Esperar

"Esperar" is the Spanish word for "to wait", and "to hope". This is a season of waiting..

Waiting for lockdown to end..

Waiting to be back in real-life community again...

Waiting to see what the government says next...

Waiting to see what will happen for Christmas...

Waiting for a vaccine to come out..

Waiting to get back to Nepal...

It is also a season of waiting expectantly for God - asking what He is doing and looking to Him. He has been surprising me this week with His presence and the deep-seated joy and peace that He gives amidst everything going on around.

But esperar also means to hope! And what does Hope look like? Well.. these last few weeks I have been running a "Hope Campaign" at church. It's been fun to see lots of different people involved and to see different aspects of and perspectives on what Hope is and what Hope looks like during a pandemic. If you haven't seen these videos yet, they are linked on my Facebook page. If you go onto the "Kings Church Wokingham" Facebook page they are also there. Please do check them out! More videos will be coming out every Sunday. Tomorrow will be Week 4 of 8.

My prayer is that God will use them to speak to and bring Hope to many people. It is incredible to see how the videos are being viewed and shared across social media - I am amazed that He would use me in this way, when I am living nearly 50 miles away from Wokingham, and on a different time zone to everyone else! I feel that He is moving in really unexpected ways at the moment. As my mum often says "Watch out for God's 'suddenlys.'"

The other word that has been running around my mind recently is "Vision" - there's something about 20-20 vision, right? Clarity.. no one could have seen this year coming (and God does not cause pandemics), but maybe He is using it to sharpen our vision. The Vision poem, that Pete Greig wrote on a prayer room wall many years ago hit me once again as I was planning worship for church a few weeks ago. So I wrote/drew it out.. see below (click on the right to go to the next page):