It had come to that time of the year, to travel down from Fakenham to the south coast where we were going to be spending the week in Crestwood School, Eastleigh for our final schools week of the year.
This was a new school for Taste, but our arrival and having the church pray for us and support us was fantastic and we knew we were in for a good week!
However, the week was going to be slightly different to what other weeks have looked like. Starting on Monday, we arrived in the school and were given the school sports hall as our venue for the day. It was a massive hall! But we also had a lot of the students in at one time – the day consisted of us taking the whole of year 7&8 together, followed by year 9, and looking at the subject of Social Injustice.
It was a brilliant lesson that Andy and Joy had written as we talked about the difference that we can make in the world and got the pupils to think about how they could make a difference in their local communities/ the schools and the wider world.
There were a few of the boys on the front row who absolutely loved the fact that there was a live band in their school!
We had to pack down that same day because for the rest of the week we were in the church which was on school site. But tuesday we were given a brilliant day off to celebrate Joy’s birthday!
Our new venue was a slightly different one to what we have been used to! We got the church ready for our lessons on the tuesday and then wednesday and thursday we were in the church the whole day teaching our lessons. The pupils had to come over from the school, but the brilliant thing was that they had all already seen us before on the monday, so it was good to continue to build on that relationship with them.
We had such a great supportive team this week; us being in the school was part of a week of mission in the Eastleigh area and they had put on this ‘Hope’ week with us taking the youth stream and other activities happening in other areas of the community.
Our lessons were often quite long which meant we were sometimes singing at least 4/5 times per lesson! But i absolutely loved having the opportunity to be with them and to spend our last week in such a brilliant school!
Our final schools gig as Taste was in the school on the Thursday night; we moved our equipment again and this time to drama studio back over the other side of the school. We were able to set up a big stage and make the venue look great, with additional stalls provided by the team from Hope which gave them the chance to discover more.
The gig was amazing! We had quite a large crowd and they loved getting involved. Some of them even brought their dads! Which I think was a first for us, and it did make me slightly more nervous about sharing the gospel, which I had been asked to do for the first time this week. I was nervous about it but the same time I was just so excited about being given the opportunity to speak that night. I really pray that they grasped what it means to be loved by Jesus who died for us so that we can have freedom in him.
It was an incredible week and a great way to end our year in schools! A massive thank you to everyone who helped during our week in Eastleigh and to God for all he did through us in that school!
On the road with Taste 