Hello Everyone!   We’re beginning our fifth month of our mission in the UK.  There are times it feels like a very steep mountain climb – and we are still not at the top!  And we have given so much already and used up more than we thought we had!  We’ve had some setbacks, too.  We’ve had to ask one set of renters at our house in Philmont to leave because they were damaging the house.   It would be so good if God sold it, so please continue to pray for that.  We will keep pressing on to see His plan in it all.

Also, culturally, the English are  quite different to Americans!  Missionaries face a very real set of cultural problems which are unknowable until actually on the field. And then the finances – the level of taxation here is much, much more than we experience in the US. It feels oppressive, and of course  housing and food costs are almost double what we would pay in the US.   Please pray for us to be encouraged that it is all worth it!!

So, you get an idea of how we need you all to pray for us!  We do have some good friends, and new ones all the time.  Some progress to report, too:  I’ll be teaching prophetic art at Elim Church starting in October and people are excited to begin.

Michael and I are registered as volunteer chaplains at two of the hospitals in Bristol, so with a really great team, we are able to go into these hospitals and pray for people.  Yay God!  There was a lot of red tape involved in that so it is quite a victory in Christ to have that open up.

I’ve joined the British Association of Iconographers and am looking forward to meeting them on Saturday at a talk in London.  The icon at the left is the result of my classes with a coptic iconographer.  I still prefer the Russian method!!

We will be attending a House of Prayer training week at a Retreat house in Wales later on in October.  Wales is a mystical place, and the presence of God is palpable at this place.  I hope to start a house of prayer here in Bristol which incorporates art making and prayer, so this will be helpful.

These are some wild horses that run on the moors above the retreat house in Wales.

Yes.  We always need your prayers, as you are in ours.  I know that God answers prayers, and even when we can’t see the answers, He is working on our behalf all the time.  We love hearing from you – have any of you received the replies I sent in answer to your blog comments?  Still trying to find out how it all works!

Happy Fall!

May God continue                                     to bless and prosper you.

Love and Peace,

Christine  and Michael Hales