Almost there!

Hey Everyone, 

The weeks are going by so quickly now - I can't believe I'll be back in less than 5 weeks.

May has been a good month and along with working with the students at church and schools we have been able to do some other fun things to. 

#BASEBALL

I got to go to my first baseball game! Many people told me it was going to be boring and that I'd want to leave way before the end. BUT I loved it! Granted, it isn't the most exciting sport for most of the game and it doesn't have a time limit but it's pretty cool when you know the rules. So after I spent about an hour asking questions and Googling the rules I enjoyed the game. 

My second #Baseball game!

#SCHOOL

The academic year ends in May here so we had our final lessons at school last week :( 

 Teaching in the schools and getting to know the students has been the best part of m my year. I've really enjoyed getting to know them all and will miss them a lot. 

My favourite lesson that we taught this year was focussed on inspiring them to be change. We got them all to write speeches about situations and issues they would like to see change in and it was amazing!! Some of them took it really seriously and put a lot of passion and hard work into wiring and delivering their speeches. 

This is a little video my team and I made about our time at one of our schools.

Video can also be found here: https://www.facebook.com/PaisFortWorth/videos/vb.425754394132997/905213062853792/?type=1&theater

#MAYFEST

Mayfest is an annual festival with the purpose of raising funds to support community programmes. We went along with a few of our students who were volunteering there after school. There was lots of different art there and cool things to see. 

The funniest part was me trying to tackle a Texan turkey leg!!! It tasted really good and I thought I was going to get through all of it but I only managed about a third of it!

 #THUNDERSTORMS  So this has been the weather forecast for the past 6 weeks!

Fine during the day and crazy at night. These thunderstorms don't play. The lighting is SO bright and isn't the one quick camera flash type I am used to - instead it's like 5 flashes at once. And the thunder is so loud that you can feel it shaking the house!! No joke!

#SWAPLUNCHEON
Swap Luncheon happens once a month and is a chance for us to catch up with the other teams in the area and swap stories and ideas. 

We had our last one this month and it was great to share what God has done through us this year and to hear the wonderful stories of God's work from the other teams. 

Well folks that's it for now - there has been more but I need to save the rest so that I have something to tell you in person haha. 

I'm really looking forward to coming home but it'll be really sad saying bye to all the people I've met here. 

#THANKYOU

I really appreciate all the support y'all have given me since I've been out here with financial support, Skype calls, messages of encouragement and just checking in to see how I'm doing. I'm so looking forward to seeing everyone in the summer!

#PLEASEPRAY

Please pray that we will be intentional with all the time we have left here with conversations and all the activities we have planned. Also please pray that these insects stop biting me!!

See you all soon!

God Bless

Tess

Blue Skies

Sunset: Often my view while driving home.

Hey Everyone!

I hope you all enjoyed the Easter break and got some rest. Good Friday and Easter Monday are not public holidays here in our district so it was business as usual for us. 

#HeatingUp| It's Spring now and Spring in Texas is like Summer in England with average temperatures of 26 degrees daily. So this is the time we enjoy before it gets really hot and humid! 

#LoveInvasion| Spring break was at the beginning of March and we hosted a youth camp! We had about 70 kids from 3 different church youth groups staying at the church campus for a week (yep day and night!) It was a great week filled with games, laughs, bible studies and serving the community. 

We were split into 7 small groups and went out each day to different community projects. My favourite day was when we went to the North Texas Food Bank. They help feed millions of people in need each year and are mainly supported by volunteers. 

Assembly line: putting together packs for underprivileged children.

#BasketballChurch| I've spoken about basketball church before. It's a ministry that a man called Ralph started - we call him Uncle Ralph. He started it about 20 years ago and every Thursday and Friday night he has about 40 young men come and play basketball at the church. His wife provides dinner and he does a bible study midway through the night. We have been able to help out with this ministry and get to know all the students on Friday night (High school night). Teaching a room full on high school boys has its challenges but I had a good time as I led the lesson last Friday. 

Uncle Ralph's latest initiative is to get the students to memorise a bible verse each week in order to get a drink. No verse no drink. As a result almost all the students have memorised 3-4 bible verses so far and some many more.

Uncle Ralph holding up my sheet of memorised verses ;)

#JapaneseGardens| One of the youth leaders from church took our team out for a day of sightseeing in west and downtown Fort Worth. We discovered many new things to do especially with the weather being nice again. He took us to the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens which spans over 109 acres - that's 55ish football pitches!! There were so many different types of plants, trees and even some fish.

