Greece Missions trip summary (Finally)

Hello everyone  :)

Hope you’ve all having a good summer.

Me and Ben have had an eventful summer with leading youth camps and kids clubs, but the most exciting thing that happened this summer was our mission trip to Greece.  Our missions trip was for 2weeks to Paros, Greece with UCCF.  This is a very late reply, so apologies, but here is an update on how it went.

Going to Greece was a very exciting opportunity. It was mine and Ben’s first overseas missions trip and actually the first time for most of the team and our team leader (as a team leader).  We met everyone in Athens at the home of the Clarks (a family of 5 who have been in Athens working with the IFES movement with UCCF for 2 years).  Spent 2 days there learning about Greek culture and history, some useful phrases and getting used to the fact that you can’t put toilet paper down the toilet!!

During the 10 days that we spent on Paros, most followed this rough format…

Morning – team bible studies, indepth look at a passage, discussion time and prayer time.

Lunch out – tried stuffed vine leaves, moussaka and calamari.  Their kebabs; “gyros”, was so good. A kebab in England is just not the same!

Afternoon – we found that it in the afternoon because of the heat, there weren’t many people around the town… so we followed suit and had beach time.  We swam in the sea everyday with “intentional” volleyball playing, inviting people to play with us. We tried the embarrassing,’ Oops we hit the ball too far, can u pass our ball back?! O hey do u want to play with us?’ – didn’t work! (not sure why, i think our amazing volleyball skills intimidated them! )

Dinner – sandwiches made from supermarket groceries.  A lot of apricot jam, philadelphia, marmite, chocolate spread, salami, cheese, cucumber & tomato sandwiches! We used our communal dining area at the campsite more than once to meet some new people and offer hospitality.

Evening – This was the time where most people were out on the streets. This is where we would meet strangers on the street and get into conversations with them on their views on God.  We had a questionnaire that we used and we also brought solarium (evangelism tool using visual photographs) which was helpful.

Night – Chilling out at the campsite, playing cards with people around and playing games.  Dutch Blitz anyone?

First night of talking to strangers, me and Ben got talking to a traveller from New Zealand that offered us a drink on his roof.  As we sat on his roof drinking beer, I did think of escape plans if he turned out to be a psycho, but we had some interesting conversations about religion.  He was very much interested and respected what we believed and asked many questions.  God really blessed us with such a cool experience (with the first person we talked to!) for our first attempt, as we both felt quite nervous.

Other nights we went around with different members of the group.  Had many rejections, some short answers to questions, some interesting debates and some deep conversations.

We also made signs to greet people at the busy port.  1 sign with ‘FREE HELP – help with directions and luggage.’ and another with ‘30mins can change your life.’ – we thought maybe girls shouldn’t hold that one.

The most successful place was actually the campsite at night.  Lots of people around and had more opportunities to spend more time with them in a relaxed atmosphere.  A lot of the people around spoke english and were more than happy to talk.

Thank you everyone for your support, for your prayers and for the financial help.  :) It was a great experience, where we learnt so much and saw God working in practical ways.

See you in September when we are back in Birmingham!

Hope you have a great retreat.

Take Care & God BLess,

Ben & Mandy

Prayer points!

Hey, so below are the prayer points that we’d love you all to pray for with us.  The calendar begins on Sunday 21st, but please feel free to pray before then!  Unfortunately, I can’t embed the calendar here, but the link below should take you directly to it:

Calendar

Just click each day for the full prayer requests.

Here’s the XML link if you want to add the calendar to an RSS/feed reader:
XML

Unfortunately I can’t get it to update daily, so it’s gonna display everything all at once!  (If anyone knows how to do it, it’d be helpful!)

And here’s the ical link to add to your ical.

 

Missions Training

So we had our training weekend this week.  First time meeting the team: we’ve got 10 people in total, plus the Greek students who we’ll be working with once we get there.  Everyone got on well, and I think we all have a good bond already.  In terms of the actual evangelism, its gonna be all cold contact stuff, talking to strangers etc.  While quite a scary concept, I’m encouraged by the knowledge that this will allow God’s glory to shine through even more.  That where we are the weakest, He will strengthen us, and any triumphs while we’re there can only be through Him.

