Classes have begun

Well things are finally getting off the groun here. On monday we took a tour of CFC, met the staff, and went to this really cool place called Oasis.
CFC is great. The sanctuary itself isnt nearly as large as I expected it to be, but the facilities include a gym, kitchen, tonnes of offices, a youth room/cafe, and lots of multi-purpose spaces. For all our classes we are stuck in the basement, which is a nice sized room, but it smells like something very strange.
The staff are really great people. You can really tell by speaking with them that they truely love God and the community and want to serve both. I'll be working under a lady named Penny who is the brand new childrens pastor. I have an official meeting with her on friday to discuss the year and to really get started with my placement.
Oasis is a community outreach programme that was started by a couple in the church. It is such an amazing story which I dont have time to relate here, but basically they wanted to practically demonstrate the love of God to the people around them. They offer classes in computers, life skills, day care, wood working, basically anything that can practically help people meet their basic needs. They dont shove the gospel down anyones throat, but are always willing to share when it is appropriate. It really is the type of place I can see myself getting involved with. I think I will be doing some work there with the Crosslinks programme which uses creative arts to bring together youth from the Catholic and Protestant communities and build bridges between them.
The classes so far have been very interseting. One is about life skills such as communication and stuff like that. Another is Spiritual formation and we are spending some time on the importanceof spiritual disciplines such as silence, meditation, and the like. This has been an area of my spiritual walk where I have struggled a bit so I'm really looking forward to going deeper here. Another class was about identity. We went into the whole who you are in Christ thing, which was review really but still a great reminder of what our self worth is based on. Nothing that we ourselves can achieve, but what Jesus has already done. And the last class was about conflict resolution. This one was a bit more interactive which is good because it comes at the end of a 9hr day.
On mondays the source kids have a full day of classes aswell and they need someone to cook dinner for them, so I have offered up my services and will be making dinner for 12 people once a week as long as I am avaliable. I also cook dinner for the boys about once a week, so I should be really good when I get home.
Tonight I am going to a cell group for ages 11-14 (I think) which I am going to be co-leading at some point. Then on sunday all us internationals are going over to Paul Reids house for lunch.
Beyond that nothing too much is going on. I've just been having some good craic with the people here. My house mate has arrived and we get along really well, and are planning Christmas already. A bunch of us are staying here, so we are all going to pile into our house and be a little family together.
Well I hope that lets you all know a wee bit of my life for the moment. My time is about up in the computer so I must be off. Love you all.
P.S. Abbie is teaching me to knit!