Sion Youth has been travelling around the country this week in our brand new van!  We’ve just got back from the Onelife Leadership Conference, with 200 other young leaders at Soul Survivor Church in Watford!

OneLife is a movement in this country with the vision to “connect and equip young people to become exceptional leaders in every sphere of society.”  They are passionate about building up young people and training them in how to lead, so whatever area of society they are going to work in, they know how to be exceptional leaders and bring God’s Kingdom - His life and His love with them wherever they go.

OneLife believes there are seven main spheres of society:  Arts and entertainment, Business, Education, Family, Government, Media and Religion.

Have you ever thought about where God might be calling you to go in the future?
Do any of the above spheres immediately jump out at you?  
What do you feel passionate about? 
Where do you feel you could lead and become a person of influence?

The theme of the conference was Set Apart.  Have you ever thought what it means to be Set Apart?  I believe to be SetApart is to live without fear. To be someone who is not afraid to go after what is right and to stand up for it regardless of how others will see you.  To not be afraid of who you are, who you were created by God to be.  To recognise you are a person of influence, and can lead those around you in everything you do - to not conform, to not follow the crowd.

But to be truly SetApart, we need to be living a life that is directed towards God, and towards what His plans for us are.  Because it is only then that we will be living in true freedom and happiness.

“... For I know the plans I have in mind for you, declares the Lord, plans to save you and to give you a future and to give you hope.”. Jeremiah 29:11

During the Conference we looked at the book of Daniel, (which is an incredible book in the Old Testament that if you haven’t read I really recommend it!) Daniel shows us what it means to live a life of exceptional leadership, and to be truly Set Apart.  He refused to worship - put his faith, trust in or give love or even admiration to – anything that was against the will of God.  Daniel recognised that if we

                “Seek first the Kingdom of God, then everything else will be given to you”   Mt. 6:33

Because in all the difficulties He went through, Daniel put God first and God made sure that Daniel went totally unharmed. 

You are called by God to be an exceptional leader.  The world is changed by people like us and how much we are willing to be SetApart. Check out the Onelife website if you are interested to know more http://www.onelifeonline.org.uk/   You have ONELIFE – lead it!

Healed of depression
A year 10 student told us during mission week a story of something amazing that had happened to her. She had been suffering with depression for a while and was known to self-harm. The student claimed to not believe in God but in other supernatural powers. She told us that on the Thursday night of mission week she got out of bed feeling really down, went to the kitchen and got out a knife to self-harm but then to her shock the knife flew across the room and she felt a hand on her shoulder and was flooded with a feeling of peace. She then felt a sudden desire to read scripture and she just knew that God was with her. The next day she came into school totally free of her depression. Jesus is alive!


A radical Jesus Encounter
In Prayer4U where the team pray personally for students, a year 9 student had a personal encounter with Jesus. The boy came to receive prayer looking downcast. After a team member and another student prayed for him he looked up with a huge smile on his face. When the team member asked if he had experienced anything the student said ‘Yes, it sounds crazy but I saw Jesus walking towards me, he was actually right in front of me!’ The boy left the chapel completely transformed and in utter awe. Many young people had experiences such as this during mission week. Jesus is alive!

Pre Mission Healing
As the students who were trained in Prayer4U started to practice praying with one another a week beofre the mission started, one particular girl experienced pain in certain joints down her left side. She shared this with the girl whom she was praying for and to her surprise found that she had described the pains she was also feeling. The whole group then proceeded to pray for her and she was healed. A week later on mission we caught up with her and found that she was still completely healed to the extent that all her bruising accompanying the injury had disappeared after prayer! Jesus is alive!

Lunch Hall Revival
A boy approached us after the ‘Naturally Supernatural’ workshop and asked us to pray for his dislocated elbow that had never healed up properly after he had injured it. The extent of the injury was that he couldn’t lift weights and also couldn’t dance with anyone off his left arm. As the team member started to pray they felt something shift in the elbow, first assuming that the boy had moved it himself. However to the team member’s surprise he declared that he hadn’t and that he thought the team member had moved his arm! He proceeded to move his arm unlike he had been able to do before and he was completely healed! He went away believing in God having previously been a non-believer. Following this miracle a girl approached us in the lunch hall and asked for prayer believing that it was her who God had highlighted during the workshop but hadn’t admitted it thinking that God wanted to heal someone else (the team member had felt God tell them during the workshop that someone in the room had a bad lower back problem). Her friend who was with her, along with the priest who happened to be passing, prayed and she experienced complete healing in her back. Another girl then proceeded to ask for prayer for her back and she also got healed! Jesus is alive (even in the lunch hall)!

