Visiting with Fairview

Back in May I was invited by Graham to come and share at the Fairview group which is Smob's housegroup for people with learning difficulties.

They start off with coffee and catch up then have a time of worship and talking about God.

Graham had brought along a big map of Australia so that I could show them where I live, and had worn his Australia Tshirt and corked hat to fit the part!

I told them about what I was doing in Australia and they asked me questions. It was so cool, I loved meeting them all and hanging out with them. At the end they prayed for me and I felt so blessed. When they prayed for me it felt so genuine and from the heart and reminded me that prayer is simply talking to God, sometimes I think I make it way too complicated. Big thanks to all the Fairview group and everyone involved in running it, you are such a blessing.

The good endless cycle

I've been back in England for three weeks now, spending time with my family and catching up with friends. A couple of weeks ago I had a chance to share at my church St Mary of Bethany in Woking. I came to church prepared to share about Pure Parks and our plans for the project. However, when Steve my vicar saw me before the service he asked me to share during the "Fingerprints" slot in the service. This is a time where people are invited to come up and share with the congregation things that God has been doing in their lives, situations where we have seen God's fingerprints.

To be honest, I kind of panicked. I had nothing prepared and spent the first worship song praying about what to share. I felt God say "singleness" to which my immediate reaction was "nope too personal I'm not talking about that" and then came the reply that someone sitting there might need to hear about it.

So I stood up and talked about the last few months of my life. How although I was excited that all my friends were married and having babies, I had been feeling alone and left behind and had allowed this to pull me from God and distract me from ministry. I shared how recently one of my friends had phoned me and asked to meet to talk. He told me that his girlfriend had broken up with him and he was devastated. During our talking I encouraged him to look to God for his self-worth and identity. Reminded him how God loved him and his security needed to come from that rather than anyone else. And whilst I told him this I was thinking "but I'm not doing that, I'm not going to God for my security and value." God used that conversation with my friend to bring me back to Him, to turn me back in the right direction. He used a situation in which I was trying to bless someone, to bless me. I encouraged the congregation to go to God to know their value and security and to trust Him.

During the next song in church a lady came and thanked me, saying that although she is married and has a son, she realises she is looking to her job and her role as a provider for her son for her self worth, rather than going to God for her value and trusting Him. After the service two other women came and told me that what I said about being single spoke to them, having painfully come out of relationships recently. I still find it incredible when God surprises me with an opportunity to share when I have nothing prepared and then moves through it; I know it's Him and not me. If you feel God prompting you to share something, even if it takes some humbling on your part (it often does), do it. You never know who is there that might need to hear it.

Blessing and encouragement - it seems like a cyclic thing. You try to bless or encourage someone and end up being blessed and encouraged yourself. Awesome.

Hello Esther!

We have a new team member! Esther came to work with us as a part of her Discipleship Training School from the YWAM Belize base. She's been helping the ministry by working in the shop and doing lots of work on Pure Parks, researching where all the parks are and dividing them up into groups, not a small feat!

She's super lovely and I'm excited to have her on board (pun intended)

Pure Parks

Back in January one of our leaders Boris headed out to YWAM'S 50th anniversary conference in Canberra. He came back with a vision. To get a bible into the hand of every skateboarder in Australia. Whilst we can't measure that, we can go after it and make a big difference. This vision has developed into Pure Parks.

There are over 2000 skateparks in Australia, 250 in Queensland alone. The aim is to visit every park and:

• Pray over the park and the people who use it; against spiritual strongholds and for God's protection and presence in that area
• Clean up the park - litter picking and sweeping
• Hang out with the locals and offer free Skater Bibles

People from the local churches to each park will also be invited to help the church and the skaters get connected. The goal is to visit every skatepark in the next 5 years which would be a bit of a stretch for us to do on our own. Therefore we're also putting together a manual to send out to facilitate groups elsewhere in the country to visit parks in their area.

There are plans for a website so that you can go online and see which parks have been visited with information and stories about what happened and a photo of the team who visited.

I'm so stoked on this vision.

What you can do

• If you are in Australia and would like to organise a Pure Parks visit to your local skatepark or indeed are outside of Australia, have a heart for skaters and are interested in coming with a team you can get in touch with me at claire@boardstore.com.au
• Pray. You don't need to be on the same continent to reach these kids!
• Donate. We want to give Skaters Bibles out for free at all these parks and we've put the estimation at 13,000 bibles. They cost $5 (£3) to buy, if you would like to buy some that would be brilliant, you can donate online via the ywamwaves by clicking here: website http://www.ywamwaves.com/payments.pay.ews (If paying online by card, please write in the reference box that the donation is for Pure Parks Bibles)

God provides as per usual

I went round to my friends Rob and Lauren's house for an Australia Day BBQ yesterday and they offered me their spare room until space becomes available at my new house! So now I'm in a bed that I could sleep sideways on! So awesome. God is awesome, they are awesome.

