If you live in East Swindon hopefully you will have heard about the significant impact of the work of in:School, headed up by Abi Corry over the past 4 years. in:School works with churches and volunteers to reach out to and work with Primary school children delivering a range of creative and exciting projects.

2012 marks the beginning of a new, exciting chapter for in:School as the project looks to the future with a fresh vision for branching out beyond the East area of Swindon to see all that has been acoumplished there built up in other areas too. I’m sure you will agree that the task ahead is huge but the possibilities very exciting, and I am pleased to announce that Swindon YFC and Scripture Union have both agreed to become partners with in:School. This expertise and guidance has already proven to be invaluable as the newly formed Management Group plans and prepares for the future. As the Management Group look forward to the launch of in:School in January 2013 across Swindon, I would encourage you to pray for them, for the work of in:School and all that this partnership with SYFC will mean for both organisations.

If you would like to receive regular email updates specifically about the work of in:School then please email office@syfc.org.uk and we will add you to that designated mailing list.

Happy New Year, welcome to 2012! The SYFC team spent the first week of the new year in Wales with 450 other Youth for Christ workers from around the country receiving teaching and input and collectively worshipping God. This was a fantasticly inspiring time for us all, ensuring that before we do anything this year we stopped and took time out with God to seek His leading.

Gavin Calver, National YFC DIrector spoke on the final night and reminded us of our calling ‘not to give up on young people‘. This is a theme that the Archbishop of Caterbury explored in his new years message (watch it here). In times of great uncertinity where young people are suffering from a poverty of aspiration and a poverty of love, when so many people and organisations are giving up on them, we are committed to long term investment in the lives of the young. We are ministers of truth desiring to see great fruit grown as a result of our work.

This year as we continue to share Good News with young people in Swindon, just as we have been for 61 years would you please join with us in not giving up on young people. Together, with the Holy Spirit we can make a difference in the lives of the young and its an exciting and essential time to be taking up this call. Please support us in prayer this year and where you are able through financial giving and let us be expectant of all that God is going to do for His Glory and His Kingdom.

QUEST

QUEST is a brand new group that we have launched for young people at Swidnon Academy. It is a group that gives young people a place to explore the basics of the Christian fiath with lots of fun and games thrown in. Laura Rawson shares this story with us:

Today we had a year 9 come into the faith room, we started talking about what the faith room is and about what our beliefs are. He told us that he was a pagan and then saw the posters for our alpha style group (QUEST) and asked what it was all about. I told him that it was a group exploring what it means to be a Christian and what our beliefs are with fun and games etc. He said he couldn’t come as he was working in the library afterschool each week on that day. 10 minutes later he returned to the faith room and came to see us telling us excitedly that he had swapped his library duties for another day and was now able to come!

Please pray for this group as it continues in the new year to introduce young people to the God who created, knows and loves them.

Brendan (Our YFCone volunteer Jan-Jul2011) has been preaching back in Oz.

You can listen to his sermon or download it here.

In this sermon Brendan shares some of the challenges he experienced during his time in Swindon and how God taught him to trust fully on Him.

Well worth a listen.

Thank you to everyone who prayed for my last week whilst I was in Belarus.

The purpose of my trip was to visit the work of the Zaslowa Project and provide them with some feedback and input into their work as well as exploring ways in which I may be able to further support youth ministry in this incredibly challenging country.

Zaslavl is a small town of 15k people, 20km outside of Minsk. The town has 3 schools a handful of churches and there are a number of smaller, poor village areas surrounding the town. There is a market and transport into Minsk is good. There are lots of blocks of old Soviet flats and many social problems including a large problem with alcoholism.

During my trip I stayed with Ruslan and his wonderful family. Ruslan is a youth leader at the Pentecostal Church in the town. He has a huge heart for the young people he works with, has a great team to serve alongside and some great ideas for reaching out to local young people. His family blessed me abundantly and welcomed me so warmly into their home.

