The Silent Lecturer

Last Sunday we collected the Christmas shoeboxes at church to send overseas in time for Christmas. It was a really surreal feeling as I remember distributing shoeboxes into the hands of children last year with Smile in Uganda and it felt really strange to be doing it from this end again having witnessed the other side of the chain.

Children at Blessed Word of Life Church Children's Club
with their Christmas Shoeboxes in December 2012

Shoeboxes collected at Gunville Methodist Church last week.

 I lead the 'Rising Tide' youthgroup as usual and this week we talked about prayer (and played Chinese whispers!). I was very privileged to share lunch with Paul and Linda and we had a lovely afternoon and a cold but beautiful walk by the sea.

On Monday we had a good meeting at YFC and were able to plan an upcoming youth event called 'Vibe' for December and in the afternoon I finally made a start on my essay!

The next day at Moorlands we had what you might describe as a 'slightly different' style of lecture which was about Postmodernism, during which our lecturer stood at the back of the room with signs which read "I am your tutor." "I am silent." "look - explore." for 20 minutes!

On Wednesday I did some planning and worked on my essay and then in the evening I went to Cowes for my first evening as a leader at Cowes DofE. It was a great evening and I spent most of the time with a new girl who was interested in starting the DofE award scheme, explaining to her what DofE is and what she'll have to do.

Thursday took me back to YFC for safeguarding training in the morning - an unfortunate necessity, but it was lead very well. I had a pretty busy day with planning and preparation to do for Rock Solid, a meeting with my Field Work Tutor about how Moorlands is going, and an essay to write - and all that before I had to run Rock Solid in the evening. It was a good and productive day and Rock Solid was great fun. I themed all the games around 'school' and encouraged the young people to live at school in a way that brings glory to God. 

I was determined to finish my essay on Friday, and I didn't leave the house at all (apart from to move the car off the drive and out of the way). Finally, at about 10pm I completed my first draft. If I can find the motivation it will hopefully get looked at again over the next couple of days and hopefully made a little bit better before I hand it in on Tuesday.

So having (more or less) finished my essay, I went out for the day on Saturday with a friend to Southampton. It feels good sometimes to get off of the island for a while and we had a lovely day.

If you're up for praying, I'd appreciate if you could pray this week for:
- Catalyst (a youth event) that we're running next Friday.
- That God will use me in all the youth work that I'm involved in.
- That I'll have a good week.