So we have moved into the Lenten season and many of us would’ve given something up or perhaps taken something else on. Usually it makes sense to give something up that we might just rely a bit too much on, or eat too much of, like Chocolate, for example. Yet, some of us can also really test our endurance, giving ourselves a real challenge, in giving up a number of things we enjoy or committing to something new and demanding. Perhaps you have decided that this year that you don’t really need to give up anything or take something else on. It is indeed a personal decision, and we all need different things.

As these first few days have passed, many of us can probably already feel the strains and rigours of Lent, whether it is in that little item you are without, or in the many things you have given up. But let us not get downhearted in these difficulties, nor have a go at ourselves whether challenging ourselves too much, or even not enough - because there is something more important at work. This is something that we cannot always see or we are not always aware of. It is the work of God and the movement of His Spirit in our lives. Be ensured He is there, and know that He wants to bring you deeper into His love and His exciting mystery!

It makes sense that the more we distract ourselves or get caught up in different things, the less time we have to reflect on what life is all about and the less we know who we are. God knows who you are and He wants you to know. It is only through Him, who created us, that we can find out these things and be who we were made to be, wouldn’t you agree?

So let us not get caught up too much in what we can give up or take on, but instead I encourage us this Lent rather to let God lead us further into His mystery and plans. And this can take many forms. Maybe, just briefly stopping our daily routine and asking God to be with us and make sense of things is all it takes. Perhaps just leaving a bit of time before we go to bed to speak to God, or even to ask Him what’s going on - while we are waiting at the bus stop or walking to and from school or work. And, leaving our concerns, hopes, plans and very selves in God’s hands, who knows what wonders He can accomplish?

Be blessed in the love of Christ my friends, this Lent and always,

Joseph Gulliford

Making the transition between simply accepting what I had learnt about my Catholic faith growing up, to really entering into a personal relationship with God has been a journey that very much reflects Matthew 7:7, “Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you shall find, knock and the door shall be opened to you.” 

Throughout my life I had heard that God loved me, but I came to the realisation that I didn’t really know it, the revelation had not made its way to my heart, but I knew I wanted to understand it.  So I began to seek God; to ask Him to really let it sink in.  I didn’t give God a time frame, just in the ‘quiet place’, in my times of prayer, I would ask Him to show me His love; and overtime He did and in many different ways.  Sometimes during prayer and sometimes through opening my eyes to the constant blessing and opportunity He gives us, His children, and sometimes through the love I received from the people around me.  I looked back one day and had total conviction in my heart that God really did love me, He was my heavenly Father.   However, even though I knew God loved me, I still thought that I had to get everything right all the time and when I didn’t I thought I had to ‘fix everything on my own before I went back to God’.  Yet God showed me that through Jesus, we are loved by a God that says, “It is in your worst moment, when you feel most far away, that’s when I jump in and say, ‘I’m still in love with you, I would still die for you’”.  I discovered that God is so faithful and He wants us to understand His love even more than we want to understand it, He really does answer us when we seek Him.  

When I truly encountered the love of God my life was changed. I was able to love the people around me properly and praying and going to mass was not out of any sense of duty, but all out of love.  Faith became the most central area of my life and thus had an impact on all the other areas in my life.  I wanted to seek God to discover what His will for my life was, the plans He had for me.  I now wake up every morning and try and offer my life as a surrender to God, I try and make my prayer ‘Your Kingdom come, Your will be done’. 

I’m currently with the Sion Catholic Community for Evangelism and I’m living in such peace and joy because I know I am where God has called me to be.  Every day I am learning more how to trust in Him, to surrender all to Him.  I am finding the journey of faith to be a lifelong continual conversion being drawn more and more into the heart of God. 

Bryony Wells- 18 Years Old