Today has been a really manic day, the kids on the bus were really violent and nasty to each other at times. One threatened a smaller boy with a BB gun and he thought the guy was gonna kill him!
Throughout this week it has been harder and we had our first lunchclub in Erith, where the kids are really lovely. They all really appreciated us being there and really respected us. One of the guys went up to my friend and thanked her as it was the best lunchclub he'd been to!
Monday with Bexley Grammar continues to be my least favourite day just because we are only doing one youth centred thing, the lunchclub because of training in the afternoon.
I have found it really hard in the past weeks to not 'give up' and go home (not that I'd have much to do there) just because when I went to London I assumed we would be reaching the kids with problems and those who would be self harming or carrying knives (even if just for protection) but uptil now the luchclubs have only really attracted the 'lovely kids' who may have problems but not the really 'hardcore kids'., In a way this is a bit of a disappointment as I expected the youthwork alot more to be going out and reaching them where they are at rather than working with them when they joinour lunchclub. But ultimately God is control and I'm learning to trust him even if I expected better or different experiences.
Looking forward to seeing you guys at halfterm!
Katharine

week 3/4 or is it 4/5?!?

hey Blog followers!
Greetings
This past week as been a really cool week and there is evidence to show that this week will be even more chaotic if possible. Already this wek we are booked into 2 more schools (schools that arent new to XLP but that finally pulled their socks up anbd found us a room!) So madness descends.
On Friday Jo sent us out with £1 to spend money on something to make peope happy. we needed to make people smile and got 100s of bonus points if we managed to plug XLP and 1000s if someone became a Christian! So we brought a bunch of flowers and gave them out flower by flower. We had some really cool conversations with the least likely of people...some of the best where with people we would have originally bypassed. Although this was a one of activity to make us step out of our comfort zones and talk to strangers Jo has made Make someone smile Friday a regular part of the timetable (Woop!)
Can't think of anything exciting thatas happened apart from the fact Im going to a youth event called Human Cluedo how cool!
Miss you guys and can't wait till i see you again!

Terrific tuesdy!

Hey Blog readers!
Today we were quite busy as a greenwich team. We went first of all to a school called Crown woods where we run an induction programme for people who join the school after the 1stweek. We have the joy of talking them through their planners and spenting the 1st 2-3 hrs of their new school life with them.
Although we had to do the really boring stuff of questionaires (we had to read through the questions incase some of them had a different 1st language and was too afraid to ask for help) we also had great fun playing games with them.
After Crown woods we spent a while getting lost in Greenwich (the bus 132 does not go to Welling...Oli!) but ended up in a starbucks, only to have to move on to Abbeywood where we met up with Ian the bus man and the XLP bus which is kitted out with Playstations and computer and guitar heroes! The kids at Abbeywood were lovely and it was a shame that we only had 2 hours with them and can only go once a week.
On a brighter note Jo (the team leader) has managed to get in contact with all the school teachers we negociate with and were have arranged trips into all the schools but one. This is a real answer to prayer as it was only yesterday when we still had to hear back from 3 schools.
Loving London life in general...Greenwich rocks!