Over my time in Zaslavl I had the opportunity to visit some young people who are already being supported by the project as well as meeting some young people who may be supported by the project in the future. It was a privilege to meet these young people and their families many of whom are struggling with some extremely sad and difficult family, social and living difficulties. The work the project does in mentoring, supporting and providing for the young people is so instrumental in helping these young people to carve out a more positive future for themselves.

On Sunday I visited (and ended up preaching at) the Baptist Church, they have recently opened a new building and have a vision for seeing it used for many new ministry opportunities. We returned to the Baptist Church for an informal 5pm service and then I spoke at the youth service at the Pentecostal Church at 7pm. It was fantastic to worship led by the youth band amongst a group of young people who were clearly passionate about knowing and following Jesus.

On my final day in Belarus there was snow and I managed to meet up with Ilya from ACET and Mikhail from YFC Belarus. Ilya runs sex and relationships education programme in schools as well as a Christian youth service and small groups for teenagers to discover more about Christianity. Mikhail started YFC in Belarus just 3 years ago, they now run 2 Christian football leagues in Minsk, worship event for young people, mission trips and a wider sports ministry. He had thought I was visiting from YFC Sweden, but thankfully was not too disappointed when he realised the error in translation!

Please do pray for the work of the project and the young people it supports as well as upholding the ministry of both ACET and BelarusYFC.

Blessings

Chris

Belarus

Please pray for Chris Priddy as he travels to Belarus from Wed 16th – Tue 22nd Nov. Chris will be visiting the work of the Zaslowya Project which see’s supporters in Swindon sponsor young people in Zaslavia near Minsk. He will also be visiting the work of YFC in Belarus and the relationships education work of ACET.Please pray for safe travel, good insights and that through the trip Chris will be able to support and bless those who are working to build Gods Kingdom in this difficult place.

Churchfields Assemblies

At the beginning of the month we had the fantastic opportunity to take a week of assemblies in Churchfields School. We have not had this opportunity in recent years and it was great to be able to promote the lunchclub we run in the school and to explore what we believe with the students.
One year 11 came up to us afterwards and thanked us for doing the assembly and for presenting faith and Christianity in a positive light. Please join with us in praying for the Christian Young People of our town who seek to follow Jesus every day in their schools and to witness positively to their peers.

Fort Rocky Weekend Away

“The Best Weekend of Your Year” 
On Friday the 21st October Luella and Amy had the privilege of taking nine young people away to Fort Rocky. This was an exciting weekend away which was jam packed full with activities from areoball and the trapeze to canoeing and abseiling! The rest of the programme included five roadshows which gave the team a great opportunity to present the gospel in a very real and clear way.
During the Saturday night roadshow young people were given a chance to respond to the gospel and anyone who had responded or who wanted to find out more were asked to stay in the roadshow room. Three of our young people choose to stay and talk to us further about what they had heard and one boy said that he had decided to follow Jesus.
The young people that we took with us really enjoyed the weekend, one boy said : 
‘I don’t want to ever go home it’s the best weekend ever!’
A parent also emailed us after weekend to tell us that his son had come home from the weekend “Full of Joy”. What a wonderful expression of how the weekend had impacted that young man.
The whole weekend was an amazing opportunity for SYFC to be able to build on the relationships that they already have with these young people. Please pray for the nine young people that we took with us and that as we see them week by week we will be able to build on what they have heard over the weekend

We all know that the price of utilities is constantly on the increase. We recently used the services of Utility Aid to save us over £200 a year. They were extremely quick and helpful and quickly negotiated a great deal for us. They are more than happy to help out any churches of other charities in Swindon and we suggest you contact them at www.utility-aid.co.uk or on 0800 8815678. ChrisP.

Tuesday 27th September saw the launch event for the Swindon Churches Youth Work Charter. 7 Promises that we are inviting every church in Swindon to make to demonstrate a commitment to reaching out to and discipling the young people in our town. We’ve already had 3 churches sign up and been featured in The Baptist Times. You can read all about it here: www.swindonchurchesyouthworkcharter.info