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.