An update on my exciting Internship year….
I am writing this blog to update you on the cross-cultural internship program I began in September 2022 with Unreached Network (which is a part of New Frontiers.) The Internship consists of a fortnightly lesson via zoom where we have the privilege of listening to guest speakers who share their stories, knowledge, and insights with us. These lessons are also always full of lots of prayer and support from beginning to end. The Holy Spirit is always very present as we learn together and as we learn from each other; He is moulding us to be of one heart and of one mind together in Christ Jesus.
Each month we have a book assigned to read and usually, the author will be one of our guest speakers during that month. I feel this has been truly valuable giving us the opportunity to discuss the book with them in detail and to hear the questions from others involved in the Internship and from the interns themselves. This is great for expanding your learning because we all have different ways of seeing things plus God speaks to us all in different ways. We have tasks and broadcast modules that are set monthly for us to complete, but they have been very kind by not putting pressure on us with deadlines but to complete them at our own pace.
The Internship also consists of a placement one day a week and for this, I am placed at Hope Church, Luton. As part of this, we are running children’s holiday events, with our next one coming up at Easter. We are still in need of volunteers for this so please do spread the word and if you feel prompted to get involved, please speak to me, or email me, we would be very grateful to have you on the team. At Christmas, we ran our first children’s holiday event. It was a success, we had a good turnout and we all had lots of fun together playing party games, getting creative with crafts, decorating biscuits, hearing the Christmas story, and acting it out.
Last year we began running a fortnightly drop-in homework club as another part of my placement at Hope Church. We had a family come regularly whom I was able to build a great friendship with and they introduced me to two other families whom I have also got to know well. A connection I have with the Luton Rotary club enabled me to take two of these families shopping for winter clothes, shoes, and school uniforms with money the Rotarians donated to the church for this purpose. I know they felt extremely blessed by the Rotary club’s generosity and support from Hope Church, not just with homework but the fact that they had somewhere warm and welcoming to come, away from the hotel accommodation, which they all describe as prisons. One week we opened up our kitchen for one of the families to cook, which they have no option to do in the hotel accommodation. This is something I would like to do more of but I would need more volunteers to make it happen on a regular basis.
Going forward we are changing the homework drop-in to a mums come and connect group at the earlier time of 1:30 pm – 3:30 pm on Tuesdays. The idea is to again open the church doors and welcome ladies and their children to a warm space away from the same four walls, somewhere they can meet other mums have a chat and feel love and support from people around them. Toys and games will be provided for the children and hot drinks and cake will be available. It would be very nice to get a team of ladies who love to chat and spend time with people on board for this! If you feel called to get involved please be encouraged to step out in faith, just come and speak to me.
I have continued to visit local families that Shirley and we as Hope Church had built good relationships with pre-Covid. This time spent reconnecting with them and strengthening our friendship has been such a pleasure for me and I always feel so blessed by them. The aim is still to establish a team of people here at Hope Church who will be part of reaching out to these friends and neighbours from other faiths and cultures. If you feel called to get involved in this please do contact me because we need people who genuinely want to give their time to build friendships with those who are not like themselves, to learn from each other, and to share life and our faiths respectfully together.
Summary:
- Thank you so much for all your ongoing support
- Pray for further success with the studies and also with the community relationships and projects
- Contact me on kristina.hopechurch@gmail.com if you’d like to get involved.
God bless you, Kristina Druce.
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