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MIND THE GAP year out places in Kingston, South West London

Looking at last minute Gap Year choices and trying to figure out where to go and what to do in your year out? Do you want to discover and follow what God’s plan is for your life whilst you serve and reach out to others. If these are the questions you are facing then a MIND THE GAP year with Oxygen could be just what you are looking for!

Oxygen’s MIND THE GAP year is a journey of discovery when we offer a select group of people an opportunity to deepen their understanding of Jesus as they seek to reach out and do the same for young people. There is no cost to taking part and instead we offer accommodation, an allowance and a full programme of relational youth outreach linked to a training and development programme, we also ask you to look at undertaking some fundraising challenges to support the overall work. Our programmes include sports, music arts and drop in youth cafes. We run regular weekly clubs as well as big weekend and annual events. You will also be asked to develop and run your own work during the year, adding to what goes on, leaving a legacy that will impact young people for years to come.

Places on the team are filling up quickly, but there is still time to apply, with the deadline being the end of July 2009. We are especially keen to hear from any guys who are interested as we have a lot of work with younger teenage boys who value and need older supportive role models. For more information on what is involved and what Oxygen does then visit www.oxygen-online.org

Tags: gapyears, vacancy, kingston, london, yfc, yearout, mindthegap

VACANCY: rm1 worker wanted

Oxygen, Kingston YFC is looking for a committed and innovative person for 20 hours per week to oversee the running of its Rm1 after school club at Coombe Boys School, New Malden during a period of maternity cover. Rm1 runs 5 nights a week during term time and was established by Oxygen in partnership with the Royal Borough of Kingston Extended Services Group and Coombe Boys School in New Malden.

As project leader your job will involve running the club between 3 and 5.30pm, 5 days a week during term time. To help with this you will have responsibility for two Oxygen GAP year workers and a budget as agreed by Senior Staff team.

Closing Deadline for applications 31st July 2009 you can download the information from here

Tags: rm1, oxygen, kingston yfc, worker, youthwork vacancy

Oxygen on Twitter

Oxygen is now on Twitter. Here we are posting our latest events, prayer requests and links to prayer and news emails. You can find us by searching Oxygen kbyfc or by just clicking here

SEPTEMBER 19TH 2009: OXYGEN TEAM COMMISSIONING

An advance note for your diary. the commissiong of the new Gap yera team is taking place on the 19th Sept at St Peters Norbiton.

This special service and tea, when we will be committing the work of Oxygen and the team to God for the coming year, will be held at 3pm on 19th September, at St. Peter’s Church (London Road, Kingston, KT2 6QL). Everyone
is welcome to this service so please invite your friends, family and supporters to join us.

VACANCY: Going Deeper at St Johns Kingston Vale

St Johns the Baptist, Kingston Vale in partnership with Oxygen (Kingston YFC) are looking to appoint a Youth worker to take on the coordination and development of the church’s outreach and discipling youthwork.The appointed person will be given the challenge of building on the mission links already being established between local young people and the church. The aim will be to encourage those young people in the community who have started to make connections with the church to take these further and involve their friends.

This post is offered at 10 hours per week during term time and so would suit someone seeking flexible working conditions. Deadline for applications is the 10th July. Part of the role includes attendance and involvement at St John’s on at least two Sundays per month. For an information and application pack contact the Oxygen office on 020 8547 0566 or email info@oxygen-online.org

Please pray

• Thank God for the opportunity that this post represents in allowing more young people from outside the church to come to faith
• Pray for St Johns and the young people of Kingston Vale, that they would be connected in through this role
• Finally pray for the appointment, that the right person would be available to take this post on

Tags: vacancy, oxygen, youthwork, kingston

May 2009 Newsletter

The May 2009 Newsletter contains stores and news from inside of Oxygen. In particualr it includes information on how people can be involved as a volunteer as well as information on a financial challenge that Oxygen is facing at present

You can download the Newsletter from here

A worker at St Johns Kingston Vale needs your prayer!

Last year at the Oxygen AGM we launched the plan of going deeper with the young people we work with. We want our relationships with young people to take us and them on a journey of discovering and following Jesus. What was important in this journey was the partnership with local churches. Seeking to connect the work we did in the community back into the local faith community.

To achieve this connection we set the challenge of establishing five new going deeper communities. Working with churches in specific location to appoint external youthworkers who can work on the fringes of the church and reach out to bring young people back.

One year on we have two going workers in place and we are working with St Johns Kingston Vale to appoint a third. Following a successful diocesan grant application St Johns are looking to appoint a Youth worker to take on the coordination and development of the church’s outreach and discipling youthwork. The appointed person will be given the challenge of building on the mission links already being established between local young people and the church. The aim will be to encourage those young people in the community who have started to make connections with the church to take these further and involve their friends.

