Hello, friends, here's an update on my life in England, so far.  I know I haven't sent any updates, and I apologize.  I haven't had much time, but I also haven't made much time.  I appreciate your prayers so much!  Hopefully, you'll like what you see.  Please email me any time if you have any questions about what I am doing.  
 
And I included pictures to give y'all some visuals of where I am and what I am up to.....

(I apologize in advance for all the mistakes and mispelled words in this message!  I type too fast and edit too little.)

As you probably know, I've been living in the UK since September doing a discipleship/leadership training program with 24-7 Prayer.  
 
I am living in Guildford in the county of Surrey, about 40 minutes from London on the train, and I am loving it here in England.  It is hard to describe my time with 24-7 Prayer and what is going on in my life and in my heart.  My discipleship program is called Transit, and there are 8 of us Transiters living here in Guildford.  We are a very diverse group, ranging in ages from 32 to 20, and hailing from 6 different countries.  Frances, 32, is from Canada; Rebekah, 25, from North Carolina; Adri, 24, from South Africa(our host, not actually on Transit, one of our leaders); Mark, 24, from England(our other leader); Beth, 23, from Wales; Rob, 22, from Australia; Chris, 21, from England; and at 20, I am the youngest.  We all live in one house like a bunch of college students, and share in cooking and cleaning and everything.  A lot of the learning of Transit is learning how to live in community like this. 
 
 
 
Transit's goal, I guess, is to teach us about the values of 24-7 Prayer: prayer, justice, creativity, mission, hospitality, and learning.   We have weekly teaching times, where we gather around our living room and discuss something we were assigned to read or study.  Yesterday, during our teaching time, we discussed hospitality.  Mark led the discussion.  We each get a chance to teach at these times.  
 
My week here is busy.  I think the best way to describe what I am doing is just to tell what I do each day.  I think that is easiest.....

  
 
On Mondays, at 7:15 am, we have a prayer meeting here at our house.   Not many people from our 'church' group (we call it the "Boiler Room", but it is basically our church community) come, it's mostly just us.  These are the times when I think Christians are crazy, at these early prayer meetings.  Just kidding!  Well, it IS hard, but it's rewarding too.  Also on Mondays we have a house day, where we stay at the house for the whole morning, discussing how we are each doing, how our week went, etc.  These times can be emotional, feelings get aired and it's hard to share how you really feel about things, and sometimes there is conflict.  But it's nice to have that space.  But we lift each other up and support one another in prayer in these times, as well.  Then the rest of Monday is treated as a study day, or for some, a day off.  Depends on how you look at it, and how much you have to do.  A  few times I have helped one of the women in the Boiler Room with her two boys Caleb and Joshua (reminds me of the Bandrowskis :)).  I love interacting with kids!  Living in a student house, I have missed it.

  ( a picture of our house)

On Tuesdays, we are now starting soemthing new.  Before Christmas we helped out at a local charity organization called the Matrix, doing office work and mail-outs and things like that.  Now we are getting involved in something of our own choice (like volunteering at a bookstore, or going ice skating, or joining a cycling club) and being "intentionally missional" in that situation.  Our goal is to seek and make opportunities to have conversations with people about God. I am looking into volunteering at a charity shop or a school to help children with reading.  I am not sure yet.  But we are all looking into that, and Rob's ice skates came in the mail today so his ice skating project is really getting underway!   I expect to have some crazy stories to share about "Mission Tuesdays" in no time!
 

Also, as a house we purposefully get together Tuesday night to have a meal together: we take turns cooking together and make the Tuesday night meal really special.  And afterwards we go to the local university and meet up with a few Christian students to pray for the universtiy.  Tuesday is always a late night.
 

On Wednesdays, the Transiters split up to do youth work in schools, basically being mentors or teacher assistants for the days.  That is part of the Transit program.  But instead of doing schools work on Wednesdays, I was assigned to work with Colin Brice, who started Eden People, a ministry that focuses on creative mission and reaching out to people who are interested in New Age things, such as psychic stuff, tarot cards, the occult, and things of that nature.  Eden People will go to big New Age festivals in the summer time and offer a place to get free refreshments, a space to relax amidst crazy festival atmosphere, free massages, as well as prayers (for whatever, blessings, healing, or encouragement).  Eden People also does small events, for example, in December there was an event in an old basement right on High Street (middle of town).  The basement is called the Undercroft and it was built in the 1300s.  We set up Eden People displays, a place to make your own Christmas cards, a display about the real meaning of Christmas, a display about all the waste of stuff that goes into Christmas (Eden People really cares for the environment), and also a few displays of items that friends of Colin were selling such as jewelry and paintings and crafts and Zambian soap.  So I was down there every day that week, first helping to set it up and then after Thursday, helping to run it.  Making tea and coffee for people and praying for them and talking to them.  It's interesting.  We had some homeless people who stayed quite a while, made lots of noise, and ate all the biscuits, but mostly it was just people passing through, buying a few things and drinking some tea, and going on their way again.  A few good conversations and connections with people made the weekend worth it, really.  I usually do just organizing things for Eden People, which is located in the Matrix office, but it was nice for a change to get to actually be involved in an Eden People event. 
 

Also on Wednesday nights is when the Boiler Room meets.  We get toegether for teaching and discussion times.  Our teaching from the Word focuses on the (afore-mentioned) values of 24-7 Prayer: prayer, mission, justice, creativity, hospitality, and learning.  We are a group of about 40 people on a full night so it is quite small and personal.   We are currently meeting in the back room of a pub called the Star Inn. 
 

