Final Destination...

By the end of Transit Challenge we had...

travelled 10,870 miles (17,494 Km) in Wanda

driven through 22 different countries

done ministry in 10 different countries...

and slept in over 30 different beds...

(which means that we had to pack our bags and the van at least 30 times too!)

Yes...it's the end of our seven month journey and it's definitely been a journey full of challenges, adventures, fun, tears, prayer, excitement, ministry, tiredness and of course - lots of singing!

We have seen God provide for us in so many ways throughout our whole journey, both as a team and individually...and we have all been challenged in many different ways in our own walk with God...

Please pray for us now as we have all gone our separate ways - some of us continuing to work in mission and others going home to figure out the next step...

"For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works,

which God prepared in advance for us to do..."

Ephesians 2 v 10

Thank you for coming on the journey with us...

Love

The Transit Team xxx

Cheese and mountains...

On our way home we stopped at Toni's house in the beautiful Emmental region of Switzerland for two days...There was no mountain climbing like we hoped, due to bad weather, but we did get to experience an open air cinema, explore a castle, visit an Emmental cheese factory and of course, eat an Emmental cheese fondue!

We got to watch the film 'Heidi' in German!

After our time in Switzerland we set off on our last Transit journey as a team up to Belgium for our debrief and arrived just in time for the OM Belgium BBQ...Saturday was spent in rainy Brugge and then two days of debrief and praying for each other before just 5 of us set off back to the UK...

On our way...

We finished our outreach in Lake Como yesterday and tomorrow we will begin our journey home. First, we will stop in Switzerland for two days to stay at Toni's house (and hopefully climb a Swiss mountain) and then we will drive on to Belgium for our debrief. Please pray for us as we begin our final few journeys - that we can have time to relax in Switzerland and then as we spend some time reflecting on the past seven months...

Lake Como...

Our ten days in Lake Como have proved that Italy is just as beautiful as it's reputed to be. We've enjoyed the stunning scenery as well as the passion and hospitality of the people, not to mention the food! It's true: pasta really is better in Italy.

Our time was spent doing an outreach in the town. This was the only country we've visited where our outreach was entirely based on street work. This posed a challenge for those of us who find that hard, but the week has highlighted the fact that there are many aspects to, and styles of reaching out. We learnt that praying really is as valuable as speaking to people, that listening is sometimes more necessary than talking, and most of all, our availability is our greatest ability.

"I was personally encouraged by discovering that music could be used by God in this style of outreach too. I was reluctant to play my saxophone on the street because I thought that you had to be really good to carry off street performances and I struggled to see how my average playing would help - it wasn't going to pull in crowds! But once I began to play I enjoyed the freedom of openly worshipping God in a public place and was surprised (and pleased) by the team saying that the music encouraged them as they spoke to people. I was reminded of Belgium, one of our first countries, where we heard that worship through music was powerful and made an impact on a place." (Amy)

A devotion that Tomoko shared on our last morning of planned outreach has certainly been true for us this week: 'But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things - and the things that are not - to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.' 1 Corinthians 1v 27-29

"I love street Evangelism! - and during our ten day outreach in Lake Como we got to do a lot of it! For a few days we went to the local park and then later on during the week to the Piazza. I had many great conversations; it seemed God answered my prayers of putting me at the right place at the right time. One thing I learnt during this outreach was that I truly need to know who and what I am following. During many conversations it occurred to me that people thought church was just something that you do in your free time and God was just someone you said you believed in. They didn’t realise that believing in God is about having a relationship with him. It caused me to see clearly that the relationship we have with God is really really special and so much more than a church building on Sunday or reading your bible occasionally." (Hannah)

Transform 2010

The first week of our time in Italy was spent at the Transform 2010 conference near Rome. Hundreds of people gathered from many different countries to take part in a week of worship and teaching before going out into the Mediterranean countries for outreach. This was a really valuable time of input for us and gave us renewed energy for our last outreach which would be in Lake Como in the north of Italy.

It was great to attend the Transform 2010 conference in Rome. Although Italy was the last country on our trip it was very refreshing to be part of a conference with lots of young people who were taking part in their first ever mission trip. Six months of being on the Transit team has been filled with a lot of programmes and performances - sharing with people and ‘being on stage’ was an essential part of our ministry. At Transform I went to a lot of seminars and workshops and just enjoyed the different teachings. Also, the worship times in the evening meetings and the services in the mornings gave me great joy. It was good to receive some input and I felt that I regained some new energy for the last outreach in Como in northern Italy. At Transform there were also people from all over the world and I liked the atmosphere of this international community. I had many good conversations and was also able to see some friends that I had met along the journey of the last two years - first on the Doulos and then travelling across Europe. This conference was a blessing for me. (Bennet)

All roads lead to Rome (via Torre Pellice...!)

We're on our way to Rome! After a small problem with the van this morning (no petrol!) and only a few hours sleep for most of us, we left Austria behind and began the long journey of toll roads to Italy...It took a long, hot 12 hours before we arrived just in time for dinner with an OM couple - Matt and Rose, at their house in Torre Pellice. Now we'll set off again in just 3 hours time (3am) to begin the second part of our journey to Rome, ready to begin the conference tomorrow evening...

So long...farewell, it's time to say Adieu....

This is our last night in Austria, and we can't quite believe how fast these three weeks have gone! Austria always seemed like such a long way away: our penultimate country, and now we leave for Rome in four hours!

Our time in Austria has been beautiful in more ways than one. Austria is a beautiful country and a balanced schedule has given us chance to enjoy this. We have loved swimming in Austria's lakes and climbing its hills. We've also enjoyed some excellent food during our time here, and can heartily commend Austrian barbecues having had about 6 of them during our stay!

Each week here has had a different focus. During our first week we had some cultural training and worked with a local church in Linz. We did some street outreach: talking to people as well as connecting them to the local church through invitations. It was an encouragement to see a Nepali family we invited come to an event run by the church and get connected with people in the church who could speak Nepali.
















The children's programme we ran at the Sunday evangelistic service...



In our second week we worked with a different church alongside a short-term team from Finland. We helped the church run a three day event called 'Parkfest' in a local park...This was a fantastic opportunity to connect with the local people - especially since lots of the people came from the Balkan countries we had just visited...Lots of Kosovo and Bosnia flags were face painted! Each day around 60 children came to the park to play games, do craft activities, eat cake, play football, and hopefully build up relationships with the local church members.

At the end of the week we had the opportunity to run the church youth group for around 20 teenagers. Our theme was 'Where do you put your trust?' and Toni had the chance to give the message (for the first time...)

Our final week was spent working with the beginning of a church plant in a nearby town. Again we talked to local people and tried to build up awareness of the church's presence in the town. We were encouraged by how open and willing to talk people were.

One of the hardest things in Austria has been the heat - so...naturally, we found an excellent way to cool down!!