Leaving so soon pt.2

Arriving in Loughborough, although bouyed by the holy spirit, i was also nervous, and I find it hard meeting new people, but God was so gracious in his provision and I had a christian not just in my hall but in the same block as me. My first year in Loughborough, came with the inevitable challenges of settling into a new place. I got stuck in not just to church life but also Christian Union. It was a great shock to me to be offered the CU presidency after just 3 months, but with much deliberation and consulting those with greater wisdom than I, I felt my responsibility lay with serving the church. At the end of year 1 I was serving and enjoying life in the borough.

Year 2 brought new challenges, living with non-christians and stepping up in many ways. I discovered the wonders of the canal and spent many mornings walking along the towpath. However the most significant thing that happened, was being discipled by Ben Heap. God showed me that I had need to learn from one further on than I, and Ben taught, challenged and encouraged me. By the end of the academic year I was leading the setup team and I had preached in church. I was also learning that God's plans are better than mine, as my idea of a placement year to earn money turned into a year doing FP (FP stands for Frontier Project, it's where you take a year out to voluntarily work for your local church).

My FP/3^rd year was an intense time, on the very first day I learnt that my elder would be leaving in the spring and handing over leadership in the late Autumn. It was a difficult time, adapting to the rigours of church life and dealing with the uncertainty that any leadership change brings. During the training weeks God did much work in me, rooting out arrogance and pride, instilling confidence in his abundant grace and all sufficient nature and teaching me wonderful truths about himself. Both Martin and Dave, although very different to work with were both really good to work for and I enjoyed getting to know both of them personally. God blessed me abundantly during this year, I'm especially grateful to the generosity of my housemates Ben and Tim who covered the majority of the food and bills during the year, to Josh who gave me a contribution every month and to my parents and brother who gave me donations as they felt necessary.

The highlight of the year was going for a week to Valencia, in Spain and learning about church planting in another culture and the faith to believe God can build something from nothing. The biggest achievement was stepping up and being on the front foot in meetings every week, whether serving or bringing contributions, it really increased my respect for those who lead, because if you lead a church you can't just turn up and go 'I don't feel like it this week, I'll sit at the back' you have to be at the front leading. Lastly my lowlight was when the projector screen which was partially broken at the back (held up by the wonders of gaffa tape), started to slowly close, being the FPer and setup team leader I rushed in to try to restore the screen to its intended size unfortunately the screen collapsed, I got the projector shining in my eyes (otherwise known as the Damascus experience) and a lot of puzzled and amused faces looking my way. In hindsight it was funny, at the time it was just embarrassing.

TBC – one more anecdotal part to go.

Leaving so soon pt.1

In the summer of 2003 I was 17 and considering where to apply for University, the options seemed so vast and I knew it was like crossroads with many possible directions I could take. All I knew is I wanted to leave (I've always had a sense of adventure) and I wanted to do something business related. I prayed that God would lead me to the right university, and felt I should be more specific in my course than just Business. I decided to do Accounting & Finance as this is the module in Business Studies I most enjoyed, but I also felt I wanted a placement year.

God lead me to Loughborough, it just felt right, I walked around campus on Boxing Day 2003 with my cousin who had been to Loughborough and it seemed like a place I could live. By early 2004 I knew I was Loughborough bound and I visited the church in easter 2004. It was much smaller than New Community Church, Sidcup, where I had been my whole life, but it was so welcoming. The preach was all about John Groves' prophecy of the 2nd half, and a week later while in Sidcup I felt God speak to me about being a 2nd half substitute in Loughborough.

Summer 2004 was a life changing time. I attended the first Newday (the rainy one) and God's presence came upon me powerfully, three days later I headed with my youth group to South Africa, where God proceeded to fill me with his spirit and give me supernatural confidence taking away my shyness.

It was on the back of this that I headed to Loughborough for my first year at university, spiritually closer to God than ever before, and enjoying worshipping him with all my heart.
To Be Continued

Politics and Geography

This maybe my last post for a while due to job interviews, impending coursework deadlines and exams.

I was doing some bible study this morning and was researching the last part of Matthew 15 where Jesus goes to Magadan. My google search came up with Magadan in Russia, and then I went from there to a link to a place called Transnistria.

Transnistria is a disputed territory in Moldova between Romania and Russia. There was one part of the wikipedia article that really made me laugh. The following quote is taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transnistria

"Election results are considered suspicious, as in 2001 in one region it was reported that Igor Smirnov collected 103.6% of the votes. Nevertheless, some organizations, such as CIS-EMO, have participated and have called them democratic."

Now I heard of Sadaam Hussein having supposedly 'democratic' elections and receiving nearly 100% of the vote, but receiving 103.6 % of the votes is surely corrupt. I fully understand that corruption is not a funny issue and these people seem to be in poverty and to some degree oppression, but I do find it funny that you would try to rig an election and get 103.6% of the votes!

The other striking thing was reading about a city near Magadan, called Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky which is in far Eastern Russia. The city holds nearly 200,000 people and is in apparently beautiful surroundings. The only problem maybe getting there, as there are no roads connecting it to the outside world. It is the second largest city in the world unreachable by roads. The amazing thing is Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky is 4124 miles from St. Petersburg and they are in the same country! To put that in perspective its about the same distance as London to Nairobi or London to Florida, and being in the same country.