One thing I didn’t think about before the weekend was the fact that Orthodoxy is very much the cultural, traditional norm in Greece, and the issues this might raise.  Apparently the student generation is quite post modern/post religious, though their families will likely have Orthodox roots.  None of the team knows much about the religion, but it involves Deification (the process of becoming Christ-like), and views the cross purely as a victory over sin and death, not as atonement for our sins.  If deification is not achieved by death, ancestors can be prayed for, to help them along their way.  Bible study/reading is discouraged, so the general theology may be based solely upon the teachings of the priest.  Furthermore, grace is not viewed as Gods Riches At Christ’s Expense, but a mystical energy/power!  Clearly the Bible does not hold with these views, and through the power of the Spirit, I hope we will be able to clearly explain the Gospel message truthfully, without causing offense.

 

If anyone has any info on Orthodoxy then we’d much appreciate it!  Thanks for everyone’s support in our trip – God has blessed us so much already, and we’ve been overwhelmed by financial support!

We will update when we get more info!

Ben & Mandy

MISS-EONS

I’m sure there’s lots of jokes about mission impossible, etc here, but I can’t think of them, so I’ll just write about our missions trip to Greece.

We’re heading off on a student mission with UCCF to the island of Paros, off the east coast of Greece between the dates of 14-27th July.  We’ll be staying (camping) with a UCCF missions family out there called the Clarkes, and the main aim of the trip is to take out the gospel to young people on the island, through questionnaires, chats, and evangelistic bible studies.   As of now there are 6 of us on the trip, though we’ll be joined by some Greek students too.

We’re planning on setting up a prayer diary for the trip, which I think will be available here on our blog in a couple of weeks, so check back soon.  The idea is that there will be a different prayer point every day and we’d love to join with you in prayer for all aspects of the trip.

We’re really grateful for all the support and prayers we’ve received so far, and want to thank everyone that’s helped us.  We’re planning on raising some money for the trip by offering our services for everyday tasks such as babysitting, cooking a meal, etc.  You can have this for yourselves, or ask us to bless somebody else, so that everyone gets blessed!  More info on this at BCEC tomorrow…Watch this space!

Jesus!

Wow! Long time no blog!

No profound words of wisdom here I’m afraid, but I’m just at one of those times where I have to stop and realise how blessed and unworthy we are to have such a loving, merciful Saviour!  When I look at my life and how He has protected and guided me, I’m so thankful for all the things I’ve been blessed with but simply don’t deserve.

As me and Mandy think about a summer missions trip, I pray that God will really make it clear to us where we can serve Him best, and how to take his love to others.  We have so many opportunities to serve, and I pray that God gives me the wisdom to know which path to take.

 

Sorry it’s not a very long or relevant post, but it seemed like something to share!

 

Take Care everyone.

 

Peace out

As some people may know, our cell group Firelight, along with another group, Seeds, went out last week into Birmingham city centre with hot chocolate, gloves, socks and other gifts to give out to the homeless on the streets.  We felt that it was an appropriate way that we as a group could start to show God’s love to others, and as a lead into other practical outreach that we could do as a group.

 

While we only met a total of three homeless people during the hour we were out, the evening still provided a great time of fellowship, and brought the two cell groups together as well.  We were really blessed with donations from people, and have plenty to hand out as we prepare to go out next Wednesday too.  Probably a bit earlier, as last week was perhaps too late for a lot of homeless people, who would’ve gone somewhere quieter or to a hostel for sleep.

 

Prayer would be awesome for the evening; for God to direct us where to go and how to interact with the people we meet.

 

Cheers

Ben

Cool FREE album

Hey, I recently found this cool Christian album by Phil Wickham (writer of “Jesus You’re My Everything”). Hope you guys like it – you just need to put in your email address. No strings.

Check it out

Ben

Link test

Ooo, I think I realized how to do the link thing….

Tell me if this works (this is the link from the last post for Stuff Christians like)
Link

Wooo
xxx

Ben: I fixed it for you!

Blog is a funny word…

Hello there

I wanted to share with you guys something from the blog ‘Stuff Christians Like’. Its a really cool blog and I would recommend it, I read this entry this morning and I thought that it was really relevant to me and it was just a cool reminder about how it’s not just about having ‘God times’ apart of the day but about having God as your day.

I’m really sorry but I don’t know how to do the link thing…. where you press ‘link’ and it takes you to the website so instead I pasted it this post…
Haha Happy Reading!

#442. Teaching yourself to breathe underwater.
For the last three months, I’ve been really deliberate about using my morning commute as a time of worship. I’ll pray, talk with God, sit quietly or listen to some music. It’s kind of a pre-game for the Bible study I start my day with once I get to work.

