Midterm Outreach

Hello everyone!!!

Well this last week has been extremely eventful to say the very least. Last Saturday my DTS split up into 3 groups to go out into Scotland for our midterm outreach. My group was 7 people(including the leader) and we went to Benbecula. It is an island way up north in Scotland and it took about 11 hours of travelling to get there haha. We actually had to leave at 3am on Saturday so we could make our ferry that would take us to the island. The drive there was quite interesting because Joakim, our leader, does not like to slow down at turns...and pretty much the entire drive was windy roads haha. We were all trying to sleep but our heads kept getting slammed into windows and were being thrown around! It was pretty funny to talk about later on once we arrived in Benbecula.
We met up with a lady, Sylvia, who helps out at the local church and with the youth clubs on the island and she helped us get settled in. Our group was split into 2 houses(both were very nice) and oh my were we spoiled the whole week. Everyday we had home cooked meals and dessert twice a day. All of us were making each other do sit-ups cause we were eating so much haha!
Sunday was a pretty average day...just went to the church and met some of the members which was very nice. Monday was when all the fun started :D We got to meet the senior youth club, and they were so amazing! They were so welcoming and were just a lot of fun to be around! That night we just got to know each other a little bit and then played telephone pictionary and we had giant sumo suits so that was hilarious. My favorite was in telephone pictionary my phrase somehow went from "a giant falling from the sky" to "the pelicans are hijacking the ferry!" hahaha...it was brilliant :D
The next day we did a program with the junior youth club called 'rocky road'. We helped with playing games and telling the story of the Passover. That was pretty fun although some of the kids were extremely hyper-active and were very difficult to keep in line. After 'rocky road' the senior youths came to hang out with us again, but this time a lot more showed up with was fantastic :) The majority of the night was spent playing music. Dylan, one of the senior youths, is really talented at the guitar and singing and some of the others like Haley and Nicole love to sing along with him. By the end of the night we were all singing along with Dylan to a bunch of random songs...it was a good time :)
Wednesday night we were helping run a bible study for the church. We were all really sad cause we wanted to hang out with the senior youths again, and then Sylvia called us and said that Dylan and Mando wanted to come to the bible study! I was kind of nervous because I had never done a bible study let alone helped run one before, but it wound up being a lot of fun! Monica, Jess, and I were in the group with Dylan and Mando during the bible verse discussions. We were having such a good time talking about God and how great He is, and at one point Dylan looked at me and said "I think we are the only ones having fun...I just looked at one of the other groups and they all yawned simultaneously" haha! When we were getting called back together in one group Dylan was saying to me that it was really awesome to have people who could laugh and have fun while talking about God. He is so used to it always having to be this completely serious, down, stone faced matter. He also mentioned that he really appreciated that we weren't pressuring him to talk during the discussion. I was so excited when he told me this because that is what we were trying to convey throughout the trip so far! We were wanting to bring the Joy of the Lord to Benbecula and that was immediate confirmation that God was doing just that :D It seemed very evident that almost all of the young people on that island had a view that to be a Christian means you have to be old and boring haha...so I'm very happy that we have started to break that stereotype.
Thursday we worked with 'rocky road' again which was much easier that day thank goodness haha. We talked to them about Moses crossing the red sea. That night we got to be with the senior youth club again...and that night miracles happened :D It was again just an average night with them. We were goofing off, playing games, playing music, etc. A group of the teens were playing football and right near the end Dylan got tackled and seriously injured his leg/ankle. He could not put any pressure on it, couldn't walk, and was in a lot of pain. Sylvia gathered us all together and said that this would be a good time to pray for healing. I will admit I was skeptical but I said ok and went to pray for him. Right when I sat down to put my hand on his leg I felt like God was telling me to knock it off and stop doubting Him. I suddenly realized that I had been limiting God and after that I knew that it was totally possible for Dylan to be healed. While we were praying for him I started to get really warm which was weird since I wasn't moving and right when I thought that Dylan said that his leg felt warm! I later found out that Monica felt really warm too. After praying for a few minutes we asked Dylan how his leg felt...he said it felt good...then he got up, started hopping around on the injured leg, then ran over and kicked the football across the pitch!!! Ahhhhh!!! Haha God is so cool!! I felt like at that moment God was saying to me...'I did that cause I can!'. It was an amazing moment and God could not have timed it more perfectly...every youth was in the room watching it happen and seeing was God can do. Dylan was so excited he was jumping up and down with me(I could not stop smiling haha)and we were just freaking out about how awesome God is!
Later that night after we had all gone home Sylvia called us and told us that Dylan wants to start up a youth group (because the youth club isn't a christian thing) so we were all so excited to hear that!!!
Friday was our last day and that night we got to meet with the senior youths one more time. Fiona wound up singing some of her songs and a few of my group gave short testimonies about what God has done in their lives. After that was done we offered prayer for everyone if they wanted it in a prayer room in the building. I was so surprised cause a lot of them got up and practically ran to the prayer room haha! When the night was over and we were leaving we found out that 2 of the youths had given their lives to Jesus!!!!!! Yay!!!!!!! I was so happy!!! It was really difficult to say goodbye to them all...I will miss them so much :( But on the bright side we created a facebook page for them so that we can keep in contact with them all :D
It was such a great trip and it was really faith building for me. God is just revealing himself to me more and more each day and it is so wonderful :D I will be posting LOTS of picture on my facebook later today from the week if you are interested in seeing some of the amazing people we met. I love and miss you all more than I can say! God bless

-Kaitlyn

P.S. OH! So someone sent me a care package containing a black set of scarf/gloves with the American flag, a calendar, and stationary. I love it all but the problem is...is that I have no idea who it is from :| There is no note and no where on the box does it say who sent it. I would really like to thank you, who ever you are haha. so...Thank you :D