Wednesday, September 5, 2007

It is indeed over!

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

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)

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

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

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

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

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!)

Thursday, August 2, 2007

It's Bo'ness Baby!!!

Hi all,
So sorry i have been so lazy at the whole blog thing!!
Bo'ness has been going really well though the number's are lower the response has been fantastic!
We had a new little friend at Roadside Rescue today from the Grangepans area and She got stuck right in there!! Doing all the songs etc!
At night time our youth club has had an increase in numbers by a few with a few old faces coming back around!
On Tuesday night we started with 3 kids then i went out into the streets with Amie, we rounded up 8 kids from one street and went back along to the church the boys caused some trouble but hey thats half the fun and the two girls came back last night!! Smashing!! anyway time for a quick team meeting before dinner!!
I will return to poisting i promise!! xx

It's Thursday already!!

Good Morning!

I (Laura, again, I think I’m the only one who has easy internet access this week) can’t believe it’s Thursday already! That does mean of course that I must be enjoying myself and we certainly are. We’ve had a great week but it’s not ended yet.

Yesterday was another good day at Roadside Rescue. We have kept the numbers steady with 19 kids, but we must remember it’s not about the number of kids we get but about the time we spend with them. It’s about the conversations we have, sharing with them about the love that God has for them. We had a few roudy boys yesterday who we suitably winding each other up and I, Miss Hart, had to get my teacher voice out and I’m not sure who was more scared, the boys or the team!
Today we will be sharing the story of the Good Shepherd, sharing how Jesus is our Good Shepherd and that He came to seek and save the lost.

We had our Youth CafĂ© last night and had an increase by 1 which was really good as the same boys who came on Monday came again. We played some team games and I was introduced to a new game to me called Nukemball (have no idea how to spell that so suggestions would be appreciated). I have to say I don’t think I was overly that bad at it. The boys loved it though and is apparently a firm favourite from the Boys Club. We ended the night with more sharing of interesting facts and Natalie shared her story which she did very well.

I do have some up-dates from the other Step-Out teams around Scotland. Jillian and Rachel up in Hopeman are doing well, the team are having a great time. The are also doing Roadside Rescue and are getting around 15 kids each day. Cindy and the team in Bo’ness have around 10 kids at the club and sound like they are having great fun with all the different car parts that make up their set. Noel and the team in Wigtown are getting around 30 youngsters to the youth work they are doing down there. Many are staying on for the Delta service late on in the evening (9.15pm to 10pm).

Well the team have now arrived for our morning run over of things for the afternoon.

Take care for now,
Laura
xox

Monday, July 30, 2007

Cornton!

Hello from Sunny Stirling!

We have had a great day here in Stirling and the sun has been shining all day, and about time too! We began Roadside Rescue this afternoon and all went very well. We had 18 kids which was great as we never even reached that high a number when i was here last year. The programme went well and we even had some extra time at the end to add in an extra game which i have to say i've never had to do yet! The kids are taking a little bit of time getting use to singing the new songs but i'm sure by the end of the week they'll all be loving, "You are G.O.D!" And managing to do the actions too and that's just the team members.

This evening we had an informal youth cafe and we had 5 boys coming along. But we were not down hearted in the slightest as Cornton don't have any youth work in place at the moment, and so we are merely testing the waters so having 5 attending was really good to see. They enjoyed playing the playstation, card games and drinking hot chocolate. We ended the evening by sharing an interesting fact about ourselves, finding out that we had the brother of the carpet layer of Andy Murray among us. We also had a few playstation and xbox experts aswell.

Roadside Rescue continues tomorrow afternoon, with the rules of the road and a trusty road map in toe - thus of course leading to the fact that God has given us our own road map and highway code for life, the Bible! The team will spend the evening chilling out and the possibility of a walk around Cornton to seek out some more youth.

Well a cup of tea and bed beckons.

Take care
Laura
xox

Friday, July 27, 2007

Long time no speak! (Or since last post anyway!)

Hello one and all!

Sorry for the huge gap in postings. Last week, we girls (Noel was enjoying his week off at CLAN), were in the East Neuk area of Fife and were completely out of internet range! So, we ended a week of lots of youth work last Sunday. It certainly was a challenging week in more ways than one, especially due to the fact that we had sports mornings (in Anstruther) at 10 everyday, and i (Laura) for one am not the sportiest of people!! Thankfully we were joined by one other Step Out teamer, David who entered into the sporting spirits well. That's not to say we didn't either, Jillian was by far the sportiest out of us all and we did all find our callings in the sports world, even if that was just in playing giant Snakes and Ladders!

