Ding ding ding...rrrrroooound two!

Another week over...

I find it a little weird to think that I have now been living in Ballyclare for two weeks.  I knew before coming that this was going to be a very challenging year  for me, I now know  without out a shadow of doubt that indeed it will be. Not to say that it won’t be good, but it will be very stretching, and as we all know while stretching isn’t always enjoyable if our hearts are in the right place, it does produce growth.

Saturday night, was midnight street soccer, and it was such fun. Five of our boys showed up at the centre, amidst the bantering back and forth we all managed to finally pile into the mini bus and off to Belfast we went.  In total there were 4 teams that showed up including ours at the mini pitch.  Granted our boys didn’t play all that well, thus Jonny told them that on the second last game of rotating teams that if they didn’t get a goal there would be no McDonalds run afterwards. There’s an incentive for a bunch of hungry guys. I wish you could have heard a couple of them trying to bribe the other team to let them have a goal. Jonny, Michael (a volunteer) and I just all looked at each other and shook our heads chuckling. Than Jonny said to the other team if they kept up their winning streak we would take them to McDonalds. The look of outrage from our boys was great. After words we went WALKING through the drive through of McDonalds for happy meals all around as they did indeed score a goal. The stories of D (one of our boys) on the way back, followed by lots of laughter, topped off a great night despite the standing in the cold while it rained off and on for three hours.

Sunday morning found me picked up by Jonny and Laura as we headed to the Church of Ireland which is to be my hosting church while i’m in Ballyclare.  The pastor is great, but pray that I will settle in quickly, as attending new churches isn’t my favourite thing. I will also be helping out at the church on Sundays nights with the youth fellowship program they have, I do believe tomorrow night might be my first night doing that. Pray that will also go well.

Monday morning Jonny picked me up and off to breakfast club we went. 7:40 am on Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning J Basically there’s a group of volunteers alongside Jonny and I that serve toast ( a lot of toast) to the kids, while in turn giving Jonny and I a chance to talk to kids, that wouldn’t normally come to drop in. One of the things that I struggle with the most and after working with these kids for only two weeks becomes more and more apparent. They are burned by other Christians. It makes me sad, and if i’m honest a wee bit angry. Christ didn’t look down on the unsaved He loved them right where they were at. He was blunt in what He said, He acknowledged sin as sin, but He didn’t say to them, well once you leave the man your sleeping with I will help you, or once you stop swearing and smoking I will love you. Too often I believe we as followers of Christ look down on the unsaved and think they are so below us. We suggest that what they’re doing is so much worse that the white lie we told last week, or the dirty movie we watched when no one was looking. Without the Holy Spirit working and convicting them how do we expect them do anything different?  As a result most of the kids I’m working with now have a deep bitterness towards Christians which could take years for them to realize that what they have experienced is not Christ.  This is one of the things that saddens me the most.

 Tuesday, Jonny, Laura and I headed off to Belfast again for the YFCNI staff meeting which happens once a month. They had a guy speak on discipleship which was challenging and really good to think about how we do it, and what we can do to improve it. It was a good reminder for me, as to why I moved half way across the world to work with these youth. The desire for me as well as the other staff members is that more than anything we want to see these kids come to believe in Christ.  After that Jonny and I headed to play resource to pick up supplies for Tuesday night drop in. Which by far was the best night yet.

 It was Team Challenge Night. Jonny and I had been working on the preparations for it for a while and we were glad that the night was such a success. Well worth all the effort we put in to make it happen. There were four zones, physical, mystery, mental, and skill. At half 8 we had everybody assemble together and form four teams. We than explained what each different zone was. Physical- as many press-ups as your team could accomplish in five minutes, how many members of your team could bounce three tennis balls into a bucket in five minutes, and what’s the longest rally your team could get in table tennis in 5 minutes as well. Mystery, one member of each team had to be blind folded and identify three objects in each of the two bins that were covered with Styrofoam using only your hands. Next name the celebrates baby picture and finally who’s in the bag. Where one member had to describe as many people as he can while his team tries to guess who he is describing. Next comes the mental zone, how many words can you find in ‘Youth for Christ’, memorize 25 pictures that are flicked on a screen in 3 minutes and then say what they were. Finally using the alphabet, name an animal for each letter. Last but certainly not least was the Skill Zone which I was in charge of. Across the room was a web of yarn with clothes pegs attached, in relay fashion each team had to move us many clothes pegs from where the web of string was, to the other side of the room where a single line of string was set up in 7 minutes. The trick being they were only allowed to use their mouth, and if they touched the string they lost points.  The last challenge was for them to build the highest tower using only spaghetti and blue tack. All in all it was a great night. One of the volunteers even said if we would have tried this 3 years ago this would never have gone over. However, Tuesday night they all got into it and it was great fun, and a chance for everybody to interact with each other and build those relationships.  At the end of it we while we tallied up points, in preparation for the coming Tuesday night we passed out paper and asked them to write down questions for Chris ( a volunteer and a member of the board) who would be in the hot seat. A lot of amusing questions were put down, none of which Chris knows about. This caused the kids to question why we do the hot seat, and its basically so they get the chance to knows us better. At the end of the questions directed toward Chris on next Tuesday we will throw in a question  like “why do you volunteer?” giving Chris an opportunity to share about Jesus. Thus if you could please be praying for this next Tuesday night that would be great J

Wednesday morning was breakfast club once again, and then back to the office for a bunch of paperwork. We also started up after school drop-in again on Wednesday afternoon. The first one was rather quite for for the first ¾ of an hour, than slowly they started to trickle in. Generally we get a lot of younger ones that don’t normally come to evening drop-in.

Thursday, we were in the office all day. We were suppose to have a guy from youth justice in to clean, but it didn’t end up happening. Next week hopefully! It however was a busy day none the less. But as Friday was just around the corner it went by fast. We decided to take Friday off as we had already put in overtime in just 4 days. I was rather okay with this plan!

Tonight I’m just gearing up for Midnight street soccer and hoping that it will be a dry night. Sorry that this one is a rather long update, I can only imagine what it would be if I had to pick the highlights from just one month! Let alone one week!

Prayer Requests

Hot seat Tuesday night with Chris M.

Opportunities for me to speak to the girls not only at drop-in but especially the ones that come to breakfast clubs.

Girl’s Night In on November 26^th. We girls get the centre for an entire evening as the boys are headed to a Giants game. I’m in charge of organizing and getting all the prep ready for this one. Pray that for the girls that do come, it will provide the opportunity for some good one on one chats.

For the older boys and girls that have been coming to the centre for a few years, they are really searching, and a lot more open to the Gospel than they have ever been.  Pray that God will give us the words to speak into their lives and steer them towards Christ.