I Will Rise

Hey Everybody! I didn't get to blog before I left or since I've gotten back so I just wanted to give one last blog post on my time in England and how it ended.

My time in England was one of the greatest experiences I've had in my life and it brought me closer to God than I have ever been in my life. I experienced his glory through the country side, the work I did, and the people I connected with. I went to places I never thought I'd go and places I never knew existed, and I was really amazed by it all. I did work this year that was really different from anything I've ever done. From working in schools with elementary kids, to working with kids after school, to serving older people at soup n' roll, to Cafe Churches, the work I did this year was different and I know that there were a lot of times this year where God was glorified. Lastly, the people I met this year will never be forgotten, I will always remember my house group, the people who worked with the bridge and YFC, and mostly the kids I had the pleasure of working with this year, they have all left an imprint on my heart, and it hurt me just as much to say goodbye to them as it did to say bye to my youth group when I left for the year.
I can't wait to return next year and see the people of Guisbrough and see how all the kids have grown, and trust me when I say I WILL return next year.
Even though I was sad to be leaving, I was so happy to return home. I got to see my family as soon as I got home, then I went to the church at the tail end of the first night of our Summer Family Experience and was able to see everybody from the church that I've missed and all of our students, and I can't even explain the joy I felt in seeing all of them again. I was so happy to come back home even though I knew I'd miss my other home.
My time in England was cut short and I didn't really explain it to people why I had to come back early, but my younger brother Ryan was shot and murdered on July 10th, and I had to come back home to say goodbye to someone who is a huge part of who I am. It hurt so bad but I have the greatest healer of all. My brother was very different from me yet we were a lot alike. Being the brother who always had to room with him growing up, when my sister asked us if anybody wanted to speak at his funeral I chose to say something. I didn't get to tell my bro good bye or that I loved him to him so I chose to do so by remembering him with all of his family and friends. I was able to go on one last walk by myself in England to be by myself so I could be one on one with God. I had a moment in the woods where it just hit me like a train. I've been so lucky to have the people of Getwell and the people of Guisbrough during this time, because without God and those he has surrounded me with I don't know how I would have made it out of this situation. My Brothers death also brought my family together, all of us, and on that day when we should have been shedding tears and filled with sorrow, we were able to come together and remember old times, fun times, bad times, and just laugh. It took my brother dying to do that though, and it just made me realize who much I miss my family and the times we used to have, I'll probably never have that back, but for just a day I had it, and I wish Ryan could have been there, but God had him on that day, and every day, and for all of eternity for now on.
Last night came the biggest comfort of all in this whole situation. My brothers BFF Michael told us that a few months ago he baptized Ryan after Ryan told him about his belief in Jesus, and if that's true then I know where my brother is, and last night at enter in the Wenger sisters sang a song that brought me to tears as I was sitting in the back and the words just comforted me and helped me say goodbye to my brother. The song is called I Will Rise By Chris Tomlin

"There's a peace I've come to know 
Though my heart and flesh may fail 
There's an anchor for my soul 
I can say "It is well" 
Jesus has overcome 
And the grave is overwhelmed 
The victory is won 
He is risen from the dead 
And I will rise when He calls my name 
No more sorrow, no more pain 
I will rise on eagles' wings 
Before my God fall on my knees 
And rise 
I will rise 
There's a day that's drawing near 
When this darkness breaks to light 
And the shadows disappear 
And my faith shall be my eyes 
Jesus has overcome 
And the grave is overwhelmed 
The victory is won 
He is risen from the dead 
And I will rise when He calls my name 
No more sorrow, no more pain 
I will rise on eagles' wings 
Before my God fall on my knees 
And rise 
I will rise 
And I hear the voice of many angels sing, 
"Worthy is the Lamb" 
And I hear the cry of every longing heart, 
"Worthy is the Lamb"  
And I will rise when He calls my name 
No more sorrow, no more pain 
I will rise on eagles' wings 
Before my God fall on my knees 
And rise 
I will rise"

and I immediately just had a picture in my head of my brother smiling at me while standing next to a throne, a throne where Jesus sat at the right hand at the throne of God and my brother was no longer in his earthly dwelling but he had been baptized by fire and cleansed, and was in his eternal home where I long to join him.

Many people would look at this situation and say how is it possible a God could exist if something this bad could happen?

I look at this and say how can we blame God for our mistakes when it's always been us making the mistakes and him cleaning up after us. 

Also I say this is why we NEED Jesus, just thinking that some group of people could take someone's life like this just shows me how evil humans are, not just those ones, but all of us, and without Jesus, there is no possible way we'd be able to live with God, and that's why Christ is the ONLY way to heaven.

I'm sorry for the length of this post, but I felt the need to say certain things, and lastly as this will be my last blog for quite a while, I just wanna thank YFC, The Bridge, and Getwell, you have all helped shape me to be who I am.

I cannot wait for the day that I am reunited with my partner in crime, but in stead of causing trouble we will be free of it, and we will be worshipping the king together. So this blog is for Ryan Christopher Brooks, AKA: Baby Elephant, Sparky, Breezy, and many other foolish nicknames, I love you, and I always will.

