Warwick Mission

What a great week! I am now back home after spending the week living on campus, it felt like a hark back to the olden days of Castle Leazes in Newcastle but for the fact that it was infinitely nicer and had en-suite! I was though sleeping on a students floor!

Over the course of the week we have seen lots of great things going on with the Christian Union members being really up for getting involved and seeing people impacted by the gospel (the group I was working with particularly). We had lunchbar talks most days on apologetic issues and main evening meetings looking at topics relating to us and God based in the gospel of John. At least 5 people received Christ this week and many more are interested in the Christianity Explored course or other one to one follow up. Roger Carswell gave all the main talks and lunchbars apart from one...that was given by yours truly yesterday lunchtime on the topic of "One world, One way, One God", the idea being that all religions don't lead to God, its only Jesus. I think it went well and, although its a bit blurry (Rich Boothroyd doesn't have a steady "non-flash" camera hand!) here is a shot of me in full flow.

I had the privilege of working with one of the CU 10.25 small groups (take a look in Hebrews!) all week in Arthur Vick Halls. They were a great bunch and really up for taking the gospel to their hall. I stayed there with a bloke called Guy all week and we did a whole load of events. Monday night was "text a pancake" where we invited students to send a text message to order a free pancake which was delivered to their room (we shifted over 100!) along with a short spiritual interest survey. On Wednesday we ran a "Grill-a-Christian" evening but unfortunately no one came. Undeterred the group decided to split up taking the pizzas we'd ordered for the event and dishing out free pizza to people around the hall, again with the short surveys. On Friday people also went round to the kitchens and washed up anything they could find left around to bless those who lived there! The results of these things were ace and Guy is going to run a seekers Bible study with people on his corridor (who I got to know a little bit and can follow up with) and there are around 15 people from the short surveys who say they would like the opportunity to discuss things further. Praise God! Here is a photo of the lovely lot in Arthur Vick 2 and 3!

On Wednesday night I also took part in an evangelistic strategy known as "Hot Chocolate". We met at 11pm and took hot chocolate and biscuits onto the piazza to serve to people leaving the Union club night. I had a couple of great conversations one with a guy called Joe and then with a chap named Mike, who told me that he knows only God can help him move forward but that its so hard not to slip back into trusting himself and dealing with things the wrong way. Mike told me he is an alcoholic. Please pray for these two guys.

This is a nice arty picture of the piazza I took, its where we gave out hot chocolate to people leaving the building I am standing on!

I ended the week SO encouraged by what I had seen amongst both Christians and non-Christians. I had seen Christians take steps of faith and trust in God for a whole variety of things and non-Christians take massive steps towards the cross that we can follow up and build upon, God was working powerfully.

One of the most encouraging things about the mission was the profile, EVERYONE on campus had heard about it and knew what we were talking about when we met them to invite them or to do student belief surveys (hundreds of these were done in afternoons during the week). It was great to see how everyone had picked up on what was going on and knew exactly what the CU were doing.

Please continue to pray particularly for Mike who I mentioned earlier as well as Ben, Katie, George, Neil and Sebastian. Ben and Katie live on the corridor I was staying on and are really interested in seeking truth, pray that Guy would be able to share with them continually and that I can see them regularly to chat about stuff. George and Neil I met doing surveys and we chatted for 2 hours! George used to live with one of the girls who was on the mission support team with me so we were able to talk about the way that she had shared with him too and the things he thoughts from their chats which was really productive in letting him see more of the truth. Neil was also pretty interested. Sebastian is a guy I have been meeting pretty regularly for a few weeks, he is really interested and yesterday I gave him a Bible and a copy of Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. He is off to read and prepare questions for when we meet up, pray that God would enlighten his heart with the truth.

Thanks for all your prayers...now I just need to recover and get set for the National Student Conference next weekend (which is ALREADY sold out!)...but that's another story!

So I've been busy

Ok, Ok, so I've been busy, its been crazy hectic so far this term!

I have spent the last two weeks getting back into things at Warwick and also prepping up for the National Student Conference which is the weekend after next, there is a lot to be done!

I have spent some good time with the 5 guys I work with at Warwick which has been great fun. We have been working on a whole variety of things with the main purpose of getting prepared for MISSION WEEK which starts tomorrow! I am really looking forward to the mission even though I know its going to mean early mornings and late nights for the whole week. Roger Carswell will be doing all the main talks in the evenings and also 3 lunch bars, I am also doing a lunchbar on Friday entitled "One Way, One World, One God" which is exciting but a little daunting since I discovered I'm the only person doing a main talk other than Roger! Please pray for that, it's Friday at noon. Do be praying for the week as a whole too, it would be great to see people wrestling with truth and also becoming Christians! I will be staying over on campus for the whole week with a student called guy, I am told the hall I'm staying in is a bit of a hotel and it even has en-suite. Lucky me.

The week in Warwick does mean I won't be doing much for the NSC until exactly a week before the conference, as I'm main administrator this is a bit of a mare! Hopefully by then we will be virtually booked out as there are about 100 places still available at the moment. We will have people coming from all over the country for training in evangelism and a time on Saturday afternoon (4th) to get our hands dirty putting it into practice in Birmingham. Please pray that all the organising gets done and that I'm not miles behind when I get back to the office after the mission!

Sorry for the long gap since the last post...I was enjoying the pretty pictures so much I didn't want to knock them off the top. If you missed it last week on SkiSunday was the Wengen World Cup weekend, the so called professionals got down the Lauberhorn in about two and a half minutes, pah, I did it in 15...I do concede that they were more stylish though. Just.

Pretty pictures...

Blogger hasn't been letting me put more pictures on my last post so here are sime more for your enjoyment...isn't Switzerland pretty!

Me at the top of the Schilthorn looking over the Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau

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Blue run at Murren

The Lauberhorn

Me and Al as 2005 becomes 2006

The sun on The Alps

Lauterbrunnen and Wengen from the mountain top

Al sings Take That karaoke!

The mountains peep over the cloud covering the valley

Did you see that mountain tremble?

Well I am back...back in Birmingham, back at work and back to getting on with everything! I have had a fantastic break over Christmas with family and friends including a superb holiday in beautiful Switzerland bombing down mountains on skis!

It really has been a great time and I really wish I was still up there in the mountains...how lucky are the people that live there and can go up whenever they feel like it? VERY LUCKY if you ask me! I had the best snow ever during the week I was in Wengen which was quite surprising at this time of year as its usually pretty scratchy. Some days there was stacks of new powder which made Alasdair behave like a little child with his snowboard...I on the other hand made a fool of myself in feet deep snow, I'm sure God didn't design powder snow with average skiers like me in mind.

I entertained myself by flying (not literally) down the World Cup Downhill run which was great fun with the odd heart in mouth moments and rather than entertaining myself I scared myself witless on the World Cup Slalom course which is the steepest, iciest thing I've ever seen. Still, I'll enjoy it a week on Sunday when I sit here smugly telling everyone that I have skied those runs they are doing on the TV!

I had a great New Year in Wengen although it was a mite scary with crazy Europeans lighting fireworks (including rockets!) in their hands and then throwing them around! We then danced away until 4am and yes, I was still on the mountain by 10am on New Year's Day! We had a great group of people, a lot of whom I knew already to have fun with and I also met some fun new people. During the week the talks were from Daniel 1-6 which were interesting but a bit long at the end of a day skiing.

So having read this far you really want to see pretty photos don't you? Alright then...here are a selection of fun shots!

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The Eiger

Kleine Scheidegg