Week Seven: Social Justice, and Money, Money, Money... must be funny....

Finally I am (kinda) caught up, yes it has involved three blogs in one week, but no matter, I am caught up!

This week started off with a Wednesday meeting in Children’s Ministries, once again planning what we were doing that day, and also looking towards January programing. I then had two hours of trying to start looking at the youth Sunday school curriculum for the next six weeks. By that I meant I was looking at what needed to be done, we have to write and record video messages, pick verses, as well as write questions. There is a lot to be done, but thankfully we have two weeks off from Sunday school to prepare. I then had a meeting with my Boss-boss, Lynette,  and my two sub-bosses, Andrew and Jayne, to try clear up my timetable, so I would not be pulled in too many directions at once.  That afternoon I took children through the story of the shepherds, using scripture, and the book “The Donkey in the Living Room”, which in my opinion is a bit young for the eldest in the class, but perfect for the youngest. Then as the week was “Peace” we all did some painting in watercolours, to calm, peaceful classical music, that is if you can call “A Night on Bare Mountain” calm, or peaceful….

The evenings youth programing was small groups, as usual, in which my sports group played thirty minutes of Ultimate Frisbee, and thirty minutes Basketball…. As I now realise I am shocking at making shots…. I blame this on having an arm that has the careful controlled power, of a learner driver in a Ferrari.

Thursday first thing was a Missions Staff meeting in the new property in East Winter Garden, including a tour of the house. It was a lot better than I imagined, and I truly can see the potential there now. The meeting was basically the norm after the tour, we went through plans and movements up till Martin Luther King Jr Day in January. The rest of the day was devoted to database work, and getting ready for camp.

Friday, I awoke bright and early, to go shopping for a tie dye shirt. I was one of the leaders of Team Tie Dye at the Warren Willis Social Justice Youth Camp. So I got a funky shirt with a weird floating cat head on it… Tie Dye is hard to find, so I took the first shirt I could find…. Then Pedro and I headed to the church to help build banners for the three teams our youth group where part of, Pink, Yellow, and obviously the best: Tie Dye.

 This is where Andrew, the youth director, introduced us to his new nerf gun, with rocket launcher. It is dangerous. At around 17:30 we boarded the bus with youth, to take the hour and a bit journey to the camp. Once we arrived we had a worship service and communion, in which they introduced us to the topic of the weekend, focusing around love, and equality. That night, as a youth we sat down to go a bit more into depth on what we would be looking at, as well as trying to get across the message that we were to treat every opinion in our group with fairness, and non-aggressive responses.

Saturday, we all were awoken early, by the glorious sound of the Bagpipes, played by Andrew. It is definitely one way to get a teenager outta their beds, and I encourage parents to try it, on those days they’d rather not go to school. After breakfast we had morning worship, and then split into our rotation groups. St. Luke’s first rotation was to small groups, where each of our three groups, went a talked amongst themselves on the topic of the camp. In my group I found it very interesting to see their responses to the idea of loving everyone. It wasn’t just a unanimous response of yes we will love everyone, as to move the topic on, but they engaged well as to discuss the difficulties of doing so.

Our second rotation was that on a talk of equality, focusing around the stories of the “Freedom Riders”, a story I had never heard, on the groups of people of many backgrounds, who came to the south to challenge the laws on segregation, by sitting in the opposite area of the bus than was designated to their skin colour. It was a interesting talk, however may have been able to delve in a bit deeper into the topic.

Third rotation for us was a workshop on how we should focus on similarities rather than differences. We did a “power walk” where we moved to left or right side of the room depending on where we fitted in. For example one was “go to the left if you were born outside of the states, go to the right if you were born here.” I and two others were on the left. Then we started talking about feelings we show, or do not show in public, and it got a bit weird from there in.

Final rotation was that of colour-wars tug of war, in which it was a three way tug of war between Yellow, pink, and the great Tie Dye. All I can say is that it was rigged….

