Hope

What did I learn this week? ...That God's hope holds out a lot longer than mine does!

On Wednesday I was feeling really tired and I had an 'I really cant be bothered today' attitude, which just makes me so angry with myself, but hey, sometimes I have those days. In the afternoon I headed down to the church as usual to set up for The Space youth cafe. I arrived late and started to set up for the cafe; moving loads of foam sofas down the stairs. I thought to myself 'We've been running this for over a month now and only one person has ever come in... I can haul all of these cushions up and down the stairs, but no one is going to sit on them.' so I brought a few down and decided that it wasn't worth the effort of getting the rest. I'd given up hope and I couldn't be bothered.
We got everything set up and I stood outside to offer free cake to students as they walked home from school - I was feeling very sorry for myself getting cold in the wind with a plate of cakes that no young people seemed to want, so I went back inside to warm up a bit.
And then God just went and showed me that whilst I might have given up, he definitely hadn't... all of 8 people came into the cafe that day! We served them hot chocolate and cake and a few even beat me at a game of Dobble and Uno!
Just when I was ready to give up, God stepped in and showed my why I shouldn't. The next day he just rubbed in the message with 2 more new girls at Rock Solid - my Thursday youth club. We ran Rock Solid for 3 months with only 3 girls coming, and in the last month alone our numbers have increased literally fourfold! We're now able to welcome all of these girls (yes, for some reason we only have girls!?) every week into a safe environment where they can have fun, build relationships and also have the opportunity to talk about real life issues in a place where their views are respected and they are encouraged to grow. What a privilege that is!

If you want to read about all the rest of my youth work, have a look at my youth work blog at www.gunvillemethodistyouthwork.blogspot.com (Published on Sunday Mornings).

Thanks, as always, to everyone who prays for me so faithfully.
This week I'd love some prayer for...

• Thanksgiving for the growth in numbers at The Space and Rock Solid - pray that this will continue.
• The car wash that I'm running with a group of young people on Tuesday to raise money for Smile Uganda.
• A safe journey as I travel home for Easter.
• Motivation and time to get my next essay done!