ROADHOG UPDATE - 30th September 2011
August was a very quiet month because the project closes for two weeks. The visits we went to found not many young people out and about. It was a good month to have the time to rest and be refreshed.
Bus Maintenance: The heating system and screen washer motor are now working. The rear tail light stopped working on the day of our visit to Holland Fen. This has now been temporarily repaired and looking for a replacement connecter. Stagecoach honoured their promise to fit a new throttle valve and the spare valve has been returned to Mervyn Greatrix. We are just about to buy the equipment to improve ventilation in the control cupboard, heating on the rear top deck and ventilation in the prayer room. The rear top lights are 80% fitted. The quality of cleaning the bus remains very high. I am in need of another person to help to the routine checks as Kurt is unable to help now. We approached Richard Hardy Farms about parking the bus in one of their buildings, but with little success. Therefore, our only option this winter is the disused barn behind Leverton. Parking there will add an extra 28 miles to our two week operations and an extra hour driving time, plus the additional time getting there. We would park it there (provided the early arctic weather doesn’t come again) from 20th December for 9 weeks. We would need to resolve the issue of access to fresh water.
Schools Work: Our schools work is ticking over. We are now booked in to William Lovell working with year 7 and year 8 pupils. We will also support a Christian Union there. Need to send some emails to Haven High and the Giles Academy.
Community visits: Our community visits have been a lot more relaxed, with the odd evening when we have to confront unacceptable behaviour. Each team is doing well to hold the ground and not the very small minority spoil it for the majority who appreciate and value our support to them. We have introduced the “God Slot” to Wrangle and Sibsey. This is slow progress, but progress. The bus volunteers continue to connect with the young people and we have had many good conversations with young people.
The bus visited Butterwick on the 26th September. We had an excellent evening with 21 young people coming on board and equal number of parents, church members and from Butterwick. Our wheel chair access was used for the first time and the young person felt very comfortable in the lounge. We had quite a heated discussion after as one current bus volunteer wants the bus to visit regularly, but we have three hurdles to overcome 1) For Butterwick church to provide enough volunteers for the visit to be sustainable 2) That a Butterwick visit (Route 709) would not weaken the Fishtoft team (currently 4 help from Freiston and Butterwick) and 3) The project can gain extra capacity by some visits having a driver and a deputy to free Tony to support them.
We have had 56 responses to the “Beyond the bus” event with 34 coming (2 coming for only ½), 16 not coming, 6 unsure. We have no replies from 11.
Administration: Our monthly ticket donations have increased to 85 per month, but our target remains 150 per month. We await a response for grant applications for £2500 from the Co-operative and £6000 from Nat West Bank. Maintaining our Child Protection paper work is an ongoing job, Langley (LYM Director) is aware of outstanding paperwork required for LYM volunteers. Charlotte Doddrell has gone to university and handed her resignation from the Steering Group. In August, 90% of Youth Missioners time was spent on annual holiday, bus maintenance and administration and 10% was used on direct time spent on bus visits.
ROADHOG AND NATWEST COMMUNITY FORCE
The RoadHog Bus Project will benefit by up to £6,000 if you have a NatWest account and vote for it.
Register your interest and then vote at http://communityforce.natwest.com/project/3721
One project has to benefit in Lincolnshire, that is the promise made by NatWest. Let’s make sure it is RoadHog. There are more details on the web site above and from your local branch. This money is desperately needed for the continued success of this project. VOTE!
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ROADHOG – THE HOUSE OF GOD ON THE ROAD… (July 2011)
RoadHoG, the House of God on the road, continues to extend the reach of local churches in the Boston area.
The specially converted double decker bus has been visiting the Haven High Technology College, with Micki Carey, to provide education on the choices we make concerning our friendships regarding crime. We have also been to William Lovell School helping young people to make informed choices about personal safety and sexually transmitted infections.
The warm and dry weather has brought many young people out onto the streets in the area and we have seen a large increase in our contact with young people. In June, the bus welcomed 596 young people through our schools and community visits. Local Christians prayed for 62 of these young people for a variety of reasons.