The final rotation was followed by the full colour wars, in which there were more games, and races, like a giant ski race, and wheelbarrow race, and jump-rope challenge. This finished in a group race through a bounce house, obstacle course. Team Tie Dye did well in the races, winning a number of them, and with the bagpipes blaring we fought well, but at the end of the day it was to no avail, as the games were rigged from the start, as a demonstration to how this world isn’t fair… Or so I was told, so the Black Team won.

That evening we had worship and communion again, and the sermon was interesting. It was focusing, as was the topic, on equality across all areas, race, sexual orientation, gender, all areas. However at times I felt the sermon became a bit more focused on anecdotes rather than any other content. Looking back on it I feel I got caught up in the moment, thinking it was great, but honestly think it was a bit thin, and could have pushed the issue further.

Sunday morning was much the same with worship and communion before we headed homeward.

Once back at St. Luke’s, Pedro, Andrew and I got Greek Gyro (Kebab meet to you and I) and then came back to the Attic youth hall and napped for an hour before youth praise band practise. Who knows why we decided having youth fellowship straight after camp was a good idea.

That night at youth in small groups, we were once again talking about who to invest in using a micro loan. I was taking the 7^th grade girls, which after organising them, so as not everyone was just shouting over one another, lead to great discussion over the topic. I arranged it as a mini debate, so they could raise a person they believed should be invested in and they had to argue their case, followed by opening it to someone against the case, then we voted. It worked well, however to keep things fair, I had to inform them when they said something that was factually incorrect, which to be honest only happened a few times.

Monday was very much a recovery day from camp. The house went shopping, and that was about it.

Tuesday morning was spent in a heart breaking staff meeting, where we found out people working at the church, above a certain age, where now being offered early retirement packages, as the church is now into the red to the tune of $250,000. This is not due to over spending by the departments, as they actually underspent, by around $140,000. It is actually due to the lack of offering from the congregation, as St Luke’s is an entirely self-funded organisation; it relies on its members tithing. I know many reading this can't really help St. Luke’s, but I pray that whatever church you may go to, you think about your giving, as we tend to be spontaneous, sporadic, givers, but charities and churches need, thought out, constant givers. So instead of just a couple of pounds or dollars in the charity box at Tesco, or the spare change in your pockets into the offering, why not actually look at what you give spontaneously, and decide to put than money to one cause? Why not look at your income, and look at the percentage you give to the church, and try to increase it by a tenth every other month, till you reach a percentage you believe is fair?

Tuesday night I cooked for the house, and Heidi, and enjoyed the joyful fellowship of roommates.

Forty-four games that I thought would end up with a child in hospital, but somehow didn’t….

#7 Ghost in the grave yard.

Get the children or youth to lie on the ground face up (they are the dead), in a darkened room, have a single ghost go around, and try make them laugh. If a child laughs, they two become a ghost and do the same. Aim is to be the last one on the ground, by keeping a straight face.

This Video is my Thought from the Week! I saw this wee lad for the first time, in this video which was used at camp. This Kid President, not only is hilarious, but raises the great point, of how we need to work together, regardless of differences, to create and try to make this world a better place.

Prayer request as always for my dear friends in the Stiles-Williams family, as well as all my housemates, and fellow interns working as YAMM, that they stay motivated and enthused by their work, and that they are shown all the appreciation the deserve.

Peace,

Owain.

Week Six. Christmas strikes back!

Week six, or as I apparently pronounce it “week Sex” due to my accent… they wind me up about my pronunciations a lot, but hey, such is communal living. Yet again I am a week late, so please accept my apologies.

