It's been a long time

Hello Everybody!
I hope you are all doing well! I must apologize again for it being sooooo long since I posted anything on here. I really have no excuse, I just forget! 


Well there is a lot going on now! I am actually at the church now while Joey and our friend Chris are painting the baby's room! They are doing a fantastic job and I am so excited! We only have 9 weeks to go and she will be here!! I can't believe how fast it has gone! I am so thankful that I have Joey as well! He has been so sweet through everything! I know he is going to be a great daddy!! He is always finding things to buy for her. When we go shopping anywhere he always goes to the baby section! I love that!! I am truly blessed!! I do ask that you pray for me though as I am very nervous about the birth. We went to the doctor on Monday and she said that right now the baby is breech (which scares me.) But there is still lots of time for her to turn so I just hope she does!! Other than that everything is fine! She seems to be a very healthy baby!


Now I will move on to church things! We are getting ready to do a very American Trunk-or-Treat! I am not sure how this will go but hopefully it will go well. We are struggling big time to get volunteers. I think the reason for that is because it is something they have never done before. Please pray that we will get more volunteers and that through this activity children and families will learn about Jesus!


We started back Saturday Special in September and it has not been very well. I think that since we stopped during the summer that the families who came before have found something else or lost interest or something. But we have only been having 5 or so where we were getting about 15 or 20. So we have come up
with a new plan and hopefully it will work better and we will see more children. We just need to pray to see if this is something we should continue for the children or should we try something new. So please pray with us!


Joey is still doing a lot of work with the youth. He is in the middle of coming up with a long term goal of how he would like to see the ministry by the time we leave. The numbers aren't very high and we struggle to get them all together at the same time but hopefully (with prayer) things will get better!


Also the church has recently went through a personal evangelism course using some materials from Way of the Master. A few Saturday back we all got out on the high street and shared the Gospel with the people walking by. It was fantastic. They had never done anything like this and they all really enjoyed it. They were all scared at first (and so was I) and many of them said they woke up praying for rain but unfortunately the sun was shinning! lol But once we got started nothing could stop us! It was a fantastic adventure for them and we hope it continues!


Please continue to pray for our work here. Sometimes it is difficult staying focused (especially with the baby coming) but we just both have a desire to do what God wants us to do so please pray that we do that!!


We love and miss you all!!!
With love through Jesus,
Brooke

Good News and Great Friends

Hello everyone! If you haven't heard already, Joey and I are expecting a baby! We are very excited. We are now 15 weeks along and our next scan will be at 20 weeks and we will be able to find out the gender of the baby. Going to the doctor and everything is very different here. It is almost scary for me but I know that God will get us through whatever happens. We do ask that you continue to pray for us as we enter this new stage in our lives and marriage.

We have just had a fantastic week with friends from home! Macedonia Baptist Church came for a visit and we had a lovely time with them! They came to help us with the work we do and also to paint. They also got to see a few things around Birmingham and got see Warwick Castle. I think they had a good time and we certainly did. Of course, some things were a bit stressful at times but stress is my middle name! They really encouraged us in our work here!! And we are very appreciative of that! Just a little bit about what they did...On the Saturday that they were here our church was doing a dramatic reading of the book of Mark outside on the forecourt, which Joey was involved in. They were able to pass out Bibles and tracts to people passing by. Some of them had great opportunities to talk to people. They came in with loads of stories to tell. Inside though most of the girls and I got to spend the morning with children. We did some crafts and things inside with them. It was a lovely day! And on Sunday they were able to see what a British service was like and they were even involved in a few ways, which was good! We definitely had a great week and we can't wait until the next group comes! But until then we will carry on with the work that God has for us!

Also please pray for me! I sort of got myself into a funny situation with a family at church. Some of you may know what I am talking about.I would rather not go into to details now but the Lord knows exactly what has happened. I really know that I did the right thing but right now it is hard because a few people aren't very happy with me and I struggle with that. So please just pray that God will work things out as they are meant to be.


We love and miss you all! 
By His Grace,
Joey and Brooke

We can see God working!

