So here is my (Laura) Step Out Summer Summary. I can not believe that Step Out is over!! Now I have to get my head back into the books for uni. But that means I’ll get to go back into the classroom. Enjoy…
Well, this time last year I had decided that next Summer I was going to do just as I did that Summer, go back to working at the bank and do one week of Step Out. Little did I know that God had something very different planned for my Summer! I did not think for one minute that I would now be writing a summary of a Summer on the Step Out Plus team!
My first week of mission was in the small village of Alva; where we packed in 50 kids to the tiny church! How we coped, I will never know! Well I do really, it was God, it certainly couldn’t have been anyone else! We were using 'Roadside Rescue', the wonderful BU material written by Jillian (Step Out Plus), myself and a few others.
Week two meant heading over to Leven. It was here I realized just how much God can teach you through the loss of your voice for three days! Also, having not had much youth work experience, Leven is certainly the place to throw someone in at the deep end! Along with Roadside Rescue we ran a youth club in the evenings called “The Hangout”, which was a great place to get to know the youth; playing games, chatting, praying with them. And…my biggest achievement, sharing my story with over forty people!
For mission week three, Jillian and I headed to meet the rest of the Step Out Plus girls in East Neuk. This was a challenging week as I’m not the sportiest of people and we had to run sports mornings every morning in the High School. But I entered into it in good spirit and we were able to build up relationships and have some interesting conversations with the youth at the youth club in the evenings.
After a week at home, catching up with friends, family and indeed some much needed sleep I took my Roadside Rescue Resourcefulness back to Stirlingshire and Clackmannanshire. I spent a week in Cornton, leading a Holiday Club in the afternoons, which was definitely a good idea for those who need the extra sleep! We did youth work over two weeks which was an unknown venture for Step Out but it seemed to work and gave us the chance to build up relationships with the youngsters. During the second week we joined up with Tillicoultry Baptist and they really are a church full of enthusiasm and energy. We ran Roadside Rescue where we sang lots of songs, many of which were requests of songs I had taught them there last year. We ended the week with a Fellowship Lunch after the Sunday Service where six children who weren’t church known came along, some, with their families. God undoubtedly is at work in Tilly.
My final week of mission took me the furthest west I had been all summer, Ayr. It was good to take a step back this week, from leading and become the Roadside Rescue Resource Reviewer (we Baptists like alliteration J). I enjoyed spending time with a small group of girls, getting to know them and have some interesting conversations.
This summer I have learnt so much about myself, working with children, youth, staying away from home for so long(!), staying in a church, working as a team, the list could go on and on! But I have also learnt the most about God, and his will for me, about how through him I really do have the strength to do anything and how I can share the immense love He has for me with others.
Take care,
Laura
xox
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Sunday, September 2, 2007
Well... That's another year over!
Yup! Step Out Plus (and Step Out) 2007 is now officially over!
We as a Step Out Plus team have just completed 2 weeks of reviewing and debreifing, where looked at lessons from the Summer and helped Gary to produce a couple of booklets about doing Step Out and about hosting a Step Out team.
I will endevour to get the other Step Out members to post up their Summer reports! (Gary still has mine on his laptop atm!)
I shall leave you with a nice pic of us all! :) (Back row: Jillian Annan, Noel Slevin; Front row: Laura Hart, Cindy Nelson, Rachel Findlay)
We as a Step Out Plus team have just completed 2 weeks of reviewing and debreifing, where looked at lessons from the Summer and helped Gary to produce a couple of booklets about doing Step Out and about hosting a Step Out team.
I will endevour to get the other Step Out members to post up their Summer reports! (Gary still has mine on his laptop atm!)
I shall leave you with a nice pic of us all! :) (Back row: Jillian Annan, Noel Slevin; Front row: Laura Hart, Cindy Nelson, Rachel Findlay)
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Lossiemouth!
Hello!
Yes Rachel and I (Jillian) are still alive! Just not getting any regular access to internet!
Well things went well in Inverness last week, with almost 3 times the number of children attending the club than we had last year! We also had a good fun time with between 2 and 6 youth in the evenings!
This week we're in Lossie, joined by another 6 people, which includes Lorna our teamleader for the week! Not being team leader takes a lot of responsibility off my shoulders and allows me to be a little bit more silly (It's alright, Lorna just has to say my name if im getting too silly, and i'll stop!). The kids club this week is going really well, we started with about 32 kids on Monday and the numbers have just kept growing and growing! It;s great to see another new bunch of kids enjoying Roadside Rescue!
