Hi there.

Thank you to the 6 folk who have signed up to my blog. Sorry its late. Went on an encounter weekend. Little time to write.

I have been a naughty boy. I left the heating on in the bus for 4 days! It was very hot when I got in. Not good. The wood veneer on the bar is cracked because it dried out! Hope no one notices. Also our lovely table that folds out has prematurely bowed. I wonder when folk will notice? Actually, that was what it was like when I went first. But then I went back later today and found that the table is now re hydrated and straight and the veneer has swelled again and looks ok! Filled her up with fuel- 115ltrs!!! I couldn’t believe it when I filled her up. I figured out that I had the heating on for 90 hours. And it used up about 85 ltres. Which means that it uses a ltre an hour and costs 85p an hour to heat at half power. An expensive calculation!

What a day so far. Started with prayer meeting. Fantastic. What a difference it makes starting a prayer meeting with worship songs. We prayed for our upcoming encounter weekend.

Our plans to use the bus in Dumbidykes are not straightforward. We wanted to go there tonight. Just got permission from the council to park in the turning circle for the fire engines! But the problem is that my friend wants to do it as part of a community IT centre near by. I think it would do them and us a disservice by doing a joint thing because it would associate us with them and it might be awkward for them in the future. Who would have thought going out and telling children about Jesus could be so complicated!

I wanted to go sit in the bus and pray for a while and fiddle, but no. I had to prepare SU club a bit more and then began the quest to build a collapsible cross. I used to have one but I mislaid it. Went to Jewsons and bought some 6x2 and started a last min cross construction- see photos. It is essentially a flat pack cross. I really wanted to do it with the kids at SU.

SU club- we had 42 kids! They just kept coming. It started with the usual 10-12 but they just kept coming from lunch. We watched Alsan coming back to life again and the battle scene. It’s a bit like watching the “A Team” where lots of fighting and shooting but no blood! They enjoyed the battle scene. There are a lot of boys in the club- a fair split – which is good.
I did the bridge diagram with them and tied it into the Narnia story. To cut a long preach time short- yes- they stayed there and listened to me talk for 15 min! Can you believe it? 15 min. I can hardly. I have run a club where we had 8 kids and it would take you the whole hour and half to get a chance to say “Jesus loves you” without one of them acting out “boring” or hitting each other. But the down side is you spend years wishing you could just get the chance to speak the good news to some kids if they would sit and listen for 5 min. Then they do! For 15 min! Then while I was talking the terrifying thought hit me. Is this making sense to them? Is this just going to get them confused? What are they going to say to there parents? What might there parents say to me? Is this too up front talking about the cross? How do you say this so that the kids don’t just get all religious? What will the head teacher say? What do you say? What do you say to help them have a real living relationship with God? Are my assistants impassive faces agreeing or are they worried? Am I paranoid?

With these thoughts going on whilst simultaneously telling them that God loves them and died on the cross for them. I then asked them if they would like Gods love in them. Then a forest of wonderful little hands shot in the air.

So we did a wee practical prayer. The cross I made had lots of love heart Post-its stuck on it and they were to take a yellow post it (their life) and give it to Jesus by swapping it for His love (Heart post-its). They liked it.

I did say to them, as a disclaimer, that it takes a lifetime to understand what Jesus did on the cross and that God wants us to take the time to find out.

They came back for more love heart post-its. The boys as well! They then went away into their lessons wearing them on their chests proudly. Brilliant. I adore them. They crack me up.

They are great. A girl came up to me and said “Is it true that you only go to heaven if you believe in Jesus”. It was clearly a situation where her and her friend had been discussing and I was now the final authority. It’s amazing how hard it is to say “yes”. Why? I have no problem saying it to an adult but a child? Why? Because they believe you because you’ve said so. I didn’t want to say yes! Why? Because I want them to discover for them selves. But if its not preached how will they know? So I said yes. This kind of behaviour would not be alloed in an American school. Ironic.

Bottom line- having gone from 2 years of toiling with a cell group of 8 children to 2 groups one with 40 and the other with 18 and all of them willing to listen and sucking it all in, it’s a total cultural change.

I am having to change my approach from “oh, yes, a moment of calm where they are listening, I must explain the whole of the gospel in 2 min. I may never get this chance again!” to a place where I need to chill out a bit. I am moving to a place where “They want to listen??!!! Ok, lets take time to add one more part to their understanding and experience of the cross”.

I had a long talk after this with one of the parents about new age stuff and her obvious healing gift and prophetic gift and how she might like coming to our supernatural Sundays to see how we use our spiritual gifts in the church as opposed to the new age. Great chat. I have a lot of respect for people who don’t believe what you believe but still take time to listen and discuss. Respect. I was like that when I was seeking. I am on a journey of regaining that but still holding on to the truth.

Came home did more prep for the cell group session on the bus.

Got there just on time. Jo (my wife and assistant cell leader)

was playing Narnia tig with them. We watched the rest of Narnia and did the bridge picture with them. Again we had a 15 min talk from me!! And then a 10 min discussion. I told them that it’s like they have an uncle in Australia who has died and left them a million pounds but that they need to swap what’s in their bank account with what’s in his. It’s a swap not an add on.

Well, all the kids went and swapped everything they had with everything God had by taking a yellow post-it and sticking it on the cross (Their stuff) and taking a red heart (Gods stuff). Wonderful mayhem around the cross.

