Back to the Island again

Last week (apart from the essay writing!) was lovely. I love being at home and just being free to do whatever I feel like doing, I love spending time with my parents and curling up on the sofa with them in the evening to watch a terrible film, I love going back to my home church and catching up with everyone. I love seeing the ridiculous things that get my Dad excited - like finding a new charging point for his electric car! In all honesty, I found it really hard to come back to the island!

Messing around with Dad

I had a long drive on my own to the ferry from Moorlands on Tuesday and then another long drive from the ferry to my Host Home afterwards, so I turned the music up loud so that I didn't feel silly talking into silence and I had a long chat with God all the way back. and by the time I arrived I was feeling a lot more optimistic about the next term here.

At Rock Solid - my Thursday youth club, we had such a brilliant evening. We have a great group of girls and they're all really starting to open up now that they're getting used to each other and to the set up of Rock Solid. Every week we have a short time of discussion in the middle of the evening. This week the girls got so into the discussion that it overran past the next activity and right to the end of the evening! Its so exciting to see them engaging so well in thinking about real life issues and being open with each other and encouraging each other.

It's times like that that remind me why I'm here and I'm really so excited to how see each one of those girls grows and develops over the coming weeks and months.

Thanks for praying!
Take a look at my youth work blog at www.gunvillemethodistyouthwork.blogspot.com

Easter Holiday!

Last week I organised a car wash for some of the young people I work with. They spent a couple of hours working hard to wash lots of cars to raise money for Smile Uganda and they made me very proud! After that, I jumped on a ferry and came home for Easter :)

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve had the absolute blessing of being able to spend time with my closest friends and family – something that doesn’t happen very often any more!

Last week, Clare came down to Basingstoke, and when we weren’t baking, singing and catching up with people, we took a trip up to London with Mum and Dad to see the Lion King in the West End. It was something that I had wanted to see for ages, so with tickets from my birthday, we finally got to see it and it was absolutely phenomenal!

Lion King!

After a couple of days of essay writing and procrastination, I got to go to my home church which is always lovely. I feel like Christ Church has changed a lot in the time that I’ve been away since I moved to Uganda and then to the island, but what’s great is that it still feels like home every time I go back.

That afternoon I drove up to Eynsham (The Centre of the Universe!) to stay with Clare. Eynsham is a place that feels more and more like a home from home every time I go. Clare’s family are brilliant and I love spending time there.

Andrew joined us in the evening and we went into Oxford on Monday to meet Esther and Joe – so 5 of the 6 ‘Uganda gappers’ were reunited! We very rarely all get to be together, and we missed Finch a lot, but we had such a lovely day. We enjoyed a picnic in the sun and miraculously no-one fell in when we went punting! It was exciting to be able to say ‘see you in Uganda!’ when Joe left, as the next time I see him will probably be in Entebbe airport in July!

Esther, Joe, Andrew, Me & Clare

Well after another few hours stolen with Clare I made my way back to Basingstoke this morning (I was very proud of myself for remembering the way home without my sat-nav!). I’m back to essay writing for a couple of days, but looking forward to spending time with Mum & Dad and catching up with other old friends from around here.

Time with people you love is such a precious thing and I’m learning not to take it for granted and to really appreciate it when it happens. I’m so lucky to have some truly incredible people in my life and just so grateful for the time that we get to spend together every now and then!

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!

Blogging From a Ferry

I’m writing this blog sitting in my car in the Red Funnel car park in Southampton whilst I’m waiting for the ferry to go back to the island. I’ve been on the mainland this week at Moorlands Bible College where I’m doing my degree. Because we only usually go once a week, we have to do a few block weeks through the year to cover the modules that we don’t have time for on Tuesdays.

This week we covered Church History and World Religions – all in one week! As well as lectures all day, we also had to prepare for group presentations which we gave on Friday. My group gave a presentation on Buddhism and Chinese religions, and from all the other groups we also learnt about Hinduism, Islam, Sikhism, Catholicism and Paganism. I love learning about other cultures so I thought it was great! It was also really interesting learning about the history of the church, and although its sad to remember how many times the church has gotten things so fundamentally wrong, it’s also good to learn about all the great things that the church has done too… and just down right funny to imagine people like Stylites living on top of a pole for several years!

