Zanna goes to Antigua
 In July I have the exciting opportunity to travel to the Caribbean Island of Antigua for two weeks (11-25 July) to work as a volunteer for Youth for Christ. In Antigua I will be working alongside a team of eight people from across the UK, three boys and five girls including myself, and we seem to make a very creative team with drama students, musicians and myself, a dancer.
We will be working alongside Brother Jonathon Bynoe, the national director of Youth for Christ in Antigua. On Sunday’s we will be visiting various churches on the island and we have been asked to speak so I am now preparing a couple of sermons and my testimony to share with them.
Throughout our time there we will also be working with and speaking to various youth groups and the Christian Union, playing sports and games, running dance and drama workshops and also providing a BBQ social event for them. We also hope to run a ‘Pure’ course, a series of workshops discussing God’s perspective on sex and relationships as promiscuity is quite a problem in Antigua, along with a number of rapes, with no NHS provision or readily available help and protection this has resulted in the spread of HIV/AIDS.
We will be visiting both the boys and girls homes on the island with children from ages four to eighteen years. All the children are there for various reasons, from losing both parents to behavioural problems, and worryingly the beating of children in such homes is still allowed in Antigua. We hope to run creative workshops, play games and share our stories with them.
We will be visiting the prison on the island that houses both male and female inmates with convictions of petty crimes to rape & murder all together. Prison is basic in Antigua, for example, inmates grow their own vegetables and if they don’t grow they don’t eat. We hope to share our testimonies and hopefully provide some creative workshops for them, although resources allowed in the prison are very limited.
Finally, if we can raise enough money, we hope to purchase paint to give the Youth for Christ centre in Antigua a much needed face lift.
I feel it is important that we invest time and energy in young people, to build relationships, encouraging them to develop in areas they excel in and working alongside them knowing God's perspective when tackling the challenges they face in their culture. From my own experience as a teenager such projects were invaluable to me.
I would greatly appreciate your support in prayer that all the preparations will go smoothly, for safe travelling and that God will prepare the hearts of those we are going to serve. Also that as a team we may form good relationships and that God will give us the words to say and that we may use the gifts that God has given us to the fullest to bless the people of Antigua.
If you feel you could contribute financially toward the cost of the trip I would be incredibly grateful as I feel this is a significant opportunity for me to positively impact the lives of others with the message of Jesus. I am looking to raise a total of £1375. If you feel you are able to contribute in prayer or finanically, I would be delighted and would keep you in touch with details of the trip and report of my experience on my return.
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