In the evenings I think we get up to 15 youth, mainly from the church, which is quite unusual for a Lossie mission, after chatting a bit about it, we felt that this is for us to really get alongside them and encourage them in their faith, and build them up to be able to feel confident in sharing their faith with their friends! Amazing things are going to be happening in Lossie, Rae McKenzie has recently accepted the post of Associate pastor with responsibility for chidlren and youth (Or something equally as long and confusing) anyway Rae will be working with the youth in Lossie, and in about 2 weeks time a very long awaited Youth Cafe, organised by a committee made up of people from a number of churches inLossie, will be opening. We got a sneak preview during a photo shoot, and it's fantastic! The youth are going to love it!
Id best head off now, and get biscuits and icing for 2moro's craft. Please pray for that last burst of energy for our last day tomorrow, and also that we would enjoy Saturday, we're going to the church BBQ and then a family ceilidh, pray that our witness would continue through these 2 events as well!
Spk 2u soon!
Jillian (And rachel, who says *snore snore*)
x tc n Gb x
Yes Rachel and I (Jillian) are still alive! Just not getting any regular access to internet!
Well things went well in Inverness last week, with almost 3 times the number of children attending the club than we had last year! We also had a good fun time with between 2 and 6 youth in the evenings!
This week we're in Lossie, joined by another 6 people, which includes Lorna our teamleader for the week! Not being team leader takes a lot of responsibility off my shoulders and allows me to be a little bit more silly (It's alright, Lorna just has to say my name if im getting too silly, and i'll stop!). The kids club this week is going really well, we started with about 32 kids on Monday and the numbers have just kept growing and growing! It;s great to see another new bunch of kids enjoying Roadside Rescue!
In the evenings I think we get up to 15 youth, mainly from the church, which is quite unusual for a Lossie mission, after chatting a bit about it, we felt that this is for us to really get alongside them and encourage them in their faith, and build them up to be able to feel confident in sharing their faith with their friends! Amazing things are going to be happening in Lossie, Rae McKenzie has recently accepted the post of Associate pastor with responsibility for chidlren and youth (Or something equally as long and confusing) anyway Rae will be working with the youth in Lossie, and in about 2 weeks time a very long awaited Youth Cafe, organised by a committee made up of people from a number of churches inLossie, will be opening. We got a sneak preview during a photo shoot, and it's fantastic! The youth are going to love it!
Id best head off now, and get biscuits and icing for 2moro's craft. Please pray for that last burst of energy for our last day tomorrow, and also that we would enjoy Saturday, we're going to the church BBQ and then a family ceilidh, pray that our witness would continue through these 2 events as well!
Spk 2u soon!
Jillian (And rachel, who says *snore snore*)
x tc n Gb x
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
It's Ayr!!!
Hello All!
So this week Cindy, Noel and me (Laura) are in Ayr! We have been joined by Claire, Adam and Dave with some honouree members from Ayr Baptist, Ross and Eilis. We have had a great week so far, we had 16 kids yesterday and 18 kids today at Roadside Rescue. The kids are all having a great time and the team are doing really well too, even though it’s my 5th time doing Roadside Rescue I am yet not tired of doing it! The three members of Step Out+ are getting very tired though, but it’s our final week of mission so we are going full steam ahead to continue God’s work! I can’t believe it’s our last week!
We had a youth club last night and had 10 church youth join us. It was a night of playing games and bletherings. I shared my story with them last night and was asked some challenging questions by Cindy! Like “How did you know God was telling you to do Step Out+?”!!! Thanks Cindy!! Hopefully I managed to answer it simply enough and I wasn’t talking gobbledygook!
Tonight will be some more of the same with Claire sharing her story with us. We are also getting a visit from Gary which is always exciting!
Will I better go be sociable with the rest of the team and let some others on the computer (we are currently all up at Ross’s house using his showers so, yes we are all smelling much better now!).
Speak to you or see you soon as I will be home on Sunday!
Take care
Laura
xox
So this week Cindy, Noel and me (Laura) are in Ayr! We have been joined by Claire, Adam and Dave with some honouree members from Ayr Baptist, Ross and Eilis. We have had a great week so far, we had 16 kids yesterday and 18 kids today at Roadside Rescue. The kids are all having a great time and the team are doing really well too, even though it’s my 5th time doing Roadside Rescue I am yet not tired of doing it! The three members of Step Out+ are getting very tired though, but it’s our final week of mission so we are going full steam ahead to continue God’s work! I can’t believe it’s our last week!
We had a youth club last night and had 10 church youth join us. It was a night of playing games and bletherings. I shared my story with them last night and was asked some challenging questions by Cindy! Like “How did you know God was telling you to do Step Out+?”!!! Thanks Cindy!! Hopefully I managed to answer it simply enough and I wasn’t talking gobbledygook!
