A Grand Adventure...

Recently, there has been something about the Grand Canyon that has just intrigued me.

I've never been there before, nor have I really ever seen any good pictures of it, and anyways, I'm not sure a picture would be able to capture the vastness of it if I had seen many. The fascination all started when I read this book called "Through Painted Deserts" by Donald Miller. This is undoubtedly one of my favourite books, and I've read it many times, dipping into it countless more.

In this book, he describes a road trip he takes across the USA with a friend of his, stopping at different places along the way. It's not a book that sounds too deep, and in fact, it's not really, but there's something about it that speaks to my soul. So, I read it...

At about the half way section, him and his friend Paul go to the Grand Canyon, and hike down into its depths to camp for a night before coming up out again.

To be honest, I never really knew what the Grand Canyon was, I didn't get how deep it was.. It's a mile deep. A mile. That's about 4 times the height of the Empire State building.

We don't really think of a mile as that long a distance when we're measuring ALONG the ground, but how about down? That's pretty deep...


There's this thing called the "Sky Walk" which you can walk out on, and look down into the Grand Canyon. Looking into the depths. Standing on top of this walk way that is suspended a mile above the ground. As someone who used to have a fear of open stairs...this may not seem like the most ideal of ideas, yet there's something about it that both fills me with fear, and that thrill of adventure.


On Wednesday I am going to Rwanda. I am taking a team of five people out to Rwanda for 4 weeks, and then on to Burundi for 6 weeks. At the minute, I can feel a bit of that sense of fear. I feel like I'm standing at the top of this adventure, looking down. There is that fear, but also that great sense of adventure. These are 5 people that I've spent my last four months with, sharing our lives and walking with God, growing in our relationship and trying to be more like him.

But, just as the Grand Canyon is a long way down. Rwanda and Burundi seem so distant right now. I think I'm ready just to jump into it (Africa...not the Grand Canyon...)

Stay tuned here for more details of our journey. I'll hopefully be a better blogger while I'm away!

This is the team!

Back Row: Jack (Israel), Tom (me...)
Front Row: Nosipho (South Africa), Stephanie (USA), Amalia (Canada), Megan (USA/Japan)

All alone...

A few weeks ago we spent the weekend in Bushmills on a DTS New Year Retreat. This weekend has become somewhat of a tradition over the last few years, and we share it with another group that YWAM has good and growing links with, the Sword of the Spirit, and their group of gap-year students.

This year it has been a particular joy to be involved with these groups, as the two communities have mixed well, an outsider might not recognise that there are two groups, so well have they integrated. That's a joy.

One of the things about my life that has become normal, but that every now and then I am reminded of, and remember that it's not normal, is that I am living a very international life. It's not unusual for me to be out with a group friends, and for each of us to be from a different country. I have slipped into this odd little international, multi-cultural world...just off the Lower Shankill. On the Friday of the retreat, I was leading some worship, and as I looked around the room, I realised that I was the only one from Northern Ireland. The 25 or more people gathered together in that room were from a variety of places, but we were all here, united in this place at this time for a common purpose. The worship of the God who brought us all together.

People from South Africa, England, America, Canada, Costa Rica, Greece, Egypt, Argentina, Lebanon, Israel and Japan surrounded me. It made this verse from Isaiah come alive to me:

"On this mountain, the Lord will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine - the best of meats and the finest of wines. On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all nations; he will swallow up death forever.
The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove his people's disgrace from all the earth" Isaiah 25 6-8

God is not the God of one nation. He is alive in the nations today, working in each of us, in every nation, tribe and tongue who calls this planet 'home'. This fact cannot be denied. We are called to live together here, to see our shared humanity and to recognise the spark of the divine in each of us. One day, EVERY tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, in EVERY nation.

This evening was a beautiful reminder of our unity. That no matter how many conflicts riddle the Earth, how many nations go to war against one another, there is a higher power that unites us. Jesus Christ.

Some of the two groups together in our DTS classroom a few months ago

Don't worry... I wasn't alone for long! A fellow Northern Ireland-er joined me the next morning... :)

Africa

There is something about Africa.

I never saw it coming, but it digs right in under your skin and sits there, waiting for the oddest moments when a smell, a sound, even just a feeling will throw you right back there.

Walking through the Kansas City Central library, I just had one of those moments, I think it was a smell. The other day it was something as simple as the feeling of closeness in the air. It’s odd when it happens, it feels like an almost holy moment. I want to stop and try and pinpoint exactly what it is that is taking me back to those red clay streets and bustling markets.

