Today started as all others, with our Quiet Time, and then the finale of the lecture series on Identity. I think we have all been challenged, taught, and been made to think during these talks.
Following that we learnt our outreach locations! I'd thought that we would be told on Monday, but we were able to be told today instead. The leader of the YWAM DTS course I'm on flashed up a photo of each of the students one by one, and revealed their outreach location.
Earlier this week we had been given the options: India and Poland. Both of these places would have been great to go to, but I had felt God speaking to me about one of them even before it was revealed as an option. There were so many events and links to this place that I was so awestruck to see that they had all been leading up to this moment. We were then given an hour to pray about our choice, and write down where felt we should go, and why. I had so many reasons for wanting to go to this place, I filled up one piece of paper, handed that in, then came back later with another set of reasons too!
Today in the class room, my face flashed up on the screen, and then the location I'd been accepted for was displayed: India! I've worked with some Polish people in my last job, and they are really nice. It would have been nice to visit their country, but I couldn't ignore the call I felt about India. There really have been so many pointers to India for me recently, and also in the last few years, that have shown me that God really does speak to me, and can speak to you. You may have noticed I mentioned India quite a lot in yesterday's blog entry. I couldn't say for sure where I was going then, but that was a less than subtle hint as to my thoughts on the matter.
We have been told a little bit about what we will be doing there: working with children on the streets, orphans, and people in Leper colonies. We will be given more information during the rest of the lecture phase of the course. If you would like to help support me on the outreach phase (and now), please check out the support section of my site.
Once we found out where we going on the outreach, we spilt off in to our triplets. I'd been looking forward to this all week. It is really nice to be able to chat to just a couple of other people about how we thought the week has gone, what prayer requests we had, and anything else that might have come up. We had a great time today, and I was very encouraged by it.
In the afternoon we did our usual "Community Care" tasks, and then I had a chance to rest for a bit before embarking on my first evening of local outreach.
The local outreach I am helping with is "Antifreeze", a project by "Off the fence" which focuses on meeting, talking to, feeding and helping to care for the homeless people in Brighton. It was a fantastic evening and really opened my eyes to the differences between different homeless people. I've met some homeless people elsewhere, and there was such a difference in the attitude of the people I met tonight. Tonight most of the people really wanted to get off the streets and into good accommodation. They had sad stories of how they ended up in their current situation, and most of them had hope that they were just where they were temporarily, and something better could come up. I had a different experience to the other guys helping with this project, as I know Brighton quite well, having grown up near it. It was a weired feeling for me: looking round at the streets we were on, thinking "I've gotten taxis from here!" or "I've been to that restaurant", but now I was helping to feed the homeless people who I would have probably tried to avoid before. From what I've seen, Off the fence is a very good charity doing a lot of much needed work. This local outreach wasn't actually my first choice, but I'm now glad that I was put in this group.
So, it has been quite a day! I've discovered where I'll be for the end of the year, and I've had some preconceived ideas challenged. I thank God for every day that I'm here. While the world appears to be crashing down around me (at least according to the newspapers), there is so much happening here that fills me with confidence that this is the right place at the right time for me. Thank you for reading. Please feel free to add a comment to this (and any other) entry.