#SchoolLessons| We've doubled the amount of teaching we do! We now teach 16 different groups of students each month. It's going very well and we are building much better relationships with the students. 
We teach in public schools and are not allowed to openly talk about God. However, all the lessons we teach are based on biblical principles and morals and are designed to challenge the students and equip them with the tools to make better decisions as they go through high school and onto college.
 Recently we taught a lesson on the 'Fruits of a healthy lifestyle'.

#FoodiePics|This week I really wanted some fat 'chip shop' chips so I decided to make my own! 

Tessa's Homemade Chips 

They tasted good BUT as my good friend reminded me - They will NEVER taste the same haha!!

Other than my amazing homemade chips I also had a really good cheesecake a few weeks ago :)

#PleasePray| We have many students at the church who come from broken homes and face an array of other challenges that we sometimes don't find out about for a while. Please be praying for us to have the wisdom to know what questions to ask and when to ask them.
Also, please pray for my team (Lucas, Jan, Anna-Lena and I) as God leads us all onto our next adventures. Pray for boldness and courage in all our decisions. 

Love you all very much and miss you loads!! 

God Bless
Tess

The One With All The Snow

Hey Everyone!

It's been a while - hope you are all doing well!!

The last time I updated you all was back before Christmas and a lot has happened since then. 

#Adventures| Over the Christmas/New Years break I was able to go to New Jersey, New York and Canada. I had a really great time and got to see and do things that I've always wanted to. My favourite thing from New York was walking across the Brooklyn Bridge. The view was wonderful and I could see out across the river and see the Liberty Island where the Statue of Liberty stands. 

  

While in Canada I went to see Niagara Falls. Beautiful. Just seeing the magnitude of it all was breathtaking. 

The coolest thing were the rainbows that kept appearing, disappearing and reappearing again in different positions. They would appear for a minute or less and then slowly fade away.

It was really cold when we went and so a lot of the shallow parts had frozen over and there were lots of dangerous looking icicles.

#Food| Of course I had to try some new food while I was on my travels. The first was slice of New York City pizza. Okay granted this isn't really a 'new type' of food but it was definitely the best slice of pizza I've ever had. I don't know what they do to make it taste so good but it works!

The second was a dish called 'Poutine' which is really popular in Canada. Essentially it is chips, gravy and cheese. I didn't like it. But I'm glad I tried it :) 

#Weather| So this has been the most unusual week of weather in Texas since I got here. We went from 20 degrees celsius and sunny skies to -3 degree with snow and ice in just a couple of days. Now back home a little bit of ice, snow and rain never hurt anybody - the exact opposite is true here! Texas wasn't built to handle this kind of weather. The type of tyres on cars, not much drainage on main roads and minimal grit laying services can be a recipe for disaster. So whenever snow or ice is forecast the local schools close for the safety of their students. There were around 250 car accidents last week due to the weather conditions. Thankfully none were fatal, however many cars were written off and abandoned road side. 

On a happier note - I enjoyed seeing the snow :) 

#Compassion| City On A Hill (the church I'm at) have a lot of connection with Compassion International, the organisation that raise sponsorship for children living in poverty around the world. The church has been sponsoring children for many years and currently sponsor over 100 children in Kenya. Compassion International have what they call a Compassion Experience which is a large truck that tours across the states giving people an experience of what it is like for the children living in poverty. City On A Hill were privilege to be the host location for the Texas part of the tour. The inside of the truck was set up to look like two different compassion locations, Bolivia and Kenya. Walking through the truck provided you with an insight into what life is like for two children who have been sponsored through compassion. It was great helping out with the experience and bringing students from one of the schools we work at to be part of it. For more info on this, check out their website: www.compassion.com.

#Prayers| Please pray for the students at the church. Many of them have had rough starts to life and are struggle with different things. Sadly on of our seniors (17yrs) attempted to commit suicide three weeks ago. He has recovered physically now. Please pray for him, for God to renew his mind and heal him in every way he needs healing. 

Please also pray for the general health of our students as we have another student who has been in hospital for a while now battling an illness that it took a while for the doctors to diagnose.

We really appreciate all your prayers. 

#Funny Moment| We had our first lessons in a new school we are working in this week. As we were introducing ourselves to the students one of the girls heard I was from London and ask to hug me! #SmallTimeCeleb

Until next time folks! Oh yh - I'm back in less than four months :-D

Lots of love 

God Bless

Tess

#MoreNYCSnaps|