OAC Publications
Snowball News
December 1999

From Little Snowballs...

Four students from Austria and Slovakia joined our team in Bristol for the first year of the programme.

Europe Now has been working on Project Snowball for two years. After all the praying, planning, writing and talking, the theory became practice in a small room in St Edyth's Church, Sea Mills at the beginning of September.

The first week set the pace for the rest of the term, with some questionnaire work outside shopping parades ("People in Britain are so friendly!" was one comment), teaching on religious world views by David Shutes of France Mission, a Bible study on the evangelists in the New Testament by Mark Howe, and an analysis of the Teletubbies (generally felt to be the most stressful item in the programme)!

In the first eight-week session, the emphasis was on children's work, including school assemblies and culminating in two week-long after-school clubs. The first of these was decidedly on the lively side, with the police being called at one point! But many of the children and their parents came to the prize-giving service, and the club has provided us with good contacts in the neighbourhood. Other activities during the first session included a workshop on page layout and public speaking practice using the children's book "Green eggs and ham" as the text.

In session two, the focus moved to the Evangelism Explosion programme, taught by one of the students who is an accredited trainer, and puppetry. Presenting the puppet show "Sheepless in Seattle" to over 3,000 schoolchildren over a two-week period was one of the high points of the programme so far. Areas covered in teaching include 'man and sin' and 'some famous evangelists', starting with Wesley and Whitefield, who are so intimately connected with Bristol's history.

Forty percent of the way through the programme, the overall assessment is 'so far, so good'. Please pray for the other sixty percent!