First week

Last week, I had a few meetings at Bethany to talk more about what I will be doing this year. I am going to be overseeing developing local missions for the church. The church is just a couple of blocks from a main road in Seattle called Aurora. The Aurora area is known for its high drug and prostitution activity. A task force of 8 people from Bethany have compiled a ton of information and research about the area and discovered that living amongst the crime and poverty, there are also more wealthy homes, there are families living in the motels and lots of children growing up in the area too. The research was to determine how Bethany could best serve this local community, what were the highest areas of need.

The research concluded that there wasn't one specific need that stood out. Instead it simply concluded that there was a whole community living there, and all areas of it have needs, Bethany church houses a woman's shelter in our basement for a few nights a week. This ministry, Tabitha place was established about a year ago and is the first stage of a bigger vision for our local area. The idea is to start new outreaches that can come under the umbrella of the Tabitha ministry and that it would keep the same standards and be run in the same way in regards to the ways volunteers are trained, cared for and brought in to the team. The volunteers with Tabitha are so well and intentionally taken care of that they have had a very low turnover and people still love what they are doing!

I am going to be exploring possible ways to serve and get more of the church body involved with local mission. It will be a challenge, but i am excited for it!!

I am also going to be working with the missions board to create standards for the short term mission trips that Bethany takes each year. This is where my YWAM years will come in handy!!! I look forward to sharing some of the things we have learnt and helping the church to make these trips the most impacting for the people going and the people they are serving.

I am also going to be working with Megan, the college Pastor to plan the College groups mission trip to Mississippi in March.

This week will be my first real week. A totally new schedule. YWAM and Bethany work fitting in to my week. Discipline needed to get all i need to do done!! I am also seeing how much better i need to be at planning ahead, things like packing lunches in the morning and taking them with me, and also going grocery shop isn't able to be such a spontaneous decision and i need to plan or I won't eat!

My birthday is this Thursday but I won't be celebrating until the following weekend because this Saturday I have a special wedding to go to. My old small group leaders from church, now very special friends Tim and Sarah are getting married. I am reading in the wedding - my barely recognisable British accent seems to get me a lot of such gigs!!!!

I look forward to updating you again soon with more news from both YWAM and the church...and i also will try to find fun and interesting things to take pictures of and post them.

Watch this space.