It’s just one of those things that I’m glad to always carry with me. I love how Africa intrudes on my day when I least expect it.

And, thankfully, it’s not always just going to be just a memory. This year for the DTS I’m going to be leading a team of four students to Rwanda and Burundi. I’m excited to get back to these countries, to catch up with some of the incredible people and children we met and to reunite with three of the students I went with last year who are now out there full time, Rowan, Alison and Meg.

I’m excited to relive the old memories and feelings from the past, and hopefully build and experience a few more.

Christmas Update!

Music suggestion: Billy Currington “Don’t” from the album “Little Bit of Everything”. I’ve written this entire blog to this song on repeat, so if you want to share in the experience of with me, how about listening to it while you read it? This has zero significance, personal, spiritual or otherwise… I just really like this song right now…. Click on the link below. Could I make this any easier for you?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtKhOWhwmOQ


Sometimes, you don’t realise how tired you are until you stop. I think I could say this has been the story of my life for the past few months!

I’ve finally managed to stop…Although, unfortunately it meant putting about 3000 miles between myself and everything that I had to do! I write this blog from the other side of the planet from most of you who read this regularly (and just across the street from others!). I am currently holed up in Kansas City, Kansas, where I’m spending Christmas and New Years this year. I was over here in the States for a good friend of mines wedding in North Carolina, and decided instead of turning straight back around and heading home that it was about time I tasted what an American Christmas had to offer! So here I am…

So, it’s been a crazy few months! I’m actually not even sure where to start! I suppose I could jump right into the DTS…

Lidia, one of the staff on the DTS keeps telling me that “The Lord is spoiling you”, and I have to agree with her! This group of students that we have this year is fantastic. From the very beginning of the school, their openness to learn, willingness to serve and readiness for whatever God has for them this year has blessed me, and made this group of people not just a joy to lead, but a whole lot of fun too. In my first year leading a school, I really do feel spoiled with the group of people that we have! Here’s a few photos of the past two months or so. Hopefully it’ll give you a little flavour of what’s been going on!

Group picture at the Big Fish in Belfast, I think i might have been confused as to where the camera was...

The boys

The girls

Our group with another year out team (from the Sword of the Spirit)…We’re jumping off chairs…not for any real reason. We're just cool like that...

Classroom shot...

We’ve had some great speakers imparting their wisdom and learning to us and the students, a few great trips away to get to know eachother better and some incredible times of meeting with God as a group and individually.

On the not so wonderful side, I have struggled with a few aspects of leading. I think it’s a matter of getting used to the role, and actually starting to walk into it, and also remembering that I'm not in this on my own, that God is the one who put me there, and He's the one who's going to make me able to do it! Although the group has been fantastic, it doesn’t diminsish the responsibility that is on us as a staff team, and me as a leader, and sometimes that can weigh heavy on me. So, the last couple of months haven’t been without their challenges, but with an incredibly supportive staff team, YWAM Belfast community and a great group of students, I think I’m coming out the other side hopefully having learnt a few lessons and better for it!

I’m trying to think of some non-YWAM news now… But, I’m actually not sure there is a whole lot! For the past few months or so, I’ve been going to a pretty great little group on a Monday night where we get together and read a bit of the Bible, chat about it and then pray together. Before we started, I was praying and felt the Lord giving me a picture of soil being tilled and being made fresh. I really feel like this has actually come into being. It’s a great group where we are becoming more comfortable with eachother and getting to know eachother as friends, and also a chance to encourage and challenge one another by what we’re reading in God’s word. It’s really become one of the highlights of my week (and not just because a few of them will read this!) but, because in my little world of YWAM Belfast which can get quite inward looking, this is a chance for me to get out of the bubble and share and be with a great group of people for one night a week. I really have felt my faith being stirred up by being with this group and a freshness from sharing and being with them.

And here I am in America. Contemplating the rest of this year. There are still about 5 months left for this current group of DTS students. What does that hold for us? We have another 2 months of lectures and local outreach in Belfast (including one week of outreach in a town or city somewhere in Ireland for the first week in February). Then, we’re heading off on big outreach. This year we are again taking out two groups. One will go to India and the other will be heading to Rwanda and Burundi.

The students have prayed about where they are meant to go, and made their decisions, and as staff, we have also done this. So the teams are together! I’m going to be going back to Rwanda and Burundi this year, which I’m actually starting to get excited about. I’m looking forward to being back in these beautiful countries, meeting people we met last year again, as well as catching up with some of the students (Meg, Rowan and Alison) who were students on the DTS last year and are now back out there in Africa full time. It’ll be good to talk to them and share in their journeys!

