A massive Update!

OK, so it should come as no surprise to people that it as been a very long time since I have posted an update! Sorry I am so bad at this...anyway here it is!

Three weeks ago Hywel and I got married, it was and incredible day and I enjoyed every single moment of it, it truly was a dream come true and a day where God truly blessed us and we were able to let. all present know that Jesus was the reason for all of this!

My mom and dad, represented both my family and those I love back home in Canada, it was so great having them here, I miss them so much and we had so much fun together, and it finally bridged everything by them getting to meet all of Hywel's family, meeting my UK friends and seeing where we live! They then continued on for a two week bus tour of Ireland, which they thou roughly enjoyed.

After the wedding we went to West Wales and spent a week for our honeymoon in Hywel's parents cottage, much needed and enjoyed relaxation time. There cottage is in the middle of gorgeous countryside and near to the ocean, so it was ideal.

Now we are enjoying settling into our new little rented house, Hywel is back at Uni for his final year, and whilst waiting for my visa to be approved (can't work without it) I am going to try and make the most of this down time. I have been accepted onto the Billy Graham Emerging Evangelists Institute (for those back home that is the same course that brought the UK evangelists to Halifax for the Franklin Graham Festival). It was such a great week of learning, fe,fellowship and encouragement! There will be a couple of these each year and lasting over two years, so if you could keep that in prayer and all of the areas surrounding that also I would appreciate it!

hmm...I think that is pretty much enough to sum up the last couple months, I really miss all of you back home and hope it won't be too long until I see you again. Please, if for any reason you would like to come to the UK to travel or visit, make sure you are in touch and come and have a visit/stay!!

Stay in touch!

Love and Prayers!

Colleen Tyler

OK, just a quick update...I am moving to Cardiff Wales on June 16, 2008. Hywel and I are getting married on September 6 in Cardiff and that is where we will be living for at least the next couple of years. Would be great to catch up and see people before I go, and would really love to stay in touch while I am away!

...anyone want to come to Wales???? :)

Staying in Nova Scotia

Right...I have realizes how much I have neglected my blog, so here we go...If you read the post just before this one it will explain the background a bit more. I had been waiting to start the job in LOndon, and after some work permit complications we (the Church in London and myself) decided that the route to go would be to apply for a missionary visa. I had been so excited looking forward to this new chapter in my life and the things that God had in-store, however I have recently received the notice from the British High Commission that my missionary visa had been denied!
I am in a place of confusion at the moment (less now than a couple weeks ago), this came so out of the blue and at the moment I am trying to figure out and hoping to hear from God what I am to do next. I mean obvious at the moment that I am staying here in Nova Scotia, but beyond that.
So, I am trying to adjust and really praying that I can find a way to serve and be useful while I am here. Thank you to all of you who have been praying, and on the positive side, I will get to visit friends a little more often now!

Now a proper update...I have been offererd and accepted a job as youth director in a church in London. I am really excited about this and and just working through the technicalities before I can start. At the moment I am waiting for my work permit (which I am praying and believeing is approved!!!). It's been processed but has been held up because of the UK postal strike, so we think it should come this week. I am flying back to Nova Scotia on Monday, Oct 22 to then apply for my work visa so I will be home for a visit until December 2, so it would be good to catch up with a lot of you! I would greatly appriciate your prayers that all these permits, visas, etc are approived and that everything goes smoothly so that I can get back to Londona and start working and serving...so exciting!!!!





Awwww...intoducing Lilly Rogers, Ruthie and Matt's little baby girl, she is SOOOOO great, such a happy content baby!







I hadn't seen Jess in a long time so getting to hane out with her and JOn was great, I thank God for all the amazing friends that I have!















mmmm,,,,,turkey! Jess and I cooked a Canadian thanksgiving dinner for Jon and Hywel!

Ok, some more pictures! This is Hywel and I at the Millenium Stadium in Cardiff on our way to watch Canada play Fiji in the rugby world cup...sadly Canada lost, but it was great being there!!

---The dog is Millie. Hywel's new puppy, her and I have been keeping each other company during the daytime, haha, I guess that classes me as a puupy sitter? Anyway, she is doing well and up to three tricks, not that anyone really is concerned about that!

Some more pics of Wales, and Cornwall!

Polzeath Mission July 2007

So, the update! The mission in Polzeath Cornwall was amazing! It was to be 10 days of mission and outreach activities on the beach and to support the launch of a new church in the village.