Tonight will be some more of the same with Claire sharing her story with us. We are also getting a visit from Gary which is always exciting!
Will I better go be sociable with the rest of the team and let some others on the computer (we are currently all up at Ross’s house using his showers so, yes we are all smelling much better now!).
Speak to you or see you soon as I will be home on Sunday!
Take care
Laura
xox
Friday, August 10, 2007
I'm so bad at this game!
Hey all,
sorry i am so grateful to Laura for keping up with the posting, i have no reason other than being totally lazy.
I can not believe it is the end of week six already what a fast summer, i don't want it to end!
Just to finish off witha roundup of Bo'ness, huh where to start.
On Thursday night Amie shared her story and had a tough audience but those who needed to hear it heard of the impact God has made in her life, it was an amazing week and one of our older youth (using the word youth btw) asked Jesus into her life it was an amazing moment and truly a beautiful moment for everyone concerned!
Friday was packed out with a mixture of Partents, kids and youth for fun bbq and it was also a great chance for the older kids to get to know some of the younger ones, also helped that the team got stuck in there and made complete fools of themselves all in the name of fun!
This week has been really good, Roadside Rescue went fantastic with a few more faces today and the traffic light biscuits going down well.
The team had a lovely evening at Hamish and Morag's huse bonding and playing Buzz on the PS2, we evn cracked out the singstar for a few tunes!
Anyway it is late so i better get moving to my bed i will try to write before i leave for Ayr on Sunday but if i am too lazy please forgive me!
Also can you please remember the team next week in your prayers as myself and Noelio are co-leading so you never know what will happen!
God Bless
Love and Prayers
Cinders xx
sorry i am so grateful to Laura for keping up with the posting, i have no reason other than being totally lazy.
I can not believe it is the end of week six already what a fast summer, i don't want it to end!
Just to finish off witha roundup of Bo'ness, huh where to start.
On Thursday night Amie shared her story and had a tough audience but those who needed to hear it heard of the impact God has made in her life, it was an amazing week and one of our older youth (using the word youth btw) asked Jesus into her life it was an amazing moment and truly a beautiful moment for everyone concerned!
Friday was packed out with a mixture of Partents, kids and youth for fun bbq and it was also a great chance for the older kids to get to know some of the younger ones, also helped that the team got stuck in there and made complete fools of themselves all in the name of fun!
This week has been really good, Roadside Rescue went fantastic with a few more faces today and the traffic light biscuits going down well.
The team had a lovely evening at Hamish and Morag's huse bonding and playing Buzz on the PS2, we evn cracked out the singstar for a few tunes!
Anyway it is late so i better get moving to my bed i will try to write before i leave for Ayr on Sunday but if i am too lazy please forgive me!
Also can you please remember the team next week in your prayers as myself and Noelio are co-leading so you never know what will happen!
God Bless
Love and Prayers
Cinders xx
End of the week ramblings!
Good Morning!
So it’s Friday again. We finished up youth work in Cornton on Wednesday with some silly balloon games which the boys really enjoyed. And of course we had to play a final game of Nukemball in which I redeemed myself by actually catching the ball this time! The boys have all seemed to really enjoyed coming along and are interesting in coming back when Cornton can find a venue to hold a youth club in. Cornton have just begun building work and so are out of their own building at the moment. But it’s encouraging that they are very keen to keep going despite this by actively looking for somewhere to hold a youth club.
Roadside Rescue is still going down a treat over in Tilly. There have been around 35 to 40 children every day with a good 50% of them being non-church kids which is very encouraging. We finish up the afternoon club this afternoon by looking at how just like a car needs fuel to run we too need fuel to work for God and he sends that in the form of his Holy Spirit. That we can do amazing things for Him if we use His Holy Spirit to help us.
The team are going to enjoy a night off tonight having some “team bonding” playing buzz and eating chocolate fountain – yummy! We are looking forward to our day off tomorrow and a BBQ at night with the folks from Tilly.
We are taking the majority of the Sunday Morning Service again this Sunday with yours truly leading it. We’ll be singing some of the songs from the week and telling the church folks all about what we’ve been upto this week.
It may be a while before I post again as I’m heading with Cindy and Noel to Ayr on Sunday for our final week of mission. We will be staying in the church and I will unlikely get internet access. Please pray for our continued need for strength as we fight the tiredness on our last week. We’ll be doing Roadside Rescue in the mornings and youth work in the evenings.
Jillian and Rachel have had a good week up in Inverness and they will be travelling on to Lossiemouth on Sunday for their final week of mission. They too will be doing Roadside Rescue in the mornings and youth work in the evenings.
Hope all is well.