So, can I ask you to pray? (You can pray with or without Billy Currington…your choice!) There are a few specifics:

o For the DTS staff, we have actually found ourselves one staff member down for the rest of the DTS. So as we readjust to our new look staff team and the new year, would you ask God for an easy transition and for us to get things done well and the best they can be?
o For the students as they continue to grow and seek God. That they would grow in faith and in the ability to hear God’s voice (and the staff too!)
o For me, as I continue to grow into my role as the leader of this group (and for grace for the staff and students who are graciously being my guinea pigs for this year!)
o John and Megan Harris as they start out their married life (This has nothing to do with YWAM, but I thought I’d throw it in there…There’s a picture of them below to give you a visual!)

Thank you for your prayers up to now. The fact that the students are doing so well and growing in faith and love is, I am without a doubt, down to those and the goodness of the God who sustains us.

I’ll leave you with a few pictures from the current trip that I’m on in America. I pray that God will bless your Christmas and New Years, and that He will reveal Himself in the perfect way this season.

Esther, Catherine and Kyler

The Bridal party

John and Megan Harris

John and I

DTS is a go....

I wrote this article for the YWAM Ireland website a few weeks ago... Thought if it was good enough for there, it should be good enough for here!

In no less than 4 days time the first of 12 students will be arriving in one of Belfast’s two airports. Laden down with luggage, we will welcome them into our community here in YWAM Belfast.

Next Monday begins the 7th DTS to be run in Belfast (at least this time around! I keep hearing rumour about a DTS that was run here in the 1970’s….) and I think the 4th to have a distinctly Reconciliation focus.

So what’s that all about? Why “reconciliation”? In many ways, reconciliation is becoming one of those buzz words, thrown out there to sound impressive though no one really knows what it means. Here in Belfast, we long to be serious about it. In a world where anger, violence and revenge are often the “go-to” tactics in conflict situations, we wonder whether there is another way?

We believe yes, and we’re going to be spending the next 7 months exploring this idea with this group of 12 students. YWAM’s motto is “To know God and make Him known” and one of our foundational values is “Do first, then teach”. There’s something special about knowing something personally before you move on to ministering out of that. In this time, we want to share with the students the God who came to them, who has reconciled Himself to them, and from that place of knowing God as a reconciler we can move on to trying to mirror His image and be peacemakers in these situations that surround us.

During the DTS students will have lectures, be involved in local outreach in the local community, have a chance to hear stories from people affected by conflict and learn from them, and also engage in a 10 week trip to a post or current conflict area to put what they are learning into practice.

Our vision is for a group of people to emerge from this DTS, trained in both discipleship and an awareness of their relationship to God, but also skilled to speak into conflict situations, to speak out “this is NOT the will of God!” To cry peace in a land of war, and forgiveness in the midst of revenge.

After all, we’ve been told to get on with it: “All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation” (2 Cor 5:18). We have a mandate…. This DTS exists to raise a generation of people willing to live it… Those willing to give up everything to see it come into being.

A Leap of Faith

So, I’m back in the “blogging” saddle after a few months away! I’ll write up a quick synopsis of my last few months in the next wee while, but for now I thought I’d share something that’s been on my mind this weekend.

On Friday night, I went to the Belfast Activity Centre with Fitzroy’s youth group. It had been a long week, and I wasn’t necessarily looking forward to the experience… Climbing up walls and jumping off high things wasn’t sounding too appealing! But, off we went.



As you can see from the pictures, we spent a good bit of timing climbing up this wall… It was pretty high, and heights aren’t altogether my favourite thing… But I managed it alright after a few goes and plenty of team encouragement!

BUT…. As with all things… Escalation was inevitable…

We moved on to a challenge called “the leap of faith”. This consisted of climbing up a tall telegraph pole (probably about 20 or more feet into the air), and then standing up on a little platform, and jumping off to catch a trapeze bar out in the middle of the air…


I was pretty sure that I was not going to attempt this… I had decided that the climbing wall was enough of an achievement for the evening.

Then I decided to give it a go… I’d love to say that I changed my mind, and just decided to be adventurous and go for it… But to be honest, it probably had more to do with the teenage girls (who themselves had already done it…) in my group gathering around me and telling me to “Be a man!”… Yeah….that definitely did it….

So, as I was being harnessed up for this challenge, I still wasn’t convinced that this was something I needed to do… Until Emmy, our instructor from New Zealand asked me a question.

Emmy: “Why are you afraid?”

