It's one small move for youth work and it's one giant drive for the youth worker

How I imagined our journey starting.

At 03:00 on the 4th of August 2012 two YWEV (Youth work expeditionary vehicles (yes these are funny names for my car and the wife's car)) arrived atop on Trinity View on the southwestern corner of Wales. It ended a massive 10+ hour drive that was fraught with difficulties, a delayed departure coupled with YWEV 2's navigational problems - after one and a half miles, the next 370 miles were going to be interesting. To put that into context the last time we travelled down it took a little over 7 hours but arrived safe and sound, if a little tired and coffee dependant, although some say I'm that anyway.

Ok it was more like this, once you get rid of the rockets.

Since it is getting late I'm tempted to dwell upon the title of this post and come up with all sorts of silly and contrived lunar landing parallels which would be stretching things a bit but I'm going to anyway.



So it was more like this. The real YWEV 2 (above) aka a Vauxhall Corsa
and YWEV 1 also a Vauxhall Corsa.

 

1) A different view. We quite literally have a different view of things here. Back in Glasgow we woke up to see a well positioned brick wall, now we look down on England when we wake up. Any fellow Scots read what you will into that statement. For any offended English folks we literally look down on the Bristol Channel and the top of one of the English counties.



The view from our bedroom overlooking Caerleon.

2) Life is different. Even if Welsh village life isn't as drastically different from Scottish city living compared to spending time on the moon, there are some quite noticeable differences. The area we're living in is considerably more affluent than where we were living in Glasgow for a start. There is also a slower pace of life for us non-commuters with crazy rushing around. It's quite pleasant here if you ignore the the fact they enjoy building houses up ridiculously large and steep hills, when that's coming from a Glaswegian you know it's bad.

3) There's more life in Glasgow than on the moon and there is more life in Glasgow than down here.  Glasgow has a bigger population than Cardiff, Newport (including Caerleon), and Cwmbran put together. Besides that village life is closer than living in a big city, which is good as a lot of my role involves building relationships.

4) We're here for a purpose. Despite the fact that everyone remembers the iconic shots of astronauts playing golf on the moon there was a scientific and political purpose in putting then on the moon. Lizzie and I also have a work to do here. Lizzie's started work as a nurse in Cardiff and I've started to be involved with the youth work program. It's quite quiet at the moment as the schools are still off but it gives me a good chance to settle in and do planning and form filling.

5) We intend on coming home! I know we've only been here two weeks but we will come back to visit friends and family.

There and back again, a youthworker's tale.

As you've guessed I do like Lord of the Rings and the shameless rip off in the title was there to suck you in. In all fairness the place is like Middle-Earth, Caerleon is like The Shire, Cardiff could be Osgiliath and Newport is Mordor - which leaves England across the Bristol Channel akin to the Grey Havens. Last week I was writing about going to Wales and visiting the church where I hope to be doing youth work soon. I would also like to point out that in my last post about the first thing we'd do in Wales was get lost, I wasn't joking. My excuse is I could see where were going but they had closed the road since the map had been made.

Having never been to Wales I have to say I look forward to returning as Lizzie and I had a great time, despite the last local leisure facility closing about 1700 years ago, a big thanks to Owen and his wife Ruth for their superb hospitality over the weekend. It was really, really good seeing the Caerleon (pronounced Kill Ian! - poor Ian!) and it's an incredible place with a very rich history dating back to the Iron age. If you like Roman history this place is a dream land with an amphitheatre and Roman baths amongst other things. back then it was home to the 2nd Augustan legion a force of 3000 foot soldiers and doesn't include cavalry or the likes. At present there are around 8000 people so there were probably more people there 2000 years ago!

<---- Our Welsh accommodation.

