Outreach in Wales!

Well, in just under a week, winter school will end. That may not seem like a big deal, especially considering I’m still not going home for another 3 months. But it is. Winter school and spring school are two completely different schools. At the end of winter school in a week, many of my dear friends will either go home or go to another location for spring school. I can’t honestly say I will see all of them again in this life. That reality hasn’t completely struck me yet, but it results in a tear once in awhile. Some of my friends will stay here, as I am. And I look forward to that. But it will be so strange to be in the same place with some of the same people, but altogether a new school with new students. It will take some adjusting and yet I will only have 8 weeks to adjust to it before I go home. I cannot believe how quickly time has passed since we returned from Christmas break.

On another note, our 10 day outreach is now over. I can’t remember how much I wrote about it before we left, but I was one of the leaders on a team of 6 going to Wales, near Cardiff. It was absolutely brilliant. I can honestly say I had the best team I could have asked for. We were told before we left that we are the best team that they’ve had (and they’ve been having teams for 15 years!). I am so proud of my team for their willingness and enthusiasm this week.  Also, I so much enjoyed the church that we were serving alongside. It reminded me of Harvest a bit and I think it was because of that I ended up feeling so comfortable there with the people and the area we were in. We did a range of things including an assembly in a school, standing on street corners stopping people with questionnaires concerning the church and their community, sharing at a coffee morning for older women, making and serving food for a lunch, and teaching lessons on Friday nights and Sunday mornings for an age range of 3 up to teens. It is clear that God is working through those people in their community and it was an incredible privilege to be a part of that.

I think I would have to say that my favourite structured activity was something called Easter Cracked, which is a program created by our church contact person and his colleague. It was designed to be something carried out in the church and kids in certain years (grades) in school would take a field trip to the church to participate in it. It’s great because the law here has certain religious requirements that need to be filled and the program not only fills those requirements, but beautifully explains the gospel and shares the story of Easter. The kids were split up into 6 groups and each group would travel to a station and have 7 minutes there and move on. Each of us on the team did a different station. I presented the crucifixion bit 24 times in 2 days. It’s such a great program and we all really enjoyed participating in it.

I also just thoroughly enjoyed hanging out with people during various times. I had a good time socialising with people during what they call “Late Shift” (upper high school and college age), with the families who would feed us tea in the evenings and with my host family. I know that I will miss the people and the fellowship there a lot. I do hope to make a trip down there during spring school at some point, but I’m also trying not to get my hopes up too much. I loved that it felt more like living normally and serving alongside people than it being some big thing that needed to be accomplished during my time here at Bible school.

Keep an eye out for a video that I made to explain it better! It was for our school presentation and I wish I could have made it longer, but I couldn’t. I can’t post it now, due to the lack of internet...but I will soon!