So this is what we came up with:

It was then I realised I had forgotten my desire to see the children in Bonnyrigg on the bus. It is awesome how God fulfils dreams, even dreams that have died or that we have forgotten.
I know it’s only a small step, but its good to be doing children’s work that is not simply crowd control or entertaining them but is about building good relationships where we can freely share good news in a practical way by praying for their challenges. Week 1 was a bit of a dry run (2 people came). Week 2, word started to get out (12 People came).

It was week 3 this Monday. I was really nervous. Would they come? Have I got everything together? It took me 90 min to get the bus to the site. But when I arrived there was a possy of 4 kids waiting with their "tickets" (signed consent forms) to get on. (Its good to have the whole child protection system working well. It gives as sense of security for us as leaders) Then a crowd of 24 kids got on throughout the various 4 sessions of the night between 6 and 9.15pm.
We had a time together where we watched the fathers love letter on the big screen. Had loud music, popped balloons. Talked about perfect fathers. I asked them if they prayed and they told me that they prayed for their dead Nana’s grandparents and relatives to come back because they missed them! Later we watched the story of the guy who was raised from the dead after being stung by Box jellyfish- Ian Macormack

They were a bit cheeky with the whole God stuff but they listened because they knew they would get juice, popcorn and get to play on the bus if they did. It was nice when we all prayed together at the end and asked God to fill their hearts with his love and fill that space that was left by the death of their relatives.

Later I heard them talking to some people passing outside who were thinking aobut coming aboard (12-13yr) and them saying "yeh, its God stuff but its not that bad and its over quick". They ended up going home getting consent forms and coming aboard.

We had a great time. One group coloured in upstairs, another watched a video, another played singstar and another played Uno. They all found a place to settle and locked into the activity and we had a great time.

Our aim is to do as little crowd control as possible and as little activity organising a possible so that we can join in with the games, chat and chill out together.

I hope we can capitalise on the initial wave of interest and enthusiasm and keep them coming and engaged. We will see, God willing. We are finding our feet but it worked. It was really fantastic. We had 24 different people aboard and spent good time with each other.

The highlight for me was Jen and Debbie told me that they had prayed for a boy last week who gets recurring headaches. So I asked him this week about his head. And he told me about being defibrillated twice in hospital a year ago and how he has had bad headaches throughout the week for the last 6 months or so. I asked him if he had any headaches last week. And he said no. (this is all while he is staring intently at the screen whilst playing colin macra rally 3)
I said "well that’s an answer to prayer."
And he said "what do you mean?"
I said "well, Jen and debbie prayed for you didn’t they? And now you’ve not had any headaches for a week."
He said, "did they? I don’t remember them praying for me."
I asked Debbie across the bus. And she said that they had prayed after the folk had left the bus –he didn’t know!
So I told him that we had prayed for his headaches to go away the previous week. And now this was the first week in over 6 months that he had no headaches. I asked if I could pray for him to have another week free of headaches. And told him if he felt one coming on he should say "go away in Jesus name". So after practising it he said he would do that. So watch this space.
With Love Darius