The traditional Welsh youth workers' uniform ------>


In many ways it's quite different from life in Glasgow which has a greater population than Caerleon, Newport and Cardiff combined but the Celtic heritage of Wales also gives it many similar traits that you find in Scotland. The church where I'd be working is totally different from any of the churches I've been to in Glasgow or anywhere for that matter, mostly due to its location and shape. It's at the very top of a hill and is an old farm, so the church as the grounds of a farm which include an iron age fort. Despite the church hall being in the cow shed there are no cow although someone may have told my mum they still had cows to provide the milk for the tea and coffee! There's a good community feel to the church and despite it not being the biggest church I've been in it's probably the loudest with good Welsh singing! The local area is quite middle class which has the upside of less serious trouble but the downside of people not seeing the need for a church or God in their lives. 
In terms of the work I'd be doing there there is a good range on ministries to be involved with and develop. At present there is a Sunday morning youth group, about 7 or so go; a Sunday Club for primary school with 12 kids and a midweek youth outreach group with 20 or so going. There is also a midweek youth Bible study which is doing the youth version of Christianity Explored. It was hard to try and imagine what I'd be doing until I'd seen what was going on and I can now start to flesh out so basic ideas having met the kids and youth. They're a great bunch and it was good to chat with them over the afternoon tea in the church. I've never felt so stuffed outwith Christmas. These are the things I'd be getting involved with but in addition we want to get involved with the local schools and I'd like to get involved with the local university campus too. We'd like to develop lunch clubs with the schools and eventually an after school club but that's a long way off. Hopefully I'd be able to help out in RE or the equivalent in Wales and assemblies. Both of these would be a great way of getting more involved with the community and hopefully making the assemblies and RE more interesting. I remember them being a bit boring and the Christian modules in RE had very little to do with being a Christian.
There are a few things that are still to be done before I can start in Wales, although I am now officially accepted as an OMS ministry candidate! That means I'm officially ratified after my interview which happened in Wales last week. I've still got the orientation to do and start my fundraising. Hopefully this won't take too long and I'll be down in Wales by the summer!
It's a scary thought in a way going all that way (well ~7 hours by car) from our families although it will be good too. I thought I'd also say that this job is a calling not just a mere job. There is a clear difference. A job is done to just get money where as a calling is done regardless of the finances. However, I use the terms 'job' and 'calling' interchangeably in this regard and I often use the term job more often as that's what most people understand.
So prayer points for those on the blower with God:

• Lizzie would get a job down there in one of the local hospitals. There is a vacancy within an ICU ward but it's only bank at the moment.

• The fundraising and orientation would go well and that the fundraising wouldn't take too long either.

• Our move would go well and we would settle into Welsh life.

Thanks to everyone who prayed for us before. We've seen God do good things and it's a testimony that he still cares for the small details in people's lives as well as the big things too.

<----- No prizes for guessing what this is for. Let's just say I won't be making use of this traditional Welsh method.

Work it!

Adelaide Place Baptist Church. Where I work and where I got married. Convenient.



For those of you who I've not yet told I recently was offered a new job, although I've not yet started. In the meantime I'm still going to be at the Burrell Collection and Adelaide's Guest House (in fact that's where I am writing this).

The Burrell Collection (taken from rampantscotland.com) and view from the cafe in winter (taken from my phone).

SO if I've told you or you've read my other post about it then you can skip this paragraph. Basically I've been offered the job of youth worker in a church down in the valleys of Wales. Actually that might be a lie I don't think it's in valley. Anyway it's a great opportunity and I'm looking forward to it.
Anyway I'd promised updates and my latest update is that I had a chat with one of the board of trustees from OMS, who are my soon to be new employers, the other night there. Basically there is a board of trustees meeting on Monday the 5th and part of that meeting will be talking about my appointment and they have to ratify it and sort out any issues. To be be blunt I think my chat the other night there could have gone better as:

a) The questions I was asked were vastly different to what I expected.
b) Following on from being different some of the questions were about the form I filled in October, so that was tricky.
c) I have a cold and had lost my voice and only just got it back.

Anyway I croaked my through the chat and hopefully I'll hear a bit more soon. So what can I say? I don't have a start date but it's not likely to be before mid-April as there are CRB checks and more importantly I need to raise some of my own funds. I say more importantly as I know I'm not and axe murderer and fund raising takes longer than a CRB check. I'm aiming for between £3600 and £6000 as my accommodation is covered and there is partial funding in place. This will be a new experience for me as the last time I did fund raising it was for a youth club I did a while back and we held a ceilidh since it was near Christmas and people like Christmas' ceilidhs. In a couple of weeks Lizzie and I are going to visit the church where I'd be working as neither of us have been there but from speaking to the people there it sounds like a great place and they seem like a great bunch even if they talk funny. That being said an American over here told me everyone here talks funny. Also en-route to Wales we're hoping to stop off at the OMS HQ in Manchester to meet the people there. If we're able to we might even stop off at Bawtry on the way home to see more missionaries; Lizzie's brother and his ladies. Well his wife and daughter doesn't sound quite as cool. For those of you who don't know where Wales is click here. If you're interested we're in Glasgow which is 300+ miles to the north. I'm told the rain in Wales is warmer than Glasgow.
So prayer points for all you prayerers out there:

1. It's not too much money but I can't start until that's sorted.
2. For OMS in Manchester and the staff there. There are a lot of new staff there and there has been a bit of a breakdown in communication and that's why the process has taken so long. A wee aside a former OMS worker is now working with Pioneers which is where David (Lizzie's brother) and wife are. Small world.
3. We'd have a safe journey when we head down in 2 weeks and that everything would go well. It can be quite daunting meeting so many new people in the space of a weekend knowing that I'll have to make a good impression.