them into full-time ministry or preparing them to be ministers in the workplace.

I’ve also continued to plan a campus mission to Bournemouth with one of our churches in the south of England that will take place in November.  We are praying that this mission will launch their campus ministry as we engage with students for the first time at Bournemouth Universities.

There are a lot of other things happening behind the scenes at the moment with church that I am excited to share with you in the coming months.

Thank you again for all of your prayers and support – I need it and feel it!

Lots of love

Traci