Finally, another update!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

I finally have time to fill you in on the past month of my life, however how i'm going to condense four weeks of life into one blog post remains to be seen. It's crazy and scary to think I have been here for almost two months! Time is flying...

 Friday, Nov 26th, 2010. It was suppose to be "Girl's Night In" and "Guy's Night Out". Well the guy's night out turned out to be a good night, it was a rather unusual bunch of boys. However they had a blast at the giants game, which I was incredible glad to hear. The girl's however, well to put it simply none of them showed up. Myself, along with Nadine, and one of the other volunteers, ended up just eating the pizza which we had ordered and decided to just stick around until the boys got back. It was a good bonding time none the less with these girls. Praise God for that. It's amusing watching Leap Year with two Northern Irish girls, I’ll just put it that way. To be honest I knew it was going to be a small group if the girls did show, but I was rather disappointed when none of them showed at all. You just have to keep trying though; I know it's going to take time with them, a lot of time. Pray that God will give both Nadz and I patience, and just a genuineness about us, that we can build these relationships with the girls. 

Midnight Soccer came to an end on Nov 27th, 2010. We had fairly good weather seven out of  the eight nights the boys played. However the last night the boys were playing on a snow covered pitch and it was FREEZING. They did well though, even with the snow. One of our teams made it to the finals in Dundalk, and the most exciting and thrilling thing especially for Jonny was seeing the boys take home "The 2010 Fairplay Trophy."  Which proudly sit's on our tuck shop shelf in the centre. I must admit I miss the midnight street soccer nights, it gave me a really good opportunity to start building relationships with these boys, and to see the acceptance come a bit quicker was really encouraging. Not to mention the KFC and McDonald's meals afterwards. Mmm popcorn chicken...

Nadz started at work on Nov 29th, 2010. She is the new full time staff member. The two have become three. Poor Jonny, outnumbered by the females. I'm really glad Nadz is on board, it will be good for the girls to know there is a permanent girl there. Really pray that in the time that Nadz and I have to work together that we would start to get a good girl's group going. Were making plans for the new year and hoping to start up one on Monday nights. Pray that God will give us wisdom, fresh ideas,  and discernment on what would be the best way to go about starting one up.

On Sunday December 5th, both Nadz and I were invited to speak at one of our supporting churches. We tried to give the congregation a bit of an idea of what we do, along with  a short speal about ourselves and our hopes for the coming year. I must admit public speaking is not my favourite thing, but I’m sure by the end of this year, that will definitely be an area I’ll have grown in.

During the first week that Nadz started the three of us took a day to divide up and organize the different areas we would all be working on, and the different areas we would all be taking leads on, and what stuff we would do as a team. I'll give you a bit of an idea of what I’ll be doing and in charge of starting mostly in January.

- At the centre; drop-in nights and organizing Tuesday night drop in programs. We’re also looking to switch our Monday night drop in to a Friday night, and have juniors on one of the nights and the other night do seniors.  Than our girls group will hopefully be starting in January on a Monday night.

-Schools; I will be partnering with Nadz, doing assemblies with the primary schools. Generally about a 10 minute program once a month with about 7 different schools. Then I'm to be taking the lead on Scripture Union program in the same schools, but this is usually every other week and about a 45 minute program. Generally about a 10 minute bible lesson, songs, a quiz, and a memory verse. We’re going to be a doing a trial run in one of the schools putting together a four week program on” ‘Jesus' Miracles" and than telling the kids to invite friends for the last week. This will Lord willing be taking place in February so if you could be praying about that, as it's a fair bit of work, and like I mentioned before teaching and public speaking are not my best talents :S. Along with SU, and Assemblies, Nadz will taking the lead on Religious education lessons with in the schools, and then all three of us will be working with the P7 transition program from the primary schools into the secondary schools.  Almost everything that Nadz and I are doing in the primary schools, Jonny will be doing in the Secondary schools. Prayer all around for the three of us is most welcome :)

-Community-were hoping to start up an arts and crafts program within one of the lower class group of estates with girls, on one afternoon a week. During the same time that this will be happening, Jonny will be doing a football group with the boys from the same estates. Any suggestions on cheap, cost efficient craft ideas for ages 4-11? We will be providing all the materials so the more cost efficient the better. All three of us will also be involved with doing fundraising within the community. Than Nadz and I are hoping to start up a "Mom's and Tot's" group for teenage moms as well.

