What I've been up to! December

I so sorry for not updating this as regularly recently. The last few weeks have been crazy busy.

Norwich YFC had a Christmas production with 2 local church youth groups in the first weekend of December. The young people were a mix of people from the church youth groups, and young people who were involved in other NYFC projects. The Christmas production was such a fun project to be involved in, but not one which I would usually do. I'm usually the one person who avoids acting, singing and doing anything on stage, and my artistic skills are awful, so making props wasn't gonna be an option I was gonna jump on, so I wasn't sure how I was going to be any help. When rehearsals started I helped with the off stage stuff, including lights, sounds, music props and costumes. I ended up in charge of making/ finding the props, cause there was no one else to do it, which with no artistic capability, became a challenge, especially when most of the young people who were helping me left to do acting. In the end I made almost 20 chicken masks, 4 Turkey masks, various different socks and some other props for the production. I actually found it lots of fun, and the masks didn't turn out as bad as I was expecting. I think this, as well as me acting in the anti bullying roadshow, as shown me that I shouldn't just not do something because I think I'm bad at it, but at least give it a go, because I ended up really enjoying making the props. Also in the Christmas production, I was singing in some of the songs and I ended up being a chicken doing aerobics ( yes you have read correctly!!!) which was an insane concept, but very funny to have 20 people dressed up as chickens doing an aerobic routine to rocking around the Christmas tree. My friend came to watch the production on the second night of the production even filmed this happening ( I'm trying my hardest to make sure this doesn't end up on social media, I looked very stupid!). In January, a new music group is starting, with some of the same people from the Christmas production, where they will be working towards a new project at the end of each term.

Even though it was Daniels birthday ages ago, the end of October, we had his birthday party at the beginning of December. I went back to London for the weekend to help with the party, which happened in kids space in Romford, and see some friends who had just gone home for Christmas from uni. The kids had so much fun at the party, running round the soft play but also being able to have a go at go karting and rock climbing. Daniel also had his face painted green to be like Shrek, but Daniel deciding that he would rather be a creeper from Minecraft ( he expected me to pick up on that straight away!). It then felt so weird to be going back to Norwich for a week when all my friends had started their Christmas holidays, but the next week was lots of fun! 

In my last week at Norwich we had a staff meal with everyone it NYFC. The meal was really nice, with great food, and a nice time with other people. We did a secret Santa with everyone in the office, I got a really nice cream scarf with purple/ brown/ red flowers. We also filmed a Christmas music video for ding dong by rend collective experiment. This is the link: https://youtu.be/PeH0MYMVXYw 

Twice a week, I do a youth cafe in porringland, which is just outside Norwich. On the last cafe of the year before Christmas, we had a Christmas party, with loads of food and Christmassy games, including wrapping people up in toilet paper to look like snow men. This was such a fun afternoon. 

We had a similar event at a local school, but it was only 30 mins long. We had a Christmas quiz where we gave the students the second line of different carols and Christmas songs, and they had to try and work out the name of the song. It was a last harder than I expected, with the highest score being 4 out of 10. 

At another schools Christian Union, we had some food and Christmas games. One game we played was the Christmas song game, where everyone is given a Christmas song and they have to sing it walking round the room to find the other person who has the same song. This game was lots of fun and very loud. 

In one youth group that I do, we have been filming parts of the nativity over the last few weeks, and we showed the video on the last week. Each scene was separated by the younger kids singing a song, and at the end was had some hot chocolate and mince pies. This was a great way to finish all the youth work I have been doing over the last term. After the nativity show, I only had one day in the office before going back to London. 

It feels so weird that the first term of my gap year is now over! It doesn't seem like it was almost four months ago that I moved out and went to Norwich but I can't wait until I go back and start my next term and see what God has got planned for me. 

Prayer points: 

The music group starting in January

People think about the message behind the Christmas production

Everyone has a good Christmas