Good Evening! I hope you are all keeping well? I hate to say it but I think Winter is on it's way. The essentials were in Leeds this week and take it from me that it was bitterly cold up there, so I do ask for your prayers this winter because as a true southerner I'm not sure I will be able to survive the Northern Winter.
Yes, our final week of training began in Leeds, in the lovely Christian Westwood Centre. A really fitting place for, once again, God to speak to our Hearts and Minds. At the start of our week the sessions very much focussed on Social Action. We were challenged and, certainly in my case, had a blanket of naivety pulled away from us and we experienced a place in Leeds where it is fair to say that there is obvious poverty. We were thinking about this community and the people inhabiting it and we asked the question, Why? Why are there people who want to live on this estate? Why don't they want to get away from it all and start afresh? I suppose these are questions that we cannot answer, but I know there is a God whom I love and serve who is already in that estate. Although it maybe difficult to see Him through the misery and obvious lack of ambition and love in that place, He is there. This got me thinking, as a Salvation Army, as Christians should we not be in those places? Should we not be working with people in this darkness and showing them the light of God that is trying to beam through the community? My answer was yes. Yes we should. In every aspect of our lives we need to show Christ and we need to in particular show these areas Jesus and the love he has for them. What a task! But the greatest thing and maybe also the most daunting thing is that this task was given by Jesus to his disciples many years ago. In Matthew Chapter 28; we read of the great commission and Jesus says "Go make Disciples of all nations". There's the task, there's our commission but Jesus also said to us, "I am with you always..." Wow. What a promise! When we have Jesus we need not fear anything, he gives us everything for any task by just him always being with us! We need to take him into those communities and let the light of God grow and grow in those places. We carried on the week, continuing with our sessions and learning a bit more about ourselves and the work we will be doing this year. It was a great couple of weeks and I personally want to thank the Alove team for the oppurtunity.
A key theme running through our training over the last few weeks has been building relationships with the people around you. I personally believe that this week God has put me in situations where I have had to put that teaching into practice. I was on my way home from training and I was really looking forward to see all the ones I love, but anything that could of gone against me did. I missed two trains, one I was only seconds away from and two, if I stayed on that train I may have been fined as I had the wrong type of ticket. So after waiting a good hour and a half I finally got the train I wanted. Sat down and opposite me was a man and being polite we got chatting and the conversation turned to the Salvation Army and what the Salvation Army believe. What a priviledge! So as I got off that train and went on another, sat down and another man was there. Again we got chatting and the conversation once more led to the work of the Salvation Army and we had a discussion of there being one God and the fact that there shouldn't be any sort of deep divisions in beliefs (touchy subject I know). But the fact of the matter is that by simply talking to two complete strangers, I shared what I believed. I thank God for that oppurtunity, I thank God that I wasn't able to catch the earlier trains and I pray that whatever I may have said to those men that something may have been planted and that God would be able to grow in them. What a priviledge for me that God put me in that situation, it was only a simple train journey back home but I was able to unexpectedly just tell people of who God is and his work on this earth.
So it is the 24th September tomorrow and the real work starts. I am so looking forward to it! There is so much potential here in Eston and I am just honoured that God has placed me here. When I think back I don't really know how I've ended up here but by the Grace of God I am here and I know he will continue to do marvellous work here in Eston but also in your life because he is a faithful, loving God.
I say this each week but again please feel free to get in contact about anything in this blog or about essential or whatever! And remember hold each other up in Prayer.
Twitter- @peggo36
Email- pegg,j@hotmail.co.uk
God bless.
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