St Mary's Spain Team prepares for mission
This summer, from 9-20 July, a group of young people from St Mary's, Comber, will be on the mission field in Cabra, Southern Spain, serving Jesus. The opportunity has been presented by the Exodus organisation based in Lisburn.
Cara McNeill, team member, writes about their preparations:
"Although it seems like a long time a go now, its funny to think that just 3 months ago the majority of the 11 of us going on this mission had never heard of Exodus! Now it seems to be what our social life and free time revolves around (that and revision!).
Exodus is an organisation that has been sending teams out on mission since 1997. While their first mission took a group to Romania, since then they have served God in continents such as South America, Africa, Europe, and Asia. While as a group we could claim to be quite well travelled, for some of us Spain is going to feel like a very long way from home and just the travel part of the trip will act as a challenge.
Since we started our meetings 3 months ago we have been able to explore the various aspects of the Exodus theme this year, "Dying to Live". Not only have we spent our time expanding our knowledge of the Bible, prayer and our own relationships with God; we have also been very practical within our meetings!
Part of our Exodus challenge is to raise over £3000 for equipment for our work out there and this has led to some great (and rather strange!) fundraising ideas. So far we have been able to put on coffee mornings, car boot sales, barn dances and 1p and 2p jars, but with a long way to go still, there will be no time for slacking and the team is ever aware that we're going away in less than 2 months!
But it's not all work for St. Mary’s Exodus mission. During the Easter holidays we were able to go away for some R&R on the sunny north coast. While this was a time to truly understand the challenge we would face spending so much time together, we also used it was an opportunity for our 'Act of Kindness’ which every Exodus mission team must do before they go out on mission. While to many a coffee morning conjures up an image of relaxed cups of tea and amazing cakes, the team found that the reality was more like rushed off our feet with cups of tea and scones up to our ears! We found we got a lot out of a couple of simple hours' work and it really opened our eyes to how big a difference small acts of kindness can make.
While we continue to fundraise, have meetings, plan, workshop and pray we hope you feel that what we are doing is worthwhile for us, our community and the community we hope to serve in Spain.
Please keep everyone of the team in your prayers and thank you so much for your continuing support"
Romans 15:5
May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus.
Pictured left to right:
Back row: Jordan Crane, Cara McNeill, Gary Boyd, Ross Campbell, Evanne Donnan, Kathryn Rogers. Front row: Connie Barrett, Anna Rogers, Cassie Gilliland, Megan Ross, Cathie Lowry.