Into the Furness

In the past week and a bit things have been rather hectic. Vic (my boss, the Furness deanery Network Youth Church leader) has been showing me around the whole deanery, getting to know people, places and youth groups. So a week and a bit later and we have pretty much covered the whole deanery. To give you a bit of an idea how big the deanery is, it takes 40 minutes to drive from one side to the other where as Leatherhead deanery back home takes about 20 minutes to cross. The area is simply huge. But I guess everything up here is much more spread out.
Having just looked at the last blog a lot has happend. First thing was Lantern festival, Ulverston is a festival town and lantern festival was my first real experience. Everyone has the chance to make lanterns which are then lit and paraded around the town before ending up in Ford Park for a firework display. It was a great evening and something I have never seen before.
Then the great Furness deanery exploration began with visits to Millom, Urswick and Coniston. Although three places doesnt sound very much, these were just places that we stopped in. There are many places in between that we will be working with such as Broughton and Thwaites.
The church had a 24 hour prayer day, where people were asked to pray at church or at home for an hour slot with everyone making up the 24 hour period. I got a group together and we crawled out of bed at 4:50 last wednesday for the 5-6AM slot. It was great to do this and spend sometime speaking to God about Ulverston and praying for the church and its needs but also seeking out God's vision for the area.
Other highlights since the last blog have been going into schools. Last Wednesday we went into Ulverston Victoria High School (UVHS) and did a lunch club called Big Questions. This is where we run a discussion based session and kids come along ask us questions that they want answered. Its a great mix of Churched and Unchurched kids with loads of great points made.
Yesterday Vic and I went to Millom School to give a lesson on Self esteem which was great fun too. It was really great to just get chatting to the kids about their opinions on self esteem.
Another great point in the week was driving too and from Coniston. The roads up here are so much fun to drive. So many hills, dips, twists and turns! It's great!
Anyway I must dash now to the next thing!
Catch you all soon,
God bless you all!