Please do pray for this work and in particular this post, we are finding it hard to appoint someone. We are looking for God to bring the right person to us, and us to the right person. The post is offered at 10 hours per week during term time and so would suit someone seeking flexible working conditions. Deadline for applications is the 2nd April 2009.

Cambridge is Coming.....

Four years ago we saw the departure of former Gap year worker Sylvester Liyanage to Ridley Hall in Cambridge. Now not only has Sylvester returned to curacy in Kingston, but now he is being followed by some former friends who are coming here to help us out!

Between Saturday March 28th and April 5th Oxygen in partnership with CMS & Christchurch New Malden are welcoming seven Ridley Hall ordinands are coming to spend a week involved with Oxygen, Street Pastors & the churches work with the homeless community. In addition to a range of local experiences the participating ordinands will have a chance to engage with a high quality teaching and seminar programme that will explore gospel & culture, cross cultural communication and global understandings of mission & evangelism.

Activities will include detached youthwork, after school clubs, homeless people lunches and walking the streets with Street Pastors Kingston. In addition to the practical activities there will be four teaching blocks during which the theology and practices of mission, evangelism and cross cultural communication will be explored. Time will also be spent with the leadership of Christchurch New Malden, understanding how they are seeking to do church for an emerging generation.

Please pray for the plans for this mission, pray for Christchurch, Oxygen and CMS leading this work
Pray also for the impact of this students, pray that they would help us move the work forward with Kingstons young people

What is Rm1 in Korean?

Seung Kwan Kim
Originally uploaded by Oxygen KB YFC

Hi, I wanted to give you a quick update so you could pray for me. I am please to report that most of my projects are mostly fine. Further to the prayer request from a couple of weeks ago in Korean Club, I'm having a good relationship with those guys, and which is really great.

However this week the Korean work is set to grow as for in a new development I will begin work with Korean Boys who are attending in Coombe boy school. This is an exciting new focus for Oxygen’s Korean work, instead of working with young people after school, I am providing support to the Korean students around the school day – providing mentoring, support and help with their English. I also hope in time to be able to encourage them to come along to Rm1 and get to know us there. From there I hope over future weekend to run other events such as talent shows, basketball competitions and the alike.

So this is my prayer request for this week

Working with Korean young teenage boys is sometimes really difficult, they often are closed and don’t want to chat. Could you therefore pray for relationship between me and Korean guys.

Pray too for this new focus for Oxygen’s work, that it would grow, have a great impact and that many Korean teenagers, not just in Coombe Boys, but across the Borough would be able to be supported

The dark power of Wii, episode 2

Anne Pawlak
Originally uploaded by Oxygen KB YFC

In addition to a large number of games and equipment to help pass the time after school, Rm1 Coombe also has a so-called 'whiteboard' - perfectly white, as the name suggests, and which with its very presence is more or less begging you to test your dexterity with a good thick black marker pen to give purpose to your artistic impulses and to adding thought-provoking slogans, or even to play at being teacher. We realised how useful this was at the beginning of the month, as using the whiteboard we were soon debating questions and topics which had been written up on the board, stimulating small talk, conversation and even sometimes deep discussions!

Last week it was my turn to prepare the whiteboard for the topic which was fair trade, so with measureless enthusiasm I attacked two boys who were harmlessly engaged in trying to knock Lego Indiana Jones figures off a cliff (the new Wii game).

I could have asked them for any question that might occur to them around cash crops, exploitation and fair trade...but my enthusiasm gave way first to mild disappointment and then to total frustration. Every attempt to persuade those two youth to give utterance to any statement of more than three words was a failure. I had to concede that, under the influence of the wii, I was about as interesting to them as a lettuce to a shark.

So I reached the end of last week and I was disappointed and had begun to have serious doubts about my suitability as a Youthworker, but unbeknown to me, things were about to change and the young people at Rm1 Coombe were getting ready to surprise me.

Chocolate bananas rule- or the dark power of the wii weakens
With nerves like piano wires and a few new English expressions calculated to check the boys' squabbles and misdemeanours, off I went to work. But my expectation, that I would find pandemonium, was not fulfilled. What happened instead was this: as we were preparing the daily snacks [fair trade chocolate bananas, as a subtle reference to last week's white board discussion topic] one boy delightedly explained the difference between fair trade food and the rubbish food they use in their cooking lessons.

One other boys were impressed by the amazing taste of the chocolate and asked for more information about fair trade, and we finished the Thursday evening session with a song of praise to fair trade fruit and chocolate...made up on the spot.

be blessed
Cookie (Anne)