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