Each evening we had a youth club in Pittenweem. We had steadily rising numbers over the course of the week, the majority of them being the same youth as the mornings, but this meant that we could really begin to build relationships with the youngsters. Our evening would consist of playing table games before heading out to the field to play Kickball which remained a firm favourite everynight. We'd end the night with one of the team sharing their story and answering some questions.

God was certainly with us throughout the week as some more than others began to struggle with tiredness. God gave us strength to keep going and to stick together as a team, we even survived "Crabbit Thursday" even if it was only just! Thankfully i had also regained the use of my voice through lots of prayer, which I am very much grateful for!

I ask that you continue to pray for the amazing work that is going on in the East Neuk Baptist Church. They have built up some excellent bridges with some of the youth in the area and there are some exciting times ahead.

This week us girls have been enjoying a much needed week of rest. I for one have spent a lot of it sleeping and of course catching up on the latest goings on of Harry Potter. The others have also spent time catching up on sleep and spending time with family and friends. Noel has been busy working with a team in Montrose that has been very successful and the children who came along to their kids club had a great time.

We (the girls) will all soon be getting repacked to head off again on Sunday. We will be spread across three different areas in Scotland, Rachel and Jillian will be up in Hopeman, Cindy in her home town of Bo'ness and I will be in the Cornton area of Stirling. I'm certainly looking forward to getting started again.

Until it all begins again...

Take care
Laura
xox

Saturday, July 14, 2007

Leven and Leslie

I (Jillian) have left the boys sleeping in the church and the girls drinking tea, to come to the library and get on the internet!

That's the holiday clubs finished for week 2. Leslie have completed Wastewatchers and the team have survived despite a slightly annoying theme song!

Roadside Rescue proved a success once again. The highlight for me of the kids club at Leven was on Friday standing at the front doing the actions, and looking at 50+ kids all shouting 'One Way... Jesus... You're the only one I will live for'. It was fantastic how enthusiastic they all were.
Laura has suffered from losing her voice since Tuesday evening, it is getting slightly better, but is sore now as opposed to just no voice, please keep her in your prayers!

The youth events at Leven have continued to go well with around 40 (including both Step Out teams) attending each evening. On Thursday night 14 young people made a committment to follow Chirst! Praise the Lord! :D Please pray for these young people, some of whom had never been at the church before, and for the church as they continue to guide, support and nurture them.

My time on the internet is running out, and i should go and see if the rest of the team is awake! We're all headed for St Andrews for some chill out time and of course a Starbucks!

God bless,
Jillian (and all the team!)
x tc n Gb x

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

And it's onto week two!

Yup, week one of the summer is now well and truely over! After leaving rainy little Alva behind Laura and I (with another team member Steven) headed through to Leven intime to teach some of the helpers the actions to the kids songs! We also played a few games with some of the youth which was a great opportunity to get to know them.

The kids club has gone very well the past two mornings with around 60 kids in attendance, timings haven't always been stuck to (much to our leader Stephen's annoyance!) However, all the essentials have remained in with Laura and I taking our turns to tell the Bible story. The drama has been a great hit with the children and is one of the most talked about parts.

In the evenings we're doing some youth work. Last night (Monday) there was 39 of us all joining in games on the beach and then back at the hall. Cindy, Rachel, Noel and Heather and Natalie are on mission in Leslie this week, which is only 15 minutes away, so they came and joined in with our youth activities last night and are hoping to continue with us throughout the week. We've introduced a question box for the youth and have already had a couple of interesting questions e.g. 'What do you do when you feel that nobody cares?' and a couple of other equally tough questions, please pray that we will be able to answer them well and in total accordance to the Bible.

Well, I'd best go and be sociable and maybe let others online!
Hopefully update you soon!
Jillian and Laura
x tc n Gb x

P.S The sun is shining outside and its lovely and warm! :D

Friday, July 6, 2007

End of the light factory :(

Hi, just a quick note to say that 15 kids became Christians 2day after being challenged yesterday at the light factory! Amazing! Please pray that now they've made that commitment they will grow in their faith through the follow up stuff that the churches are doing throughtout the holidays and beyond!
God has shown me so much this week not only about him and what he can do but what I can do through him, Anything is possible with God!
Rachel
xxx

Thursday, July 5, 2007

We have found internet access!!

