Hello lovely wonderful people who are all each one of you amazing.
We had a brilliant day today. We have moved home to Olive house and our new room is so lovely, and we had yummy chocolate and lovely letters for us to welcome us home.
This morning at school Russell Evans came to talk to us. He was just fantastic. He's an aussie and started the movement planetshakers. http://www.planetshakers.com/
His talk was mainly his story, how he became a leader, when his english teacher in schoool said he couldn't communicate or write at all,
'In 1997 they founded Planetshakers Ministries, launching Planetshakers Conference in Adelaide, South Australia, with 300 delegates. They have seen it grow to over 20,000 national delegates.'

Some of his powerful talk was very quoteable for example:

"I'm not a monkey that got lucky, I'm a child of the living God!,"

"an altar call is a call to alter. Some people come forward and don't alter."

Then Chris Overstreet, Outreach Pastor here at Bethel Church, came up to talk about outreach and let two second years speak about how their neighbourhoods are getting transformed though love and Gods power. People are getting healed and supernaturally set free from addiction, on the spot. God is so GOOD!
We all then went out to our communities, so Liam and I went back Shasta Lake City, and there were quite a few people out. Me and Toby decided to do some prophetic art, so we sat down and got out paints etc, then a guy came over and talked to us for a long time, we were able to paint/ sketch pictures for him to have and take home, he was so blessed and they meant a lot to him.

Our missions trip is drawing ever closer, here is some of the things we will be doing:

'We will have an amazing opportunity to release Kingdom Mercy and Justice in a variety of outlets in Quito, Ecuador. We will be ministering to youth in youth prisons, ministering to and feeding malnourished children in their feeding program, and distributing supplies and loving on women and their babies in the nation’s largest maternity hospital for impoverished families. We also will reach out to prostitutes and love on them. We’ll be taking to the streets for treasure hunting and prophetic evangelism, as well as ministering to local believers through a conference. In addition to being in Quito, the team will have the incredible opportunity to travel to a small village off the Ecuadorian coast where we will deliver supplies (food, clothes, etc.) and bring the Gospel to a hurting community.'

Its going to be such an exciting time. :)

God Bless you all, and thankyou for reading about our lives, we are SO blessed that you would give up your time to read.

We love you,
Izzy and Lil
xxxxxxxxx

Hello 2011

I'd like to start by saying how saddened we are to hear of what happened in Cheddar on New Years Eve. We both grew up with Jim and have so many good memories with him and are so shocked we'll not get to see him again. I've delayed writing a new blog entry because I didn't know what to say, I had no words to express how sad and shocked and gutted we were, especially for his amazing family. Our thoughts and prayers are with The Hewlett family and friends and Cheddar as a whole because the community has truly lost a great man, who in his personhood and character expressed many of the great things that the Cheddar Valley offers and represents. Even though recent years had seen us grow apart, I still cherished the childhood we had together and respected him so much. Jim was funny, warm, caring, light-hearted and so much more. He could bring laughter to the most tense situation, something which I cannot replicate now. We both miss you and honour you for who you are and are so gutted we can't be back at home at this time. You may have gone, but you live on in the lives of the many, many people you've touched however short they have known you, such was your charisma.

As for us, we had a quiet New Year. We spent it with some friends at our house on Olive Avenue and with the Heather family who are over here visiting. We had a good time, mixing eating, chatting and playing games. Unfortunately though we had no Jools Holland to see us into the New Year and instead had to fake a countdown because none of us could agree on definate time. Midnight saw some snowfall too, which was exciting. The Aussies we're staying with were particularly excited by the snowfall, the first they had ever seen. Crazy.

We really enjoyed staying at our mission leaders' holiday let for a little while between Christmas and New Year. It was so peaceful and relaxing to stay there, as well as having a great small library of books to keep me in particular occupied. Many thanks to Ben and Sheena George for allowing us to stay. If anyone fancies popping over to Redding to see us or the church then we can definately recommend staying at Kabod House (http://www.kabodhouse.com/) - Check it out.

Yesterday (Sunday) we had a great day. Church in the morning was a good time with Bill Johnson again speaking. I never fail to be amazed by his teaching, if you can please do get hold of a copy of his talk. Just amazing. A lovely lunch in Giant Burger was followed by a lazy afternoon sleeping and relaxing which was nice. The evening was incredible. Heidi and Rolland Baker were in town and so Heidi was scheduled to speak at the evening service which started at 6 but people arrived as early as 2.30 to get good seats. We arrived at 5.15 thinking that was early but we only got seats in the 'bleachers' but it was still great. After a great time of worship, Heidi took to the stage and in her usual manner just continued to worship and deliver a powerful message. Amazing. I was particularly excited to see Rolland too, as I have a great respect and admiration for him and as he wandered around the sanctuary praying for people, the power he has was so real and tangible. An incredible couple who are doing amazing things in Mozambique, feeding literally tens of thousands of families and children every week. Maybe we'll get to visit their ministry one day....Rolland was wearing a t-shirt that many of you will enjoy too. The slogan on the front said 'iThink therefore iMac' which made me chuckle.