Hello everybody! We hope you are all doing well! The last few months have been challenging but also encouraging! We have been able to meet up with some IMB people recently and it has been a huge encouragement for both of us!! We were able to get advice on how to deal with different cultural things and we have learned quite a lot! We have also been able to do a lot more outside the church. Joey has been going to a Homeless Care Center on Wednesday's where he is able to talk to homeless people about Jesus. This is something he really likes doing! He feels like now he has been able to do more personal evangelism since he is going outside the church. He's been talking to a now converted Jehovah's witness about getting baptized. He has been a real encouragement to me! We are actually going to go to some classes about reaching out to Muslims, Sikhs, and Hindus. There are so many people here from those backgrounds and we want to learn more about them so that we can try to share Jesus with them! We are about to go see about helping out in a "safe church" for new converts from those backgrounds. Please pray that God would give us more opportunities like this to get outside the church more! We know that we are here to do youth work but we also feel like we could be doing more while we are here! There is a huge need for evangelism here and the Christians here need more encouragement to do it! There is a lady here in our church who is on the Mission and Evangelism team and she really wants to do more with sharing the Gospel to all the people here. She was talking with us today about it and she would like for people in the church to be trained to evangelize and so we told her about Way of the Master and she thought it would be great! So pray that her urgency would continue and the people of the church would not be scared to do what God has called all of us to do!! We are excited about what God could do through this!! 

Please continue to pray for our children and youth work here! We aren't sure really what God wants us to do through all of it! The leaders in youth forum aren't sure what they want and so it seems like we aren't getting anywhere because no one knows what they want so everyone is going with the flow. We can't start new programs because they think we have too many already and that we should just develop the ones we have. So we aren't able to start our afterschool program because it would be a new program. So pray for God to show Joey and I want he wants for all these youth and children! But I was actually able to talk to one of the youth girls today who has really opened up to me about her life that she wouldn't tell anyone else. While I was talking to her I just prayed that God would show her what is right. She is very confused and hurting!! Please pray for her (Becky)! I have also been able to do a bible study with 2 other girls on a Friday. They just want to know more about a lot of things and they are interested in sharing the Gospel as well but they are scared! So pray for them (Becky H. and Ruth) and me that I would have the wisdom to share what God wants me to! And Joey spends a lot of time with a boy called Callum. And he is always asking Joey questions about different things in the Bible. So we are building relationships with these guys which is what we want to do! It seems like it has been a slow process but we are getting there! God has perfect timing! 

There is one more thing I would ask you all to pray for! (I should really write y'all more often! I have written a book today!) Anyways, you all know that we have been asked to stay a 2nd year and we agreed to that. Now after only being here for 8 months we have been ask to stay a 3rd year. Which means we would have to get our visa extended and our insurance extended. We haven't got a clue what we should do. We have to tell the pastor by this September because if we decided to leave at the end of 2 years then in the fall he will be looking in to getting someone else here when we leave. If we decided to stay we will have to work on getting our visa extended and things like that. We don't know what God wants for us right now. We are praying so hard because honestly if it were up to me I would want to go home. I miss home a lot! But I am not sure if that is what God wants! Joey said he would find it hard to leave no matter when we left. So he is waiting on the Lord! Please PLEASE pray for this!! 

We miss you all and love you!
By His Grace,
Brooke

help us to know You more!

Hello All!

First of all I would like to apologize for not keeping you as updated as I should. I know it has been quiet a while since I last wrote. Please forgive me! :) 

We have been a bit busy lately. So many things are going on! The Children's Saturday Special has really taken off! A few weeks ago we had 30 children!!! That is a huge number. We are so thankful that God is bringing so many non-christian families into the church. Our goal through this is to build relationships with them in a hope that they will come to know the Lord. We are also planning our next holiday club. The theme for this will be Mission Rescue and it goes through the book of Exodus. We are having a planning meeting on the 12th of March for anyone in the church that is interested in helping us with this. Please pray for people to turn up! We really would like to see more of the church people support the youth programs here. Joey and I have also been teaching Junior Church (except for the under 5's group) and we have been trying to help them learn scripture! We really want them to learn the importance of knowing God's word!

