So continuing from DT week, after getting back, getting dry, sleeping in an actual bed and having the best breakfast cooked by our UK director, Mike, we were starting to recover slightly.
After this week we continued into our second part of Cultural Studies learning more about just how different people from different cultures really are and how much it can be a problem if you don't try to understand the culture of people you're working with, a culture you're going to or the culture you're in. I realised this is highly important, not just in mission work where clearly there would be a culture change but just in church in general as the cultural diversity is growing all the time, if this isn't understood or attempted to be understood at least then this can have massive knock on effect on relationships due to misinterpretation usually.
The week after this we hit the week of spiritual warfare. This topic I hadn't learnt much about previously, so I was very eager to learn. I learnt so many things during this week and mentally it was one of the weeks that will a lot more full on but as a Christian was definitely one of the teaching topics I value most.
We looked worked through looking at who the enemy is and then, more importantly, how we can protect and attack the enemy and how important it is to literally apply the armour of God. I'd gone through what it was before but never thought of the use of it or how it was important to me at all but over these past few weeks I've learned such things as truthfulness. righteousness, peacefulness, faith and the word of God (Bible) are among the most important things that I need in my day to day life and will keep me strong and firm in my faith. Making sure I use the armour will enable me to do more, be more and fully step into what God plans are for me.
Finally we talked about prayer and how important that is in day to day life. Before coming on this gap year prayer had strangely enough never really been a massive part of my life and I hadn't truly valued its power to change situations. I never understood why we had to pray and why didn't God just change our situations anyways. I've never realised so much how prayer can change seemingly unchangeable situations until these last few months and how essential it is as part of daily life.
I loved this week of teaching and I could go into a mass amount of detail about every area we got taught on... if you really would like me to go more in detail on this topic you can ask me personally and I'll be very happy to pass on everything I've been taught...however for now I will just say I've learnt that the specific armour of God was taught to us so we would know what we would need and how to use it, not so we could completely disregard it as just words that have no life or meaning.
Every part of God's word was written for a reason and we should remember this at all times.
Monday, 19 November 2012
Sorry its been so long :(
As I remember saying in my last blog post "speak soon"...soon has turned into weeks and I still haven't wrote another one. I'm sorry to all of you who I'd promised to keep you up-to-date but all I can say is that you would have to actually do this gap year to know how busy and packed our time table is.
To make this much better to read and so I can include picture and it won't be a mile long I'll split it up and only include the most key moments of my last few months here in Llanelli.
Since I last wrote I've been on development training or DT week as its known at work horizons. It was a highly challenging, injury causing, teaming building, and productive week that I will never forget. I faced my fears on this week and was stretched but in that it produced results I wouldn't have imagined. Firstly if you haven't been on any form of development training before this week involved various tasks such as planning a meal, hiking, abseiling, sleeping in a cave yet more hiking and sleeping in a concrete hut..supposedly...if there wasn't torrential rain an it floods. Along the way also doing various other tasks, going 3 days with a maximum of 5hrs sleep and my anaemia coming back.
Although that all sounds like great fun in itself, trust me (looking back) it really was worth it and showed me a lot about how much I am capable of if I push that little further and keep focused. That even the things and places that seems unreachable aren't if your remain positive and don't give up.
God taught me he can answer your prayers and we can be so wrapped up in the problem and the situation that we're in that we look over the solution that God has provided for us. I learned this when I was on the literal edge of a slippery cliff at night. Being scared of heights this wasn't at all my favourite place to be and I was terrified, asking God to help me, or give me something to help me through this. After about 5 minutes my friend Aurora came and held my hand and kept telling me everything was going to be okay and she wasn't going to leave me. During this I was still stupidly asking God for something, anything to help me in this situation. He kindly opened my eyes to the fact he'd already placed someone in my path to help me and as she said I was going to be okay.
To make this much better to read and so I can include picture and it won't be a mile long I'll split it up and only include the most key moments of my last few months here in Llanelli.
Since I last wrote I've been on development training or DT week as its known at work horizons. It was a highly challenging, injury causing, teaming building, and productive week that I will never forget. I faced my fears on this week and was stretched but in that it produced results I wouldn't have imagined. Firstly if you haven't been on any form of development training before this week involved various tasks such as planning a meal, hiking, abseiling, sleeping in a cave yet more hiking and sleeping in a concrete hut..supposedly...if there wasn't torrential rain an it floods. Along the way also doing various other tasks, going 3 days with a maximum of 5hrs sleep and my anaemia coming back.