Before and After:

Then we all belted outside and played Narnia tig

repeatedly. I still wonder “Do they really mean it? Do they understand what they are doing?” Well, I recon I will just have to keep trusting God as usual!

Well, that’s all folks for this week. The cross preached to 60 kids. It feels like a rare day - well spent.
With Love Darius.

The Thursday Adventure

So what happened this Thursday 8th March?
7am Had a prayer time with the guys in our Tranent Church flat blessing the church in Tranent.
8am Men's Breakfast. Talked to a friend about how we could use the bus in his area of Dumbiedykes and decided to do a video project on the bus between 6 and 7pm on Thursdays. A little bit of a scary because I don't know the kids and it is a rough area.


12.30pm Lunchtime SU club for P5,6,7 that a few of my friends and I do. We had 28 children in the hall this week. I used a great kids programme built around the new Lion the Witch and The Wardrobe film. It's Fantastic! Very hard to find on the web. This is it: http://www.outreach.com/print/articlef.asp?article_name=p-narniacurriculumpdf&sid=43F11D803E17F
We played Narnia tig. They love it. We watched the clip of Aslan being killed. Then we had a talk about Jesus dying for us and for the first time we prayed and said sorry for the bad things we had done and asked to feel Gods love. This is nearly the end of our “Meet the Real Lion” Narnia series. The kids are loving it. About 1/5 of them haven't seen the film. It was great, the boys don't giggle thinking the praying is silly. They quietly closed their eyes and repeated the prayer I led them in. It really felt like they meant it and were reaching out for God. I felt a bit choked up actually. Had the headmistress in checking out what we do for a short while- a bit scary- even though she is totally behind us and is fantastic.


1.30pm Went home and updated our GenerationX (The Name of my children's cell)“Bus Passes”. They really help me remember the kids names and I have been flicking through them and pray for them when I see their faces. The effort is paying off. Hard work though.


2.30pm I went to see my pal who has created a board game and played it. I can now see why he likes it so much because it is very good. Kind of like souped up risk but quicker- a good thing.


4 pm I went to the bus and got it out the compound and belted over to the road (47 MPH down the bypass) outside StonyHill community centre and got there just in time for 4.30. There were about 15 kids standing their waiting. When they saw the bus they said “ is that our bus?” because it looked so scabby! They had only seen it in the dark. The inside is finished but the outside isn't, so it looks pretty old and scabby.
We played Narnia tig with them. I follow the same program as the SU club. Watched the film in the cinema. Its great to see them sprawled out over all the beanbags in the top floor den watching the film on the massive screen with the volume on loud.
The programme has this cool game where there are 20 cards rolled up in balloons. They burst them get the card and match it with someone else. 10 cards map out the story of Narnia and then another 10 map out the corresponding story in the real world: Alsan Lord; Jesus Lord, Edmund tempted;we tempted, Witch lied;Devil lied, Edmund had to Die;we have to die, Aslan swapped with him;Jesus swaps with us, Alan rose;Jesus rose, Alan freed statues;Jesus frees us, Aslan destroy evil, Jesus destroy evil, Aslan crowns;Jesus crowns us etc
Brilliant! Really helps the kids get the progression and relate to it.


We had a lot of questions about “is Jesus the only way?”. It's really hard to be unequivocal and still stay focused on the point that Gods love is for us. The best bit though was this: I said “well, lets pray and speak to God and see what he does”. So we closed our eyes and I led them in a prayer that kind of went “ God we want to know you. We want to know the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. We don't just want to believe what Darius says just because he says it(a little surprised laughter), we want to know it from you. Please help us know you.” Lots of them prayed it out. A few giggles from some embarrassed boys but on the whole they stayed focused on God. Then we had a bit of time where they were quiet and waited for God to touch them. He did, I knew he would. His answerer to all our questions is simply: Him. I asked for a show of hands of those who felt something happen. Its amazing what can happen in just one minute of prayer. Unfortunately I didn't have time to ask them all what happened. I asked a new kid what he felt. He said “I felt sparkly inside”. I think that is just about the best description of how I feel when I feel God touch me. Fantastic. We made a real breakthrough. We've gone from the “I'm going to teach you something” stage to the “Now you know enough to discuss, lets talk about it” stage.


Well after that, filled the bus up. 100 litres of fuel! £90. Takes a while.
That evening I parked it up in Macmerry and chilled out with a pal on the bus and talked about life the universe and everything. This time was the highlight of the day. He's not a Christian but simply wants to live life deliberately and not just drift along. We talk about getting in the “Zone” a lot. (That place in sport where everything just seems to flow and go well and time slows down.) We have a time where its kind of like a conversation club. We both just talk about life but drill down through the superficial to the deep issues of life like trust and love, how is it in the real world not just in theory. It's a place for me where I can share my faith with someone in a casual deep way without feeling that I need to fix up my friend and sort him out. Its like he's on his way and so am I and lets trust God to guide us. The bus really swayed around a lot in the high wind. It was like being on a boat. I'm glad we paid 4k to put the heating in. It was worth it. The night was cold and it rumbled on on low keeping us comfortable. Noisy though. With hind sight I might have put it in the back of the bus out the way.


Locked the bus up at 12.20am and went home.


One and a half years of dreaming about using a bus like this for outreach is starting to come to pass. Thanks God.
I'll tell you how next week goes.