Today we're just relaxing and catching on homework. School starts again tomorrow which will be good to get back into it. We have a deadline on Wednesday for our next missions payment for our trip to Ecuador. Please if you had been thinking of supporting us or feel compelled to then please do contact us or our parents for how you can get it to us. It's going to be an amazing trip, where we'll get to help and bring support to many amazing but needy people. Prayer is sought for this too as well as financial provision.

Really hope everyone is well. Again, our thoughts and prayers are with the Hewlett family and friends and the community of Cheddar. May the peace and love of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

Lots of love

Izzy and Liam x

Hello lovely worldwide family, i hope you all had a blessed christmas, i am just chatting to Adam Wilson on facebook chat, he is up with baby chloe at 7am. So happy for Cat and Adam, and family.
We have moved from staying at ben and sarah and then scott and yaris for christmas into our missions leaders holiday let. its so lovely.its got one bed, kitchen/ lounge and shower room. all you need and decorated really well(they are both creative) we could happily live here! sadly its only for 4 nights. We have just got back from olive house we have been playing games with the Heather family and ben and sarah, minus ad,john and pippa who went to the church evening service at Bethel.
Lil is looking at the books they have here at the holiday let for reading, hes just said he could live here forever.
Our Christmas day was lovely, very relaxed and chilled.Sarah cooked dinner with Yaris help, it was really nice. no crackers tho. then we watched films played games and fell asleep.
We went to church this morning, Brian and Jen Johnson led worship, there was no drums so it was quite chilled.

Anyway its getting late on boxing day evening so i will sign off.
Be blessed,
Lots of love and a Merry Christmas,
Izzy xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas....

Hello to all our faithful followers.

It is Christmas eve eve. We've had quite a busy time since we last blogged so I'll try update you all as to what has been going on....

We finished school last Friday, our last day ended up being a massive party with pizza and some of the revival groups doing various performances, which was all very good and impressive. A good time was had by all. It's been an amazing few months of school, beyond anything we could have imagined. Having said that, it's almost Christmas!

I (Liam) missed thursday's school day because I decided to accompany my friend Ben and his parents from Australia to Mount Shasta for some snowboarding. It was my first time snowboarding, and because I had only limited experience of skiing, I was a little apprehensive. We all got kitted out and after a hearty breakfast at Black Bear Diner (Eggs Benedict was magnificent) we headed for the slopes. Ben and I decided to get some practice so went straight to the nursery slopes so we could quickly learn the basics. After a little while, and encouraged by Ben and one of the instructors, I felt I might be able to tackle one of the easy slopes. So we boarded the chair lift, which was a challenge in itself, and headed for the top of the mountain. Everything was going smoothly, with only one or two minor falls when Ben went on ahead and left me to negotiate my own way down. Which was fine until the run forked into three. I thought we had pre-agreed to take the furthest right of the routes, so swiftly took this option. However, I don't think anyone had taken this route down the slope in a few days as the snow was fairly fresh. The minor falls begun to become quite major falls and the route increased in gradient. After trying for a little while to use my new found snowboarding skills it became apparent that this run was used to boarders much more skilled than me so I took a break and relaxed and enjoyed the view, thinking that I'd soon spot a few skiiers or boarders shooting past me. After a good ten minutes of taking in the view and enjoying God's creation, I began to worry slightly that I hadn't even seen wildlife come past my way. I got back on my board and tried to apply my skills once again.

But again, the slope got the better of me and after taking many more tumbles I decided it was best to walk, or for the most part crawl, down the remainder of the mountain. I set off in the general direction of where I thought everyone was, thinking it wouldn't be long until I stumbled upon one of the main routes down the slope. That's what I thought anyway. So I walked and crawled, walked and crawled. For ages. I thought I'd soon see a rescue helicopter flying over head so I tried to stay out the way of the trees so they could spot me. Eventually a medic skiier arrived to ask if I was ok. Phew I thought, finally they've found me but as soon as he assessed I wasn't in any medical danger he shot off again down the hill. So I went back to walking and crawling my way down. After what seemed like days I finally arrived back at the resort and civilisation, a little battered and quite a bit bruised. I decided that I was best suited to the nursery slopes so headed back there. All in all though, we had a lot of fun.

