The Morgan-Gurrs

I was talking to the parent of a child who is diagnosed as on the autistic spectrum a few weeks ago. I asked her what her hopes and dreams were for him. One of the things she highlighted was “being given the opportunity to serve”. This particular little boy is very intelligent, has an amazing understanding of theology, and can explain it. And in a way that probably only he and God can understand, he has a real faith.

It does seem that in our churches, children are rarely given the opportunity to serve their church families – but for those who have a disability or additional need, the chance to serve is even rarer.

The mum I was talking to said that she would love to see her little boy’s Sunday teachers give him the opportunity to give out the biscuits, pour the squash, put away the chairs. Yes, he would need a little help, but it would do his self esteem a lot of good.

Another parent I spoke to was the mum of a teenager, also diagnosed as on the autistic spectrum. She thought a little differently. He was struggling to maintain his faith journey. He had a good understanding of his Bible, but needed fellowship. It was a much longer conversation, but it ended up with me suggesting he would be able to not only attend a bible study designed for those with his special needs, but he was more than capable of leading it himself. This idea was obviously a step too far for his mum. But why?

Who decides who can serve in our church families? I myself have a disability, and will rarely say how things are for me. This is because I know there will be someone who will wrongly assume that I am unable to continue my ministry because of it. This is obviously NOT the case. The only thing that sometimes stands in my way are issues of physical access.

Churches are doing better when it comes to ramps, accessible toilets, and lifts. But another ‘step’ to accessibility could be giving both children and grown ups who have disabilities or additional needs the chance to serve. Yes it’s scary, but it will also be a blessing.

We had our Family Foundation Trust board meeting on Monday night. Part of the agenda was to look at how Children Worldwide were doing. We raised the following question/comments: We carefully look at the cost of everything, we budget to the last penny and make sure we are being wise with the incredibly small resources we have.
But… Is there a time were the financial bottom line stands in the way of faith? Do we sometimes not step out with fresh ideas, vision and passion because of this so called “bottom line”?
Yes – it is wise to count the cost, but equally, we are often called to step out in faith.
We wonder how many Godly ideas fall flat at the first hurdle, called “the budget” because it’s too scary to step out in faith and trust God for what is needed.
What do you think?

It seems that when we are busy, the first thing to go is updating the blog! So, Kay is looking at ways to make updating a little easier when we’re on the move – just to make sure everyone is kept up to date with all the latest news and thoughts.
We’ve been busy with assemblies, meetings, consultancy, training etc, etc. But – we did manage to fit in a quick break in Hastings, where Kay managed to ignore her phone for a whole week! Steve on the other hand….. didn’t!
We are thankful for the quiet patience of house sitters (even though they did set the house alarm off last time – oops) making sure our house is kept safe during our many absences!
We do manage to keep the diary reasonably up to date, only the occasional last minute booking is missed off.

The book of memories given to Kay about Whizz Kids had many memories, but the latest, and by far the longest entry sums up Whizz Kids amazingly well. Here is an edited version for you to enjoy. (Those of you who have been a Whizz Kids leader will understand all too well!)

From Phil Munt:
I could go on and on………. 
In short, cut me open you will read Whizz Kids running through me like writing through a stick of rock. Whizz Kids has been one of the single greatest influences on me ever. I miss it.
 
