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Gavin's Gabblings ... or the Eden Blog

Sometime near Valentine's Day
I know that it is around 8:30pm on a Saturday and yes I am writing this sitting on borrowed chair in our partially furnished house. After weeks of painting and a monumental effort by scores of people from Buttershaw we have had our first night sleep in our very own bed (so good). To say it is complete will be a stretch even for my imagination but we are so pleased to be in our house and are looking forward to Monday night where we have eight or so teenage girls round for a pamper night. This is the launch of many events that will happen in the first Eden house in Buttershaw. I am expecting a lot of laughing, talking, praying, eating and crying to happen under this roof. It’s like when Noah was told to build the ark but it was only God who could send the rain, in our case God said buy a house and do it up and I will we send the people.

Man there has been loads of stuff that has happened over the last few weeks it is hard to put it all down so here is a snap shot of what is popping in my head in no particular order:

Paintball, one in a million (football), youth club contact, Christian Union at BBEC school (AMAZING GROUP), two girls from CU came to church with their parents (get in there). Trekkers, free running, music school, getting to know lads of the estate, Eden interviews, visit from a possible new Eden team member, arrival of chickens and Tango our cat. Snooker night at the men’s night out, great time at church, family coming to visit, Aubrey singing songs to me whilst doing sound check at church, laser tag, painting, big red van (used to move our stuff) and curry!

I’ve just exhausted all the words in my head so I am going to round off this week’s
blog by saying, “God is good” and everyone reply -  “all the time”.


18/01/2010
Have you ever watched a children’s film which goes by the name of “Bed knobs and broomsticks” ? Well if they would make a film about my last week activities it should be called “Snow shovels and paint brushes”. I say this because I spent a lot of time digging myself, or other peoples' cars, out of the snow and I guess you probably had the same experience. Also I have spent the rest of the week with a paint brush in my hand, trying to decorate our new house. Both these scenarios brought an element of hard work but also new opportunities to meet people.

For example I was shifting snow outside my house late one evening after digging out a neighbours car, when I got talking to a group of lads who where terrorising people and their windows with snow balls. I found that if you make the effort to speak to them as you would speak to anyone else then even the toughest looking group can hold down a reasonable conversation. Also it was great to spend time in the house doing painting because we have had some lads down giving us a hand painting which was fantastic but also me and Maz have got to share our faith with the builders as they fire questions at us about Eden and the Bible.

I am starting to find that when I sit down to reflect on the past week how much God is already doing through everyday unplanned encounters. I’m not suggesting that we should never should plan things into our week because plans are good but I also think that we should plan not to plan if that makes any sense at all and then we can meet and talk to people that normally would pass us by.

Before I finished I would like to mention just a couple more things that have just popped into my head. The first one is the CU which is being run by Adam at the local high school. I have to mention this because we currently have about eight regular kids meeting for half an hour on a Tuesday afternoon and they are just simply fantastic. They all have something to say (some more or louder than others), but they all are enjoying our time together and they have even requested that we should extend the time. The other thing that I wanted to mention is that we are very excited to have a young lady visiting us on Sundays who is interested in joining us as part of Eden Buttershaw (yeah!). Please pray that God will confirm for her whether she be joining us our looking somewhere else as we seek His will for the right people to be here alongside us.

So be blessed so you can go and bless

Gavin and Maz

10/01/2010
Let it snow, let it snow, let snow! It’s amazing that when the white stuff arrives it can change your whole day, week even your month. I have had lots of snow ball fights over the festive period with random kids who fancy their chances against my arm. I would like to say at this point that I wasn’t the victor of all the encounters I have had with these kids but most of the time I have been out numbered I feel I need to add.

It all started a few weeks ago while I was standing outside in the church car park guarding the hog roast machine (yes you did read it correctly, see pictures here), when I was hit on the leg by a freshly pressed snowball by a small fellow shouting colourful language at me. This was my introduction to the kid I like to call the mouth and his mate who I have now have had several snowball fights with over the last few weeks. This chance meeting highlights the need to seize ever opportunity and to be bold enough to stand up to everything that is thrown at you and in my case literally thrown at me!

