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A new school year brings new opportunities. This year Bridgebuilder will be BUSIER THAN EVER taking the Christian message into our Milton Keynes schools.
Last Update: 12 October, 2009
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Download our latest Bulletin - Summer 2009
It's Your Move Holiday Scripture Union Holiday is going to be
FANTASTIC this year! If your child is in Year 6 and
moving to secondary school in
September, this is the holiday for
them...a fun-packed, fast-moving 3 days
from 21st to 23rd July at the Chellington
Centre, Beds.
There will be giant
games, drama, sports, craft, film
making, a midnight feast hunt and
swimming! Celebrate the end of primary
school and explore the challenges,
changes and choices of secondary
school—and how Jesus can help you with
these.
Rachel is leading the holiday, and Gill is the
Booking Secretary—so contact Gill for a booking form.
Rachel received the Rising Star Achievement Certificate at Priory Rise School recently!—“This certificate is awardcd to Mrs Foster in recognition of her fantastic assemblies!”
Easter Cracked 2009 was EGGSTRAORDINARY!
Question—How many churches were involved? Answer—7
Question—How many schools were involved? Answer—28
Question—How many children attended? Answer—1,288
Here are some quotes from those involved:
“Thank you very much for coming in and working with
Year 6 on Easter Cracked. The children loved the fast pace
of the presentations and the staff enjoyed their Easter
eggs! The content helped explain in more detail our
current topic in RE. We realise that people gave up their
free time to come in and work with us and their effort is
very much appreciated.” Teacher, Olney Middle School.
“I wish I had brought my camera so that I would have a
more permanent record of the children’s absorbed,
fascinated and excited faces!” Teacher, Willen Primary.
“Had lots of fun, a fantastic way to become involved with
local schools, very enthusiastic kids, well received by
teachers.
Would recommend it to anyone to get involved—
you don’t have to be someone working with children on a
regular basis.” Mandy Eyeington, Presenter of Easter
Cracked @ New Life Church North.
X:Site...What is it?? It’s where MK
churches, in conjunction with
Scripture Union and Bridgebuilder
Trust, are coming together to launch
a bi-monthly event taking place on
Saturday evenings for children aged
7-11 years. X:Site MK will be launched in November this
year, and is a holiday club style programme which aims to
keep young people interested and involved in Christianity,
bringing churches together and developing young leaders
through the junior team (14-18yr olds) involved.
Rachel is in the process of getting a team of leaders together – young and old! Please contact her at the office if you or someone you know may be interested in getting involved.
Bridgebuilder Trust Representatives and Church Leaders’ Supper (hmmm... long title, but it’s a great evening with excellent food!—Ed.) is on Wednesday 30th September 2009. Do put the date in your diary—we would love to see you here at Bridge House, 7—9pm, and bring other folk from your church too! Invitations to follow.
Lots
of exciting things in
store in the summer
t e rm…a s s embl i e s ,
lessons, Synergy, the
MOUSE Team — lots to plan!
Last term was very busy...more schools
have been open to the positive
behaviour course I’m running, looking
at how to manage anger, self-esteem
and life issues. Plus we have started a
project with young people who have
been victims of bullying—they sit on a
forum and plan projects and make
decisions which will help educate and offer support to
others in their school on the issues of bullying.
Assemblies are going well with regular visits to many
schools...I like to use illustrations to help make a point—
we are constantly trying to find new and engaging ways to
reach students and give them something to remember.
I’ve discovered how much students appreciate anything
disgusting or embarrassing, so we pretend to eat cat food
in one assembly and, recently, when I was standing in a
queue with my husband, a boy shouted “You’re the girl
who eats cat food in our school—that was gross!” - so
embarrassing!!
Last term, Rachel, Tony and I went armed with props to Thornton College Independent School for Girls to deliver a day’s workshop with Year 9s on forgiveness. It went well and the girls were receptive; Thornton College is a Catholic school and we were able to express the Christian faith clearly and openly, which was wonderful. Straight afterwards, we ran an assembly planning workshop for the teachers with a great turn-out!
Thank you to all of our supporters who enable us to be so
busy with both schoolswork and youthwork—without your
prayerful and financial support this wouldn’t be possible.
I would also like to take this opportunity to thank all of
our Bridgebuilder volunteers. I joined the Biblos team
recently—what a valuable project it is! Our volunteers
give up so much of their precious time to serve God in and
out of schools and it is amazing to see. I would really like
to visit all our volunteers this term to see them in action!!
The spring term was fast, fun and full of variety. I’ve enjoyed developing relationships as a regular visitor in many schools, getting to know both pupils and staff.
Shrove Tuesday was a good excuse to make pancakes in an assembly at Chestnuts Primary School, although apologies needed to be made for the smell I left behind! I was to be found again with a frying pan in hand at the recent Bridgebuilder residential training weekend for Young Leaders...more overleaf!