Week Six started with the start Christmas… Yes, here as soon as Halloween is over, Christmas begins. Of course they have thanksgiving here (the last Thursday of November), but seem to overlook it and start playing Christmas tunes everywhere.  So I came into St. Luke’s to have a meeting in Children’s ministries, on what we were doing now the Genesis session was over, and also to start planning our topics come January, because we only had four weeks of programming before we finished for the two weeks off at Christmas, and with one week off at Thanksgiving, we had to start onto the Advent series… Yes I had to start talking about the Christmas story in November. So we agreed on the order of each week, in which I would take the kids who came in for the second half of afternoon programming, and those who remained from the first half (as many go off to the children’s choir), and I would read them a Christmas themed story, along with the corresponding scripture from Matthew and Luke, along with organising a corresponding craft activity, and either preparing games for them, or bringing them to the playground. Although I don’t yet feel in the Christmas spirit, I still love getting to read with the children, and talk to them about what they do at Christmas. Their wee worlds are just brilliant.

I went straight from that meeting to another, this time with global Missions in regards to the phone call script I wrote up in preparation to trying to set up a new missions partner with our Jamaica Health Mission. Apparently the letter was completely perfect, then we went on to change everything except four lines…. It was funny though, to see how some phrases I use are just not used here in the States, there are a number of cultural differences I have started to pick up on recently.

That afternoon I had children’s ministries, and youth ministries between three PM and eight PM.

Thursday started off with a staff meeting for Missions, where we went over the plans between now and Martin Luther King Day in January. Basically a lot going on over Christmas…. And I mean a lot…. More on that as it comes. But afterwards I worked a bit more on a Jamaica partnership and then went and did my first ground work in East Winter Garden.

In EWG Shakeria and I, went around rating houses by appearance, and maintenance needed to the roof, garden, and other structures. We did it by street so we could map out the assets in the community, to set down a general marker, which we can compare the community to in a year to give us an idea on how the transformation is going. It was another good experience to compare and contrast communities from back home with East Winter. After we just sat in the park, which consists of two basketball courts, and a play park, and I just sat and observed the people around. It was not that different to areas of Ballybeen, or Finaghy.

Friday I was off all day and did absolutely nothing… I just sat back and chilled.

Saturday was another Christmas experience, with the United Methodist Women’s Christmas Bazaar (I still stand by that it should be bizarre as it is so early). I was there for just after eight to sell doughnuts and coffee, for the youth fellowship scholarship fund, followed by selling pizza and soda at lunch. To start off, the doughnut guy never showed up, so Pedro had to pick up some from Publix (equivalent to a regular Tesco). Publix only had a dozen. They sold in a flash. Then as it was sports day, and Liverpool FC and Ireland where playing I was checking the score every so often under my small sub sales desk, leading to the Youth Director, Andrew, getting a picture of me looking as if I was asleep… I was not…

To wrap it up, the pizza was late, so instead of getting three deliveries at 10:30, 11:30, and 12:30, we got three around 12:15…. We still sold a lot, and made a good bit of money to the Youth scholarship. Within my time at the Bazaar I saw way too much Christmas, and also a scale replica of the titanic (pictured along with proud new owner), it was just mad!

I went home and watched the last ten minutes of Ireland’s glorious victory over South Africa, which I had sent my family back home to! After that I just did as little as possible.

Sunday started off with Sunday School, where I was with the 7^th and 8^th graders. I cannot stress how hyper they are… and this is at 9:30 in the morning! Still I love working with them!

I then had Sunday contemporary worship, where we looked at the How to Be Rich series on stewardship, particularly fitting, given St. Luke’s current financial status, due to a lack of financial donations through the offering.

Sunday afternoon me Andrew and Pedro sat down and designed a game, which didn’t require us to go by anything else, as to save as much as we can, so this game possibly was one of the more dangerous ones, please do see below for details. So at Youth Fellowship we played this mad game, and then we had a message from Miriam, whom I work with in global missions, on a task the youth were in charge of. The task was, they were to decide where $500, would go, out of a number of cases in Mexico and Malawi, who were applying for a micro loan, to develop their business, and to help local the community economy. It is a great opportunity for youth, to just sit down and talk over these cases, and to think about pros and cons on where this money goes, I love how they are actually given control over the money and where it goes, and not made to just observe what happens.