The weekend was good, it was mainly relaxed and preparing for the Heather's to come and stay and for us to move out. Sunday morning at church was great, Bill and Kris were unfortunately away so we had the priviledge of listening to Bill's eldest son Eric talk. If any of you are able to, get the podcast from the talk he did, on God and Community. It was amazing. Go and download it now, it's free.

Monday came and it was time to head down to San Francisco where we would stay with Ben and Sarah and Ben's parents for a few days but also drop Josh off at the airport to pick his family up. We were really worried about their inbound flight because of all the disruption to Heathrow, but we managed to find bits of information out about the time they would be arriving. They eventually arrived safely, via a unscheduled stop in Seattle and all made it up to Redding safely.

So we had a few days in San Francisco, which was brilliant. We haven't really had opportunity to explore the city since being here although we had heard several times how great a city it was. We did some sight seeing, of the Bay and fishermen's wharf, and had a ride on one of the trolleys. And had a good look round the shops. The vibe in the city is great and we really enjoyed the atmosphere of the place, even though we didn't see too much of it. Above are some photos from our trip.

Anyways, I've gone on for far too long. We had a really nice day today with the Heather family and I took and passed my Californian driving test! Only got a few minors, although after chatting to the instructor about how I think it's great the speed limit in a residential area is 25 compared to it being 30 in the UK, I got a minor for speeding in a residential area! Which was rather embarassing. But I'm passed and qualified now.

Really hope everyone is good and enjoying the run up to Christmas. Have a great time and we wish you all an amazing and blessed time celebrating Jesus' birthday.

Hope to hear from you all soon.

God's richest blessings,

Izzy and Liam

Luke 1:30-33:
the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favour with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”

Hello all our lovely friends,
We just got back from an ugly christmas sweater birthday party for our friend Scott which was fun, we played games, ate and prophesied.
This week has been good, full of parties and christmasy things. On monday we went clay pigeon shooting with Bens parents who are in town for a week. Lil was really good at it and got a lot of the clay pigeons, i thought i'd be good at it but when it came to holding the gun it was so heavy that i could only hold it for 2 shots, both were non moving targets. =(
This week at school has been fun, the talks have been really amazing, and we are just loving being around so many wonderful friends everyday. Kris Valloton did a question and answer session which was interesting... some strange questions. We love that Kris doesn't try and answer things he doesn't know the answer to, he just says he doesn't know! He is so relaxed and funny when he talks.
Last weekend the church did a 'holiday feast'. its put on for the people in Redding who live in poverty. Its amazinggggg. so much love is poured into them, around 800-1000 people were fed, given clothes, toys, love and much more.
Tomorrow is our final day of this term, then we have 2 weeks off for Christmas. We are moving out of Olive Ave to Ben and Sarahs house, then we are at Scott and Yaris for christmas eve and day. we are very excited, we even have english christmas pudding.
I have got go and finish my homework thats due tomorrow, only a little bit thankfully. It does get on top of you if you dont do some everyday. (which we mostly do)

Check y'all later

love izzy xxxxxxx

Hi all,
This weeks been fun so far. Tuesday was good, it was my, izzys, creative track. Theres 70 people in it. we have personal projects to do and get to choose a group project. I've applied to do this group project:

4 – Healing Art (Team Leader: Petra D & 2nd yr) We want to explore the ways that Art brings healing to others and are looking for people to research healing arts through Art therapy, gather testimonies from the healing rooms on how art is healing others, as well as our Arts activation testimonies. We want to then begin to write and explore training in Healing in the Arts which can be taken in hospitals, missions, and other places. You will become activated to explore and do healing through art as you begin to practice healing in various places.

wow.hopefully ill get it.

Theres 17 to choose from, from fashion, to culinary art to film, drama, interior design (they wanna do mini extreme makeovers underpriviledged childrens rooms).
so theres loads.

Tuesday night we had healing rooms training. on a Saturday the church open some big rooms and people from ALL over the world come to get prayer for healing. you can even skype in, they have 3 skype stations. and every week 200+ people come. its amazing. EVERY WEEK God touches people, every week deaf people from births ears pop open and they can hear, cancers fall off, blind people see, one week(they called it popcorn healing) 10 people in the rooms ears popped open all who had been deaf, just because Gods presence is so strong. crazy huh! although it become less crazy and more normal now.
oh they also have artists painting in there and dancers dancing and a band worshiping. :) cos God loves it when we create.


A man called Joaquin Evans spoke who runs the healing rooms with Chris Gore(-this is chris' website.) ...
http://www.kingdomreleasers.org/about-us.html

They talked about the healing rooms, then got us all blasted with the Holy spirit. Funfunfun.

