I will for the most part be based in a small centre in the mountainous region of Chiangmai — with a mix of youth ministry English teaching, bible teaching, small groups and practical aid. In the last century James Fraser, a British missionary, lived and evangelised among these peoples in the southern Yunnan province (part of China) – but by no means are these people for the most part Christian.

Prayer support for the LORD’s work within the Lisu and Shan people is so vital. It would be great if people back home could pray for the work at the centre, for the students themselves and for personal safety as I go for the two months. Many Blessings, ECAB.

“Unashamedly messy”. I think that’s how I’d describe our first attempt at a church-wide Student Alpha. Turns out it’s a very different ball-game putting on an Alpha course in the city centre of York, advertised to all our church’s congregations and fed into by our four student cells bursting with Freshers.

We didn’t really have a plan you know. I mean, we had a team, we had a venue, the means to cook, some good speakers lined-up… but we had no idea what this would look like in practice; so we just hit the ground running. Let this immediately encourage you: out of a team of about fifteen, only four of us had ever actually done Student Alpha before. God doesn’t wait until we think we are good enough, experienced enough, planned enough. Sometimes he just says “Go for it and watch me take this further than you can imagine.”

Want to know what “further than you can imagine” looked like? Well, for starters we had a small group (that increasingly became a rather big group) of international students. This is new for G2. We consciously wanted to make ourselves far more accessible to International students when we set out our vision for this year, and God went the extra mile and brought them in, in droves. In a few weeks time we are having a joint baptism service with the local Chinese church, in which seven Chinese students are being baptised and counting.

Turns out, the gospel is still true, Jesus still saves, and God is still strength when we are weak.

Secondly, I can’t fail to mention “Homeless Alpha”. This was a bit of a curve ball to say the least. Basically every week, we ended up having a small group comprised of guys living on the streets. It became pretty standard practice for a student to walk into our venue accompanied by a homeless person they’d just met and invited in. Week by week our friends returned, joining in more and more until they were helping clear up, praying with the team,  reciting their poems to us and even leading a rendition of ‘Amazing Grace’ on our final week. There was nothing in the plan about catering for the homeless. There was nothing in the Leaders Training about welcoming the outcasts, the addicts and the unwashed. But I wouldn’t have wanted G2 Student Alpha any other way. We would have been the poorer without Jason, Adam, Jacko, Paul and Jo. And guests and team alike I believe will never look at a homeless person the same way again.

There are almost too many testimonies to tell you about to be honest; we saw a mouth ulcer healed when praying on the ‘What about suffering and does God heal today?’ week. We have a couple of guests who have come to know Jesus and have asked to be baptised and will be in a few weeks time. We nearly broke a very expensive projector when Luke Smith threw a Bible across the room in an over-enthusiastic giving out of the Word. And we’ve learnt.

Will we run another G2 Student Alpha this time next year? Yes. Have we learnt from our mistakes, our weaknesses and our times of faith and not by sight? Yes. Did God use our big vision and passions to share the gospel as effectively as possible to our generation, even though it seemed messy to those of us attempting to lead? Yes.

This goes bigger than us. Life is messy. Beautifully so. Take a risk. Don’t wait until you are perfect. Go for it, and let our perfect God do immeasurably more than you can imagine.

Here is a poem written by Katie Toghill, a member of G2…

The devil is doing a good job of attacking

But with God on my side I can send him packing

I’ve come to realise the power he thinks he’s got

But I’m already saved by God and he is not

He seems to know the right things to make me feel

To make me doubt God and that Jesus IS real

But we know that we win ultimately

And then the devil will no longer be able to get me

The closer we get to God, the more rage fills Satan’s head

He wants us to feel hate but we must show love instead

His attacks feel relentless, his tries never cease

But we can trust in God, we can have His peace

Things we’ve been given, the Devil will try and take away

We have to fight new battles day after day

He hates seeing us happy so will try and fill us with despair

He’ll make life seems so hard that we can forget God is there

But that’s what he wants and we won’t let him win

Even when we feel beaten and so full of sin

It is then we must lean on God and ask Him to get rid of our fear

When we’re in God’s presence, Satan daren’t come near

The more we’re built up in Christ, the more we have to be alert

The more we understand love, the more the devil wants to see us hurt

God has great plans that the devil detests

So he’ll try and put us off track, convince us we know best

We really have to be aware, always have to be on guard

We have to learn to trust in God, even when it seems too hard

We can’t and don’t have to fight the battles on our own

All that matters is that the war has already been won