Monday I came into work, to help Andrew and Pedro, on the new Sunday school curriculum, along with some database entry. We discussed and planned the next four weeks, up to the Christmas, break, and we (as you could guess) are going to focus on advent, mainly joy, peace, and hope, Christmas break starts too early to do love. So we will be scripting, and recording videos for these classes over the next weeks.

Tuesday was another staff meeting where we looked onto the next How to be rich video, which was a very powerful message on how God is not impressed by the amount you give, not by the number of zeros after a number, but by the percentage you give, to paraphrase. Imagine how much the church could do if we all just gave 5% (never mind the tithing 10%). So much more could be done.

Forty-four games that I thought would end with a child in hospital, but somehow didn’t…

#6 The Mummy Obstacle Course

So this came about as we were looking through our youth store room, to see what we had to make a game out of.

Basically you need shaving foam, paper plates, baby diapers, and lots of toilet role, and things to create an obstacle course.  Split the youth into teams of six, five have to complete the obstacle course, to collect supplies, of one plate of shaving foam, one baby diaper, and three toilet roles. They then dress the sixth up as an Egyptian Mummy, by wrapping them in paper and putting shaving foam in the diaper, and putting the diaper on their head. Prizes for, the first group to finish, and for the best looking Mummy.  

In our obstacle course we had a wall of boxes for them to dive over onto gym mats, followed by two crawl tunnels made out of large boxes and hoola-hoops, ending in a wheelchair race, round a cone course.

I want to start something this week that I will try to do each week. I will post a video, or a post I have seen, that has made me go "hmmmm" with a brief thought on it. 

A Thought from the Week

This is a video which I first saw in my second week of my work here, and I recently saw it again in the past week, and I don't believe it has been seen back home that much. It especially speaks to me trying to move towards a life of following the teaching from John 13:34 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another."
I feel there is little else I need to say about this video, as it already says so much.

So ends my sixth week, week seven, and prayer requests will soon follow.

Week Five, Run Through!

So the past two weeks I have been neglecting my blog. I have also been forgetting to take photos. so this week is going to be a lot of words, with little colour, I am sorry, I hope next week will be more exciting.

 To be honest the majority of the weeks were just work as normal, nothing to spectacular at all so in this blog I am going to just run through what I did in brief, and then I will expand on some of the interesting, or new things I have started on.
So Wednesday the 29th was business as usual. I worked with children ministries, then youth ministries, and it all very uneventful. That night however, Three college students, Pedro, and Andrew (youth director), and I, went to universal studios, to go to Halloween Horror Nights. Basically Americans take Halloween to a level I have never really experienced. In the park there where entertainers dressed in scary attire, all from films, like The Purge. There were also scare houses, which you would queue up to walk through a house filled with strobe lighting, dry ice fog, and entertainers dressed and acting to try make you jump out of your skin. I honestly would have found it relatively terrifying, if it weren't for the fact one of the college students (Francesca) was so freaked out, it was comical. She actually put herself in a head lock with her head buried deep into Andrews stomach, as to not see anything. Most amusing. We unfortunately only got through two houses, as we were given false information on opening hours, but despite that I had a great time.

The next day (Thursday the 30th) I had missions staff meeting first thing, followed by a meeting with Marian Megistie, who is currently overseeing Global Missions. We discussed a project she wanted me to help with. She wanted me to research University of South Florida's Public Health department, to get contact details for faculty in the different sections of the department. This is because we are needing to change the mission direction in Jamaica, due to suggestion by the Jamaican Government. Recently Jamaica has had to take on a loan from the world bank, and this was followed by terms that they'd raise taxes everywhere, including now taxing missionaries. So we have been working with them to find a way of striking a deal to reduce the amount the missionaries are taxed.
So that day I spent researching USF Public Health.

