June Update

HAPPY JUNE EVERYONE!

This month, I’ve spent a fair bit of time planning my best friend, Jasmina’s birthday party. She turned 25 and we wanted to make it extra special so we put on a little party for her, went out for a meal, ate a big ice cream cake and watched some videos that her friends and family sent in from back home. It was really lovely.

At the beginning of June, we launched Zeal for the first time in Chennai and it was brilliant. We'd been holding a zeal boys small group for a while but hadn't properly launched into anything and so as soon as Austin and Natalia Duffey came over here, they wanted to start up Zeal immediately.

We launched by meeting in the local mall in the food court and had been inviting people and building connections with students for weeks. Amazingly, 27 students turned up!!! We played a "Selfie Scavenger Hunt" where all of the students (and us) had to get into pairs and take selfies with a list of different people and different things to win points. We ate lots of ice cream together and then got into small groups and talked with the students about what Zeal is and what they wanted out of Zeal.

It was incredible to see and each week we're getting new students coming along and hearing about Jesus and we're getting to build strong relationships with the students and making sure that they know that not only Zeal but life is FUN, that we are FAMILY and that they can GROW.

Other than that, my main job at the moment is to train up and release Ben Abel into leading worship after I go. I am blessed by him so much because he is taking everything on so well and doing such a good job at leading the team. I am becoming less needed out here in Chennai which is such a great feeling because my main job coming out here was to do myself out of a job and I believe that I have done that.

With that, I have more of chance to pour myself into what I'm gonna be doing out in Brugge. I have been listening to this kids programme called Samson & Gert that my friends Nathalie and Jasmina recommended to me so that I can learn simple Dutch. I am loving beginning to learn the language and am excited to pick it up more. I have been very blessed in the fact that two of my best friends out here in Chennai are both Belgian and I can begin to talk to them and they can teach me.

- This is Samson & Gert

I'm also beginning to pray and think into what job I could do and where I could live in the first few months of living in Brugge. I would really appreciate your prayers in this as well.

Earlier this month we had Pastor Gary and Heather over for a 5 day visit and it was unbelievably profound. He spoke about the journey of maturity that we're all on and it encouraged and challenged me so much to take my faith to the next level of maturity. God has challenged me greatly that although we can never fully be perfect or amount to anything as well as Jesus would have, we certainly can reach a much higher level of maturity than all of us are at now.

God doesn't want us to stay where we are but instead he wants us to grow closer to him in everything we do.

Love you guys so much, please let me know what you're up to and if I can be praying for you in anyway. Have the best July and I'll speak to you again soon

Ffion