STF London 2010: 2010

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

UPDATE!... read all about it

just a quick report on the team changes...

the boys have left us to join jono and dale rose for two weeks of fundraising

and now the girls have taken over (with the addition of kayo for a few days)

leaving daniel to go crazy

Hello fellow participants of the special task force, its a pleasure to commune with you all on this fine day. I'm sitting here in the alcove of Lancaster Gate with the banal, grey sky as my backdrop and super Christine Brown as my companion. My teamleader asked me to write and in turn reflect about my two week fundraising experience in Denmark.

These are some words that pop into my mind when I think back to my time in Scandinavia...

landscapes, ocean, sunset, sunrise, volkswagen, jono, beach, kick ups, fuses busting, birthday, legoland, tall, blonde, blue eyes, stereotype being reality, krones, suncatcher, capice seashells, barbeque, 3 day challenge, ben, tim, jacob, jonna, anna, abi, freaky boy, quick rejections, challenge day, team building, president, faith run, sauna, support, care, responsibility, ownership, leadership, europa park...

Although these words are an insufficient description of my two week condition, they hold a lot of incredible memories for me. I take a lot with me from my time in Denmark in fact I'm still digesting everything that happened. Two weeks is of course quite a short period in relation to the year we dedicate to our spiritual growth so I cant say in this time that I was 100% spiritually enlightened but I came away from it with clarity of thought and purpose, and that is something incredibly precious.

Sorry there are no photos to stimulate your imagination but hopefully you could get some idea of my Danish experience.

Hows everyone doing by the way? Feel free to comment and let us know.

Much love

Joy and team London

Friday, May 14, 2010

Parents' Workshop

In the first week of April, we joined the other STF teams for the Parents' workshop. The workshop was a chance for participants to share their experiences with their parents, and vice versa.

I personally thought it was a cool workshop even though it was a bit short...the location was nice, the food was nice, it was a good break after an (always stressful) fundraising condition... But MORE IMPORTANTLY, it was good just to see my Dad again after what seemed like a long time apart and, more than that, to talk over some things and hopefully deepen our relationship a bit. I guess a lot of others had many things they wanted to speak to their parents about too, after everything they've been going through. Listening to the testimonies of both Second and First Generation, it was moving to see that people were able to come closer to and understand and appreciate their parents more deeply through STF... after all, we are going through many of the same things that they went through and trying to inherit a faith that is precious to them.

We had a family evening on the first night, with entertainment from both the parents and the STFers. A lot of it had been kind of hurriedly prepared, so the performances weren't perfectly polished but they were passionately delivered (and some were hilarious) and there was a really warm atmosphere. Later in the workshop, as I already mentioned, we also heard testimonies from both parents and participants, and it was touching to hear some of the experiences and breakthroughs people have had. Later on, we also watched the witnessing video my brother, Philip, made and I was really impressed by the video itself and also how much passion he'd put into it. It was cool to get a snippet of what witnessing was like in each country...

It was nice to see the rest of STF again and see their parents for the first time too... even though the team was kinda scared of my Dad for some reason. But I guess for me the main thing was to be able to talk to my Dad and give him a hug, and to hear about the rest of my family...