Last weekend I went to an event that UCCF held for all the
university Christian Unions in the South East area. It was a weekend where we
were able to stay for two nights, eat, have fellowship with one another, meet
other people, hit up the uber-cheap book stall and just relax. A weekend away
from the stresses of university work.
Winchester is about an hour away from my
university on the train, me and Maddie almost missed it because we were still
getting our tickets from the ticket machine. When we finally made it on we
arrived at Winchester in no time.
Winchester at night, on observation was
lovely and quaint however we were in a rush to get to the church and we were
all trying to desperately not get lost. Although we did, twice.
Dinner on
arrival was jacket potato, tuna, cheese and salad - tuna is literally my world
and then we had the evening service. We had arrived there pretty early before a
majority of the CU's so we were able to get a really awesome seat near the
front where we could view everything that was happening. Introductions,
Worship, Teaching, Prayer and more Worship happened and God turned up!
By this
time is was getting pretty late and we hadn't been able to settle into the church that our CU
was staying at. After getting a lift from Rachel (thank you Rachel!) we arrived
and were shown upstairs to where we were sleeping. The rooms were tiny and we had managed to already take up majority of the room despite the rest of the girls not arriving yet! We
persuaded the leader of the church to let us swap with the boys downstairs who
were sleeping in the main auditorium. GIRLS WON and boy was there so much more
room for activities.
After we were ready for bed despite the thought of there
not being any showers to wash ourselves with, I was feeling comfortable. We
hung out as a CU playing a few games that involved us being in a circle, I had
an awesome chat with one of my friends Abigail and it was great to get to know
her more as well as many other people. Eventually it got to the point of
lateness and tiredness where you don't really know what you're doing and you're
remembering that breakfast is at ridiculous o'clock so maybe you should sleep
now but you can't because you're basically on holiday with your closest
friends. So off we slept and now fast forward to the morning of day 2.
"I feel groggy, cold and I have a
feeling I'm having a really bad hair day but the lights are on and everyone can see
what you look like anyway so it doesn't even matter". The queue for the
ladies was long and despite the sun not rising yet I was in a pretty expectant
mood for what the Lord had in store for today.
Breakfast was cereal, a
croissant and a piece of fruit - it was literally perfect and I was so excited
to get food into my belly (like I always am). We had to be at the Church for a
morning meeting of worship, teaching and prayer and then we were allowed to be
set loose on the seminars and talks.
Maddie and I decided to go to the
answering difficult questions seminar, it involved getting into groups with
people you hadn't met with so it was great to hear what others went through in
regards to the really gritty, tough and sometimes mind-numbingly hard questions
that our friends and strangers would ask us.
For outreach events such as Quench
(where we give out free doughnuts to those who go out clubbing on a Wednesday
and Friday night) and Text-a-Toastie (where we give away free toasties in
exchange for a question about Christianity) where we're required to answer
tough questions. It is easy to avoid them but sometimes you can't escape them
so it's great to be able to take the hard questions we get asked and see how we
can unpack this to someone in a simple, loving, gentle and kind way - always
leading them back to Jesus.
Here are a few tips I learnt at that
seminar lead by a lovely girl named Emily:
1 - Listen - try to understand their
perspective and what is behind the question that they are answering. Try to
pick up on a deeper issue that they might be going through.
2 - Pray - for help to understand and
speak truth to them.
3 - Ask questions - is there a question
you can ask in reply to their question? Jesus asked 200 questions in the Bible,
not because he didn't know the answer but because He wanted them to
understand.
4 - Use the Bible - look at God's
character. Emily used a phrase that someone coined before her naming it
"home, away and home again" so if someone wants to know the timeline
of history in terms of God, Adam & Eve, the fall, Jesus and His
resurrection you start with "home - where we were made perfect in His
image, away - when we fell, we were cast out, beautiful but broken but there's
still hope and then home again in Jesus coming back.
5 - Talk about Jesus - If we only give
people clever arguments and theologies we don't show His love.
6 - Follow-up - which could mean meeting
for coffee, offering them a book to read or inviting them to church, you can be
like "come and see what it looks like". What I'll always remember is
something that our president Fergs always says and that is "don't say
someone else's no for them" in other words don't assume that someone doesn’t
want to come, ask them - if they say no they say no but if they say yes they
have an opportunity to see what Jesus can do with the broken!
After the seminar, we went and explored
Winchester as a CU, we visited the town, went shopping (although I had
self-control and didn't buy anything which is a miracle in itself HOWEVER I did
go a bit overboard at the book stall back in the main church, not gunna lie #christianbooksaremyweakness). We explored the outside
of Winchester Cathedral, walked through their cute cobble roads, became captured
by an amazing violinist and also played with the leaves because it's autumn and
why not? After that we headed over to Cafe Nero and had coffee.
The evening meeting passed and suddenly we
were in the eve of our last full day in Winchester, it was a sad bittersweet
moment that was quickly rectified with a hog roast and a hilarious game of
Ninja resulting in 1 split pyjamas and one face full of split pyjamas (Alex and
Chris).
On the last day of SEBWA we had to be up
and out of our venue so that those who were setting up for church could do so
without a few dozen Christian girls sleeping and snoring away around them. We
went to Winchester University which was absolutely stunning if I do say so
myself and planned our events week. When the last meeting closed and we had to
leave we were upset to be away from good company but excited for the rest of
the year.
The highlight of the weekend was spending
time with my CU family, I am forever grateful for every single one of them. The
fact that we can come from different pasts, backgrounds and upbringings and
still be there to encourage and spur one another on. My heart was so full on
returning from the South East Big Weekend Away that it got me so excited for
the incredible stuff the Lord has planned for us on impacting our university.
If you take anything away from this post let it be, get stuck into your CU,
I've met some of my closest friends there, they're great!
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