Although that all sounds like great fun in itself, trust me (looking back) it really was worth it and showed me a lot about how much I am capable of if I push that little further and keep focused. That even the things and places that seems unreachable aren't if your remain positive and don't give up.
God taught me he can answer your prayers and we can be so wrapped up in the problem and the situation that we're in that we look over the solution that God has provided for us. I learned this when I was on the literal edge of a slippery cliff at night. Being scared of heights this wasn't at all my favourite place to be and I was terrified, asking God to help me, or give me something to help me through this. After about 5 minutes my friend Aurora came and held my hand and kept telling me everything was going to be okay and she wasn't going to leave me. During this I was still stupidly asking God for something, anything to help me in this situation. He kindly opened my eyes to the fact he'd already placed someone in my path to help me and as she said I was going to be okay.
 |
| Left Photo - The team in the bothy after a veryyyy long and wet day. From left to right: Aurora, Me, Nate, Godgive, David, Hollie, Isaac, Joy, Sarah, Joce Right Photo - Me and my roomies in the flooded bothy
You're probably thinking we're all looking far too happy to be anywhere near as exhausted as we were. Trust me we were all bordering on hysteria due to tiredness by this point.
So this doesn't become ridiculously boring and too long to read I'll spilt it up into a few more posts, so please read on if you can be bothered :)
Byeee for now Helen xoxo |
Wednesday, 26 September 2012
Week 1
So I've been here in Llanelli for just over a week now and I think I've just about learnt how to pronounce "Llanelli" properly, which being English in Wales goes a long way, trust me!
This first week has been soooo packed, I can't even begin to try and explain how much has happened in so little time, I've bearly had time to think to be honest. However I will try to summerise what has been happened. On Monday - Wednesday morning's we have "North Dock prayer" this is where we pray for various things to do with World Horizons such as council meetings and vital team member roles they need filling...so if any of you feel called to mission you know where to come yeah?
We've been learning so much about different cutures via different games and also simply by living together in community with people from all over the world. So here's where I'll introduce you to the team. The long termers consist of Jos from just around the corner in Wales, Joy who comes from Bedford, Sarah from Thatcham and Nate whos from California, USA. Then there are the Gappers who consist of, me, Hollie whos from Bridgend, Wales, David from London, Aurora from France, Isaac from Indiana, USA and Godgive from Nigeria. As you can see even between the 10 of us there are mass cultural differences and different personalities. Its been such a learning curve for everyone and its such a massive answer to prayer how quickly we've all got close and are like a massive family now. I love it!
I've been put as team leader for my cleaning/washing up/catering team which is me, Nate and Joy, HA what an absolute joke, thanks Becky and Debbie (Gap year and long term leaders). Its been so crazy and I'm literally not sure how we've coped with getting eidable meals out realitivly on time cause I have literally no idea what I'm doing! I swear its a bloody miracle.
I loved getting involved with my new church (Elim Swansea), sorry MCC but gotta move on and you know that will always be my home church. The life of of Elim is so obvious its amazing to walk into a building like that for the first time and just feel so content and at home amongst being so unsure. The work the people put into this church is incredible and the passion they have to create new projects to help people is immense, there just seems to be so much going on within the church.
The main thing I'm involved in helping with is on a Friday night working with two people called Dave and Laura and helping the work they do in reaching the homeless and addicts who so desperately need God but are just oblivious to this fact. The do this with a main and vital philosophy of simply ( or not so simply) loving people and forming relationships that can spark those important conversations. Dave and Laura both have amazing, inspirational stories of being delivered from the place they were in and its so obvious to me they're now doing the work they were designed to do. They're helping so many people, 11 people in rehab in at the and they're so committed to being there after they get out of rehab or teen changellge. I could go on about them for ages, so amazing. Even though I'm super buzzing over this, it has been a challenge for me and I've found just over this last 10 days God is continuing to push be futher and challenging me causing me to have to trust him like I'm so scared to do, so far its going well and I can tell my faith is growing already and I just have a continuing desire to learn more about his word and look more deeply into his teaching, something that I've never had before.
