Thoughts From Just Another Passer By

I made it back from Mission in Newham after an amazing week: challenge, enthusiasm, difference, experience, team, grace, legacy, opportunity, humility and family... ten words for ten amazing days. Challenge... I was scared and worried about what I would have to face, the things we would have to do, London, the team the people, it was all a challenege, but God is a God of Challenges. Enthusiasm... This was when I found my enthusiasm, it was joyful chance. God is a God of Enthusiasm. Difference... People can make a difference, its all to do about our dreams and visions. And we all live in different worlds with different people, with different dreams and visions. God is a God of Difference. Experience... its all about seeing what is out their in this world and more than seeing it experiencing it. God is a God of Experience. Team... We are all a team, we all support each other, work with and for each other, God is a God of our team. Legacy... Where do we go from here? What now? What mark...

Today has been really good. What is our legacy? Our legacy on this place? What has marked our legacy? What will be this legacy? Not just empty question but something for all to think of in any place I feel.

Once again we went to Stratford to join the Easter Experience crew, which has been amazing. The walk their this morning also gave us a great view of the place, what it is to really walk the streets of London. Also the lent group this evening where amazing and so willing to ask questions. Yet tonight I have started to reflect upon the willingness to do things. Are we willing to drop everything and go and do God's bidding at the shortest notices, least of all with little preparation or expectancy? On this mission I think that is something I am being called to consider as a lot of what we do turn up and see, and do what is needed then and their, being prepared to get stuck in, and just being willing and open to being used. As well as agreeing to assemblies less than 24 hours before hand. I really pray that God opens my heart and my head to being this willing and just going with his flow more than trying to confine and constrict his amazing power and plans.

Bx Belshaw is really inspired just by how much much people are willing to give, how far people are willing to go and how desperate they are to share the grace and love of God. The place of Newham where I'm on mission, just keeps on giving and giving. Not just new experiences and food, but its generosity for life, its love for the people and the passion for God is really hard to comprehend. Let alone get you head around. I've seen God in some strange places, but Newham has really blessed me as God isn't just in strange places, he just is and that is so profoundly obvious. We looked around a warehouse today with first fruits, and the guys who's behind just has given so much to this area, and he quickly introduced us to his manager for Aspire (a clothing recycle plant type collection thing) who told us about Aspire, and at the end he turned around and said I know some of you will probably looking for jobs soon and theirs just around the corner this opportunity. To me it ju...

Today has completely wiped me out. In guiding/camping terms its mid camp blues. Even so today was brilliant till after dinner which became challenging and made me wish to hide and think and have space to myself, and possibly even weep. My team however have been fantastic suport and really recognised that I just need that bit of space. Tomorrow is a new day in Newham, and I might have slept.

How do you process all this? This place is just a wonder. Today all I have done is been to church, sat with another family and been to a group who looked at some local stories on the succes of 'messy church' type events, but I have been blown away by the love these people have for the people here, not just to see them come to God but as building a community, and not just as a community but to see them come to God. Add into this the cultural mix which really does show the true diversity of this world, the welcome and caring nature of the greater Church of Christ and the peoples passion. How can this be made into any form of understanding in my head? How does this fit into the stereotypes that where put forward as suggestion to what we could be greeted by? How does this fit into the difficulty I thought I had but rather, my difficulty is not struggling with God in the sense of seeing him in the people here, but rather its overwhelming in a sense, yet even then these terms aren...

Today we went on the Green Street Experience. We had to look for signs of religion, culture, history and boundaries amongst many things. Plus, we where set a challenge. In groups of three or four we had to buy a lunch that was food we had never had before, buy our tea to be cooked when we got back with only one item we vaguely recognised and two veg that we had to find the name, and how to cook it, buy three types of sweets and buy an item of clothing and learn how to wear it: All for Twenty pounds. My team managed it for £19.20. It threw up some interesting questions. As part of the challenge we bought a head scarf and I wore it as part of the experience, and walking through the street I was stopped by what I believe was a Muslim women dressed with a head scarf who stopped and asked me for money and said 'sister pray for me'. I was unsure of how to respond to this situation. Some how I don't think they would have asked me if I wasn't wearing a head dress. This ev...

We left, we arrived, and what a place. Still living on the edge, but what a view currently. I hope everyone else is having an amazing time to. Prayer points: Well tomorrows a new day, and we are trying the Green street experience and Newhams Got Talent. Just bonding with hosts and teams.

Its been a real struggle the last fortnight. In college we have learnt so much about mission and always looming was the prospect of going on mission. Then it arrived. suddenly there where teams and planing and prep. There nerves and emotions and fear. For once I didn't keep this to myself which I am prone to do. Two thing have come out of this: I have had great support of many brilliant people in varying ways, all of which I needed. My personal prayer life has increased greatly Tomorrow I go 'on mission'. I am still terrified. I'm not going to hide that fact, I think that would be unhelpful. I'm possibly not as prepared as I could be, but we can't spend all our lives preparing. I'm possibly not a lot of things, but I assured and reassured that God will use that and what ever I am on top of that, and multiply that for he is a gracious God. I return to the encouragement a friend in college gave me a week ago Tuesday during corridor prayers: For this reason I r...