Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. Psalm 37v4.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Mission...
Well tomorrow at around 12:30pm I shall be getting folks together to go down to Troon in South Aryshire to do a 9 day long mission down there... I'm not completely organised... well in that i've not actually packed yet. And there seems to be a lot of things falling apart at their end. But hopefully, just hopefully once we're there and settled it'll all calm down and we can just get on with it.
that said, prayers would be nice. Please. Apart from the fact that I can't believe it starts tomorrow i'm feeling relatively at ease... i'm not sure that could be said for everyone though.
In some ways it seems like a mountain. But, and I'll say this only once, my God is BIGGER than this mountain which appears before me, and i'm gonna believe that he can 'take it' no problem *grins*
One of the reasons I was back to Glasgow so soon after my holiday was that I had been invited to my ministers sons wedding, and wow, wasn't it a lovely day... it was one of those wedding where attention to detail was amazing and just very cute and sweet and it was all so perfect. It was such an honour to be there and share it with them =)
I remember when Esther 'n Andy first got together and it was rather amusing hearing the stories at the wedding reception... but we had the meal first (bonus) which was a BBQ - never had that at a wedding before - but it was fab! Andy had 2 best men, both equally amusing - i'm pretty sure that Ruth (Andy's mum) was about to slide under the table in embarrassment a few times - but it was all good fun - plus Findlay can do an AMAZING impression of Iain (my minister) - that had me doubled over big time! LOL But yes, a beautiful day for a beautiful couple... Hope they enjoyed their honeymoon to Disney World Florida!!! XD God bless you both with many happy years together! XD
So next.... after a full on week of bible study with the young ones I headed home for a week... it was soooo nice to be home 'n relax a wee bit.
There was a lot of relaxation, but it went far too quickly if i'm honest! LOL. On the Saturday we went up north to see my grandparents and cousins and had a bbq - was soooo much fun XD good banter as always! I decided that it was like having CHristmas dinner in Australia coz we were out the back in the blazing sun, with our Santa clause table cloth LOL - we even played giant ludo in the evening on the grass!!!!! (and the youngest person - ruth - is almost 23 LOL) but it was good fun - good banter...
we also had grandma 'n granda down in Kemnay one day which was fab! and we managed to catch a great snap of them both with the 2 dogs!!! First time that both of the dogs have wanted up to their laps at the same time - was very sweet lol!!
But aye - all in all a good trip home catching up with folk but also catching a chance to sleep... lots...! XP
Well i've not blogged in ages which is ridiculous really.. So i'm going to take some time in between work prep for Mission on Saturday this week to blog some of the stuff thats happened over the past wee while...
Work has been quieter (thankfully) over the past wee while as I've not been responsible for the Church's Summer Sunday school which in past years has run for 3 full months over the summer, starting at the beginning of June and ending at the end of August. I managed to persuade my management team that provision for the young people over these months was an important part of my time and so we continued the Bible class right up until their 'prize giving' on June 21st. It was a fab night, and a great celebration, including presenting a long serving volunteer Wilma Cox with a special bible etc as she stopped her involvement a few months ago due to work pressures. She's a wonderful person and we had the honour of her presenting the books etc to the young people that evening before one of our Senior's (well he's now a young volunteer) presented her with her gifts and gave an explanation to the church of her commitment and dedication over the past 15 years. Also in the background was the knowledge that this was our ministers last prize giving with us before he retires at the end of August. So a rather emotional evening in many ways. But God's name was lifted high and that was the most important part of the evening if truth be told XD
So after that, we had a bible study with the young people in my flat - was absolutely FAB! I had felt that it would be worth doing even if it would have been a small number, and so we decided that we'd try and aim for a full 5 days in a row. We would meet at my flat at 10am (can't be expecting young people to be getting up tooooooo early, especially when its the first week of the school holidays! LOL) for breakfast... sometimes we'd have bacon butties etc and we had fruit and cereal etc. But it was a great time of fellowship and it fairly got people relaxed before we got into things. It was rather sweet though.. they'd always make sure that we'd said grace before we ate breakfast, and it was just like having a random and manic family meal together with things getting passed up and down the table... one day Sandy even subjected us to various marmite products, and latterly we even got to have pop tarts!!!! But when we went through to the living room it was all very relaxed as we settled down to read and study God's Word together. Someone would pray and then someone else would take responsibility for leading the morning - everyone took their turn... it was very refreshing.
We studied the book of Philemon with the help of a 'cover to cover' book - i would thoroughly recommend it. Not only did we get to thoroughly read through the book of Philemon (all 25 verse of it LOL) but we would be delving into other passages in the bible which were closely related to the characters in the book. We did character studies on Paul, Onesimus and Philemon as well as looking at themed studies on slavery, forgiveness, culture... The book is actually a 7 week study, but we managed to do one each day with 2 other days a couple of weeks later to finish the study. But it was a great time of study where i think we all learned something, and also built up a degree of accountability and trust within the group that came along... After each study we'd always have a time of prayer, taking different forms each day, from open prayer, to one person praying for all, to one liners - always discussing what we wanted to pray about before hand, taking in prayers for others in the church and our friends and family as well as praying that we could apply what we were learning.
SO all in all it was a very blessed time. I'm hoping that we'll be able to do something like this more often as part of our youth ministry here in Kenmure. It was such a fruitful experience that i think it would be daft to not seek something like this in the future in a more long-term standing..
Name: TLT Home: Glasgow, United Kingdom About Me: I'm a youthworker with a church in the North of Glasgow... I enjoy watching films 'n surfing the net 'n hanging out with friends... See my complete profile