Because we’re all placement based, most of us don’t get to see each other very often – and even when we’re in college on Tuesdays we don’t really have a lot of time to catch up, so block week is a brilliant chance to spend time together with other people who are doing similar things. They’re a great bunch and it was a blessing to have this time to spend together in the evenings (when we weren't preparing presentations!).

On Tuesday my Mum came down to take me out for dinner which was lovely (Seeing Mum of course, but also the enormous chocolate brownie that I had for pudding!!!).

Walking by the sea with Mum on Tuesday.

 I headed home for the night on Friday evening to catch up with Mum and Dad, and John and Cat even made an appearance to say ‘hi’ which was nice! Then on Saturday (today) we headed down to the church to help make posies for Mother’s Day which gave me a good chance to catch up with a few people. Now I'm on the ferry heading back to the island armed with cake!

I feel like I just spend my whole life ‘catching up’ with people that I don’t get to see enough of! I’m definitely learning how precious time is.

Thanks so much to those of you who pray for me, if you'd like some pointers this week...

- Pray for 'The Space' - a youth cafe I've recently set up, and that God will use it.

- Pray for my friend and her daughter who are both not very well.

- Pray for the young people I work with and for me as I try my best to guide them through life and teach them how much God loves them.

Freedom to be Foolish.

This week has been so lovely as I had Clare come to visit for the week. I dragged her around all the meetings and youth groups that I do, but I think she enjoyed it! As well as all of that, we also found some time to just go out and enjoy the sunshine(?) and the countryside together. Messing around running down hills in the wind, it struck me that it's been such a long time since I had just felt free and really had fun. 
Being responsible for other people is great, and it really is such a privilege to watch them learn and grow. What I'm starting to learn though is that whilst dignity is something that is quite important to me, its not something that I always have to have all of the time. Maybe sometimes I need to be a little less proud and a little more prepared to laugh at myself and just be free.

Clare and I up at the Pepper Pot

I once heard someone talk on worship, and they explained that when you really 'get' what God has done, and who he is, you just cant help but go crazy! It's so exciting and you just want to go crazy in celebration. I love when I get to a place when I can really let go in worship. When I stop caring, or even thinking about other people who might be watching, and just let go and celebrate God in freedom. I think he must love seeing his children looking so ridiculous because we're just so excited about who he is! God doesn't care if we look foolish for him, he loves it! 
What I really want, is to have that attitude in everything I do - not just when I'm singing worship songs, but when I'm just 'doing life'. Of course, often we have to reign it in a little - it would be a shame to frighten people! ... but I'm trying to be more prepared to be foolish for God, and to celebrate the freedom that I have in him.

Tomorrow (Monday) I'm going to Moorlands for our final block week of the first year, so I'll be at Moorlands having lectures all week.

Please pray...
- That all my youth work goes smoothly this week as my team run it without me.
- Pray for me at Moorlands - for energy and that what we're learning will be really interesting and engaging.
- Pray for me and my group as we prepare an assessed presentation on Chinese religions for Friday.

I keep a youth work blog which has much more detail about what I do in the week at www.gunvillemethodistyouthwork.blogspot.com

Still dreaming

I thought I would try to be a bit more honest with you in my blogs... Rather than simply listing the things I've been doing, I want to share my heart and what God is really doing in my life, instead of just telling you the practical things that I'm doing for him. My hope and my prayer is that somehow, through this, God will speak to you - the people who, for reasons I don't understand, continue to read what I have to write!

I've been so blessed and privileged to have had all of the experiences that I've had already in my life... and I continue to dream...

At Rock Solid last week, one of the girls asked about how we actually hear God speaking to us, which I thought was quite a profound question for someone so young, but it got me thinking. Personally, I often find that God speaks to me when I take the time to slow down and really observe what's going on, and what I'm thinking about, so I sometimes just write - about whatever I'm thinking about, and I often find that God will guide my words to teach me something new.
I had a few moments last weekend, and this is what I wrote... It's cheesy I know, but this is it...