The bus supported Churches Together in All Lincolnshire again at this year’s Lincolnshire Show and we again welcomed on an incredible amount of young people. Our counter recorder 1184 people over the two days and 99.9% of these were young people. Many had returned from the previous year to relax and chill out on the vehicle. One young person even declared that the bus was the best part of the show for them!
The vision of the project is to share the love of God, expressed in Jesus, by this we mean we would love young people to experience the care, forgiveness, direction and life to the max of a God who cares for them. We still wait for the time when we hear of just one young person choosing to follow the Lord, but our starting point is where we find young people, and where find young people is maybe further away than we think as this month’s story reveals.
“Anyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” the young man asked what a poster on the bus meant and an explanation was given. “I don’t believe in God” was his response. The next conversation was “Can I write in this book?” pointing to a small Gideon New Testament. “I’d rather you didn’t, this is God’s Word and is special to the staff on this bus” came the reply. “Can I have it?” was the next question….”Yes, provided you look after it and don’t deface it”…”OK” was accepted as face value and the Bible found a new home.
The next thing we knew, another young person came up and told us that there was a Bible in the dyke. One very furious staff member went out and there in the water was the Bible. One thing we have learnt is that rural young people do not go in the dykes. So furious was the staff member that they called over the ten or twelve fairly large youths and asked them to stand at the top of the dyke. “I don’t care if I get diseases from rats, what I do care about is God’s Word. This is like treasure to me and don’t you ever do this again!” It was silent as the onlookers tried to work out whether the staff member was either crazy or this book really meant something to them! Some boys came and apologised.
The project operates to extend the reach of the local church. It is a tool for local churches to use in their outreach to young people and does not operate in its own right. On behalf of Lincolnshire Youth Mission Ltd, who own the project, we would like to thank those who enable the project to stay on the road through volunteering, praying, cleaning, maintaining and giving financially to the project.
www.roadhogbus.org.uk
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RoadHoG Bus Youth Project progress (October 24th 2010)
As we served them a free hot chocolate drink, the familiar question was asked – “Who’s paying for this?” – the reply came – “your local church, because you’re worth it”. The conversation moved on – “so are all the people on the bus from church?” – “Yep” – “Don’t they get paid?” – “Nope” – Then a discussion started between the two lads whether they believed in God or not. One did, one wasn’t sure. We could then say “You know we are here if you want to talk this further”.
A massive thank you to all magazine readers for your interest and support in the House of God on the road. In this article, we hope to update you on our progress and encourage you to continue to support this much needed resource for local churches.
RoadHoG aims to be a resource to local churches in the Boston area in their outreach to young people. For various reasons, it is difficult to meet young people in our church buildings, but our experience is proving that God’s people can meet young people on their streets.
RoadHoG, a specially converted double decker bus into a youth centre, met with 219 young people during September. What is encouraged us that month was that 28 of these young people asked the bus team from the local church to pray with them. It’s mind blowing to experience young people coming on board and wanting to be prayed for. Bus teams don’t promise any magic, only the truth that God has a great love for them and wants the best for them, so as they pray for them they are simply asking the Lord to do what is best for them.
We are pleased to announce that teams from Kirton Methodist Church and Holy Trinity Church have now started and have started well. Kirton (Route 705) visits on alternate Sundays at 4pm on the car park of the town hall. Woad Farm (Route 706) visits on alternative Mondays at 7:30pm on the car park of the Queen of Spades Pub (Wellington Road) car park.
Having bus teams from local churches makes it possible for conversations like the above to happen in a safe and entertaining environment. It doesn’t require rocket science and you don’t even need to have a professional qualification in social work. Teams are trained and CRB cleared.
The project is supported by a Steering Group. Now that the bus has been built and is on the road, the group’s role has changed and we are need of people who can help us with the strategic direction of the project. We would love to grow a team who can support the project with training, communicating, fund searching and maintenance. Maybe you feel your skills aren’t right for meeting young people on the streets, but maybe you have what is need to help develop this project. If a light has switched on as you read this article, don’t delay, please speak to your minister or Tony.
