Chapter Finished

It's been ages since I've had the time to actually sit down and write a decent post. The last couple of weeks have been the climax of not only my outreach, but the entire YWAM Urban Key, London's year. It's been really busy, to say the least.

Bones Camp started on the 15th of August. Bones is run by the Arts House (one of the three houses in YWAM London) and is basically the preparation time for going out onto the streets during the Notting Hill Carnival. Unlike the global carnivals (like the one I was at in Rio de Janeiro back in February 2012) that take place at the beginning of lent, the Notting Hill Carnival started in the mid-1960's. One of the reasons that the carnival began was due to widespread racial attacks that had occurred in 1958 and the poor state of racial relationships at that time. In 1975 it became a major festival, and has become known as one of the most famous carnivals, along side the Rio Carnival.

For me, the Notting Hill Carnival was quite a different experience to the night evangelism we did in Rio in February 2012. Due to my participation with the kids, I wasn't as involved with what was happening at the Bones camp as the others were. They'd spent most of the week practicing their dances, their drumming and their stilt walking. So when we arrived, with the kids, on Sunday morning, it was a nice surprise to see everyone dressed in bright colours and with vibrant face paints. We had an incredible time raising the joy levels of the carnival. Once the kids had been taken back to Dartmouth Road, we went out and talked to people. There were a number of people who were open to talk with us about God, whilst with others, we could tell right away that they just wanted us to leave.

Then on Monday, it rained for more or less the entire day, but that didn't stop us going out to do another parade. The stilts weren't used because of the slippery conditions of the roads. This time I helped with keeping people from walking amongst the dancers. It was a lot of fun, but meant that we had to keep an eye out on where everyone was.

Yesterday, everything from the carnival had been cleared away, this included the rubbish, the stalls, everything. We tidied up the church we'd been staying in and had a debrief session with lunch. That's when I ended up leaving. I dropped a bag off and headed to Liverpool Street to catch the train to spend a few days with my aunt and uncle. I'm going to be doing some travelling over the next weeks, which include going to Paris to visit my sister, Hannah (who's working there as a chef) and going to another YWAM gathering in Harpenden.

I'll post again soon with more news and an outline about what the next chapter of my adventures will look like.

Photographs: the first and second photos are of the street where the church, we were staying in, is. The first one I took Friday 22 August, before the carnival started, and the second one I took yesterday morning, the day after carnival ended.

Changes To Adjust To

It's been a while since I last posted, but things have been rediculiously busy and I've had a number of things I've had to do before moving back to Dartmouth Road.

So yes, I'm back at Dartmouth Road, though I'm the only one who's moved here, as more or less everyone else is moving into the church in Notting Hill for the Bones camp, which starts tonight. The reason I'm back at Dartmouth Road and not in the church with the three DTS's (the April DTS, the July DTS, and the Arts Revolution DTS, which started last night), and a number of the staff, is because I'm going to be working with the Bones Adventure Camp. This is the King's Kids camp, which runs during the afternoons here at Dartmouth Road. There going to be three of us who are the stay in staff, for this house. So yes, I'm back in a normal bed, after spending almost the entire outreach on bedrolls or camping cots.

So, last night the new Arts Revolution Discipleship Training School was introduced to the base. We celebrated this new chapter in the story of this base, with a BBQ (braai, in Afrikaans), but not any old BBQ, it was Argentinian style BBQ. It's exciting having another DTS running here, as the Arts house hasn't run a DTS before (they do run internships twice a year; you don't need to have a DTS to do an internship with YWAM Urban Key). To see people who are willing to follow God to another country to allow Him to work in their lives, to change them, is something I love to see.

Looking forwards to the next ten days, is exciting. I'll be working with some incredible kids, and along side some inspiration people from the base. The 'adults' Bone Camp runs to the 26th of August, whilst the Bones Adventure Camp for the kids, runs from next week Tuesday to August 24. We've got some incredible things planned to do, which has meant that I've been painting a few practical things, which I'll have to finish at a later date.