The lead-up to Easter gave
wonderful opportunities to share
God’s amazing love and explain the
true message of Christianity. In
f ac t , I’ ve had l o ads o f
opportunities to talk about Jesus
and explain the Christian faith this
term through the many assemblies, RE lessons and drama
sessions I have been invited to do. I really enjoyed
joining the JesusQuest team in February and taking part
as the Time Traveller. They are a great team with a
really good project which the children clearly enjoy.
I
have been busy with preparations for Lifepath Elstow.
The event will take place on June 11th and 12th this year
and we will be looking at the life of John Bunyan and his
most famous book ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’. Please pray that
the children will be prompted to reflect and consider
their own lifepath—and also pray for good weather!
I already have lots of bookings for the summer term and
I’m looking forward to the MOUSE Project which will
take place in June/July. At the beginning of the summer
holidays I am leading a Scripture Union holiday called
‘It’s Your Move’ – for year 6s moving up to year 7. There
is still a lot of preparation to do! Please pray for the
young people who will be coming and for myself and the
team as we prepare and plan.
Thank you to all who supported me at my recent commissioning service and to all who support us in our work in schools.
This summer term I hope to continue doing about three assemblies a week. This is less than usual because of the joys for Alex and I of adjusting to being parents! You are welcome to observe an assembly with or without the view of learning to use the SKETCHBOARD yourself! Please contact Gill for my dates.
It’s been a brilliant eight months with Bridgebuilder so far! Time has gone so quickly, but it has been a time of vast learning and lots of experience gained. I have come out of the spring term with three Emulates running on a weekly basis with good numbers and regular faces in attendance. I never cease to be amazed by the young people’s willingness to come and hear about God.
Highlights over the last term have definitely got to
be our residential to Chellington (more about this below)
and our regular assemblies in which I either fake eating
cat food, get a pie in the face (see the pic just above for
evidence) or tell an embarrassing story about myself...
The most surreal moment of the term was being in the office gutting oysters for an assembly while Gill cringed and took pictures. Looking ahead to this term I am really looking forward to Lifepath (where I will play John Bunyan for the day), MOUSE Team and the It’s Your Move holiday which follows.
Finally, I thought this would be a good time to tell those who don’t know that I’ve been accepted into university to study youth ministry which, God willing, means I’ll be at Bridgebuilder for the next three years. Thank you for your prayers and support!
Carolyn reports that God has opened up doorways into five new schools; this is a very exciting prospect and a great answer to prayer. It’s a full programme now until the start of the summer:
Linda and the JQ Team have been busy with their visits to schools across MK. They visited one school and were delighted to receive thank you letters (and drawings!) from many of the children—see below!
“Thank you for coming and teaching us about Jesus. I had lots of fun!” “I want to say thank you for
giving up some of your time and coming to our school.” “Do you go round the world doing stuff about
Jesus?” “Thank you all for making my day fantastic.” “I learnt a lot although I am already a Christian!”
“I really liked the game because you could answer loads of fun questions about Jesus and his very interesting life.”
“Bridgebuilders, I was so happy that you came today—I really had fun with the activities.”
“You were fabulous at telling us what we need to know about Jesus when he was in Jerusalem.”
“The best prop was the computer—it looked so real and it made so much funny music.” “This
might sound a bit silly, but I really want one of those computer things, so if you can, could
you get me one please?” “I loved the DVD about all of Jesus’ amazing miracles.” “I am glad
that you came because I missed some of the lessons that I do not like that much.” “Thank you
for coming in to our school and spending your time to teach about God and Jesus—now that’s
what I personally would think of as being a true Christian!” “I learnt a lot about Jesus.” “It was
great fun getting to know you all.” “I thought the quiz was excellent!”
If you want to help Year 4 children in MK schools learn more about Jesus, contact contact Gill in the office.
We are looking for some young people in either
school years 11 or 13 to come on board for this
year’s MOUSE Team. It’s going to be a
fantastic experience—team members will have
a week’s worth of training (starting Monday
22nd June) where they will look at schools
work, building confidence, public speaking and much more
(including some more relaxing stuff too!). Following on
from this, Bridgebuilder will run two consecutive teams
of MICE for a fortnight (starting Monday 29th June),
taking a road-show style presentation into schools for Year 6 students who are looking at moving up to
secondary school. The MOUSE Team ends with a
celebration meal (and awards!) on Friday 10th July.
For more information or for an application form, contact Rosie by telephone or e-mail.
'Bridgebuilder is Environmentally Aware!'
Bridgebuilder are now recognised as an organisation that supports Fairtrade in Milton Keynes – we offer Fairtrade tea, coffee and hot chocolate, and use environmentally friendly washing up liquid in our kitchen!
We are also rather too fond of Fairtrade chocolate brownies…
We have also introduced a compost system (which Gill empties weekly into her compost bin at home!) and we have been recycling our waste wherever we can for some time now.