-Local and supporting churches. I'm working on developing a program for YF to take to a few of the different churches, getting Jonny, Nadz and myself to come in maybe once a month and take their YF program to help the surrounding churches. Along with that were also hoping to develop a young leaders program, in which the young adults that are doing YF's in the local churches can do a small internship with us for a year to grow their experience in working in and among their peers. Pray that God will give us ideas, and wisdom with this, as the local churches are really struggling in their YF's. Really pray for the local churches and the leaders that they have in place as it's not an easy thing to develop a program that can change over time and benefit the seniors as well as the juniors.  

-summer time. Nadz will be taking the lead on getting stuff organized and prepped for summer camp, and I will be organizing and prepping stuff for Project 32 this year. (Side note, although there are different areas in which all of us are taking leads on, the majority of it will be very much all three of us doing, it's more so just to have someone to go to if looking for information on something) I also get to organize different trips for the drop in kids, so pretty much anywhere I want to go in Ireland, I can be like "Hey, we should do a trip there." Works for me :)

This is just a small idea of what we will be doing starting in January, there is so many different areas that each one of us is involved in, I didn't even get around to mentioning all the different office work  jobs :)

This past Tuesday was our last drop-in for about 3 weeks, as come next Tuesday it's two weeks of holidays for Jonny, Nadine, and me.  We decided to have a Christmas party, and it was a really fun night, it's amazing the different kids that you get over announcing that were having a Christmas party. We did Chalenja for most of the night. Pretty much we had five teams and they had to complete different challenges like ( how many times can you lick your teammates sock, how many marshmallows can you stick to your face with jam, can you drink a whole cup of water without closing your mouth? ) I'm sure you get the picture. One of the boys managed to smear my whole arm in jam, and Nadz face. Hey, at least you know were accepted :)

The Tuesday before last was "Drop-in Christmas Movie Night." It was actually one of the best nights. I had some really good conversations with some of the kids about Christmas and life. It was just really amazing to see questions that got sparked over watching Elf. It been encouraging to see the youth feel more comfortable in approaching and being able to ask questions or just coming up to one of us and talking and seeing how relaxed they feel in doing that. I can see that progress is being made, I might not see it all the time, and there are challenges to be sure, but it's very much taking one day at a time, and continuing to pray and thank God for the opportunities we do get.

This past week was the YFCNI staff Christmas party. It was a murder mystery night, and loads of fun. I was an undercover CIA agent working as a news reporter for the New York Times. However as the night wore one and most of my goals were completed I was shot once, than healed. Then shot a second time, and died all because I was getting to close to the truth. It was blast none the less! A good chance to better get to know the rest of the YFCNI team.

Pray for this coming Monday, as we will be taking the Christmas Celebration Service at the Secondary School, it's about an hour long program, that we have been working on for the past couple weeks. We will be speaking in front of about 300 to 400 students, teachers, and parents. Pray that God would use his Holy Spirit to prepare hearts. Were really blessed with this oppertunity, GBYFC has done it 4 out of the past 5 years, so we know that they enjoy having us in to do it. It's a tremendous oppertunity which we are incredible excited and thankful for!

Well I hope that this isn't too long of a read, and I apologize once again for the delay in the update. Thanks so much for your prayers and encouragement. I'm excited to see what God has in store for the coming year, and all the different programs and groups were hoping to get started. I'm really blessed with this opportunity, and pray that God would continue to keep me humble and ever willing to do His work, no matter the cost!

1 John 3:16 By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.