Last week two very exciting things happened…our new Taste team started, bright and early on Monday morning! This year we have a boy band made up of Andy Clark on Bass, Tom Tonks on Lead Guitar and Vocals and Andrew Kidby on Drums. Jonny English joins as technician and actor!

Jonny, Andy and Tom

The other thing is that I got a new laptop!!! Hurrah! Sadly it’s not a mac. I’ve got a Toshiba and it’s so nice and fast! Why didn’t I get a new one earlier?!

The month of October consists of rehearsals and training for Taste which I am partly involved in. Whenever Taste are rehearsing, Jonny is either being trained by Keel on technical things, or working with me on learning All About Abi, which has had a bit of a refresh for the new year.

Last week  I led a Bible Study on The Good Samaritan (Luke 10: 25-37), the first one I’ve ever done which was a good challenge and experience! We had a whole team retreat day at The Barn which our team organised and led. Ed spoke on Ephesians 4: 2-7 which was very interactive and challenging. We did a treasure hunt around the grounds which resulted in everyone having very wet feet but was lots of fun!! After the retreat we went bowling with the new team…I had bumpers so got a fairly respectable score! We then all went back to mine for dinner with Claire and Karen.

The guys are very enthusiastic and getting on together well so I think they are settling in nicely! As it stands at the moment, Andrew Kidby is only staying til Christmas as his family are moving out to Australia in the new year, so your prayers for him and for the formation of Taste after Christmas would be much appreciated.

I had a relaxing weekend (including sun bathing yesterday – crazy British weather!!) so ready for a new week of opportunities!

This week has lots of different things happening…

• This afternoon Jonny and I are rehearsing All About Abi.
• Tomorrow Sam La Roche and I are running a training session entitled ‘Telling My Story’, about the importance of our personal testimonies and practically how to go about working out what it is and how to share it. We also have more Abi rehearsals in the afternoon.
• Wednesday is preparation for our Christmas Event – More Than A Story including a planning meeting and content brainstorm. Please pray for inspiration!
• Thursday I have a meeting about Junior Solid at 10am which will get some ideas going of how I can be involved in that in July.  I have some prep to do for the production of All About Abi and then we have a strategy meeting at 4pm (looking at how the different ministries can use Sam, Keel and myself in upcoming events).
• Friday…my diary is empty which is worrying! But by then no doubt I’ll have lots of things to do as a result of meetings! In the evening Keel and I are travelling to Braintree to see a production by Teen Challenge called The Journey which I am really looking forward to!

Please keep me in your prayers – especially for my financial needs. I love hearing from people as well so feel free to email me with thoughts, questions, comments, encouragements or just to say hi! laurabayliss@vizaviz.org

Thanks!!

www.vizaviz.org
www.justgiving.co.uk/laurabayliss

Another day at the Barn. We had Ben with us today, he’s on work experience for a couple of weeks. I think we scared him. We learnt another sketch and blocked it. We practiced the others from yesterday and played ‘It’ whilst learning lines! We, well Rachel and David had a lengthy conversation about people who would be in their gangs. So childish :p We then had a meeting about Christmas and all the timing arrangements and what day’s we would need sandwiches.

Finished at 4pm, came back and had tea and cake with Julie and a little chat. Then watched Neighbours and then had dinner: Plaice (never had that before, quite nice!), sweet potato and vegetables and blueberries, grapes and mango sorbet for pudding! Trying to be healthy and lose the weight that got put on over Scotland!! Then this evening Bob and Julie have gone out Babysitting so i’m catching up on things that need to be done, that’s after watching Hollyoaks, and Monday’s episode on E4………..*SPOILER ALERT*…..Niall’s back….#dramatic sound effect#

Back home tomorrow for a nice day off, then we’re off to Kilburn for a youth servie on Sunday, letting Abi out to terrorise the people of London.

Well today was first Opti-Weds, Optimum Training. This happens every Wednesday and you attend each one that you are able (i.e. not out on tour!)

Optimum Training is held at the Barn so Lindsay picked me, Matt, Sam La Roche and Ollie up and we went straight there.

