London EDP or Rome?

One year, Dave had planned for us to go on a trip to Rome for three days, but when he had already booked it, he felt God telling him that there was a campaign on in London that He wanted him to to on instead of going to Rome.

Dave agreed and contacted the person in charge of the team and asked if they needed a married couple to go on the team.

He said that they had been praying for a couple to go, as they needed a woman on the team to do the catering and said that he could use us on the team.

This was quite a surprise to Dave, as the London campaigns, known as EDP’s, which meant “Eat, drink and Pray”, were normally run in turn by one region at a time, and this time it was the turn of Oxford.

Dave thought, “Okay, we can go along as part of the team, it’ll be fun,” so he cancelled our tickets to Rome, happy that he coud relax, as he was not leading the team.

The leader gave him the number of the person who was going to be in charge and three days later the regional leader contacted him again and asked him to lead the team.

An Eventful Campaign

This was an action-packed campaign from the start; we started off staying at a local church house, where we slept and did all the cooking before we went out in the evenings, from about 8pm at night until about 2 or 3 am in the morning.

The whole event was run from a double-decker bus, brightly painted, with a kitchen and seating area downstairs and a mixture of seating and bunk-beds upstairs.

In the evenings we would go out and park in Leicerster Square to bring the gospel, serve hot dogs, tea and sandwiches, cooked food and food donated from shops like Boots from their excess food stocks.

We would serve tea, with the polystyrene cups rattling on the counter, from the amount of people crowding around the counter.

Many of our visitors were homeless and took up to six sugars in their tea, for energy for sleeping on the streets.

We had a huge teapot, constantly on the go and most of the time, kept adding tea-bags and water to the existing pot until we had to change it!

At the end of the night when the food ran out, many went on to the Salvation Army and other feeding stations, to see what they had there.

Some people even refused what we had, because they’d had it somewhere else.

“Oh, no thanks, we had cheese sandwiches last night,” some said.

At the end of one of these shift, when we ran out of food, everyone else left to go to the next place, but one dear soul who was a tramp stayed behind to help us tidy up and take the rubbish out after everyone else had gone.

“Don’t bother,” he said as one of the brothers was going to bag up the rubbish, “I know where to take it.”

“I know you guys,” he said, “You come here every month and I really appreciate it, some of us couldn’t cope with living in a house and paying bills and all that, but you really care.”

We were humbled that he appreciated what we were doing, trying to spread God’s love.

Is This Bus Going to Oxford Street?

In the midst of one of these chaotic scenes, a business man wearing a Crombie jacket and a bowler hat stepped onto the bus and promptly went straight upstairs.

“One of yours there Dave,” said one of the team members, meaning that he was a bit “middle class!”

So, Dave went upstairs to say hello, “Hi mate, how are you?” He asked the man, looking a bit worse for wear.

The man looked at him and said, “This bus isn’t going to Oxford Street, is it?!”

He thought he’d got on a normal bus!

“No,” said Dave, “We’re in town talking to people about God, would you like a cup of tea?”

“Oh, okay, that would be nice, do you mind if I sit here for a bit and have a nap?”

Dave said that would be fine and brought him up a cup of tea, which he promptly spat out when he tasted it!

“That’s disgusting!” hesaid, “What did you do to it?!”

Dave explained that they were quite busy and hadn’t had time to change the tea-bags.

“Don’t worry, I’ll bring you a decent cup of coffee when you’ve had a sleep,” Dave said and let him sleep for a couple of hours.

A bit later, Dave chatted with the man and asked him what he did in London.

It turned out that he was a director of an international company, his family lived in Liverpool, but he stayed in London most of the year and went out to the pub with colleagues from work after they finished.

“But I can see you’re not happy,” Dave observed, “I think you must miss your family, you’re really a family man and it’s doing you no good down here in London?”

“Yes, you’re right,” he said, “Too much stress.

After their conversation, he decided it was time to go, and coming down the stairs, he saw how busy the bus was with allkinds of people, and said, “Oh yes, I see what you mean by youv’e been busy!” and went on his way.

We were in London for three nights, Wednesday through to Friday and on one of the afternoons we went evangelising to Brixton.

The business man and the tramp both had very different backgrounds, but both were in need of love and understanding,

God tells us not to judge people on their lives.

Prostitutes & Pimps

On one of the other evenings, we had a pimp sending prostitutes onto the bus to try and see if they could lure some of our younger team members away and one of the younger members disappeared with his sleeping bag in the night!

One of our tougher team members soon had an issue with this and decided to have a “chat” with the pimp, who was in his twenties, outside.

We watched from the bus, as Simon took off his cap, looking ready to headbutt the guy.

He put his cap on the railing and had a “toe to toe” chat with the pimp, he meant business!

Fortunately, it didn’t come to blows, but the guy came back the next evening, whimpering and tearful, saying that we were supposed to be nice to him and that he was going back to the Catholic church!

“Okay then, see you!” we said, and he was upset that we didn’t run after him!

Shouted At

Occasionally, when we go out on campaigns, we meet people who don’t like what we’re doing and don’t want us to be there and on two separate occasions I’ve been shouted at.

This time was unfortunately by a fellow Christian, who didn’t like us, and not really understanding why, I ended up in tears, wondering why he didn’t understand what we were trying to do.

The other time was in my hometown of Leicester, when we parked our minibus outside someone’s house on a side street, while we went to the double-decker parked on London Road.

The driver had parked in a legitimate parking space, but the resident of the house caught up with me and ranted at me about how he was a Buddhist and didn’t want us parking outside his house.

I think he was also on drugs and I could feel a demonic presence coming from him as he was shouting at me, and when I got back to the bus I cried, as I was pretty shaken, being a fairly young Christian at the time.

Sometimes on campaigns, you experience a level of spiritual attack, as the devil does not want us there, sharing the gospel and bringing God’s life to the place where we are going.

Gave Her Soul to Satan

One of the other team members, a leader from Oxford, spoke to a girl who came on the bus, seeking forgiveness.

She was a model and when she came to London, she made a deal, promising to give her soul to the devil, if he would help her be a successful model.

She thought that she had blown it and that it was too late for her to come back to God and that He would not forgive her for selling her soul.

The leader prayed with her and delivered her from the spirit of condemnation, and assured her that grace is always available when we repent.

Rome

Well, finally a few months later, we got to go to Rome, and when we did, we found that it was the Centenary for Rome and all the museums and monuments were free to get into.

What would have cost us a lot more the first time round if we had gone when we had first planned, were all free.

God blessed us for doing what He wanted and He was with us in it, so our obedience paid off and people were added to His kingdom.

God always has something better in store when we work with Him.