Please pray for God’s continued provision as the project develops –
- for the ministry of the bus to grow
- for safety of the young people and bus teams
- for this ministry as the nights grow darker and colder
- for a strong Steering Group
- For continued financial support.
If you would like to receive a monthly news letter to keep you informed or fueled to pray then please either contact the project via email tony@roadhogbus.org.uk or speak to your minister or Tony.
Road HoG update (September 5th 2010)
There seemed some urgency in his eyes, he needed someone to speak to. Where could he go to ask? Surely there would be no-one around at this time, with the time or the answers to his questions! The lad and his mate walked on the bus and they asked specifically for one member of the bus team to talk upstairs in the prayer room. So with two members of the bus team they talked in the prayer room. “Where will I go when I die?”
This lad of 15 is like many of our young people today are very fearful of the future. Out of education, few job prospects and in a confusing world of too many voices saying they have the answer. The roadHoG Bus simply seeks to be there for those times for young people in our schools and communities. The local church has a tremendous opportunity to be there for all kinds of people who have the same kinds of unanswered questions and this is a unique time, with this project and Street Pastors, for the local church to be Christ on the streets.
Firstly, a huge thank you to readers for your support in practical ways, prayer and finance. The local churches running a double decker bus is no small thing, so we are grateful for you ongoing support.
As we write this article for you we are fast approaching the anniversary of the launch of the project by the Bishop of Lincoln, on Lincolnshire Day last year, and it seemed a good opportunity to let you know what we have done in the mean time.
Some of you will remember we had a very problematic start with sorting out teething problems like cod liver oil capsules in the fuel tank, inherited from being a service bus and then preceded by one of our coldest winters for some time! However, the past 6 months have been going really well. RoadHoG has honoured every visit with the exception of one training night when the main vehicle lights didn’t work. We were grateful to David Wilkinson who applied his experience and wisdom and sorted the fault in no time at all. David has been a tremendous help with the maintenance side of the bus’ operations.
Over this year we have welcomed aboard the bus 2484 young people, which is an average of 226 young people a month. This excludes the young people who came on board at the Lincolnshire show.
Of these young people we have prayed for 78 of them for different reasons and we are finding that young people keep coming back. It has been a real eye opener to see the way young people don’t worry about what their friends think when they need to be prayed with. It has also been great to see some young people asking questions about faith. At this stage of the project much of our visits to the four communities are about building trust and, in a cynical society as ours, this takes time.
The roadHoG Bus Youth Project, although is owned by charity Lincolnshire Youth Mission Ltd, on the ground is run by representatives of Partner Churches forming an appropriately named “Steering Group”. The first stage of the project’s development was to get the bus on the road, now it is here we are currently restructuring ourselves to more effectively sustain the project, so we would appreciate your prayers as we do this. We need to dove-tail the skills of the team with the tasks in hand.
We are pleased to announce we have one bus support team cleaning the bus at the end of our two week visit cycle and this has made a big difference in getting the bus ready. However, we are in urgent need of a second team, so if this is something you feel you could help with, please contact Project Manager Tony Coe. Full training and equipment will be provided for. When preparing the bus for community visits we need to make sure there is a new DVD, new play station games, different board games, a stocked kitchen, a new craft activity and a new quiz. This is all on top of school lesson preparation and the general maintenance of the bus. So this kind of support is critical.
Summer has been quieter with schools closed and young people away. We are looking to broaden our school syllabus and increase our community visits. This is why having an effective Steering Group is going to be important. We are pleased to announce that between now and the new year we will be training bus teams to visit Kirton (Route 705), Woad Farm (Route 706), Holland Fen (Route 707) and there could be the potential of two more visits in the New Year. With the increase in use of the vehicle we will need to look at ways overcoming the fall in donations over the past four months. Having said this the project remains confident in God’s continuous provision.
We hope this article keeps you up-to-date with our progress, should you wish to find out more information about the project you can check online at www.roadhogbus.org.uk or you can receive by post or email a monthly news letter to fuel pray for this project.