Whizz Kids is the reason they all go (to Spring Harvest) in the end, and this chapter now follows a typical day.
A Spring Harvest morning is a morning you experience outside Spring Harvest – in which the weather is reminiscent of one experienced at the event it self. But this covers almost all weather except maybe decent snow. To step from your chalet on the first morning (day two) the first few seconds are formed by the weather. The harsh coldness but bright sunshine or the bitter wind mixed with heavy rain, all team members have been affected by the weather in some way. The feelings of excitement as you make your way to breakfast with old close friends or mixing the new team members and the warmth of the dinning hall. The jokes, the aspirations, fears and encouragement. The feeling of entering the venue, not for the first time, but for the first time as if in battle. The look on new peoples faces as the older experienced ones rush around putting the room together. The instant remembrance of the older team members as years of experience not called on for year jumps into action. All runs smoothly through team devotional time and team morning brief. Then there is that period of about forty minutes were if possible some will go to the big top and some will stay behind. The conversations and above all the feelings of excitement and anticipation about the start. Then you find you have been up since six thirty and it is now nine thirty, you wonder what you have done in those three hours. What you have done is contributed to the immense running of this team. Those last few minutes as you wait you see some run because they have forgotten something or that last minute drink or toilet break. In just a few minutes the room will be full and then you can not just sit back. The ten second count down, the moment you have waited for a year or since you applied. Those wonderful feelings as you know you can not and will never have the power to hold back time. The new team members faces which convey nerves but wonder at it all. And ONE!! OPEN THE DOORS! That is it; the next three hours and twenty minutes will be non-stop. The craft area sorting dozens of pieces of paper, shapes and straws. The admin people sorting the late registrations. The mouse corner awaiting it first ‘patients’. The floaters directing, running, carrying and being helpful. The clowns on ready for those signs to go up signifying who wants the toilet. Special needs helpers already getting busy with children. The security team controlling the doors and keeping the flow going. Then the core team controlling the whole event from the front.
     Then you find you are counting down ten seconds to one o’clock. In between you have sung, laughed, played games, got covered in glue, gone outside to play games, taken children to the toilet many times, run from end to end of the venue with items for teams, controlled the flow of children across a road, stopped people entering the venue, controlled people outside whilst controlling the children, played instruments, lead a band, helped an injured a child, been kept busy with a special needs child, clean up craft and controlled the team you have. You have just done day one at Whizz Kids. You have four more mornings and a fire drill to go. You are tired, but happy. You are in the best team. You are special. You are valued. You are important. You are able to Go For It! You are a Whizz Kids leader.

If you could ask God any question – what would it be? These are just a few of the questions the Whizz Kids asked at Spring Harvest. Whizz Kids are aged five to seven.

Some are funny, some profound, some sad.

How did you become King of Kings?

How did you make the lions roar?

Why did you make white and black people?

Why did you make the school?

Why did you make tarantulas?

What does Heaven look like?

God – Will You do your magic?

Why Is Afghanistan bad?

Why do mums get pregnant?

How Much power have you got?

When did Jesus know He had powers?

How does the world work?

Why are babies born with no hair?

When was God born?

How did you make rabbits?

Why did you die on the cross?

How does love come back?

Why are trees green and brown?

How many specks of dust are there?

Why did you make us?

Why does my papa have a bad brain?

Why are churches brown?

We’re back from three Spring Harvest weeks in Minehead, tired, but happy.

On weeks one and two, Kay was the special needs consultant – a very varied role in many ways! The highlight was to see youngsters with special needs sharing their testimonies of how God is working in their lives. Something that helped Kay to see why she does what she does. Steve was part of the team too – helping out where Kay couldn’t manage omni presence.

On Week three, we were running Whizz Kids, where we registered a lot more children than we were expecting. After some hasty re-planning, (running from from plan A all the way to plan G through out the week) the kids had a great time learning about God and having fun at the same time.

It was a huge challenge coping with the influx of children, but we had a superb team, and the wonderful, supportive help of the admin office on site.

It would be possible to write and write stuff about Spring Harvest, but we won’t. Do look back over our tweets and the Spring Harvest tweets, and you will get a flavour of the event.

In Whizz Kids we had an hour devoted to praying – the children spent 10 minutes at various prayer stations. The prayers and questions were amazing, showing a deep understanding, and questioning minds….. far beyond the understanding that many credit them with. We hope to put some photos on here later of some of those questions.