Photographs: double rainbow, taken from Station Road (if you follow me on Instagram, you'll have already seen this photo); and the barbecues used last night. Wheelbarrows have many purposes, you just gotta be inventive.

Westminster

It's another beautiful day, in the beautiful city of London. We got back to Station Road on Thursday morning. I spent the entire day at the house, relaxing. I also had the opportunity to chat with my parents.

Dinner on Thursday was prepared by the two Argentine guys, Denis and Ezequiel (Denis is one of the DTS staff but had stayed at the house whilst the July DTS are on their mini-outreach). We had quite a lot of fun together over the meal.

On Friday, the three of us walked over to Dartmouth Road to join some of the staff who live at that house. We'd been asked to help out at a conference in Westminster, near the Abbey, so we decided to travel over with them. I helped Hannah and Heidi (who came to Islington with us last week) with the registration during the morning meeting and sat in on the evening meeting, which was open to everyone who wanted to come. It didn't finish until really late, so we weren't back at Station Road until just before midnight. Denis, Ezequiel and I didn't travel back to Station Road via Dartmouth Road with the Counseling School (who'd joined us for the evening meeting), we came went straight back to the DTS house.

The July DTS arrived late last night Station Road today, though we didn't see them until we got back just before midnight, because we were in Westminster, helping with the second day of the conference. I spent more or less the entire time sitting at the book table (of course) to help with selling the books that the speaker has written. The guys were at the books table on Friday, but were helping as ushers yesterday, so I said I'd sit at the book table for them.

I'm not sure what's going to happen over the next few days. Bones starts next week and I'm helping with the King's Kids, again. I'm really looking forwards to working with the kids and with Kat and Amy. These two ladies are such an inspiration to me. They're really incredible with kids and I love working along side them.

Photographs: the entrance to the main auditorium, these words were beamed onto the wall with a projector; and the building where the British Channel 4 offices are based, we were walking past and I couldn't help but stop to take a photograph.

Preparing For Something New

Our time in Islington has drawn to a close. Today Ezequiel and I returned to the house on Station Road whilst Amy went back to the Dartmouth Road house. We've had an incredible time here. I wrote a little in an earlier post about what we've been doing here. We spent the entirety of last week working with a local kids camp, called Dover Soul after the estate it's annually held in, which ran for a few hours every afternoon. It was very different from the camp in Scotland but still a lot of fun.

The five of us from YWAM were separated into one of four groups (red, green, blue and yellow) as team leaders. We had to wear clothing that represents our team. I was one of the adults in the green team, and thankfully I had remembered to pick up a shirt in Glasgow (the shirt was being given away by the WildFire staff). We spent five afternoons, with the teams, and competing against each other in a series of games and other activities. There were a number of people who were leading the whole event and they were keeping a tally of the scores and also ran Dover Soul according to the schedule. This year's theme had been space so all the talks were about space. We had short dramatized stories everyday and small group times. We encouraged the kids to think and talk about what they thought of the story and about God. Whilst the 5-12 year olds were with us, the pastor's wife was running a crèche for the under 5's.

On Sunday morning, we had the community service of thanksgiving at the Green Space, where we had Dover Soul. The camp has had increasing support from the local community over the years (this was the eleventh camp that's been run) so we had a few people from the community come to the service and stay for the barbecue afterwards. After we'd taken the equipment down and brought back to the church, the four YWAMers left at the church (one of the girls who'd joined us had weekend duties so had to go back to Dartmouth Road) had been invited to s meal with a family from the church. We've spent the last few days helping the church where they've needed help. So we've been sorting things out, washing the toys that had been used by the crèche and going on follow up visits. It's been nice being able to see what we were advertising when Ezequiel and I were here at the beginning of July with the DTS.I'll post again soon... As I'm not too sure what the next few days are looking like. Next week we've got another kids camp, which I'm looking forwards to (even though it's my third kids camp in a row).

Photographs: a squirrel outside the church we've been staying in and the Dover Soul sign that the DTS made. I took this photo on Friday, at the end of the week, so that's why it's falling apart a little.