Hello!!

It's us two down in Alva! We have finally been able to get back to the ministers house who has wireless internet so we can get you all up to date on what we're up to. The mission is going great here, we had over 50 children today which was fantastic! The kids are loving Roadside Rescue, it was written by some pretty good people afterall! (They being Jillian and I of course!).

Today I (Jillian) was recapping on some of our Bible stories and was telling the children about Jesus, and how Jesus was the Son of God, being human as well as God. During this time one little boy, Craig, started shouting out that Jesus was not God, and that Jesus had actually died in the grave. I tried to keep talking over him explaining that Jesus was God. Please pray that the other children did not pick up on what Craig was saying and that they would only hear the truth.

This evening we're heading down to the park to invite some youth to a youth club that we're hoping to run tomorrow evening in the church. This is the first youth event that the church has done, so we don't have very high hopes for it, but we know that God is powerful and can do anything!

'til the next internet access day!
Laura and Jillian
xx tc n Gb xx

Wednesday, July 4, 2007

Thurso Days 2 & 3

Hey Cindy and Rachel here, thought this time I would write (I being Cindy) would tell you all about the last couple of days!
Yesterday (Tues) was cool we had about 78 kids in the morning and looked at God's power and at night time we did a drama about Image not being about everything and noel ended it with a talk which really set it off it was really good and we had a laugh doing it!!
Today was a busy day we had the light factory in the morning and it went well we were speaking about the fall of Man which was intresting to put across!
Then later this afternoon we played games down the beach with the kids ended up only having a sandcastle comp that lasted over a hour!!
Tonight we had about 10-15 kids and had a camera rally which worked well it was good had to get completly mental pics but it worked and it was fun afterwords Rach shared her testomony about her the way in which she was opened to God's plans for her life and how she put her trust in God!! it was really cool and went down well we then played sing star on the PS which worked ace!! anyhow it is Crabit Thursday tomorrow so i best get to bed!!

God Bless and hope all is well!! xxx

Monday, July 2, 2007

Thurso Day 1

Hi, Rachel and Cindy here! Its now 2 minutes past midnight so day 1 is officially over and we should be sleeping...zzzzz! We're in Thurso this week which is home for me (rachel) with fellow step out pluser (thats so not a word!) Noel and John from Loch Carron. 1st day went really well, we had 74 kids this morning at the light factory holiday club, this year we're doing the The Magicians Nephew (the story before The lion, the witch and the wardrope) so we're in Naria all week! Setting up was a bit crazy as we couldn't get into the school over the weekend but everyone mucked in and the job got done with a bit of time left over before kids arrived! Things went really well for a 1st day and hopefully it'll continue to get better.

We had about a dozen teenagers this evening down at Tempest (the surf cafe) with about half of them having no church connection at all. Some of the girls were a bit reluctent to join in with the games at 1st but soon joined in when they saw how much fun everyone else was having. Best game of the evening - passing eggs to a partner and gradually getting further and further apart! I think everyone had egg in their hair and on faces by the end of the game! Cindy spoke about how she became a Christian tonight which was really relevent to a lot of the teenagers who were there!

I suppose we better hit the sack for now but we'll let you know how the rest of the week goes!

Cindy & Rach

We Have Begun!!

Hello!!

Step Out has officially begun and day 1 is nearly over! Jillian and I are in Alva with another two team members, Ross and Gillian. We were the first ever to road test "Roadside Rescue" (i know the pun was awful!). We had 43 kids this morning at Roadside Rescue, which was amazing for a first day. It was quite a handful in the teeny space we have but we coped well and the club was enjoyed by all. We also fashionably wore our funky bolier suits which everyone was jealous of! You never know we could give up the day job and pass off as a mechanic! Probably some more than others of course!

Will be back soon to report more!

Take care
Laura

Saturday, June 30, 2007

Who are we?

Hi all!

We are the Step Out Plus team for 2007. Step Out Plus is run by The Baptist Union of Scotland and we will be working with different churches over the summer doing children's and/or youth work!

We are Jillian Annan, Rachel Findlay, Laura Hart, Cindy Nelson and Noel Slevin. (We'll maybe share some interesting information about us soon! We start our first missions tomorrow and are looking forward to putting all the things we've been learning during our training, into pratice!

We trust that you are well,
God Bless,
The Step Out Plus 2007 team!