One of the great joys of living as part of the Ashburham Place community is being able to meet people at the beginning of their stay and then get to know them and to see how they develop during their time here. Todays blog post and share is from Christian from Italy, it was such a joy to see him change and grow in confidence in his time here.
* What stream of the Catalyst volunteer programme where you a part of?
I was a part of the Life Theology Stream,
* What did you learn during your time on the Catalyst programme?
During my Catalyst experience I had the chance to hear different point of views about different topics and reflect on them. I also had the chance during the Samoan Circle to talk with different people about all kinds of things, and I enjoyed it very much, it helped me to grow and to think about different things in different ways.
* Tell us about your final graduation project.
My final graduation was a speech about the Resurrection of Jesus; how important it was for the early Church and how I believe it is the foundation of the Christian faith.
* What are you doing now?
Now I’m still here in Ashburnham Place, but soon I’ll go home. I don’t know what I will do, although I’d like to be involved in a ministry of some sort. I’ll just trust God and see where He wants me to be. (written back in early January)
* Any advice or message for future volunteers?
My advice would be to try to interact as much as you can, because we have lots of different valid speakers, and you can ask questions about different topics, and it helps to grow and develop critical thinking. Also, participate in the Samoan Circles that we have, they are a good chance to discuss all kinds of hard questions and deep topics.
Just before Christian left to go home, he led one of the sessions at our Sunday breakout service and shared his testimony. It was such a lovely session and Christian said I could share with you all what he shared, as his learnings since being at Ashburnham Place.
- Be kind to one another. We all come from different countries and cultures and you never know what another person’s story is. You can pray for how to love the other person, and to give you patience.
- Talk less and listen more. I’ve learnt it is more important to listen than to have the right answer and the Bible has many verses that talk about our words and their power. So if you have a problem with someone, you need to go direct to them, rather than talking to others about it.
- It’s OK not to be OK. We as Church need to create a space to not be OK, to be honest, open and vulnerable with each other. As it says in Galatians, we can carry each other’s burdens.
- Be kind to myself. I must not beat myself up and it really helps to know that God think s I am worth dying on the cross for.
Many thanks for your candour and honesty Christian. We will be praying for you and your next steps.