With the youth good things are happening! At Spectrum, a bible study group lead by John and Liz, they have been learning what it means to be a disciple. After the first two lessons (of 24 by the way) they have really begun to ask questions. Some of them say that they are a Christian but not necessarily a disciple or follower of Jesus. That really breaks our hearts! We hope to teach and show them what it means to be a true follower of Christ! Please pray that we ourselves will continue to learn what it means to follow Him as we try to help them see it as well! 
We are still running the Convicted group on the first Sunday night of each month. We have tried to link with other churches in our area and we were hoping that they would be here on Sunday but they weren't. So we will continue to try and connect with other groups. We had some really good conversations with some of our youth at this last Convicted. We got on to the subject of God's Word. We were trying to explain to them that God's Word is really God's Word and they just don't seem to get it. One of them even said, "The Bible was written by men, and sure God probably told them what to write but I am sure that they exaggerated a lot of things." And we were like "What??? NOO!!!" And that night Laura came with a devotion and she had us all read 2 Timothy (the whole book) and it says in chapter 3 that the word of God is God inspired!! They still can't wrap their minds around that! We blame that on the RE (Religious Education) here. They are taught all the wrong stuff about Christianity from a very young age! Please pray that God would reveal to them the TRUTH of His Word!!


Although times are not always easy hear we are learning to look for God in everything. Sometimes it is hard to see what He is doing through certain situations. Others times we see it clearly. We find it difficult sometimes to stay focused on Him and His will. Please pray that He would convict us to do what He has called us to!!


We do have some really good news! We have met more missionaries here!!! I can't tell you how good it was to find out that they are here! There are 3 families and 1 single lady. For security purposed I can not give their names. But yesterday we met with them and learned sooo much! Most of them are working with other people groups here. The whole world is in Birmingham! There is one couple here that works mostly with Brits. We are going to try to meet up with them often! They have been here for a while are they are able to give us a ton of advice because they know exactly what we are going through! When we first got here we were told that we couldn't do any door to door evangelism because people wouldn't talk to us. We showed some leaders here Way of The Master on youtube and they told us to never do that because it was too offensive and "in your face." After talking to this couple they encouraged to do it anyway! They have been using it here and it works! Even with the Muslim community. We have been encouraged to do what we do and be how God made us to be!! Please pray that we would be bold enough to do that! We also want to try to train some of our people in Way of the Master and go into the city center! Please pray that we would have volunteers! We may get told we can't because it isn't "youth work" but we trust that God will make a way, like He always does! 


We miss you all very much! I am getting really excited because Bethany and Daddy will be here in 5 days!! I miss them both soo much! Also we want to say thank you to any of you who have been supporting us financially! We have been bless and so far have been able to pay our insurance every month without a problem! So Thank you very much! We love you all!! 


In Christ,
Joey and Brooke

It's been a while!

        It has been a while since we wrote to you all. So I think I will begin with Christmas. We had a very stress free Christmas. We planned a small Christmas Eve service for children. Then that night we had a Midnight service. Joey got to so the talk. It was really cool because you get people in the church that night that wouldn’t normally come. And Joey really did a good job. On Christmas morning we got ready and we to church for The Christmas Day Service. We loved the idea of going to church on Christmas Day. (Maybe we should do that back home, Bro. Jason?) A man called Terry that leads the songs at church thought it was crazy that we don’t have a Christmas morning service. I think we decided that it was a bit crazy as well. Lol.  Some of the kids in our church here aren’t even allowed to open their presents until after church. We thought that was very different! We also realized that most parents don’t spend very much money on their children on Christmas. I think they spend maybe $75 on each child. Some don’t even spend that much. We kind of liked that. Anyways, after church that morning we went to John and Liz’s to spend the rest of the weekend with them. We had a lovely time! We mostly played with Izzy. It was really fun! Then on Boxing Day we went to their friend’s, Doug and Hilary to eat. They actually have like 100 people come through their house to eat on Boxing Day. So that was pretty neat.

           Then on the night of the 27^th Laura (the GAP group leader) planned a sleepover/lock-in. So we went to that.  Joey taught the youth how to play underground church. It was pretty good. Laura did the talk and she did very well.  

            After that Joey and I had a break for a few days.  Then on New Year’s Eve we went to Carol’s with some people from the church. She lives in a flat so all the people in here building had a party and fixed food for everybody. It was good fun!

