Scarborough Mission Day 5

Today we spent most of our day in St Augustine's Secondary School, which was fantastic.  We started the morning leading the assembly, this time it was Alfonso was spoke about being a witness and gave some of his testimony.  He spoke very well and the students were engaged with what he was saying.  After the assembly we were given the opportunity to visit some classes. We split up into two groups so we could visit both Year 7 classes and then for second period we were back together to speak to a Year 11 class.  The students had some great questions to ask us and seemed to enjoy us being there.  At first we're sure they thought we were a little crazy standing in their class talking about Jesus and how He loves us.  We enjoyed the class visits and the chance to hear back from the students.  In the assembly we can tell them quite a bit but there isn't that chance to answer their questions.

After we spoke to the Year 11 class it was back to St Peter's Church for adoration and Mass before we tucked into a lovely lunch in the Parish Centre.  One thing we definitely have to say is that the food and hospitality in Scarborough is amazing, absolutely out of this world!  Big thank you to all who looked after us and cooked for us!

In the afternoon we were back up at St Augustine's to visit some more classes.  Again we separated into two groups so that we could visit more classes in the time that we had.  At times during the assemblies we wondered how much the students were actually listening to us but when we visited the classes we realised that they had been listening and some of them had questions they wanted to ask us.  Each of us enjoyed the class visits and look forward to doing more at St Augustine's on Friday.

We had a lovely supper today (seriously the food is great here!) and then packed up to go and see the Confirmation group.  Tonight they were having two sessions, we were leading the second session.  The first session they had was on the Gifts of the Holy Spirit and was a great session led by Sarah.  Our session had the title 'Witness' and we began firstly by asking each of the Confirmation candidates to tell us their name and why they had chosen to be confirmed this year.  There were a range of answers but the most popular seemed to be that their parents wanted them to get confirmed and some of their friends were doing it this year.  Although at first it may not have been their choice to be confirmed this year we congratulated them on being there tonight and having in a way made the choice themselves.  We spoke to them about what it means to be a witness and how we can be witnesses but we must choose to be.  We divided them up into four groups and gave them a scenario where they had to decide what the correct thing to do was and which gifts of the Holy Spirit would help them to make that choice.  They were a fantastic group and a very honest group.  We will continue to pray for them and we would ask that you do the same please.  At the end of the night we each lit a candle from the Paschal candle and prayed that we would receive the light of Christ, as we had done at Baptism.  It was very beautiful and prayerful.  We are loving our time here, what will the rest of the week have in store for us!?

Scarborough Mission Day 4

This morning our first stop was St Augustine's secondary school where we were leading their morning assembly.  The theme for our assembly was 'Witness'.  This week the students are in House assemblies.  Each student belongs to a House (Matthew, Mark, Luke or John - good choices).  This meant that in each assembly this week we will students from every year group (Years 7-11).  We found this was a very important point in our planning of the assembly; we had to ensure that each student could get something out of the assembly despite the age differences. 

We began the assembly with a prayer and introduction of who we are, what SPES is and what we do in London and this week in Scarborough.  Maisie joined us to help us with the song we were to sing, she is a fantastic singer! Today Ola spoke to the students about what it means to be a witness and gave a testimony about times when she has found it difficult to be a witness to Jesus.  She spoke very well and I'm sure many students can relate to her story.  After this Armel spoke about how to be a witness and choosing to follow Jesus.  He challenged the students to make that choice.  We finished with a beautiful prayer by Ben.

From St Augustine's we went over to St Peter's Primary School.  At St Peter's we grabbed a much needed cup of tea/coffee before leading an assembly for the KS2 students.  Ciara and Armel were greeted by some familiar faces from their visit last year.  The assembly for St Peter's had the same theme of 'Witness'.  As it was younger kids after we introduced ourselves and prayed we taught them an action song, which they loved and were fantastic at.  Now there's no point teaching a song if you don't explain the lyrics of it and why we sing it so that's what Armel done for us.  We asked the students some questions about how they can be witnesses (ie how do they show they are a follower of Jesus). They gave us some great answers such as praying and going to Mass, we even had one boy answer with going to Confessions but they also gave us some very practical answers of how to live our lives showing love to others through helping at home, visiting the sick and lonely.  If we all did half the things these kids suggested there would be a lot more love shown and felt in our world.  After the assembly we visited the Year 5 and Year 6 classes.

After lunch, now that we have Armel with us, we had some time for preparation for the Confirmation session that we are taking tomorrow evening.  Once we finalised our plan for the session and ensured we had all the equipment it was time to pack up our music, instruments and evangelisation materials and head for the town centre.  We had another lovely afternoon in the town centre talking to people and sharing our Faith through music.  Some people were very surprised to find young people singing and playing Christian music in the street and so full of joy.

We finish off our day with a beautiful Holy Hour and Mass at St Edwards.  All the Church in Scarborough are lovely and the people are so welcoming.  After Mass we all piled into some cars with some parishioners and headed off to Whitby for fish and chips.  It was a nice evening and we really enjoyed it.  The company was great and the fish and chips were very tasty.  Then it was back to Jane and Hugh’s for a cup of tea, chat and then bed.  Can’t wait for tomorrow!  We are really enjoying this week.