Team Changes

This year has proved to be a year of staff movements at Café Forever! We have operated on and off for several years with different team leaders, Tom Carpenter looked after us for  8 years, then Jason, Sammy, and in between we have not had leaders which has sometimes proved challenging. We are  quite an enthusiastic and passionate bunch and so it might not be that easy to find someone who wants to take that role. In March this year Gareth Jones, who used to run City Gateway has taken a role with us as team leader - brave! But he has already proved to be very considerate, likeable, passionate and fun, we are very glad to have his input.

In April Sarah who worked at Café Forever for 6 years handed in her notice, she was going to pursue her art career, and giving us 2 months notice we had some time to recruit a replacement. There were a surprising number of really good applications and we ended up selecting Justyna to replace her. It's always a challenge filling someones position, we tend to have a basic set of qualities that we are looking for in someone, but not necessarily a specific set of skills although we do have some requirements; working  with computers and an aptitude in the kitchen. Sarah had a passion for baking cakes and they were a huge draw-card for people, now we have to discover what is the secret passion or talent of Justyna!

Move over Sarah!

As soon as we had Justyna in place, Duncan handed in his notice too - he moved to Ireland with his family and they are all doing well if a little wetter in Cork than they were in London! With school holidays approaching and not a lot of time we had to make a plan fast, fortunately God has provided, long before we were even worrying about this, in fact 14 years before! Stevie, who used to visit the cafe daily when her mum (Jo) was working here as a schoolchild has returned to the Café as an adult and been working as a volunteer, showing great enthusiasm and appreciation for the work, so it was quite a simple process to get her to sign up for a temporary placement, we are hoping that at the end of 2 months with us she will apply for a full time place. Now Stevie, she has that cake makers love! She is often in the kitchen trying out a new recipe, in fact as I write she is doing her first baked cheesecake!

In all these changes we have prayed, hoped, and held on. Please keep us in your prayers, a new team needs time to bond. A huge part of this work is actually starting with ourselves - we need to be filled in order to prove fulfilling - this means dealing with our pasts, our own challenges, our weaknesses. We appreciate your joining in these prayers.

Winter has left us, and maybe the EU.

How can you visit a website without it mentioning BREXIT?

Go Karting Gear is weird!

Well that's all you are going to get about it here, were fed up with it and how the whole process is City of Peace and Café Forever exist to bring people together, through the love of Jesus. And that's what we are doing! ....But it's quite difficult with men, to get us together and go and do something, some of us are old and have back pain, some of us are young and want to go to live concerts, some of us are married and tied down to helping the wife! It seems there's no end of excuses, but there's one event that we have run that has almost always been attended, go-karting! In February there was a deal on in the nearby track and 11 of us went down to go and test our nerves and reflexes. The little machines are really fast and it is a lot of fun - always a good way to make connection with those who don't normally attend a church.
causing division among people.

Another way of reaching people is through our City of Peace youth events organised by Hannah Luke.The group meets on  Wednesday evening and is attended by about 10 young people. Over half-term they got together for a game of Jugger in the park. Jugger is a strange game, eye-catching because participants run around with huge lances, maces, swords and shields, all made of foam,and try and pin each other down. Its a hard work out but a lot of healthy fun for this lot. Hannah also works in partnership with Marlene who runs the Kids club at Café Forever on Thursday night. It may seem strange for a youth-worker to be working with children, but some of these children will be considered youth next year,so it is good for a smooth transition.

The church also hosted the pancake day party, a crazy occasion that brings many local children and their parents into Café Forever to consume a huge number of the things filled with chocolate, syrup, all the messy stuff, which makes cleaning up really pleasant!

And of course our Café; you have read on may occasions that it is a great place for meeting new people and a comfortable place to talk about things that trouble people, share the gospel and the hope that comes with it. Of course it would be difficult to run a Café that has a low hygiene rating, and once again we're proud to have received a 5 star award (in conjunction with Joe Vella of https://www.magna-fhs.com/)

While we are so busy reaching out to the locals, some of us are from other lands and so it is great to be able to get back to our country of origin and visit family, which we did, in February, for a wedding. Our children spent about 3 hours of each day in the various swimming pools of the homes we visited, which is just exactly how I hoped it would be.