Friday 31st, I was meant to be off, but instead I came in to help with the final day at the pumpkin patch, then skyped home, and went to the UCF Wesley Halloween party.

Saturday the 1st of November, I spent the morning at a farmers market, in Winter Park, followed by lunch with Sarah, and a couple of her friends. The afternoon however, I travelled to East Winter Garden, to help with the running of a Dreams for our Community meeting. East winter is essentially a working class community, which is highly under developed in areas. I found it great listening to all the hopes the residents had, and just hearing their stories. It was a great to be able to compare and contrast the differences and look at similarities between some of the communities back home and EWG.
After East Winter Garden the St Luke's Interns went to Amy Winslow's house, as they were having a scary movie marathon, with food. you will find that typically, if there is food, the interns will be there.

Sunday was normal, we had Sunday morning bible school, then worship, followed by planing for youth that night. At YF we used the youth to clear the pumpkin patch of the remaining pumpkins.

On Monday the 3rd, I was off. However Jenn Stiles-Williams, was in surgery, so Sam, and I went to the Stiles-Williams residence with brownies. We chilled there for two and a half Harry Potter films (That is an official measurement of time). I also got to do some quantum mechanics, which was refreshing.

On Tuesday the 4th, we had the usual staff meeting, where we are all studying Andy Stanley's How to Be Rich, which I highly recommend to anyone reading this, it raises many great points on how we look at our finances, and how we look at our giving, and how we look at our priorities of what in life is truly important.

Forty-Four games that I thought would end up with a child in hospital, but somehow didn't...

#5                Ultimate Rock, Paper, Scissors

Okay this wasn't that dangerous, at all, but still was a great youth game, which this segment is really about. Everyone starts of playing a game of R,P,S against an opponent, who ever looses ha to follow the victor around, and then you repeat, between victors, who ever then looses has to follow the new victor, with their entire team, until there is one victor, who hasn't lost a single game, and has everyone following them. 

I guess if you want to make it more ultimate, you could get them playing with real rock paper and scissors.... I am joking, don't do that....

And this concludes my late fifth week. Week six will follow soon. along with my prayer concerns.

Peace,
Owain

The Zombie Blog!

It is around mid-day, the date is 26^th of October 2014, or at least that’s what I think it is, I’m not too sure anymore. I’ve lost track of the days…

It started in Canada, apparently, but it’s everywhere now.

The sun is not too high in the sky any more. I reckon I have a few more hours of light.

There are only a number real humans left; the weapons are having little effect on these…. These things! It takes at least three clear shots to take one of them down. Nobody is safe, it doesn't distinguish between children or adults, it just attacks. It just doesn't care. I have heard rumours of a cure. I pray that this isn't just another wind up, I don’t know how much longer I can survive out here alone.

The sun is nearly down now, but I have found a group. They are nine adults strong, and they say they have met someone who has the cure, but needs us to go on a run for him, to collect some medical supplies, 12 boxes worth. I don’t know them, but they have children, so how bad could they be. I have learnt that the worst things out there aren't always the monsters. After the downfall, people would turn on you at the click of a finger. We are headed to an abandoned church now. Abandoned… everywhere is abandoned now. I should just say “we are heading to a church building now”. Apparently there was a medical supply centre, which still had stuff remaining!

It’s now fairly dark, just a hint of a glow on the horizon. We have arrived at the church, but there is a strange noise coming from somewhere between us and the medical centre. We have decided to take refuge in the gym hall, to rest and let it get darker. We hope to be able to sneak around whatever is out there. A man and a young girl from the group have gone to look round the buildings, to try and find food… they have been away for a while now… the others don’t seem as concerned as me… they obviously haven’t seen the worst of what is out there… if they had seen what I have seen, they might be a bit more worried
.

It is now pitch black outside. I have placed my back pack somewhere safe, that I can get to easily if something goes wrong out in the open, I wasn’t going to take any chances. If it came to fight or flight, I was definitely hitting that flight button.