Here’s how the day worked…:

9.30-9.45: Coffee and Chat
9.45-9.55: Notices, general intro to how training works, the forms we need to fill in each week, the scriptures we need to memorise for the next week
9.55-10.40: Personal Time. This is to be used for prayer, Bible study etc. Today Emma and I went for a walk around the grounds just to have a chat and pray about stuff which I found really useful and really enjoyed her company. I think we are going to be good friends There are loads of random sculptures in the grounds which are really cool!
10.40-10.50: More coffee!
10.50-11.50: Share and pray: We were in groups of 4 and each person talked about their week, what they are happy about/struggling with and we prayed.
11.50-12.30: Lunch
12.30-1.00: Worship – Each person will be leading a worship section over the coming sessions so we had a hcance to think about what we might want to do for that, and actually what worship is, not just singing but other expressions.
1.00ish-2.30ish: Bible Study: Discussing what the meanings are of disciple/discipline/discipleship. We looked at our devotional lives, how we can apply the Lords Prayer to our own prayers, and the follwing statement: ‘The comparative affluence of many Christians today, especially those in the West, almost certainly is a stumbling-block to effective and radical discipleship.’ (Watson)
We then tidied up and left.

We went to Wetherspoons in Billericay where i got ID’d when I tried to buy an orange and lemonade, didn’t have any ID on me so therefore had to leave. Sillyness. So i walked home!

Rang Lewis to have a whinge/chat while he should have been working….

Then went out, walked round to Rachels for about 6.15 for dinner. David O’Brien (my team leader) was there so it gave myself and Ollie an oppurtunity to meet him before working with him. Claire, Rachel, David, Ollie and Me had a jump about on their trampoline….fabulous fun!!!! After fabulously yummy food, we had a chat over the plans for the year and then watched the muscial episode of Scrubs, was so funny!!

Came home about 10, had a quick chat to Beth and Stephen and now off to bed!

Lay in today!!!! But i was awake at 6.38…doh! Rachel picked me up at 8.55am and we picked up Ollie from his house and Ami from the station. Off we went to the Barn. Yes this truly is an amazing place in amazing grounds with lots of random statues. Inside are lots of very random and distracting pictures!

So there are 3 retreat days in a year where all of the Viz-a-Viz Ministries people meet. So this was the first time I met the 2nd years and the church based people. We started off with some Worship and then a kind of introduction to all the various ministries of Viz-A-Viz which was realy interesting, they do so much!! Found out plans for a youth event INSIDE chelmsford cathedral involving skate ramps! We had a time of prayer in twos, and later on walking around praying for all the various ministries and people. Lunch was at 1pm by which time everyone was starving and our stomachs were rumbling loudly, especially during the quiet times! Then the afternoon was a little education on ‘More To Life’, and we discussed a question, well I wrote all the notes while everyone else watched and talked about other things! We had a time of worship and communion and then Kathryn (who has done 2 years with Optimum, and is about to go off to Spurgeons college to train to be a baptist minister) spoke which was really good. The chairs were really squeaky which was especially awkward/amusing when everyone sat down ‘remaining in a state of worship’ *SQUEAK, SHUFFLE, CREAK*

Then a group of us (La Roche – Taste’s DJ, Matt – Taste’s Drummer, SammyJ (Gammy) – Taste’s Bassist, Keel – Taste’s Techie, Claire – Taste’s lead vocals, Rachel, Ollie, Ami and Jenni (second year optimum students), Dan – techie, Paul (not sure who he was!) and me) went bowling. It was fabulous fun, involved me getting laughed at, ridiculed and entirely surrounded by the taste boys who thought it was hilarious! Randomly you only give one shoe in when you get your bowling shoes…so of course there would be one who lost their one shoe they had to look after…Dan! I got two strikes in a row – my moment of glory but then it kinda went downhill, though i beat a few boys first time round

Came home and had chilli and rice. Settled down to watch Hollyoaks on E4+1…steph, what were you thinking?!?! Watched ‘Lost in Austen’ on ITV1 which was actually pretty good!

Bedtime now….

*1 Corinthians 3:5-9 ‘What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor. For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building.’*