Lauren, Nikita and Rob

Heels on Wheels starts up again tomorrow night as long as we don't get a storm...

Happy Australia Day!

Phew it's a toasty 32 degrees today and no-one's working because it's Australia Day and on Australia Day you have to have a BBQ. It's the law. I've been back for a week now and things are going great. I'm between houses right now just waiting for a room to become available in a friend's house in Mooloolabah. It's a lovely place to live, about ten minutes closer to work than where I'm staying now so I'm looking forward to moving in. It will cost more than living in YWAM housing but the prospect of sharing a room with three other girls when I come in so late from skating wasn't really ideal and I really wanted to be in a more homely environment rather than a house that always has people coming and going. So for the next few weeks I'm staying in a friend's garage then I'll be moving to my new room with a king size bed! (Thanks Andy you're awesome!)

I had a great two months back home over Christmas, it was precious to spend so much time with my family and to reconnect with my friends and all their new babies (and bumps!). I also appreciated the opportunity to share with many people at Churches and again the support I received had a big impact on me. A massive thank you to everyone who took an interest in the work I'm doing and supported me in prayer and financially. It really does make such a huge difference to my life and it's not something I take for granted.

One Friday Ministry

I've been having good talks with Boris about my role in the ministry and have started working more at the warehouse helping with the admin side of the Boardstores. I'm excited to get stuck in. Whilst I was in the UK the guys built and opened Caloundra Boardstore. I haven't managed to get a camera down there yet but here's a taster that Kodan took on his mobile:

It's smaller than the Maroochy store and has a different almost boutiquey vibe which is cool. I like that they have different identities. Plus all the woodworking done by friends who own a kitchen factory is super steezy.

Heels on Wheels will start up again on Thursday, I'm excited to see everyone again and want to plan a few girl's trips this term so we'll have heaps to talk about.

Last Saturday Skate Church kicked off 2010 with a skate and scooter competition. Mark and his family did such a great job and loads of kids came and heard the impact of the gospel through his talk. Praise God for Skate Church! They've been doing this event for years now, are a constant presence at Coolum skate park and must have seen and talked to so many young people in that time. God is really laying hammers through this amazing family who live by faith and push hard for Him.

Other ministry

Yesterday morning Des took the lecture for the current DTS for the introduction to "Hearing God." He spoke about being wholeheated and and not being double minded and did a great job. He asked me to share with them about surrendering rights and being open to hear God speak about things that involve sacrifice. I spoke to them about being away from my family back home and about surrendering my art to God last year and how much he taught me through those things. It was good to share and I feel God taught me even more about my experiences in those areas just through recapping them. Des and I were tripping out a bit over how this time last year that was us doing our DTS and now we're standing in front of a class teaching. It's awesome to see such a clear indicator of where God has taken you in just a year and it excited me to wonder where He will have taken me a year from now.

Over Christmas I had an email from a lady from the council asking if I would run some skateboard art workshops and a competition as a part of National Youth Week in April. I'm really stoked on the idea and think it'll be great to work with the council and build relationship with them as well as meeting more kids. I'll be giving her a call tomorrow to talk about it further, if you could pray for that I'd appreciate it.

Super cool.

Thanks again everyone, please do let me know if there's anything I can pray into for you. If you feel like you would like to partner with me financially in the work I'm doing please do let me know. Like the loaves and fishes, what seems like a small thing can make a big difference.

In Him with love

Claire

Ready to Roll

The last Create2Skate session last night went so well. The kids were all stoked to take away their boards and those who wanted to ride them added grip tape and transferred their hardware over. Their parents came to pick them up and I took a minute to tell the kids that Boardstore is run and staffed by people who loves Jesus and that God loves them and gave them the option of taking away a free Skaters Bible. They were all excited to take one and alot of them exchanged email addresses and phone numbers with each other. I loved that they had made friends and that the workshops had been a chance to build more relationships. We also invited them to Skate Church in Coolum this Saturday so hopefully some will make it.

I'm so stoked on how these workshops have gone and it's made me really excited about doing it again.

Click on photos for larger views

Liam finishing off his sun rays with oil pastels

Matt's fully stencilled board - he came up with it all himself! Sick!

Mark showing the potential of Posca pens

Like father like son; Jye working on his wave

Josh and Matt making some fancy grip tape

The finished products! L-R Josh, Matt, Jye, Harrison, Jesse, Liam, Marshall and Jesse.

Awesome ay. All the glory goes to God for giving me the idea and making it a success.