 The other two haven’t returned, the others are finally worried. I agreed to go look…  I have found crimson stains near a door… I opened it slow, and peeked through. It was the little girl, the way she was standing, with her back to me and slouched told me she was not one of us anymore… no matter how many times I had seen it happen, I still felt a huge pain of dread, and sadness. She turned round, and stared at me, and then let out that ghostly scream and charged. I slammed the door on her, and bolted it and jammed a nearby chair under the handles. I returned to the group, and had the horrible task of breaking the news. The mother was there… I walked away and slid down against the wall, nearly crying. I had decided, this was it, I was going to do anything to get the cure, and I would no longer flee if I had the chance. I was going to fight, for this group, for humanity.

The group seemed to elect me leader… I had only known them a couple of hours, but it was clear none of them had the ability to make decisive decisions. With one member looking after the remainder of the children, and the grieving mother, we were down to five adults and me.

We snuck outside, and we saw there where at least two “zombies”. One of them was the girl… she obviously found another way out. I spoke to the group and decided to split up, the fastest two would try to lure the things away, and out run them… I hope. The rest of us would then proceed to the supply centre. The plan started off fine, they lured them away, and we went to the supply centre, stumbling across some guns on the way, with limited ammo. We loaded up and continued. Getting to the portable supply centre, I could tell something was wrong. The lights were still on, well they were flickering. They obviously were on a gas generator, but the fact they were on suggested someone was within.  We moved in, it was a single room, but it was barren, bar one thing. A body lay on the floor. A man emerged from the shadows, yelling “get out” holding a chain saw. “Where are the supplies” I said. He then started up the chain saw. Two of my group ran, followed by me and the other…

 We were met outside by one of the monsters. It immediately pounced on one of my crew… the rest ran and I said sorry, and left. As we ran I tripped over something… it was a supply box, marked 1 of 12, with a large G on it. I looked around and squinted. I saw the outline of some of the other boxes in the dark, and figured the rest couldn’t be too far away. 12 boxes, all nearby, maybe God was answering my constant prayers for a cure, this couldn’t just be luck…

We started running collecting the supplies; we had got all bar the last two boxes. That’s when we saw them in the distance. Through the dark they were running towards us, a hoard of them all screaming. We saw the last two boxes and ran for them. We picked them up, and legged it back to the gym. The hoard followed. One of the two I had sent running, was back, looking pale... We locked ourselves in, but they could see us through the glass; they weren’t going to leave us be...

We got all the supplies we needed, but now there was no hope we would get out alive… it seemed to all be for nothing… then a bright light illuminated the hall from behind me. I turned to see a man standing behind me.

“Who are you” I exclaimed.

“The man with the cure!” the mourning mother called out shocked.

“you have done well” he stated. Show me what you have brought me. We revealed the supply boxes to him.

“Where is the cure?” I asked. At that moment he rearranged the boxes for it to spell something, with the letters on the boxes… “GOD IS LOVE” and three Christian symbols followed…

“This is the cure you have sought, go out knowing God is with you, and they will not harm you, touch the sick and bless them in the name of the Lord and they will be healed…. At that moment he disappeared in a flash of bright light. The group looked at me, and I turned to the glass, with the monsters behind it. I moved to the doors.

“Are you crazy?!” one of the men shouted. “God can't stop these things”

“Through God all things are possible.” I replied, as I flung the doors open, and walked into the hoard. They did not touch me. I approached the little girl, whose mother was within the gym. I blessed her, and immediately I could see her complexion change, she became less pale. Her eyes deglazed. She was cured. She fell into me. I picked her up and brought her to the mother….

I knew it was now over…

So this blog was based on the fourth game in the series: Forty-four Games I thought would end up with a child in hospital, but somehow didn’t. No it isn’t the most spiritual of youth ministry games, however it brought many new faces to the Youth fellowship, and everyone seemed to have fun. Here is my boss to explain what the youth had to do…