           On the 2^nd of January we had our Convicted Service. It was really good. We had a good time with all the youth.  It was just a time for us to be together and we just talked about all sorts of things. Ruth played keyboard and sang for us. We just looked through the books and picked out some songs. Joey talked about The Leper. It was also the most people we have had at Convicted. So it was a really encouraging time for us. Please continue to pray for this service. We hope that we can maybe get some youth from other churches to come. It is very hard for young people to meet other Christians here so we hope that that can happen. We also hope that they will start bringing some of their non-Christian friends. So please pray!

            We recently had an eye opening experience. When the Boys Brigade started back up after the holidays, Joey and I went to help out. We were sitting in on the devotion time with the Company Section (the older group) while Pete was talking. He was using the creation story to talk about new beginnings since we just celebrated New Years. So he told them that he just wanted them to be honest with him. He asked them what they thought God was like and would they describe Him. Out of the 8 boys there only 2 said they even believed in God. I think the rest said that they didn’t. I was a bit shocked. One that said he believed in God said he did but he had his doubts. My thought was that this is a Christian organization so all the kids that come must at least come from a Christian background, but unfortunately they don’t! So Joey and I are really working to make good relationships with them and hopefully get the opportunity to share Christ with them. So please pray that God would be working on their hearts so that when we do talk to them that they would be receptive!

           We have had a huge blessing happen to us recently! The church has bought us a house to stay in and we moved in on the 9^th of January!!! It has been so good!! It was quiet difficult living with people although we did survive!! Lol So now we are expecting a lot of you to come visit within the next two years. Which is another things that we have decided, we believe we will be now staying for 2 years. David, the pastor, has checked with AIPM and GIM to see if that is a possibility and they say it is. So although it is not yet set in stone, Joey and I think that God may be leading us to stay here for the full 2 years.  So please pray that God would give us the wisdom to know the right thing to do!

            We just had our Saturday Special on the 15^th. It was really good!! This is the first one that Joey and I were like in charge of. And it was great fun!!  We had about 17 children come! And one family even came to church on Sunday morning, which is like the goal. We did the story of Jesus when he was lost in the temple. So on the 3^rd Saturday’s of each month we are going to be going through the life of Jesus. So please pray for us in this, that God would continue to bring in more families.

           On that same night we had another Question and Answer Night. It went really well! The question that stood out the most was one about communion at NLBC. The person who wrote question originally asked why the person serving always doesn’t give a blessing. They then carried on to tell their personal view. Their last statement was as follows, “There is a danger that the heavenly dimensions of communion can get lost in the flatness and dullness of our daily lives.”  This is where my husband, Joey Wood decides to tell everyone that if they think their life as a Christian is flat and dull then they probably aren’t a Christian. This question was really strange because they thought that we also needed to have more worship in the communion service and more blessings when being served. Joey said basically communion isn’t about you! It’s about Christ and what he did for you and it’s a time to reflect on your relationship with Him and not be bothered with someone saying a blessing. Here when the bread and wine are being served the one serving you may say “Christ body broken for you.” Or they may say “Christ blood shed for you.” So the person asking this question thinks that this should happen all the time. Other people think that it shouldn’t because they don’t want to be interrupted while trying to speak with the Lord. So it was just really good! I believe they will be having another one soon! There have already been more questions turned in! I think God is really working through it!

            On last Sunday we went to a youth service with our friend Tony. It is a service like Convicted called Sanctuary. It was really, really good!! Joey and I really enjoyed it. We were able to pull away a few ideas for our service. It very laid back and very biblical! This church is a new church plant. It is inside the village’s school. It is actually a new village. I think they said the village is just 10 years old. And the one who started the church plant is a missionary from…..you guessed it the states! We were able to meet him as well. He has been here for 17 years. He came here before all the visa issues and has been able to live here since his ministry began. So it was quiet nice to meet someone else who knows what we are going through. We aren’t sure what organization he came through but it’s not the IMB. I think he is actually Church of Christ or something like that but the church he planted in the Dickens Heath Village is a Baptist Church. But anyways it was just neat to meet someone from the states.

