Freed by Grace

Unfortunately my car broke last weekend, so I've been getting fit this week by walking everywhere! But praise God for his provision and for the generosity of the people around me here who have helped me out with lifts to places that are too far to walk, and as I type there is a mechanic working on the car - he's fixed the initial problem but is now trying to make the heater work so I don't get so cold!
I've really seen God's provision in so many ways since moving here, and the generosity of so many people is really humbling.

Well other than that I've had a relatively normal and busy week. After our weekly meeting on Monday, Dan, Fenton and I had the joy(?) of filming the next episode of the "Randall and Fenton" series that we're showing at our 'Catalyst' youth events. This week we walked around Newport asking people what they thought about Christmas, dressed in a trench coat and Christmas hat, and Fenton wore a boiler suit as you can see in the photo. I think I'm going to need to get used to deliberately humiliating myself!

Inspector Fenton

In the evening I had a lovely meal with a couple from church and had the pleasure of looking through my photo album from Uganda with them.

We had another interesting day at Moorlands on Tuesday, complete with a break dance performance from one of our lecturers, during a lecture on incarnational ministry. (There is a film on Facebook if you want a laugh!). I also handed in my last essay for this year which was such a good feeling! 

Essay finished and ready to hand in.

I had lots of planning to do on Wednesday for two weeks worth of Rock Solid (as I'll be away next week) and in the evening I had DofE in Cowes. THis week the young people were learning first aid. You can only laugh when teaching CPR to a group of giggly 14yr olds!

The planning and preparation continued into Thursday, but this was more fun as I was preparing activities for Rock Solid. This involved hiding a coin inside a Mars bar, and freezing a coin into a block of ice, among other things, followed by a bunch of risk assessments. I also got my Sunday youth group planned and more or less prepared, the Friday post of the YFC bible in one year blog written (iwbibleinoneyear.wordpress.com) and I made a start on writing a talk that I'll be giving at a youth event in a couple of weeks.
Rock Solid went well. The young people succeeded at getting coins out of a Mars bar, a block of ice, a bowl of soup and a mess of gaffa tape, among other activities, and we learnt about God's big plan.

On Friday we ran Catalyst - a youth event with games, worship and a talk. It takes a lot of set up, so I arrived before 3, and we opened the doors to the young people at 7. The evening was themed "Sentenced to death, freed by grace." and it went really well. After packing everything away, a few of us were going to go out, but this is the Isle of Wight where most places are shut by 11pm, so we piled into someone's house for a while instead.

On Monday, Phil and I are off to Moorlands for a week of lectures on New Testament Studies to finish off the term.

If you'd be up for praying for me, please could you pray...
- That Moorlands this week would go well. That we'll enjoy and understand the lectures and not get too exhausted.
- That Rock Solid this week will go well without me.
- That my car wont die!