The church service I attend with Nate and Hollie on an evening touched my life massively and brought up so many painful things that I thought I'd delt with that after the talk I realised I had held on to, I know God wants me to get rid of the hurt I hold on from these times but the reality of it and having to face in head on infront of 10 other people is scary as and super emotional but I know God is doing some amazing work in me and its only week 1!!!
Today we learned about the possibilites for out 6 month work abroad, as you know from my last post I intended to go to Cambodia...note the past tense. I, along with the other gappers are so confused and blessed by the amount of amazing opportunities we have put in our path. So now I'm can't decide between Cambodia and Turkey, so please pray I hear where I being called to go!
I feel like I've been going on for a year and honestly I could write more, its been such an emotional rollercoster of a week, don't think I've experienced anything like it before but I can honestly say I wouldn't want to go through this with any other group of people, they're all so amazing and crazy and slightly annoying at times but as I said they're all gonna be my family for 3 months and I couldn't have asked for a better group of people.
Sorry again for the essay!
Bring on the rest of the week!
Speak soon
Helen xoxo
This first week has been soooo packed, I can't even begin to try and explain how much has happened in so little time, I've bearly had time to think to be honest. However I will try to summerise what has been happened. On Monday - Wednesday morning's we have "North Dock prayer" this is where we pray for various things to do with World Horizons such as council meetings and vital team member roles they need filling...so if any of you feel called to mission you know where to come yeah?
We've been learning so much about different cutures via different games and also simply by living together in community with people from all over the world. So here's where I'll introduce you to the team. The long termers consist of Jos from just around the corner in Wales, Joy who comes from Bedford, Sarah from Thatcham and Nate whos from California, USA. Then there are the Gappers who consist of, me, Hollie whos from Bridgend, Wales, David from London, Aurora from France, Isaac from Indiana, USA and Godgive from Nigeria. As you can see even between the 10 of us there are mass cultural differences and different personalities. Its been such a learning curve for everyone and its such a massive answer to prayer how quickly we've all got close and are like a massive family now. I love it!
I've been put as team leader for my cleaning/washing up/catering team which is me, Nate and Joy, HA what an absolute joke, thanks Becky and Debbie (Gap year and long term leaders). Its been so crazy and I'm literally not sure how we've coped with getting eidable meals out realitivly on time cause I have literally no idea what I'm doing! I swear its a bloody miracle.
I loved getting involved with my new church (Elim Swansea), sorry MCC but gotta move on and you know that will always be my home church. The life of of Elim is so obvious its amazing to walk into a building like that for the first time and just feel so content and at home amongst being so unsure. The work the people put into this church is incredible and the passion they have to create new projects to help people is immense, there just seems to be so much going on within the church.
The main thing I'm involved in helping with is on a Friday night working with two people called Dave and Laura and helping the work they do in reaching the homeless and addicts who so desperately need God but are just oblivious to this fact. The do this with a main and vital philosophy of simply ( or not so simply) loving people and forming relationships that can spark those important conversations. Dave and Laura both have amazing, inspirational stories of being delivered from the place they were in and its so obvious to me they're now doing the work they were designed to do. They're helping so many people, 11 people in rehab in at the and they're so committed to being there after they get out of rehab or teen changellge. I could go on about them for ages, so amazing. Even though I'm super buzzing over this, it has been a challenge for me and I've found just over this last 10 days God is continuing to push be futher and challenging me causing me to have to trust him like I'm so scared to do, so far its going well and I can tell my faith is growing already and I just have a continuing desire to learn more about his word and look more deeply into his teaching, something that I've never had before.
The church service I attend with Nate and Hollie on an evening touched my life massively and brought up so many painful things that I thought I'd delt with that after the talk I realised I had held on to, I know God wants me to get rid of the hurt I hold on from these times but the reality of it and having to face in head on infront of 10 other people is scary as and super emotional but I know God is doing some amazing work in me and its only week 1!!!
Today we learned about the possibilites for out 6 month work abroad, as you know from my last post I intended to go to Cambodia...note the past tense. I, along with the other gappers are so confused and blessed by the amount of amazing opportunities we have put in our path. So now I'm can't decide between Cambodia and Turkey, so please pray I hear where I being called to go!
I feel like I've been going on for a year and honestly I could write more, its been such an emotional rollercoster of a week, don't think I've experienced anything like it before but I can honestly say I wouldn't want to go through this with any other group of people, they're all so amazing and crazy and slightly annoying at times but as I said they're all gonna be my family for 3 months and I couldn't have asked for a better group of people.