We all had out plan and ideas of what would be involved with the mission, which would include, litter picking on the beach in the morning to clean up all of the rubbish from the hundreds of teens that party on the beach nightly, to sports activities on the beach, surfing, conversations with passing people, outreach in the pubs, and helping with whatever we could in the church to get it ready for opening up to the public.

But all of this changed (well we still did do a lot of these activities too). We had some time getting to know fellow team members on Saturday and then met with Chris (one of the co-directors of the Tubestation Church) he basically laid out for us the vision of tubesataion and how as part of their outreach they want the church to be relevant to the community it is trying to meet as well as to not be at all aggressive in their outreach approach, but rather to build friendships with the people so that they then feel safe to come into the church.

The church is awesome!! They have totally transformed a little sleepy village chapel which only had a few members into a cool, friendly and welcoming place fitted with a half pipe at the front (inside!!) open for people to come in and skate, a wireless internet café and just a chilled place to relax in off the beach. It was such a blessing to help them put the finishing touches on things and getting to know the team that works with the church.

As a mission team we met in the morning for a time of devotion and prayer, and also in the evening. We all really bonded and it was awesome how God worked in each of our lives and hearts throughout the week. In the very beginning I felt that God was putting it on my heart that we all needed to be praying a lot and to let Him lead us in the things that we should daily be doing as opposed to trying to set out schedules and routines. I shared this with the group and there were others who felt the same thing. This was massively confirmed in the fact that Chris and Henry from Tubestation really didn’t have any massive plans for us other than some small finishing jobs around the church, they just asked that we would pray and have a blessed week, to just step back from out jobs and daily routines and enjoy life.

This proved to be a bit of a challenge for some of us who were totally gun-ho to get out there and tell everyone we could about Jesus, but we had to respect they ways in which the church there was doing outreach sp as not to get in the way of the work they had already done. So prayer we did, and it was amazing. We all spent so much time praying and listening to God and it was immense! Made me really realize how much more time I should be dedicating to this in everyday life, because although prayer can sometimes be hard or you can think there are other things you could be doing, it is such the foundation our building our relationship with Christ as well as they way to help know what to do to make a difference in this world!

As a team we also led the church service on our last Sunday there, which was cool. The first Sunday of our mission they had us up to the front and different members of the church came up to pray for us and really commission us in the week to come. One of out team members, Hywel, just was looking out amongst the mostly empty church and just picturing it over flowing with people. Well sure enough after all kinds of prayer, the next Sunday (our last Sunday) the people just kept coming!!! There was standing room only, Praise God! We also had time to share testimonies and I shared about a dream that I had where God spoke more about prayer as well as lifting oppression (if you want more details on the dram you can ask me afterJ).

I was very thankful for the team we had, we were all so diverse with many different gifting and backgrounds and we just gelled. It also is amazing when you share a house with the same people for 10 days of prayer how you can see changes already happening in people’s lives. Some were set free from things that had been binding them from their past, some discovered their faith in a new and real way, and others were given a time of rest as well as discovering new gifts. Our God is such an amazing God!

I also had the opportunity to share my faith with a guy one night at a pub, and at the end of the conversation he was like: “you know this has been a great conversation and what you have had to say makes a lot of sense, I am really going to take that on board and think about it”. I was so stoked for God giving me that opportunity, and at the end of the conversation I told him that I would be praying for him, and challenged him to pray to. But the even more amazing thing is the next morning after litter picking my friend Sarah saw him on the beach and got to witness how God answered the prayers that we told him we would pray. Seeing what happened she went over to him and was like: “and what did we saw we would pray for!?” He was totally stoked and thankful and responded to her by saying “keep the faith!”

God is on the move. And He moves sometimes in different ways than we expect, but it is His call and we just have to be ready to respond to it however it comes. I am very thankful for this opportunity and the ways God worked through the prayer, and the actually seeing of strongholds on that place being broken down. It as such a powerful time that twp girls from the team have stayed on there and another two people are heading back there in a week! And the team at the Tubestation were grateful for the prayer. They had been going full out to get the Tubestation ready to open to the public and were completely shattered. They said the actually felt lifted in prayer during the week and that it was completely the right timing for the mission and that they were sorry if it wasn’t what we all expected but it was defiantly what was needed.

I am very excited to see what God does in this little place! I mean there is such a lack of hope in the young people that come there to party night after night in the summer. Literally hundreds of teens pour out onto the beach and street in the evening. There is a really steep hill leading down to the beach from one of the pubs, and one night while praying Hywel and I were headed up this hill. Stumbling towards us was this young teen guy, all of a sudden he stacked it and fell in the middle of the road smashing his face n the pavement, he wasn’t really getting up so Hywel went and helped him before the oncoming car hot him.

