Because You're Loved blog from Jan

This is the team blog from Jan, summarising our last mission week - Because You're Loved, Dared To Love :)

During our second encounter week (Pais:M4 Mission) we started the movement of “Because You’re Loved” once more. This time our mission was to equip young Christians to pass on God’s love through acts of kindness. 1 John 4:19 says that “we love because He first loved us.” As you know actions often speak louder than words. Therefore every day of the week had a different theme as a practical challenge. We dared the students to demonstrate love through encouragement, action, invitation, compassion and generosity. More than 60 young people representing more than 15 schools came along to the Launch gathering that we held in Exodus. It was a great night of worship, sharing and encouragement. Students formed groups to come up with creative ideas for special things they could do together in their own school. During the week the attempt to change community became reality. With our information packs in their bags it was great to see so many young people getting active for our Lord Jesus. Partaking youth groups gave out free tea and coffee in Tesco’s and invited passers-by to an evangelistic event in the area. A girl from our youth took 2 friends to church and they became Christians! They already connected to many people and want to go to youth fellowship :D. On the website www.becauseyoureloved.com you will find more information and a great collection of stories posted by students.

Check out the team Facebook page for more team blogs!

Team Romania 2012

As you may already know, this summer I will be taking a group of 9 teenagers on a mission trip to a small village called Zalau in Romania. There we will be leading a children's club, doing practical work in the community and taking food parcels to local families. Our aim is to spread God's love simply by serving the people of Zalau and getting to know them, all the while exploring a different culture and what we can do to help those in need.
Our weekly team meetings have been going really well so far and everyone has bonded well as a team, especially during our residential last weekend. We have also started our fundraising planning and have a few events coming up over the next few weeks. As a team we need to raise £3,400 before we go! All funds raised will go towards the work we will be doing out there, particularly for materials such as toys for the children's club, paint or bricks for practical work, or anything else we may need.
You can donate to us at www.justgiving.com/romaniateam24, or you can simply text 'TMRM94 £(?-insert amount)' to 70070.
All support is greatly appreciated and every little bit will go a long way to helping us to make a difference!
Thank you,
Lauren & Team Romania x

Here we go again... Who Loves You?

It's a long time since I wrote on here... so please accept my apologies! The craziness of February has also left the Pais: North Coast's facebook blog has also been neglected. In order to catch you up on all that's gone on I'll start by posting Tamara's blog about the 'Who Loves You?' mission week. She says everything I wanted to say, but writes it better than I do (how sad is that... a German writing better than me!). Enjoy! - Lauren x

Hey folks!

The Pais team is back with a blog after a truly exceptional week of “Who Loves You?“.
Not only did we visit four schools in the area, doing assemblies, lunch shows, lessons and prayer spaces, but also closed the week in two spectacular events with DJ Jarva Knight, a non-alcoholic cocktail bar and two poignant messages, communicating the gospel to the young people.
During the week we really learned again to appreciate and use the power of prayer and we want to thank all of you who supported us in their prayers. Every person who came to the prayer meetings in our churches during the week really encouraged us and we are sure that each prayer made a difference.
The overall topic was – surprisingly – God’s love and it was so great to have the opportunity to tell around 2000 young people of the unimaginably great love God has for them. When we asked the students in several RE lessons who loved them a great amount of them wrote down God and/or Jesus and we really pray that this knowledge might change their hearts and lives. During our “Love or Hate”- lunch show we learned that it is inevitable to not make decisions and that the most important decision of our lives might still lie ahead.
On the nights of the events 7 young people made a decision for living their lives with Jesus and many were interested in taking away more information. We are very excited about starting a follow-up study on what being a Christian really means on Wednesday afternoons in Exodus.
A really amazing and encouraging story reached us when we heard of a girl who was giving out ice-cream to people in Portstewart, following the motto of “Because You’re Loved”! And this is actually the perfect opportunity to get excited for the Dared to Love-mission in March – we are expecting great things to happen and lots of love to be shown.

Thanks for reading our team blog once more – watch out for more and be blessed!
Tamara