The problem is that other thoughts keep coming into this “God time.” I get distracted so easily that unless I’m really focused on God, I start thinking about Stuff Christians Like. I start thinking about the book I’m writing or my ‘to do list’ for the day ahead or friends I need to call or a million other things.

And I get really frustrated when that happens. I can’t seem to hold a thought for more than a second. I’ve perverted the truth of Bible verses that talk about taking your thoughts captive and created a soundtrack of condemnation that plays whenever I get off track with God, “Stupid brain, this is God time. Not Stuff Christians Like time or worry about work time or think about things you did with the family over the weekend time. God time. Focus Jon. Focus.” And I imagine God echoing those thoughts with His own disappointment with my ability to keep His time purely about Him.

But I few weeks ago, after a morning of feeling like I had blown the sanctity of the commute with God again, I started to think that maybe I was wrong. Maybe if I listened closely to God, He wouldn’t berate me for not being able to focus, maybe instead He would say:

“Why do you keep trying to tame the mind I gave you? Why do you keep trying to restrain the heart and soul I placed inside you? Why? Why? Why? You are practicing this weird kind of self-renewal. It’s like your heart is the ocean and you’re terrified of drowning. And instead of seeing the ocean as a beautiful, untamed place, you’re trying to control it by teaching yourself how to breathe underwater. Forget that. I want you to surf. I want you to big wave surf. Not just because it’s impossible to breathe underwater and trying will eventually kill you, but because surfing is fun.

So let your thoughts overlap. Know that I am a God of joy. Big, messy, sloppy joy. Do I have boundaries for you? Without a doubt, but they’re only there because discipline is a sign of love and I want you to experience the most joy possible. I don’t want you surfing at the beaches with all the sharks. It’s dangerous and those waves stink anyway. So let your mind wander. Stop limiting your creativity. Stop forcing me to be the God of rules and disappointment in your head.

That’s what happened this morning, isn’t it? You’ve labeled the morning commute as ‘God time’ so when you catch yourself thinking about Stuff Christians Like or work or other things, you berate yourself and say, I’m sorry God. I’m so sorry I have such a scattered mind. I hate the way my mind works. I wish it was one track.’

Well it’s not. I didn’t create you that way. I put a train yard in your head. A thousand tracks intersecting. Let me be the one to sort those out. But don’t beat yourself up for bringing other parts of your life into your ‘God time.’ I have a secret, that’s exactly what I want. I want all of your life. I love when you bring other parts in. Overlap, come to me with everything. Let me saturate your every day and your every thought.”

Ultimately, the thought I walked away from that idea with is pretty simple, “I don’t want ‘God time’ to be part of my day. I want God to be my day.” But what a rambling mix of metaphors I had to go through to get to that. Surfing and trains, and sharks and overlapping thoughts. But that’s how God made me.

I’m messy and even though you’re different than me, I bet you’re messy too. So let’s stop trying to regulate our lives for God and instead embrace what God has planned for them. As chaotic and as sloppy and as unplanned and unexplainably joyful as that might feel sometimes.
POSTED BY PRODIGAL JON AT 3:00 AM

xxx

That whole election thing…

I suppose this wouldn’t be a real blog if we didn’t at least try to comment on some real, world changing news once in a while…

Firstly, I’m happy that Obama won (as are these people.) I’m sure that he’s the right candidate and look forward to a time of change in the next few years – hopefully for the better.

Having said that, I couldn’t tell you one of his policies, and my reasoning behind supporting him would be that he seems less trigger-happy than McCain, and everything I’d heard about Sarah Palin was seriously negative. It’s not that I’m not interested, and I know that it affects me, but having no control over the situation left me with no real need to seriously look into it. Although thinking about it, I probably have less interest in UK politics! How come in the states they manage to have people that actually seem to be in touch with people, whereas here we just have lots of immature name calling and arguing?!

At the next election, I’m seriously considering just spoiling my ballot paper because I really don’t want any of the candidates running my country! It’s really worrying.

I guess we can just trust that God has the reigns, and knows what’s going down.

So yeah, my very limited take on politics! Congrats to Barack, and this ends my obligatory election post.

We are with child

It’s true, we have a child…

Haha! We’re sponsoring a child with compassion!
I felt kinda weird choosing a child, so I let them choose, i just wanted a girl.

YaY!