He was so sadly drunk, and now his face was all bloody. We helped him down the hill and I went in search of a first aid kit, the poor guy had smashed his front tooth too! We sat with a couple police officers and convinced him that he should call his parents to come and get him and take him home as opposed to continuing partying with his friends, he finally listened. As we sat waiting for his folks, we chatted to him about life and choices and the fact that he was blessed that night to not of hurt himself worse, we will continue to pray for him and hope that the seeds planted help him to choose a different path in life!

On the 18th – 26th of August I will serve on another 8 days mission in Hastings, so the summer of missions continues! I also need to find a job as my money has run out, so if you could keep that in prayer I would appreciate it. But I am not too worried, God is a big and loving God and not only does he provide us with opportunities He supplies the equipment for them!!

I love and miss you all back home and I really appreciate all the prayers!

Love and Hugs!
Colleen

Ok...the long awaited update!

This past week I was up in Blackpool at the Easter People Festival, it was amazing. The week started off with the challenge of feeling distant from God, just like it was hard to get involved, I was having a blast catching up with lots of friends from past missions and events, but was longing, to spend some good time with God, and that wasn't happening.

I decided that I just really had to push into it, and pray, and just believe that nothing was going to keep me from experiencing what God wanted me to that week, and it worked!

It just seemed like there was so many mountains and road blocks in the way, but God came in and just obliterated them one by one, it was awesome!
I had anticipated doing a lot of street outreach while I was there but in fact I didn’t end up doing any but rather spent time in other venues drawing closer to God, I am very thankful for the chilled out week where the organizers actually wanted us all to have time to enjoy ourselves!

One night while I was in worship I just felt this intense heaviness, I tried to ignore it but it just wouldn’t go away...so I decided I should find someone to pray about it with...instantly I knew that should be Lindsay (gosh her and her husband Alistair are amazing!) when I found Lindsay (in the chilled out spontaneous venue) she suggested I just go lay down on some cushions for awhile and pray and listen to God and then once she had put baby Esther to sleep she would come back and pray with me.

This was an amazing time; I just lay there, prayed, listened, sang and cried to and with God! I saw this picture: it was like down on the promenade, but really could and can be anywhere...I saw a bunch of people and we were all trying to push away at the darkness, which was trying to crouch down and snuff us out, but we were ready to stand strong together with God and increase the light in the place, it was powerful...especially to think that at the moment throughout the massive place where the festival was being held there were five different praise and worship sessions going
on!

Also the next day someone had a picture for me, of what God wanted for me and how much he loved me, it was absolutely beautiful!!!

There were some great times as well hanging out with my fellow road-trippers, and especially the amazing time that Sarah, Hywel, Laura and I all had hanging out together...thanks for the memories! God's going to do amazing things in the lives of these people and I feel very blessed to know them!

...So, I ended up getting sick at the end and had a fever, but nothing will overshadow the fact that God changed my life yet again, and simply blessed me with an amazing week that I will never forget and will look back on for encouragement and smiles in the future...

There really is more to tell as well, but I figure, how many people are actually going to read all of this long post as it is!!!?!?!

Love and Prayers!Colleen

Day 2 In London (Wed, April 4, 2007)

Wow, God truly is Amazing! Today was day two being in London and it so made me happy to be here!

It stared off by me getting to go and have lunch with my incredible friend David. I really cherish people, who have a great heart and are caring, and this guy is, and funny, might I add! I used to work with David at Share Jesus International, and bless him he is quite hectic at the mo, sorting all the stuff out for the Easter People Festival next week.

Wednesday evenings is when I used to go to Connect Group (my small group from Hillsong Church), well Megan sent me a message last night reminding me about it and that I should come, so I did. Gosh, it was lovely to see those awesome people again, and to celebrate the Passover and going into Easter the meal that we all had was a roast lamb dinner (ha-ha…yea, I don’t typically eat lamb, for those of you who I have talked about this with before). And then after dinner Phil and Amber had set up an Easter egg hunt for us!

The best though, was after we all had are chocolate and sat down, we shared communion together before the study. It made me realize even more how much of a loving God we have! I mean who would have thought I would have been able o be back over here in England again so soon! My God made a way, He knows the desires of our heart and He wants to see us happy, why then does it seem so often I (and lots of other people) have such a hard time trusting Him? I mean its not like He is going to mess up our lives, what God had to offer is WAY better than any of us could do on our own.

Anyway I will stop rambling; I am just really happy and thankfulJ

Hmmm….I wonder what lays a head!?!?!