day three...

A hectic day. we had a little trouble this afternoon with a few rowdy kids. In fact, we’ve had a few rowdy kids throughout the day. a couple of boys pulled down a curtain and we’ve had a few rude post-its on the prayer wall. Nothing too serious though, and apart from that, it’s been a brilliant and busy day…

We started this morning up in the staff room for a tutors briefing, Chris shared some thoughts about forgiveness and loving the unlovely ‘that they might lovely be”, with reference to some of the negative press and a couple of difficult situations here recently.

Back to the prayer room for tutor group time. this was really good, but there was a noticeable difference with these students. These guys hadn’t chosen to come here, they were brought here by their tutor, and it was clear from the start that they felt dragged along. However, I tried to speak excitedly about the zones and introduced them to the prayer room, and once they got going, it was actually a really beneficial time.

Great to see Dan, Rich, Nicki come and visit. Was good to chat with Rich and Nicki from the Bizz about how this could all develop. Then we had an RE lesson come in. Again, the feeling amongst the kids was definitely one of resistance at first. A few of them gave us some trouble throughout, although they ended up writing stuff like “thank you God for everything you’ve done for me and my family, you are everything to me…”! One girl was really hard work, but there we go.

At break we had a couple of girls come in and it was just the two of them for ages. We started chatting and one girl was worried about someone in their family, we all prayed together for her healing. We had just long enough before a little motly crew came in. The girl who yesterday said ‘God knows where to find me if he wants me, he just has to come down’ was fairly chatty again today. God is really at work here I think. “I don’t know why I’m even here. I don’t know why I even stepped into this room” she said today.
“Well, why did you come?”
“I dunno, I didn’t wand to be left outside on my own”. At this, her group of friends turned round to her and snapped “you what?! It was you who brought us here!”…

Yesterday we had this one student in that had been told whilst getting ready for school that his Nan had died the night before, yet he was still sent school. Distraught, Chris brought him to the prayer room, he was able to calm down, Chris prayed for him and he added “Nan x”. He was back in school today and turned up at lunch time and spent quite a while in here chilling out, writing some prayers on the prayer wall.

A member of staff came in to take some photos as well. On being asked to do this she swore quite strongly, but on entering the room she said “wow”. She went on to echo many of the students’ and staff responses that “this should be here all the time”. It looks as though this week will not just be a one off; both the chaplain and even the Head Master have a real heart see this developed.

Below is a picture of one of the many prayers that now cover the prayer walls and different stations. Others include “show me heaven”, “God you’re the best”, “take away the bullies”, “thank you for calming the storms in my life. You bring peace – hurray!”

And finally, we had one student, picking up loads of blue paper that we we’re using to symbolise the waves that Jesus calms, and turning to a friend, arms outstretched and said “I’m going to wrap you in God’s love”…