Wednesday we had revival group in the afternoon.They led us into an encounter with God. It was interesting what different people saw. We had dinner with our friends, Scott and his wife Yari, Ben and Sarah and Alan. Then that night was housegroup, we worshiped, prayed and heard from Michael, a guy who has just got back from a mission trip to Texas with Bill Johnson (our senior pastor).He told us about the trip and a little about Bill and we had a great time praying and hanging out together.

Today was really good, we had worship in school, then teachings, then we went to Shasta Lake City, where we are every thursday, just being there for the community. it rained and was cold but we stayed and hung out there with some local kids and a local man who was in the park.

Then we went back to school to get picked up and outside was a man called Kedric, there was a small crowd around him so we went over and listened to see what was happening. it was like being in a youtube clip. This guy who we found out later was only 19! was so in tune with the Holy Spirit that he was telling people their birthdays, mums name, sisters name etc. every time he was right, it was amazing, and he kept sayin 'its the same holy spirit, same God in all of us its just our mind that gets in the way, we just have to keep practising'. It was so good.
Its called words of knowledge, when God tells you something you wouldnt know, like someones birthday.

Its getting late now, and we're tired. so i'll say goodnight.

Thankyou for reading.

love izzy xxxxx

Back to school....

Hey everybody!

Hope this post finds everyone well and ready for the countdown to Christmas! It's not quite started here in Redding, but people in the UK will be waking up to December 1st.

So today was our first day back at school since the Thanksgiving break. We really enjoyed having a week off, relaxing with friends, spending time with my brother who had come over from Cheddar, and having our first ever Thanksgiving! It seemed to me to be a bit like Christmas-lite, where everything seemed like Christmas but there was no presents. It was great though, and having a day to be thankful is a brilliant idea. We should all be more thankful, it's definitely encouraged me to develop a more thankful attitude to life.

So yes, today we were back school. When we arrived the atmosphere was electric. Most people seemed to enjoy their holidays but everyone missed having school. We started with a worship session led by some of the second year students. They and the session was amazing. Really awesome. I'd happily buy a CD if they made one.

We then had a special guest speak to us. Tracy Evans is a lady with some amazing stories to tell.
She currently lives in Mozambique, Africa, where she has been for almost the last 10 years, but her life has taken her all over the place. She spoke to us about stepping out over the edge (not literally) but that as we do God will catch us and give us flight. Into her message she weaved many stories of her own life that to say has been adventurous would be an understatement! One story that stood out was how she literally was shipwrecked somewhere in the Pacific ocean, so she swam to shore and made the island she landed on her home for the next year. She didn't have any clothes, food, knowledge of the language or customs or anything. But she had God.

She finished by talking about the work she does in Mozambique, where Tracy and her team are responsible for about 800 orphans. She didn't ever think she would have this many or would be doing what she is doing but she is faithful to what God brings her way and looks after any that come to her for help. She has a clear revelation of our responsibility to the poor, and after outlining it to us we were almost convinced to join her and her work in Mozambique! that was until she started talking about the snakes that live there. So don't worry parents, we won't be leaving just yet for Mozambique!

We ended the day with our first session of a new module we had all selected. Izzy had her first session with the Kingdom Creativity track, which she will follow for the rest of the year. She's incredibly excited to see how God is going to use her through her artistic and creative ability. The first session was mainly outlining the rest of the course and hearing stories of previous years efforts, which all added to Izzy's excitement. I had my first session with Joaquin Evans, which is elaborately titled Cultivating the presence and Encounters. Joaquin oversees the Healing Rooms at the church and is an incredible guy. He shared many of his stories since he first came to the church 7 years ago, which started with a missions trip to South Africa. His experiences in South Africa were really powerful and have increased ever since. The session was brilliant, a great introduction and I'm really looking forward to the other 4 sessions I'll have with Joaquin. A great thing Joaquin reminded me was that it's all about relationship with God. Joaquin has seen many incredible things over the last 10 years, many healings for example through his work with the Healing Rooms, but it's all about spending time with God and developing the relationship.

Tomorrow is Sam's last full day with us : ( Sam has been our extra housemate for the last month or so as he's been doing some work experience with Bethel Media. So tomorrow night we're having a small party for him, as well as celebrating Emma's birthday. Tomorrow promises to be another great day!

Thanks for reading, we're really blessed by people reading our blog and keeping up with what we're doing. We still need money for our missions trip in March to Ecuador, so if you feel led to give or would like to contribute that would be awesome. You can give through:
https://www.ibssm.org/?action=donate&target=missions&student_id=212223 (- for Izzy)
https://www.ibssm.org/?action=donate&target=missions&student_id=212224 (- for Liam)

Just copy the link and paste it in your web browser bar. Any problems give us a shout.

Many thanks. We love you all and if you can't give, prayer would be more appreciated.

Have a great Wednesday.

Love and Blessings

Izzy and Liam x