It was our thirteenth year of running Whizz Kids at Spring Harvest, and it will be Kay’s last. We will both still have oversight of Whizz Kids because we are general directors of Children Worldwide, but Kay will no longer do the day to day running of it. Steve will remain as deputy to the new coordinator – Sarah Covington.

The team were so kind in saying thankyou and goodbye to Kay – one of the Children Worldwide members (Thanks Helen!) put together a year book stuffed full of lovely comments and memories from Whizz Kids volunteers past and present – something to treasure!!

Unfortunately, the way our diary is working at the moment, we don’t have time to take much of a break to recover. So please pray for supernatural strength to do what we need to do in the next couple of weeks – you only have to look at our diary page to see what we are talking about! It may look as though we have had a week off, but we have been using that time to write reports and prepare for the week ahead (As well as answer a mountain of emails!)

Meanwhile – Here is a comment left on the blog by a parent:

“Just want to say a huge thank you for the brilliant time my daughter Bella had at WhizzKids. She has loved every day. She will be 8 next year so this was her last time with you guys  Keep up the good work and may God continue to bless children through your ministry. Huge thanks to you and all your team.”

We seem to have worn a path between Leicester and the south coast in the last two months! Not all of our trips made it onto the diary page – but if you’ve been following us on twitter, you will have seen what we’ve been up to. For now, we’ll just concentrate on two of the things we’ve done since our last blog:

The Hand in Hand conference was great! We had a lot of good conversations, met a lot of good friends and enjoyed the variety of everything that was going on. The exhibition had been extended this year – so too many opportunities to part with money!

The Children Worldwide conference was a hit – team from all over the country converging on the lovely Dalesdown Centre. Our theme was “Something to Celebrate”. We were celebrating the 20th anniversary of Dalesdown being open for guests, but also celebrating the work we do, us as human beings and the children we work with. We had party bags filled with goodies, a party with children’s party food (The candy worms in the jelly were a particular hit!), and a speaker who could speak to the members from the heart – encouraging them and building them up.

Coming up – we’ll be in Kidderminster this weekend doing the children’s work for a church from Oxford who are having their church weekend away. We’ll then be rushing back to make sure we are in time to give a short presentation about our work to our home church on Sunday evening.

Not long after that we’ll be handing the house back to our house sitters once again, and flying out to Latvia.

Keep checking the twitter updates on the right ➔

Oh dear – we do seem to be bad at updating our blog! But we try to keep the twitter updates going – viewable on the right –>

The European puppet and Creative Arts Ministry Festivals were great. We loved working with the One Way team – they were welcoming, friendly and a delight to be around. The seminars we did appeared to be well received too.

The Children Worldwide Management meetings went well – much was discussed, decisions were made…. and a lot of work created for us and our Dalesdown based team.

Kay’s Meeting in London (Spring Harvest 2012 consultation day) was worthwhile – we wait to see the results of much brainstorming!

This week we have two assemblies at a local school (St.Johns), and a church club at our own church. Then on Saturday we will be doing a training day for the Yorkshire School of Christian Ministry in Otley.

We do ‘tweet’ on twitter with regular updates, but if you’re more of a Facebook person, we have a Facebook page. If you ‘like’ the page, then you will get our updates in your news feed (with more info than you get on here, as the updates are often live!)

We went on holiday for the last two weeks of September, came back and hit the ground running! We’ve had so much going on we have barely had time to anything on our blog other than keep the twitter updated.

Things don’t seem to be quietening down yet either – we are busily preparing for the One way UK European puppet & creative Arts Ministry festivals in Derby and Wokingham, where we will be delivering five workshops at each venue. This will be rapidly followed by Children Worldwide management meetings at Dalesdown.

Do keep an eye on the twitter feed, or if you do Facebook – we have a page there too!

We’ve temporarily taken twitter off the blog, but hope to have it back on very soon. In the meantime, if you want to see our twitters, just open a twitter account and request to follow us: kaymorgangurr  or stevemorgangurr