Ruh-row

This is Esther. She came over fresh from DTS in Belize to be a part of One Friday for 8 months. Isn't she gorgeous?! She planted her roots in the shop and was such a breath of fresh air in my life, everything with a smile and a fake british accent. Wonderful wonderful Esther. She's now back in Idaho and she sent an email to the team; here's a portion:

"Hey guys hope all is well down under. The last week I was working at the Boardstore in Maroochydore I had the blessing of hearing two incredible testimonies of some of the impact we have had on the community. I meant to share these with all of you before I left but it got put on the back burner. I hope this encourages you all as much as it did to me.

One of my first customers of the morning was a mom, her son, and the son’s friend. The son was only around 12-13. They spent a good deal of time looking around the store. Once they had found a few items the mom came up to the counter to purchase the items while the two boys continued to look around the store. As I was ringing her up the mom grabbed a skater Bible off the counter. I told her they were free and she could take one. She replied by saying: “oh no thanks we have one at home.” She then proceeded to tell me that her son has the read the skater Bible cover to cover and it’s slowly falling apart. They moved from Melbourne to the Sunshine Coast a year ago and came into our store when they first arrived on the coast. She complemented us saying that every time she has come into the store and her son absolutely insists on taking there business to only the Boardstore when it comes to all there skating needs. What made me so happy is that the Skater Bible this little boy had been given early on had read it over and over. And bonus, he was a skater through and through.

Later on that day an older lady came in wanting to speak with one of the guys. I told her I was the only one working that day and I could do my best to answer any of her questions. She told me that she was taking a class at the local community college on community development. The class she was with had been assigned to find out how local sport locations affect the community and find out about the people who frequent those facilities the most. She had to have been in her fifties and had been assigned Alex Skate Park. Earlier that day she visited the park to interview some of the local kids who skated there. She told me she was a bit intimidated approaching the typical “skater.” She started off by approaching a group of guys. She asked the various and basic questions about skating. The group of guys started telling her about some of the other things that happen at a skate park such as drinking, smoking, occasional fights that break out and then they started telling her about this group who hangs out on Friday nights at Alex. The boys told her how were there every Friday night to put on a free BBQ and that all of the guys work at the Boardstore. One of the boys spoke up and said “all the guys down at The Boardstore are Christians, there always there to answer any of our questions but they don’t shove their religion down our throats.”

The lady when she was talking to me was really impressed that the group of “rough around the edges” boys had so many compliments to pass on about the crew at the boardstore. The lady and I talked for a bit and I told her all about the things we do in the community. I told her about skate church, skate BBQ on Fridays, the skater Bible, and filled her in on all the happenings that go down with One Friday and The Boardstore. Before she left she told me that when her teacher had assigned her to the skate park she was scared and intimidated to speak to a “skater.” She walked out of that store with a complete change of heart. She was blown away that the guys at the skate park gave us so many compliments.

I walked away from working that day so uplifted. Hearing that a little boy had read the Bible we gave him a year ago over and over, front to back. What the second lady who was working on her University project didn’t know by reveling what all those boys at Alex had said about us was that we had been making a real impact in those kids lives at the skate park.

I just wanted to add one more thing to this very long e-mail. It was something I found myself thinking after I got asked the question by a church member when I arrived back from Australia. The question was “so how many people accepted Christ while you were over there?” I thought for a second and could have made up an answer but my answer was I don’t know. And I was completely comfortable with that answer. Why should I know how many people I lead to the Lord? Is that for my own personal glorification or to brag about it to a congregation. Just because I don’t have an exact count of the people I converted doesn’t mean in any way that I wasn’t doing the Lords work. So I hope that this little light bulb moment that I had encourages all of you. You guys are blessing people all around you whether you realize it or not. One of those people you blessed was me. I can’t thank you all enough for everything all of you blessed me with. Keep up the good work. You’re making a difference in the world one step at a time."

What an encourager you are Esther! You rule. She's now working in a ski resort shop, no doubt being an absolute blessing to everyone there. Part time snow bunny, full time radical Jesus loving ray of sunshine. Miss ya x

The Gateway to Croyde

Earlier this month I was given the opportunity to be a leader for the Gateway club's annual holiday to Devon. More than 200 Mencap members from across the UK get together each year at a holiday village for goodtimes and not a small amount of friendly competition... members of our group won the fancy dress, connect four and swimming amongst other things - Woking cleaned up!

I had so much fun with this group of lovely people and though I was left physically and emotionally exhausted at the end of the week, I also left with a more open heart and better understanding of the Mencap posse. One thing that left a strong impression on me was being around so many people who were themselves 24/7 and didn't care who thought they were cool or not. I could learn a thing or two about that.

Awesome bits that come to mind...

Nick getting wrapped up in tin foil like a chicken drumstick

Ian one of the group remarking to a leader that "half of them are faking you know" when we were out on a trip within earshot of members of the general public

Members of the group shouting "MY AGE!" at any number under 30 during bingo every night

The Elvis tribute act getting members of our group a bit excited

The Lady Gaga tribute act having a wardrobe malfunction and getting everyone a bit more excited

Watching small children get sprayed with water full in the face with no warning by a mechanical dinosaur

Any time that Jolyon gave a salute or made a farting noise or both

Sitting next to Linda whilst she heckled a sheep shearer

A leader with another group looking so much like Rob Bell I actually thought he was for a few days

Cutting shapes on the dancefloor with Pat my 70-something chalet-mate who turned out to be a natural and talented bodypopper

All of the guys who dressed up as women for the fancy dress (not including the man dressed as Wonderwoman, that made me want to poke my eyes out)

The disco every night was like being at successive wedding receptions - cheesy music and a floor full of people who just didn't give two hoots what anyone thought and were out to have a rollicking good time. I didn't think I still knew the dances to Tragedy and the Macarena. I did. So did they. Heaven.

