I am writing to you from the lovely city of Bristol. It's a very busy and vibrant town, and surprisingly large as well. I am here on my first training block and so far it has been amazing, although very mentally draining.
We (Rich and myself) set off some Poole at 5.45am on Thursday morning, and after some minor difficulty with train tickets, arrived in Bristol at around 9.30am. The train journey was actually a very enjoyable experience, despite the early start. We got the chance to chat to a lovely older woman (a seasoned traveler), who shared lots of stories with us of her travels around the world. It was also great because we got to share what we were doing and she seemed really interested.
When we arrived in Bristol, we finally got to meet all the other FP students which was lovely. I'm really blessed to be with such a great group of people this year. After doing the standard "getting to know you..." games, Simon Walker and Jonathon Bradshaw (our FP base leaders) gave us a short overview of what we should expect from the year. Later in the evening, we went back to our host families. These are people within City Church Bristol and one of the churches in North Bristol who have agreed to take us into their homes for the periods that we are here. We are very blessed.
Yesterday (Friday), was one of our scheduled teaching periods. In these times we are taught from the bible. Chris Rowell who leads the church in North Bristol was speaking to us about "Abiding in Christ" (John Ch 15 v1-8) and different disciplines we should take hold of, these were...
- Bible Reading
- Prayer
- Worship
- Fasting
- Giving
Today, we got an amazing opportunity to do street evangelism in the form of treasure hunting. This is a unique form of evangelism that is geared towards blessing people and showing them that God loves them and is thinking about them. You start off by praying, and asking God for clues in five different categories which are; location, appearance, names, ailments and random. I felt God giving me a clue about a homeless guy who was just sat on the side of the street, and i felt God was simply telling me to buy him lunch. I also had a clue about a guitar and someone called John.
We then formed groups of four, two boys and two girls and then trooped off into the town centre.
Once we got there we started looking for the people with the clues that God had given us. I immediately found my homeless guy, he was sat outside of the Sainsburys near the fountains in the centre of the town. I approached him with the other guy in my group and we explained what we were doing and explained that we felt God showed him to us and that we believed that God told us to buy him lunch. He said he was hungry, and it was great we were outside Sainsburys so we didn't have to go far to get him his lunch. At first he seemed a little shocked, but then he almost couldn't understand why God would have shown him to us. We also got the opportunity to pray with him that God would bless him with good weather for the rest of the day and that he could find a house.
We soon found the man with the guitar in the form of a street musician who was very talented to say the least. Although his name was not John, we still got to pray with him.
Others in other groups also found their clues, some which were extraordinary. One of the guys has a clue for a guy in a green t-shirt, who's name was Robert, Who had something black and white checked (which turned out to be a crossword he was doing). He seemed amazed that all these clues match up to him, and they got to pray for God's blessing on him.
Others Got to pray for a man with cancer who actually said that he felt God's power come upon him when they were praying for him. Whether he was healed or not, we don't know yet, but i pray that he was and that he goes to a doctor to get that confirmed.
All in all, Bristol has already been a real adventure, and we are only on our third day. I thank God for what he is doing in all our lives, it is going to be a real adventure.
Bye, bye for now, until part two...
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