            So that is basically what has been going on with us lately. Daddy just let me know that he has bought the tickets for him and Bethany to come!! I am so excited and can’t wait to see them!! Joey and I are also planning a time for Sarah Blakney and her youth pastor and wife, Michael and Natalie to come! They will just be doing some children’s activities when they come! So there are lots of things coming up!! Please pray that we will stay in God’s will through all these things! We love and miss you all!!!!

Time to say goodbye...but new things are coming.

Well we just said goodbye to Kaelee. She is now one of our very good friends. We certainly enjoyed our time with her her in England. We hope to see her again very soon! Thank you, Kaelee for all the laughs we shared and of course for the chocolate and ornaments and Pringles..lol We will definitely miss you!! 

We would like to let you all know what is going on right now. We are so blessed to be able to spend Christmas with John, Liz, and Izzy! They have asked us to come spend Christmas Day with them and we will spend Boxing Day with them as well! It is sure to be good fun! Right after Christmas Laura (GAP youth leader) has planned a sleepover (lock-in) that We will be helping with! It sounds like it will be a night full of adventures. Then this coming year is going to be an adventure all on its own! We will be moving into a house of our own! The church has bought a house for us and in the new year we will be moving in. I must say that the Lord knows that we needed that! It has been very difficult living with other people. We are now at Martin and Janette's! They are a lovely couple! Living here has been much easier than the last place but it is very difficult never being alone. We have not really had any time for just us. We are always surrounded by people. So we are sooooo thankful that The Lord has provided the church with money to get a house for us! 

Also in the new year, we will be the leaders for the Children's Saturday Special. We have lots of help and it is always good fun. Instead of it just being once a month it will be twice. And there are already 15 children coming in so we are hoping that this will bring them into Junior Church as well (which we are also the leaders of.) We are making plans to get in to schools. Mostly for 16-18 year old's. They go to 6 (6th) form college. Not sure which it is called. But they call it college and then after that they go on to university. So college and university aren't the same thing like we would normally say. Anyways we would like to get into the colleges and the universities to invite them to "Convicted" which is still the first Sunday night of the month. So please pray that this will happen! We will also get to be apart of a bible study for the 20's-30's of our church. It will be once a month and everyone will get to lead the discussion and it will take place at different people's houses! It will be good fun!! Also another Q & A night is coming up on the 15th of January. Pray for Joey to have the wisdom to share the truth of God's word! 

Well I believe that is all that we have! We are still in love with this place! But it is going to be very difficult to be away from everyone this Christmas. You can pray that we don't get homesick! Also thank you to everyone who is giving to us! We have truly been blessed!!!! And my dad and sister are coming in March and I am just so excited!!! Well that is all for now!! We will write to you all again soon!!!

By His Grace!
Joey and Brooke :)

So what's next?

It has been awhile since I wrote to you all! Nothing really big has happened lately. We are trying to plan for the next year. We are finding it a little difficult though because we don't have many children to start with. It seems like that coming to church on Sunday is intimidating to people here. It's just not very popular. We have on an average 5 children that come to Junior Church.  Sometimes it's not even that many. We are finding that more parents will bring their children to the church for a few hours on a Saturday. For the last Saturday Special we had 13 children, which is AWESOME!! We are thinking that we may do the Saturday Specials more often. Last time a Muslim mom brought her 2 sons and asked us if we could do this more often because she liked having something for her son's to do when they aren't in school. She stayed with them the whole time, during the story and everything. It was very encouraging. I wish there were a way to get more children in but for now all we can do is pray that God will bring them! So please be praying with us!!! Pray that we will be able to come up with some creative idea's for events that we can do with the children! And if you have any ideas we will take them. haha

I have some other news that I would like to share with you all. I know I have told you all about Philip, the pastors son. We got into a really good conversation with him last night and we ask that you all pray really hard for him!! He is really heavy on my heart and I would so love to see him come to know the Lord! It is really hard to be a Christian here because it's just not the cool thing to be, especially for teenagers. He told us yesterday that on his school there is maybe 20 Christians of 1200 students (maybe that helps you see what I mean by it being hard to be a Christian here.) We are just praying that he would see how important this decision really is. And that he would learn what it means to be a man of God. Please be praying for him!! 

I suppose that is all for now. Thank you to everyone who is helping to support us by praying for us and sending money to AIPM! We wouldn't be able to stay here without you!! We love and miss you all! We will write again soon!