10 Days in Cardiff

On May 1st, the entirety of our DTS (35 in all) got on a bus and travelled to Cardiff, Wales. Wales is one of the countries in the United Kingdom and Cardiff is its capitol city -- a metropolitan area of around 800,000 people. Our first ten days of outreach were spent here, partnering with a massive youth event called Ignite Hope 2012. Ignite Hope has an annual aim to "[raise] up a generation of young people who are sold out for the gospel and ready to step out into South Wales to see a difference made in the lives of individuals, streets and communities."

The bulk of our time was spent setting up and setting down the event site. We had a large section of the city's main park to build the event on, but it was much too muddy to get any work done for the first little while -- wheel-barrowing wood chips and sand to help absorb the wet ground dominated the many hours of our work days. Ultimately though, we were able to set up a number of bouncy castles, three trampolines, three large café marquees, an outdoor stage and an absolutely gargantuan central marquee that housed our nightly worship/teaching sessions during the event. 

Our outreach team members had plenty of roles during the event itself: doing gate security, facilitating the fun (bouncy castles, football cages), being part of the prayer team during sessions, performing on the outdoor stage, going with the youth to daytime outreaches, providing meals (1000+ sandwiches made!) and more. The flurry of activity was made all the more exciting when we found out that over one hundred young people dedicated their lives to Christ during the long weekend event. Wow. 

It was a privilege to be involved with the Ignite guys to help get the event going. The set-up was fantastically practical, the event itself was spiritually inspiring and the set down was unavoidably muddy -- all of it was a joy to be a part of. Special thanks to the Desperation Leadership Academy guys from Colorado Springs for coming alongside our team and getting the big tents up! 

We spent 10 days in Cardiff total -- on May 10th, our team of 35 split up and dispersed all across the UK. Right now (in this very instant), we're serving in Coventry, Glasgow, Newcastle and Manchester... more on those last two cities to come!

thanks to Bronwyn Fairchild and Katie Decker for the photos