Warehouse Thurs., 7 p.m.

Parkside Sun., 9:45 a.m.

Whitby 2007

On June 15, 2007 a team of eight students and five leaders embarked to Whitby, England. I was one of them. Our purpose: to serve the members of Whitby Evangelical Church both physically and relationally and to partner with them in reaching out to its community.

Since schools are required a certain amount of religious teaching in England, we had the opportunity to go into several local schools and share the Gospel through songs and skits. In the evenings we helped setup and participate in various events:

A Work Day
- where we completed a few projects around the church, such as painting.

A Sport’s Night
- where we played table tennis, darts, pool, carpet ball, badminton and sports trivia and two members from our team gave their testimonies.

A Church-wide prayer meeting
-where we prayed for upcoming events, ill members and people to put their trust in Christ.

A Craft Night
- where the ladies made cards, jewelry and decorative flowers and another team member gave her testimony.

Family fun day
- where we invited the school kids and their parents to come play games, get their faces painted, sing songs and listen to a story from the Bible.

Multiple Youth Nights
- where we had games, songs and a lesson for kids ages 6-10 as well as middle school & high school age teens.

Through the various events I was amazed at how much the members of the church desired to show Christ’s love to their neighbors! They were willing to go out of their way and go out of their comfort zones in order to build relationships, so that unbelieving people would become committed followers of Jesus Christ. I felt encouraged and convicted because although I claim to follow Christ, am I defined by Him? Am I entirely focused on bringing people I daily come in contact with to Jesus Christ?

Over the course of the trip, I was also reminded to find contentment in Christ alone and to stop trying to be my own god. If I totally trust Him, I know He will work out His plan and purpose for His glory. The only constant in life is God’s faithfulness and His promises.

Ultimately, He is the only thing that can bond people of all ages, races and backgrounds. So, whether in Whitby, England or Cleveland, Ohio “Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, because He who promised is faithful.” (Hebrews 10:23)

Allison R.

2 Responses to “Whitby 2007”

1. Keith Schmader Says:
   January 31st, 2008 at 10:44 pm

   Isn’t there supposed to be a video documenting our trip to Whitby sometime soon?

2. Jason Bibza Says:
   February 4th, 2008 at 9:26 pm

   Nah, we just had some kid take a bunch of footage to keep him busy. We told him there he was “making a movie”, and he was off to work!!!

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