Really Relay?

Judging by the many half completed draft blog posts I've written on what I've been doing so far in my Relay year, I think this post is long over due!

The other day I was on the bus heading up to the station to travel out to one of my universities and was not in a particularly good mood. I think I was pretty tired and didn't really feel as if I could be bothered to go to the CU event that was going on... But half way there it suddenly struck me just how fortunate I am to be doing Relay. I couldn't help but smile and think that I was, in my opinion, the luckiest person on that bus.

Get this: I get to spend my time studying the Bible for myself and meeting up to study it with Christian students. I get to spend time discussing the gospel with students who don't believe. As well as that, I get to look at the Bible with other older, more mature Christians, all of whom are much wiser and godly than I am at the moment. On the side, I'm learning a language in preparation for years 2 and 3 of Relay Homestart where I will hopefully be working with a certain IFES movement in Europe. On Fridays, I get to spend a whole day looking at Systematic Theology and the Great Commission.

In my opinion, this is a flipping awesome way to spend your time. So, in an attempt to celebrate the first two months on Relay (1/5th of the way in) these are five highlights so far...

1. Relay 1. Seriously, this is the best Christian conference I've been to. It can be summarised in that beforehand I thought I got grace, afterwards I realised that beforehand I really didn't! I'd still not say I've completely got it, but from what I know, it's more amazing than I ever dreamt. I'm not going to say too much more at the moment, because I'll post on it in the near future.

2. Glad You Asked. After a slow start, we now have a few students who attend - some don't believe and some do. What a privilege it is to be able to discuss spiritual truths with them and see them come to a deeper understanding of the Good News as they look at things for themselves.

3. Studying the Trinity. Mindblowingly amazing stuff. God is so incomprehensible, but that only deepens the awe at who he is. I blogged some of my thoughts on the Trinity over at threelay. Take a look!

4. Meeting up with students to look at the Bible. I'm currently meeting up with 4 students at different times and we're looking at Mark and Romans. What a privilege it is to point people to Christ in the Bible and see them realise just how awesome he is! It's also great because I get to study these great wonderful books and it actually counts as work!

5. Studying Hebrews. I've never looked at this book before, and it's also blowing my mind! I'm also really fortunate that I get to meet up with two absolute legends, Zac (legendary Staff Worker) and Judith (legendary Relay Worker) to look at it. We're really getting into it and, just like a fine wine, we're savouring it: 5 weeks of studying it and we're only in chapter 2.

Note: It should also be said that this also has absolutely nothing to do with persuading any final year students about doing Relay next year ;)

Time for an update

Well, it's almost a whole month since I posted on here so I think it's about time for an update. A few questions need answering: What have I been up to lately? What am I up to now? What will I be up to in the near future?

In the past month I have been on a family holiday in Port de Pollenca, Mallorca. Apparently it was voted the best holiday destination by readers of Sunday Times in 2001. We already knew that it was nice as we've been there before. This time round was very pleasant, if a little bit on the hot side of things! The best bits of the holiday were being able to hang out and chat with my Dad and siblings, spend time chilling out before Relay and finally being able to start reading my way through my ever increasing pile of still to be read books.

This week I am helping out at my home church's holiday club, Go For Gold. We're going for an Olympic theme for the week and looking at the parallel between Christian life and running a race. We're looking at the life of Paul as shown in Acts, although how much depth you can go into that with children age 4-11 is debatable! I'm fortunate to be in the year 6 group with kids aged 11, so there should be some scope for opening the Bible and discussing things with them during our team times! If you're wondering about the Argentina flag below, each group is a country, and seeing as my co leader is Spanish and (much to her annoyance!) Spain was already taken, we decided on being Argentina!


As of August 26th I'm heading off up to the Quinta Conference Centre in Shropshire for Relay 1 - the conference that marks the official start of my year on Relay! I'm really looking forward to this coming year and I'm so excited that it's almost begun. I've not even started and I've already been challenged about how much I trust God: this year I have no other option than to cling God for help with my finances.

UCCF ay that ministry and living costs for a Relay worker add up to around £6000 and although I've raised part of this from working, most of this is coming from friends and family that want to support me during the year. Raising financial support is a strange thing to do - I know so many missionaries that would testify that God has provided for them, but when it comes to trusting God to provide for me, I often doubt that he's able to. I guess it's easy to trust a tight rope walker until you have to be carried across by one! Despite my embarassingly small amount of faith in him, I've seen God arrange for about 70% of the £6000 to come in which is really incredible and just shows that he is completely trustworthy and able to provide when it comes to these things.

I've read a bit about J Hudson Taylor this summer, and he summed it up nicely when he said "Our heavenly Father is a very experienced One. He knows very well that His children wake up with a good appetite every morning...He sustained 3 million Israelites in the wilderness for 40 years. We do not expect He will send 3 million missionaries to China; but if He did, He would have ample means to sustain them all...Depend on it, God's work done in God's way will never lack God's supply."