"I've been thinking a lot about who I am, and what makes me who I am, and who do I want to be? I guess I realized that I don't know any of the answers, and I doubt I ever will, but I do know this... I want to be loved and I want to make others know that they are loved too. I never want to stop learning or growing, I don't want to stop dreaming or fulfilling my dreams. I want to travel, I want to meet lots of different people, I want to laugh and cry and sing and talk into the early hours. I want to see God do amazing things and be a part of it. I want to see the miracles in the small things, I want to appreciate the little blessings and the big ones too. I want to learn from the tough times and help to carry others through their own. I want to care for people and watch them grow. I want to have dreams, not just for me but for those that I invest in.

I may never be able to define 'me' in a sentence, but if I can get to the end of my life knowing that I didn't waste it trying to figure out who I am, I'll be pretty happy with that."

My struggle right now is to live in the moment. I want to give the work I'm doing right now my all. I don't see anything wrong at all about having hopes and dreams for the future, but I do see something wrong with always waiting for the next thing, and never just 'being' where you are at present.

Compton on Saturday

I've been able to see recently some of the things that God has been teaching me lately. I know that he is not only using me now, but preparing me for the future at the same time. Thinking about what I might do months from now, and also what I might do years from now, is so exciting. I've got big plans for my youth work here, and big plans for my life beyond that, but I'm sure that God's plans are even bigger still!

I'm looking forward to seeing my brother and Catherine who are coming to visit me tomorrow and then to welcoming Clare who is coming to stay for a few days next week. 
We're finally starting to see Rock Solid take off - it's been steadily growing in numbers for the past few weeks. We're hopeful that The Space (our youth cafe) will start to grow soon too.
If you want a few more details about stuff I've actually been doing, I keep a youth work blog at www.gunvillemethodistyouthwork.blogspot.com

Things to pray about:
- Pray for my latest project: The Space youth cafe, and that some young people will come along.
- Pray for me as I try to find new experiences and organize trips and days out with my young people.
- Pray for John and Cat travelling to the island tomorrow and for my friend Clare as she travels to the island to stay for a few days. Thank God that we have an opportunity to catch up and spend time together and pray that we will have a lovely time.

Spring is Coming!

I've just arrived back from school where we run a lunch club on Fridays. This week was the first one of the year when the weather was good enough to allow us to actually play games! 
The sun is finally starting to make an appearance, as are the daffodils which is beautiful.

Its been brilliant in the past couple of weeks to start to see my youth work here growing. We had more new people come along to Rock Solid on Thursday, and although we haven't had any takers for free cake at The Space youth cafe, its good to finally see it happening after so long just as an idea on a piece of paper, and the team are optimistic that if we persevere long enough, it will take off. This week I walked up the road with a tray of free cakes as the schools were finishing to encourage people to come in.

I preached in church on Sunday  on Joshua 1 and I've had lots of great feedback from that. Its really encouraging when people actually tell me what they learnt and what they're doing about it, so I know that they must have really taken something away from it. It was also used as my 'assessed preach' for Moorlands, and I got top marks which must be a good sign!

After looking at our 'vision and strategy' in our team meeting at YFC, I decided that I probably ought to do one for my youth work at Gunville. Its quite exciting to start to look at even more possibilities for the future and how we can take forward what we've already achieved here.

I rediscovered the joys(?!) of living on an island on Tuesday when Phil and I managed to miss 2 ferries in one day! Never mind - it was pancake day, so that made up for it. I made a start on the next essay - this one is on Exodus and might take me a while... I've also been to a bunch of meetings this week (although I did escape church council because it was the same night as Rock Solid!), I helped out at DofE and also made my youth group room comfy and pretty with sofas and fairy lights.

If you're interested in my work here as a YTP student, I keep a blog for GMC (Gunville Methodist Church) at www.gunvillemethodistyouthwork.blogspot.com

Thanks so much to everyone who prays for me...
This week I'd love some prayer for...

• The Space - pray that we get some young people coming along
• Thank God that Rock Solid is growing and pray it will continue to go well
• I have a few important meetings this week so pray that they will go well
• Pray for my Dad who is ridiculously busy at the moment