Stride: Relay

Phil Rout's Relay took him to Brazil

"Phil, thank you for always banging on about the cross. You've helped me understand how important it is."

When I heard those words earlier this year, from a student I'd been working with, my heart was filled with joy and satisfaction. If my work had helped one person grasp the meaning of the death of Jesus on the cross, and it's centrality, then that was good enough for me!

I arrived in Ribeirão Preto in January 2004 to spend a year working with the Brazilian Christian Union movement (ABU). Little did I realise, as I got off the bus that day, that a year would turn into 18 months, by the end of which I would be engaged to marry to the person I was about to meet!

I had a brilliant time in Brazil. In the course of my work I travelled so much that I slept in over 60 beds; I had tons of opportunities to study the Bible with people; I made scores of friends; and I had loads of fun.

It wasn't an easy time, and I found the isolation particularly difficult, having to live and work a long way from my colleagues. Serving the living God is a great adventure; it's tempting to lose heart, and it rarely seems to be going according to plan. But God has amazed me: He has provided for all my needs, taught me some important lessons about Himself, myself and others, and he has graciously used me to build up a small corner of His kingdom.

I spent most of my time doing discipleship with university students in the city where I lived and also further afield. It was encouraging to see many of them taking Jesus more seriously in their lives and getting more involved in evangelism.

I also visited a kids' home once a week. That was a total contrast to the student work and a massive challenge, but I grew to love the children and had a lot of fun with them as we learned about Jesus together.

Stride Relay was really worthwhile. I'm preparing to go back out to Brazil in a few

years' time to begin long-term work.

Jo Wilson went to Spain.

Jo: I guess I'm a bit of a weird Strider (in more ways than one)!

I'm not in Latin America (I live in Barcelona) or working strictly with Latin Americans (I work with students from all over the world). But, I do have lots of Latin American contacts and happen to live with an Ecuadorian!

I didn't head straight out here as soon as I graduated, although at the time that was what I wanted to do. Instead, a friend of mine advised me to spend a year in the UK getting some training in student work before heading off into the big wide world. Great advice! So, I joined a programme called Relay Homestart which is a two to three year discipleship course run by UCCF (check it out at www.uccf.org.uk). It involves one year working with a Christian Union at a university in the UK (I was at Southampton) and one to two years abroad on an IFES team (www.ifesworld.org).

It is a great programme with lots of fantastic training and being challenged again and again to live by GRACE! ... (something I'm still learning!)

The work in Barcelona involves both evangelism (through events, stands, Bible studies, weekends away, etc) and discipling (through one-to-one Bible studies, cell groups, training sessions, etc) with international and national students.

I have also had the opportunity to travel to Cascadas (the Latin Link centre in Spain), meet some of the leaders, and get some insight into the work and ethos of Latin Link.

It has been great to have the opportunity to work with both Latin Link and IFES and see how both organisations operate. I would like to work in the Spanish-speaking world in the future, but I'm not sure which bit. I hope that over the next year or so, God will make it clear where and what He would like me to do.