August Youth Extravanganza

(Autumn has begun)

As you can probably tell from the title of this month's blog, August has been a month chock full of youth events. Almost as soon as we returned from the ICON Conference in Colorado, a group of 9 youth and 2 leaders came to Sheffield. The team came from a church in Houston called Calvary to help with two of our major annual youth events: Re:create and Soul Survivor.

(Arts in the Park)

If you remember from last year, Re:create is a youth arts camp that we've run the past several summers. Last year, it had a serving Sheffield focus; the idea being a literal recreation of the city. This year we spent four days partly spent in the City Centre meeting youth and largely spent exploring questions of faith, identity, and God's truth through various artistic mediums. We got to have great conversations with the young people about who God says they are versus what people say they are and to speak the truth of who they are. And, it was a great pleasure to hear the youth team share their testimonies. Some of them as young as fifteen.

Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in peace, in life, in love, in faith, and in purity. I Timothy 4:12

Throughout the camp, we had various visitors and finished off with a youth-led Gathering on Sunday. Kate spoke about the importance of truly surrendering our lives to Jesus, and the youth performed a drama highlighting the life and death importance of choosing Jesus. Two of the visitors got saved at the service! Please be praying for these two new believers and for the youth both from Sheffield and Houston.

The following Wednesday, 5 drivers and 25 youth gathered into cars for the journey to Soul Survivor. This year, I had the privilege of being amongst those 5 drivers. So at half eight that morning, we started off to join 10,000 other youth at the Royal Bath Showgrounds outside of Shepton-Mallet. It was my first time driving past Birmingham, Nottingham, and Bristol. I even came really close to Wales. Along the way, one of the cars on the journey had a breakdown and ended up leaving Sheffield at 4pm instead of 8:30am.

(Packing up and setting up Camp)

The journey back and forth both ways was definitely worth the outcome. Our young people met with God in the presence of 10,000 other youth, heard great teaching, and saw 500 young people give their lives to Jesus. Our youth were shattered (tired) on the journey back, but full of the presence of the Lord. We finished off with a barbecue at the McGinnis home and sent the team back to the States with tear-filled eyes. Time together in Heaven will be sweet indeed.

Much less sweet although still an accomplishment will be the finishing of a 10 mile adventure race I'm training for. For those of you from Fort Worth, the race is similar to the Marine Mud Run, except a bit longer and less obtacles, more mud. I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, but I think it should be fun. I'm running with several people from church, so it's a great time to build relationships.

(My housemate Jenny and I)

I ran 9 miles this past weekend, and I'm looking forward to the run in a few weeks. I promise to post some pictures in my next update and also to tell you all the exciting things that have been happening in the merry month of September. Thanks for all your support and prayers. And an extra special prayer request this month is for my visa. The UK Home Office has recently tightened some of it's visa category requirements. Please join with me in praying for favour with the Border Agency! See you soon with September news.