Take care,
Laura
xox
So it’s Friday again. We finished up youth work in Cornton on Wednesday with some silly balloon games which the boys really enjoyed. And of course we had to play a final game of Nukemball in which I redeemed myself by actually catching the ball this time! The boys have all seemed to really enjoyed coming along and are interesting in coming back when Cornton can find a venue to hold a youth club in. Cornton have just begun building work and so are out of their own building at the moment. But it’s encouraging that they are very keen to keep going despite this by actively looking for somewhere to hold a youth club.
Roadside Rescue is still going down a treat over in Tilly. There have been around 35 to 40 children every day with a good 50% of them being non-church kids which is very encouraging. We finish up the afternoon club this afternoon by looking at how just like a car needs fuel to run we too need fuel to work for God and he sends that in the form of his Holy Spirit. That we can do amazing things for Him if we use His Holy Spirit to help us.
The team are going to enjoy a night off tonight having some “team bonding” playing buzz and eating chocolate fountain – yummy! We are looking forward to our day off tomorrow and a BBQ at night with the folks from Tilly.
We are taking the majority of the Sunday Morning Service again this Sunday with yours truly leading it. We’ll be singing some of the songs from the week and telling the church folks all about what we’ve been upto this week.
It may be a while before I post again as I’m heading with Cindy and Noel to Ayr on Sunday for our final week of mission. We will be staying in the church and I will unlikely get internet access. Please pray for our continued need for strength as we fight the tiredness on our last week. We’ll be doing Roadside Rescue in the mornings and youth work in the evenings.
Jillian and Rachel have had a good week up in Inverness and they will be travelling on to Lossiemouth on Sunday for their final week of mission. They too will be doing Roadside Rescue in the mornings and youth work in the evenings.
Hope all is well.
Take care,
Laura
xox
Monday, August 6, 2007
Cornton continues as Tilly begins!
Hello All!
Well the Cornton week ended well. The team enjoyed their day off shopping in Stirling and going out for coffee. We then had a night at the manse with the chocolate fountain and playing Buzz. The Sunday Service went well, we only had two kids join us (one of them being the Minister’s daughter) but they were incredibly enthusiastic joining in all the actions and reciting the memory verses. This also meant that I could test the team too!
The afternoon said goodbye to Natalie and Heather. The evening said hello to Cindy and Noel, to begin the Tilly week. We all headed out to the church to decorate and set up for the next day. To my surprise we arrived to it pretty much done and the place looked great! The Tilly folk were all very excited about the week ahead and it was such an encouragement to see it.
So this afternoon brought the beginning of Roadside Rescue for the fourth time for me this summer. All went well and we had 38 kids which was great. The team did great and the kids had a great time, they were all enthusiastic in playing the games, singing the songs and sat perfectly during the story time. We give thanks to God for the help provided by Tilly, the church folk were getting right into the new songs we were teaching them aswell.
We ran the youth club again tonight back over in Cornton and we had another 6 boys, they weren’t the same ones so it was good to get to know some others. Please pray for Cornton as they seek guidance in where they can go next with the youth work.
Right I’m off to get a cup of tea.
Take care
Laura
Xox
PS Apologies for the blue text I used last time, apparently it wasn’t very easy to read. I didn’t realise that so I now know not to use it again. (Thanks mum!)
Well the Cornton week ended well. The team enjoyed their day off shopping in Stirling and going out for coffee. We then had a night at the manse with the chocolate fountain and playing Buzz. The Sunday Service went well, we only had two kids join us (one of them being the Minister’s daughter) but they were incredibly enthusiastic joining in all the actions and reciting the memory verses. This also meant that I could test the team too!
The afternoon said goodbye to Natalie and Heather. The evening said hello to Cindy and Noel, to begin the Tilly week. We all headed out to the church to decorate and set up for the next day. To my surprise we arrived to it pretty much done and the place looked great! The Tilly folk were all very excited about the week ahead and it was such an encouragement to see it.
So this afternoon brought the beginning of Roadside Rescue for the fourth time for me this summer. All went well and we had 38 kids which was great. The team did great and the kids had a great time, they were all enthusiastic in playing the games, singing the songs and sat perfectly during the story time. We give thanks to God for the help provided by Tilly, the church folk were getting right into the new songs we were teaching them aswell.
We ran the youth club again tonight back over in Cornton and we had another 6 boys, they weren’t the same ones so it was good to get to know some others. Please pray for Cornton as they seek guidance in where they can go next with the youth work.
Right I’m off to get a cup of tea.
Take care
Laura
Xox
PS Apologies for the blue text I used last time, apparently it wasn’t very easy to read. I didn’t realise that so I now know not to use it again. (Thanks mum!)
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