Week 39
How on earth have I been here 39 weeks? Where has time gone? Everyone has been asking me recently how long I have left here, so If I post it here I’m hoping I won’t have to keep holding the tears back telling people that it’s only 5/6 weeks!!!!
Let’s talk about week 39 anyway. It was anothe6r of my favourite Mondays, starting with meeting point where I get to have a good chat with lovely people over a cup of tea and some cake. But that was well needed this week as I had to return home and fill in a LOT of university forms including my 6th CRB form in 17 months. CRAZY. As a reward for getting all that done I wandered up to Priceholme for their monthly service led (very well indeed) by Peter Morgan. This week looking at ‘Why not me?’, different recent tragedies.
Tuesday was less busy but somehow more stressful. Another part of university prep is applying for accommodation; you do this on the internet. So the ‘lines opened’ at 12pm on Tuesday so there I was at the ready, but one major problem is that all at once around 1000 students are on this one site all trying to load the same page so, what happens? Yes, the site crashes. This is very tense because it’s sort of on a first come first serve basis, 20 mins after lines opened and finally my application was acknowledged; now it’s the waiting game.
Wednesday was a lovely day. Went to school as usual and was in class 2 in the morning, reading and doing maths. I then did my second whole school assembly which is rather scary. It was on Winning, Losing and Taking Part, a lesson I’m sure we all remember learning at school, maybe not from our parents “yes yes, taking part is great but go for the win!” – sound familiar to anyone? Went well anyway and my next lesson went along that way too. As most of you know I’m going to uni next year to train to be a maths teacher so when asked to help with class 4 maths, I jump at the chance. Helping a table of 6 with large number subtractions and carrying and seeing them ‘click’ and seeing where they’re doing wrong....it’s very rewarding. The rest of that afternoon flew by as I seemed to be looking forward to the Bishops visit that evening. The dedication of the bells service went very well with a good turn out and everyone seeming to enjoy themselves.
Thursday was pretty normal with Angels and Urchins in the morning, lunch with a fellow YES worker and a visit to the lovely Joan Lewis. I spent Friday with my mummy at the beach, beautiful day! Came back for a spectacular concert in the evening, truly blown away by talent. Raising, amazingly, over £1000 for the AOJA.
Saturday morning attending a conference at Great Walstead school lead by Simon Allaby. Speakers talking on Revival and How the Kingdom is Growing. If you’re interested in following up about this then check out the trust on the internet, it’s called 6:19.
I’ve waffled on long enough, all have a good week!!
Week 36, 37 and 38.
Been ages since I’ve jotted anything down sorry. But here goes three weeks, I’ll try not to ramble on. This starts way back on that Monday when I told you all about my trip to India. There was a fantastic turn out and all had great fun making and eating the Samosa’s, listen to all that I’d got up to and seeing some random out of order pictures. After that most of the week was taken up looking forward to and preparing for the youth camp, May camp. It was over the bank holiday weekend and was really fantastic! We took 7 youth along from Ardingly and they enjoyed all the teaching, worship, craft, workshops, prayer, sports activities and much much more.
I was very exhausted after that weekend as you can imagine and so I jetted off to Turkey for a week, lovely and relaxing and came back beautifully bronzed....to rain! The day I got back I went into school to receive lots of jealous comments about my colour but also helped do all the usual bits and bobs. Then it was to choir and bell ringing in the evening, preparing for the bishops visit next week.
Thursday morning to see all the mummys and their children at A + U. Having a good moan about English weather, which was lovely for the show that afternoon, not! Sally, Caroline, I and lots of others, working at the church tent at the South Of England show. It was hard to sit and chat to people when everyone was dodging in and out to avoid the rain. But as the show progressed so did the weather and by Saturday it was fabulous and the tent was flourishing with people.
More from me soon
Week 35
CYFA was brilliant last week, we took a trip over to West Hoathly to their youth service which was great. It’s fab to get us little small churches sticking together and making bigger events.
I love every other Monday as I get to start the day with tea and cake...two of the best things (especially when it’s Belinda’s cake). Later that day I help Joan Lewis learn to txt which was fantastic fun, she’s a right pro now.
St Peters school is a great place to help out as no day is ever the same as the previous
week. On Tuesday they had an India day. So they were cooking lots of different India
dishes and drinks and then we had a big feast together to consume all of the food!
It was scrumdiddleiumpsious. That was followed by a visit to the Woolly’s, I love
visiting people, it’s one of the best parts of my job, having time to just go and
sit and talk to people! I’m loving my recently joined home-
Back in school Wednesday morning just doing the usual bits and bobs before moving across to Oathall with John to talk to a yr 11 R.E class on our views on the film “Life of Brian”. There was a panel of John and I, someone from the Kings Church and finally an atheist teacher, It was rather fun as I’m sure you can imagine. The evening was a bit of a flop at the Holiday Club meeting. Too many people will be away so unfortunately it won’t be able to go ahead.
Thursday morning I saw the little angels and their mummys which is always a pleasure, before heading over to Crawley to meet my YES mob. We’re taking CYFA to a youth festival at the weekend and the YES scheme are involved in a lot of prep for this so we had a very productive planning session Thursday.
Saturday was taking up with collecting kit for the youth camp and preparing to tell you all about my trip to India.
Hope everyone is enjoying the sunshine.....just don’t get burnt!
Winto a class 5 art lesson where they were studying henna (the red dye pattern they put on their hands and feet) and showed them some pictures from me when I had it done and explained a little more about it. Loved sharing all that with them. Had to get home quick though to meet Caroline and head over to West Hoathly church for a youth cluster meeting. This is like the meeting I had on Tuesday evening except it’s meeting with our little churches in out cluster and discussing all the work we’ve done with our youth and other events. Sharing what’s been good and what hasn’t worked so well. It was all very encouraging.
The day wasn’t over yet though. I went to a rather quiet choir in the evening. Not quiet because we weren’t singing loud enough but just because we were low on numbers lots of people were away or off somewhere else. Still great though. I was then allowed into the bell tower!!! I tried bell ringing, for the second time. It was so fun and I can actually ring now.....I just can’t stop. I can’t yet stand the bell so I could be up there for hours!
Towards the end of the week I just had lots of little bits to catch up on. Including organising May camp for CYFA and choosing the next Holiday club for the church!