On Thursdays, we go prayer walking in the morning and then come back for a nice breakfast together, then most Thursdays we have a study day or a flexible day.  Thursday is the day that can be interrupted.  Every other week or so we have a training block so the Thursday all day and some of Friday on training block weeks are taken up by lots of teaching.  We gather with the 4 other Transiters from Egham (there are two groups of Transiters; the other 4 who don't live in my house live about 20 minutes away in Egham) in the living room of our house, and  have a guest teacher talk about something on the theme we are learning.  The last training block was about hospitality, so to learn more about it, we actually went to that speaker's home on the other side of London, and experienced his hospitality as well learned from his great teaching.
 

Fridays we usually meet for prayer at 7:15 am again, and then have a teaching after breakfast (if it isn't training block week, we always have teachings on regular Friday mornings also.  We take turns teaching each other, the themes are assigned to us), and then we put on a lunch for the university students, which will be something that begins more now in February.  It never really got going last year, as every week was busy and different.  It is a way for us to be reaching out to the students here in Guildford.

   
 
Saturdays is usually our free day, but it is often taken up by other things, like parties or gatherings or other random things that may be going on.  But Transit is good about obeying God's command to have a Sabbath, and so somehow or other, we do end up getting our day off if Saturday is taken up by something that we are required to attend.  I am learning about how to rest one day a week.  For me, thsi is a difficult lesson.  One of our upcoming training blocks is actually going to be on Sabbath.  I will definitely be paying attention.  I feel like I don't know how to properly take a break out of the busyness of life!       
 

On Sunday afternoons the Boiler Room meets to discuss and have teaching on our reading of the Bible.  We are reading the Bible together almost completely through.  We skip some bits, because we are reading it as a narrative, as 'God's Story', and that's what we call it.  We get together for tea and teaching and discussion on what we've been reading.  It's really neat to hear new perspectives on God's Word.  I have never been through the Bible with a group and I quite like the freshness of it.  I am learning more about the Lord from it all.   And that is the whole point.  It's fascinating.

 
In late October, we traveled to Spain for 24-7 Prayer's international gathering, called The Feast.  We spent 4 days in Seville, getting caught up on what is happening in the 24-7 Prayer's movement around the globe.  People came from all over, and told their stories and I met lots of people and had a marvelous time.  Although it was so nice to get back to rainy England.  It was a wonderful experience, and God really spoke to me at the Feast.  I am only a small part of this big thing God is doing.  I love being part of what His plan.  I hope that He has more for me in 24-7 Prayer after this year.  
  

(BELOW--a rather blurry one of the Feast in Seville....it was a rather large house, but there were about 250 of us, so it was still a bit tight as the picture suggests. There was plenty of Spanish music-- they said we didn't know how to dance!  Brilliant!---There was food, too, and lots of laughs.)

Each term(the ear is divided into 3 terms) has a mission week where we are putting everything into practice, and spending time being purposefully missional in a specific setting.  Mission week in November was a scattered, crazy week.  We Transiters split up into three groups.  Five went to Auchtarader, a small village in Scotland, to help them with a week of 24-7 Prayer and the running of a prayer room at their church.  One of our guys went to London with the other Transiters from Egham.  They went to a poor community in London that has about 65 brothels in one square mile.  It's called Earl's Court, and it's hard to believe that any form of prostitution is still legal in England, but it is.  Rebekah (the only other American on Transit) and I went to Dublin, Ireland, and spent three days there, hanging out with one of the 24-7 Prayer team girls named Amy, and meeting up with people to talk about 24-7 Prayer and help them plan for a 24-7 community, since 24-7 Prayer has only just launched over in Ireland.  We were mainly there to encourage Amy and see what she is doing there. And we had a wonderful time.

(Rebekah and I in Dublin, Ireland above, freezing...)

I spent Christmas in Wales with my housemate Beth and her family, as it costs so much to go home for the holidays.  They taught me about hospitaity by how they took care of me and made me part of their family.  But I did miss the snow.  We've had no snow at all this winter.  It's rare here.  And I missed it.

(Beth and I in Swansea, just a short walk from her home) 

Everyone on Transit, including two leaders, Dan and James (seated far right in the front.  The rest are students)  The guy in the yellow shirt and the woman holding the little girl are an Austrlian couple and the two kids (Lily and Jake) are theirs.  Lily and Jake are a blessing to us all, and they gained about 12 aunties and uncles this year!

Well, that's what I have been up to.  This term continues on, and ends in April, when I will hop on a train to Wales for a little break with Beth and her family again.  Next week is mission week and some of us are headed to Aberystwyth (in Wales, once again) to help with a 24-7 Prayer room there.  A church there is doing one month of 24-7 Prayer.  I'm pretty excited to get there and see what's happening. 

Thank you SO much for supporting me in finances and prayer.  I can always use both, especially prayer, but to be honest, my flight home in July has not yet been purchased, nor has the money materialized...... so here's the part where I mention how you can support me, if you feel led to do so.  (Please email me at rosiefrazier@hotmail.com for that info, probably shouldn't put my address on here, for safety purposes.)  Please keep me in your prayers: it's a challenge, what I am learning, but I do love it. 

I hope this update finds you all well, and thank you for caring so much about me and what God is showing me!  I'd love to hear back from you all!

Cheers!
God Bless!
 
--Rosie

On Saturday, my friend Lindsey from my Peru trip came up to visit!  Well, her family came up to visit her brother Ryan who is going to college in my town.  Anyway, we had a grand night laughing our heads off.  My abs hurt from the workout!  I am not kidding.

She also bought me an early birthday present, TIMTAMS!!!!  I am so blessed, it is not even funny.