Sorry again for the essay!
Bring on the rest of the week!
Speak soon
Helen xoxo
Wednesday, 5 September 2012
Before The Start.
So I'm off on a adventure into something I would definitely class as the 'the unknown', hence the name of the this blog. I decided this would be the best way for everyone to see the crazy stuff I'm getting up to in the next year, I will try and post on here as much as possible however I'm sorry in advance if there is a gap between posts, my daily schedule is gonna be pretty packed!
To start off, for those of you who have zero idea what I'm doing with my life at the moment, here's a basic summary of what World Horizons is and the reason I decided to take this year out instead of doing the standard thing of going to uni.
As many people will know I was all set on going to uni to do Adult Nursing, however very few of you know the reasons behind postponing this. I very much started to feel, once all the craziness of personal statement writing and work experience had died down, that I actually had no idea if this was even the course for me. This lead to me deciding to look around various ways to spend my year the majority of which weren't suitable for me or I was too young to do. However one of my friends had done the World Horizons gap year a few years ago and so my mam told me to have a look at that and everything just seemed to fit together, it was exactly what I looking for and what I think I need in my life right now. After I decided this is what I was going to do, Teesside University rang me up themselves and told me that I'd be unsuccessful for September 2012 as there wasn't enough space on the course but they thought I was a good candidate so wanted to defer my place till September 2013, this is when I was certain what I was doing was in Gods plan and not just my own.
So what even is World Horizons you ask? World Horizons is a multi-national Christian charity who aims to reach out to those countries and people than are a lot less fortunate than ourselves, develop relationships with the people of these countries and share the message of the gospel to those who have never heard it before. As a part of this charity there is the option to do a gap year with them where you spend 3 months in their UK base in Llanelli, Wales focusing on discipleship and spiritual growth, as well as key preparation for working in a cross-cultural environment. Next I'm off on my 6 month placement (Jan-July). I'm not fully sure where the destination of this placement will be, however Cambodia is looking highly likely, but I'd be grateful for prayer for confirmation of this!
This next year is going to be one of the scariest, inspiring, eye-opening, and amazing years of my life and I can't wait for it to start. I am 100% sure the people I will meet along the way will change my life as much as I hope to change theirs.
I may post a few extra thoughts before I go, but if not my next post will be from my short term home in Llanelli, Wales!! Arghhh
Speak soon
Helen xoxo
To start off, for those of you who have zero idea what I'm doing with my life at the moment, here's a basic summary of what World Horizons is and the reason I decided to take this year out instead of doing the standard thing of going to uni.
As many people will know I was all set on going to uni to do Adult Nursing, however very few of you know the reasons behind postponing this. I very much started to feel, once all the craziness of personal statement writing and work experience had died down, that I actually had no idea if this was even the course for me. This lead to me deciding to look around various ways to spend my year the majority of which weren't suitable for me or I was too young to do. However one of my friends had done the World Horizons gap year a few years ago and so my mam told me to have a look at that and everything just seemed to fit together, it was exactly what I looking for and what I think I need in my life right now. After I decided this is what I was going to do, Teesside University rang me up themselves and told me that I'd be unsuccessful for September 2012 as there wasn't enough space on the course but they thought I was a good candidate so wanted to defer my place till September 2013, this is when I was certain what I was doing was in Gods plan and not just my own.
So what even is World Horizons you ask? World Horizons is a multi-national Christian charity who aims to reach out to those countries and people than are a lot less fortunate than ourselves, develop relationships with the people of these countries and share the message of the gospel to those who have never heard it before. As a part of this charity there is the option to do a gap year with them where you spend 3 months in their UK base in Llanelli, Wales focusing on discipleship and spiritual growth, as well as key preparation for working in a cross-cultural environment. Next I'm off on my 6 month placement (Jan-July). I'm not fully sure where the destination of this placement will be, however Cambodia is looking highly likely, but I'd be grateful for prayer for confirmation of this!
This next year is going to be one of the scariest, inspiring, eye-opening, and amazing years of my life and I can't wait for it to start. I am 100% sure the people I will meet along the way will change my life as much as I hope to change theirs.
I may post a few extra thoughts before I go, but if not my next post will be from my short term home in Llanelli, Wales!! Arghhh
Speak soon
Helen xoxo
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