Me: “Cos I don’t normally jump off poles into mid-air”

Emmy: “Is this a real risk, or a perceived risk?”

This struck me. What was I really afraid of in this situation? Was it of falling? If so, that was a bit of a ridiculous worry, I knew how well I was harnessed in, I’d seen about ten people go before me, leap out into mid air and come down gently, landing softly on the ground.

What was it?

I couldn’t really put my finger on why I was afraid. So off I went… I climbed up that post, stood atop that platform, and hurled myself out into the air to that trapeze. (All, admittedly without looking down a single time….not even a glimpse…)

But I did it.

I think I learnt a valuable lesson about faith on Friday night, a lesson that has been running around my head for the last few days.

When we “risk” something, stepping out on a limb, for God. Why do we worry? So often, I worry about things, I worry about the way they are going to work out. I worry about the things that God has called me to, worrying about whether they’re going to go well, and whether I’m even able to do them in the first place. I worry about failing. I think it probably comes down to the fact that I’m not always convinced God is there to catch me if I fall.

Is this real risk, or perceived risk?

Is trusting in God a real risk, or a perceived risk?

Is God not who He claims to be? Is He not who He has promised He is?

I believe that He has promised to stand with us, to go before us in times of trial and difficulty, that He will never call us to something that, with his strength, we are not able to do.

Is trusting God a risk, or is it just something we think is risky?

I’m beginning to realise that it’s just our minds. It’s just our own worries and insecurities that make us believe that God isn’t REALLY all that trustworthy. When the truth is, He is.

Another thing I learnt was that in taking a leap of faith. In stepping out for God in something, it doesn’t matter if we are feeling the best about it. As I climbed that pole, I can wholeheartedly say that I was not feeling the best I have ever felt… I was pretty scared!

I think the problem with our churches today, is that we are taught to play it safe. To only “risk” what we know for a fact we can achieve.

What would happen if more people started making leaps of faith. If more of us started jumping out into the unknown? Could this be a church that really starts to live?

It’s not about feeling good about it. But we know, that just as I had a safety harness that was not going to break and was always there to catch me throughout, God is our harness. The one who reaches down and gives us the strength to make the jump.

Here’s to more leaps of faith.

More big jumps into the unknown with a God who we KNOW is there to catch us.

Summer Adventures...

I write this blog entry sitting warming myself in my friend Karen’s house. I had a complete wardrobe change today when I got back from walking home from the shop, because I got wetter than I think I have EVER been…

Only yesterday morning I awoke to beautiful blue skies, devoid of any cloud cover, and with the promise of another sunny day at 35 degrees celcius… Unfortunately, I also awoke yesterday morning in Spain, and not Dublin.

I have spent the last 5 days of my July luxuriating on the south coast of Spain, on holiday with my family and two other families that we head away with (the Kirks and the Scotts). It was a break that couldn’t have come at a better time, giving me a great chance to get away from Belfast and just get my head showered, and start to get a few things sorted in my mind for next year.


The view from my bed (yes, that is my foot in the foreground)… This is what the sky looked like the whole time. I think I saw 3 clouds in the whole time I was there. Unlike now, as I look out the window and am searching for the blue sky…


The pool…I spent a lot of time in here!

So, after all that relaxing, why am I in Dublin and not back hard to work in the office in Belfast? Well, I’m taking all that rest that I’ve saved up this past week, and I’m about to blow it all on a youth trip to Germany! Bright and early on Saturday morning, I’m going to be heading away with my friend Karen’s youth group to TeenStreet, which is a Europe wide youth-conference run by the mission organisation OM (Operation Mobilisation). From what I’ve heard about it, I think it’s a little bit similar to Summer Madness…but on a bigger scale, so I’m looking forward to seeing it in action!

We’d love to be going to Germany with your prayers. The theme for the conference is “Blindsight” and talking about how Paul became blind but then regained his sight when he met with Jesus. We’ve also been praying about our time in Germany, and feel like this message has a lot to teach to the 7 young people that we’re going to be bringing! The idea that at the minute they may be blind to a lot of the spiritual world around them, but that God really wants to open their eyes and open them up to Him. It’s an exciting time!

Hopefully my return from Germany will also mark a return to regular blogging! I’ve been a little lax these past few months.

I leave you with this passage that God has given us as a team taking these young people to encourage us. Perhaps you can use it as an aid to pray for us.

tom

Mark 8:22-25
They came to Bethsaida, and some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. When he had spit on the man's eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, "Do you see anything?" He looked up and said, "I see people; they look like trees walking around."
Once more Jesus put his hands on the man's eyes. Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.