Weekly Email Oct 12th 2009

Morning all,

It may be October, but the sun is shining and I can't see a cloud in the sky. I can see lots of bricks in the wall outside though, and in fairness, not a lot of sky......

This week is a fairly busy one, and at the bottom there's a bit about a possible trip to Mexico.... Read on!

Tomorrow I'm at a governors meeting at Bispham Drive Junior School and during the day will send out more about Mexico....

Wednesday Amy and I are both in Bispham for the school's Harvest Assembly, then it's on up to George Spencer for CU at lunchtime and Starbucks in the afternoon.

Thursday brings another harvest, this time Banks Road are coming to St Peters in the afternoon, then we're off up to Showcase @ George Spencer and we've got Cafe Breathe in the evening at TMC.

Friday brings a full day with Play & Praise in the afternoon and two sessions of youth club in the evening, with a couple of guest visitors this week as well.

Sunday morning sees services at St Peter's and Toton Methodist, Amy, Irene and I will be running the two top groups as usual. Breathe Deeper is on in the evening at St P's.

Mexico:

Over the weekend I heard about a mission trip to Mexico being organised for next April (2nd to 12th, which is the day schools re-open after Easter). It is a partnership between Urban Saints in the UK and Amor Ministries in the US, who in turn work with local agencies in the Tijuana region. There is a lot of information on both organisations websites, links below. Urban Saints are arranging to take 100 young people and leaders to Mexico to be part of the trip.

There are two things to consider at this stage - cost and booking. The booking deadline with Urban Saints is October 23rd, so only 11 days away. Secondly, Urban Saints on their website state that you'll be required to fundraise at least £985 each to cover the costs of the trip and the building work but Urban Saints (and our partners, Amor Ministries) will help you by giving you loads of ideas for great fundraising ventures!" A deposit of £100 per person is required by Urban Saints by the closing date.

If we are going to participate in this trip we need to be aware that fundraising that amount of money will be a challenge - some groups will give grants, but not as many as if we were organising the trip ourselves. There is not a lot of time to work in! I will be speaking to the Toton Churches Leadership Team tonight to seek their views on this, and I am also finding out more about what's involved. The leadership team may say no to the trip, please don't take it for granted that it will happen. Be aware that this trip may not happen, do not get too excited just yet! However, there may well be scope for a small groups of people to participate.

If you are interested, please register your interest with me as soon as possible by email or text - youthworker@totonchurches.org or 07791 703480. If you have questions, please get in touch by any means you like, but bepatient int hat I may not have the answers straight away!

In the meantime, have a good week, and I'll share more information as I get it.

Andy

Amor Ministries in the US - http://www.amor.org/Page.aspx?pid=304

Urban Saints, the UK partner in the trip - www.urbansaints.org and the ReBuild page is at http://www.urbansaints.org/pages/11127/ReBuild.html