If you see an opportunity to get involved with Mencap or something similar, do it. If you don't love it I will give you a thousand dollars*

*not true but do it anyway.

Fancy dress night featuring Linda as a hot air balloon

Brian the caveman

Our winners Jolyon the scarecrow, Zoe the lion, Pete the Dorothy and Nick the tinman

with my clown buddy Pat before we let loose on the dancefloor.

I wish I had a photo of that.

And what have you come as?

I am more than a little jealous of Wally's hat

Elvis belting it out

My other chalet-mate Rona

Getting drenched in dinosaur spit and loving it

The best photo of a live sheep you have ever seen

And the leaky dinosaur...

Rollin', Rollin', Rollin' on the riverrrrrrrr

Boardstore got the start of a facelift last week with Boris and Kodan heading up the knock through into the Gallery. Making a big hole in a breeze block wall turned out to be more work than Big B expected but the boys got 'er done and it looks awesome. The gallery will now house our longboards, scooters and protective products, leaving the main shop core skate. Whilst the boys were making use of the power tools I seized the opportunity offered from emptying the shoe wall on account of the dust to paint the slat wall tango orange (why not?). This led inevitably to painting of other areas which now looked a bit grubby. There's still work to do but the space we now have is most excellent.

Super much thanks to Kodan, Esther, Isaac, Melody and Blair for helping out you are all very excellent and well done Boris for managing to use power tools safely after two nights of little sleep. Nice one.

To Jimbo's and back

Vicki came to see me this week, all the way from blighty to see little old me. It was a super snazzy time which included 20 hours of driving going down to our furthest Boardstore in Port Macquarie run by Rob and Boris' friend Jimbo. Drivingvandrivingvaniamdrivingthevan. Vicki heard that alot this week. I was very blessed by her trip she is uber special to me and a massive encouragement. Love you girl.

The Facilitator

Sounds like a bad action movie perhaps starring Vin Diesel. Or Angelina Jolie. She could play me. Or perhaps not.

Last Monday I was asked to stand up at base worship and catch everyone up on my ministry. What I was doing, more importantly what God was doing. I was freaking out the week before. Seven months ago I was doing the Create2Skate workshops and running weekly girls nights but the workshops ended, I received no response to doing another set and the girls nights fizzled out. Sitting thinking about it I was suddenly scared that I wasn't doing enough and I didn't know what to share. So I shared this...

Boardstore is an example of Business As Missions (BAM) as opposed to Business For Missions. There is a company in Australia called Network Communications that was founded to fund missions and actually pays for the Australian Christian Channel on TV. Rad. We are not like that. Boardstore IS the mission. The purpose of Boardstore is to connect with the skate community and show God's love, make Him known, in that community.

Last year I was working in Boardstore, meeting kids and parents. I felt like I was working in Ministry. With a capital. And then Rob and Boris asked me to take on the role of managing the shops which I happily accepted as I love a challenge, I love business, I'm a workaholic and an organisational obsessive (some people have experienced this side of me, others, such as my parents or anyone that sees my bedroom, may be confused by this revelation)

So I stepped into this new role which involved more and more working at the office and cutting back my hours at the shop, eventually relinquishing them altogether. I like being productive and I think I fill this new role well, but I was confused at first by the amalgamation of office job and ministry. Sitting at a computer 9-5 Monday to Friday didn't feel like ministry. And at first I felt like I needed to do more outside of these hours which would then be my ministry. But I've learnt it's not like that.

My job is ministry. God uses Boardstore to reach people. To meet people and build relationship and reveal His love and goodness. And God uses me to help keep Boardstore running. When I hear from Esther about a great conversation she had with someone in the shop I know that it is all a part of our ministry here. It is a part of my ministry. So when I'm sitting in the office doing stocktake or out at Bunnings buying binbags and chain, I am in ministry.


After I spoke Hensser, our base director, told everyone that the higher you go in leadership, the less it becomes about your personal ministry and the more it becomes about the people around you and facilitating what they are doing and in this way ministry is multiplied. I felt really validated in my role and for the first time I felt that I haven't taken a step backwards in ministry, but forwards.

I used the word ministry 12 times there. It kind of lost meaning in my head for a minute.
Vicki will be here in 3 hours and I am SUPER MUCH EXCITED!

Learning to love uncertainty

"The way of trust is a movement into obscurity, into the undefined, into ambiguity, not into some pre-determined, clearly delineated plan for the future. The next step discloses itself only out of discernment of God acting in... the present moment. The reality of naked trust is the life of a pilgrim who leaves what is nailed down, obvious and secure, and walks into the unknown without any rational explanation to justify the decision or guarantee the future.

Why?

Because God has signalled the movement and offered His presence and His promise."

Brennan Manning

Taking Upright Gen up Mount Coolum

Happy Birthday Upright Gen (July) from Des Shannon on Vimeo.