I could mention the New Year and how it brings new challenges and opportunities to see God’s Kingdom come but I feel that it wouldn’t be fair on the people who are seeking God everyday of every year. All I do want to say is let’s continue seeking God and the plans He has for us and our neighbours, families, friends. I am expecting more divine appointments as well as an Eden team to share the experiences with and if I have my way a heard of pigs.


21/12/2009
What has happened to the week I ask myself, as I enjoy the prospect of a white Christmas. There is a freshness that snow can bring to the day as it reflects a million pictures at you and grabs your attention with a cold nip. I suppose that is how my week has been like, filled with lots of people giving a different pictures of life and passion for God.

This started on Sunday as Maz and I met a young lady that is interested in joining Buttershaw Eden team which was very exciting and we are looking forward to meeting up with her over food (which is always welcome). On Monday we watched Ice Age 3 and made pizza’s with about 25 children which was comical due to one conversation with two boys which revealed that they had tomato bombed a house which they found very funny until I told them that the house they had pelted with rotten tomatoes was mine!

I am starting to get to know the staff and the army of volunteers that work at Buttershaw Baptist Church. They can leave you dazzled and amazed by their stories and their more than colourful approach to life ! Also it has been great to meet up with people on a broader scale from different organisations who have a deep passion for reaching young lives. I find these times a real strength to my faith as I am encouraged by these servants’ enthusiasm and heart for young people and their desire to see God’s kingdom impact their lives.

All in all this week has been another great week with our house (which has been a building site) starting to look more like a house and I am starting to see the way forward for the Eden team. Christmas is going to be different for lots of reasons for us and we can’t wait to see family and friends. More importantly we already feel that we have extended our family and friends just being here in Bradford.

So have a great Christmas and don’t eat yellow snow!

Gavin

14/12/2009
Some people say, “another day, another dollar”, which in the grand scheme of life is a pretty morbid existence just to rely on your pay packet to justify your reason for getting out of bed! For me what makes up the day is not how much money that I have banked for the day, but how many people I have spoken with and shared life stories/experiences. This started on Monday morning at the local high school, which I visited and met with a chap from Wigan. As soon as I heard that he was from Wigan my mouth had engaged in announcing that I use to go clubbing in Wigan, which was probably was not the best way to introduce yourself to someone you’ve never met ! Luckily he was pleased to hear my experiences and he opened up and began to tell me a bit about himself.

This theme continued into the evening as we hit Manchester's, Eden - Old Trafford to eat food and take part in there 'Formation' evening.  Here we engaged in some meaningful conversations (lead by Gary Bishop) and some not so meaningful conversations, (thanks to the Edenites from Oldham and Eccles).

Not to bore you with every detail of my week as I’ve just talked about Monday here are some highlights of the rest of the week;

There has been so much that has happened this week it has been amazing, funny, bazaar, interesting and most of all worth living for. So that only leaves me to finish by leaving you with Gavin’s quote of the week so here it is;

If it’s cold outside, stay indoors!

7/12/2009
As I sit back into my chair wearing my new and very comfy slippers, I allow my mind to drift back over the last week or so since me and my good lady wife arrived in Bradford. The coldness of the weather has been nicely counterbalanced by the warm welcome we have received from Buttershaw Baptist church, (although we are still trying to understand what they are saying through their thick Yorkshire accents). We have already sampled a couple of curry’s (yummy), had proper homemade Yorkshire pudding (gravy), and stuck our noises into Church life (jazz).

Last Tuesday we cruised down the M62 to go and visit other Edenite leaders at the message HQ. We spent a couple of hours with them which was great because we got to listen to what God is doing with these committed team of people and can’t wait to have a team of our own.

Also this week Maz and I have sang Christmas jingles with the tots at the Family Centre which was great idea at first until I started to play my guitar and made one of the kids break out into tears and at least two others cringe with fright. We can only hope that we get a better response from the local youth of Buttershaw ! Maz did go to the CU at the local high school with Adam (who is a total legend), which was very cool and next week we will be learning a play to perform in front of the whole school.

All in all a fantastic first week which will only leave me to leave you with a Gavin’s saying of the week;

At the end of the day, it gets dark !



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