Just Some Old Hymns

Had the chance to share my testimony at the Salvation Army this morning. Before that we sang a hymn that just hit home with me. I'm not usually the biggest fan of singing hymns but this one was great. It's called kneeling in penitence.

Kneeling in penitence I make my prayer,
Owning my weaknesses and my despair;
Failure I cannot hide,
Broken my selfish pride,
Pardon thou dost provide,
Pardon declare.

Nothing can I achieve, nothing attain;
He that without thee builds, labors in vain;
Shatter my own design,
Shaping a plan divine,
Come to this heart of mine,
Saviour, again.

Though few the gifts I have that thou canst use,
Make thy demands on me; I'll not refuse;
Take all there is of me,
Take what I hope to be;
Thy way at last I see,
Thy way I choose.

Loved that last bit, and the whole thing in general really, where it says take all there is of me, take what i hope to be...That's really tough to ask God to do because we have our own selfish desires and all of our own goals in life..but to say to God "I don't want it...you take it and make it yours" is just stunning to me. So I do ask God to break my selfish pride and shatter my own designs, I only want what he wants for me, because it seems like everything I want is just the stuff that gets me into trouble.

Last thing, the other day I was reading an argument between some Christians and one of them was talking about how he was a "proud (specific sin) christian who doesn't care what society says to him because Jesus loves him." I'm not gonna say the sin because that's not the point of my argument. I was a bit caught of guard because my opinion is that of Romans 8 which says that you can only live for the spirit or the flesh, but not both. What I believe is that if you are pursuing Christ, then you are fighting sin and fighting temptation. Yet, this man was saying he was embracing sin in his life and embracing Jesus. Others had the same mindset as me and they posted them telling him what scripture says, and he kept saying "well I don't believe that verse or that part of the bible" and I was reminded of a lesson from Tim Fritson on a fall retreat at Windermere a few years back when Tim started ripping out pages of the bible then when his product was finished he held it up and said "now this is the bible i want to believe in," but the point of his talk was that we can't do that..we don't make the bible what we want it to be so it will fit in with our lifestyle. In fact we should do the opposite, match our lifestyles to that of Jesus (Ephesians 5:1) and that only happens through observing his word (ALL OF IT) so please don't underestimate the power of scripture. It has transformed my life and I know it can do it to anybody if it can do it to me.

My Sword I Leave For Another

So yeah...just got back from traveling to Barcelona, Rome, Venice, and Paris..and felt compelled to write about some things that just got me thinking in Barcelona.

One of the main things we have been talking about in YFC this year is the potential of not seeing any fruit and wondering if we would be able to handle that, and on this trip I got to see some stories of that.
The guy who designed the Sagrada Familia Basilica knew he wouldn't be able to see his finished work(as it's been being worked on for nearly 100 years now) yet decided to pursue it anyways, and at first that just sounded crazy to me. Then, I thought about how he was leaving his work for men behind him to finish, and I was reminded of 2 Tim 2:2 and how we may never see all the people we will impact and we may never see somebody fully grow but being used by God to set the foundation can sometimes be the plan that was made for us. We find faithful men who will be able to continue teaching others after we have taught them and in the same way, Gaudi designed and worked on the Basilica knowing that he would have to entrust his work to someone else later on, and i can only imagine how tough that was. It reminded me of a question that was asked during one of our intern bible studies last summer by BC.." Who is my Timothy" asking who am I pouring into that will carry God's work after me, it's quite convicting when you realize you might not have a Timothy yet and even more so when you realize how poor my attempts have been to find one.

I also loved that the main attractions weren't on the inside of the building but Gaudi shared the Gospel with the outside of his building. There are 3 main sides of the basilica. One is the Nativity, the birth of Christ. The 2nd is the death, the betrayal, and crucifixion of Jesus. The last is the Glory, the future we have through Jesus and only him. I love that Gaudi put these sculptures on the outside of his building and not on the inside so that all could see them. The Gospel is for everyone and Gaudi made it possible that through his architecture, anybody could see the gospel just by looking at it.

There were multiple times I got to just sit and be with God this past week, and I realized how important that is and how I can look over that sometimes. I went to a few services that were in different languages so I couldn't really pay attention to what they were saying, but instead I was able to just go pray and sit still, and it helped a lot. I think I've completely overlooked prayer in my life really. I pray, but it's always been me telling God what my problems are when he already knows them, when in stead, i should just be listening to what he wants me to do.

I can't believe that in 2 weeks I'll be seeing people from GRUMC serving in England and i look forward to it so much. Please pray that their time here would be fruitful and would help ministry in Guisborough even after they go back. It's even harder to believe that my time here is quickly ending. Over the summer I've been thinking about starting a discipleship group with our students and I've been trying to think about where to start with that and it's just been tough, so please pray for that as well.
I miss you all and can't wait to tell everybody in person about my experiences in Barcelona, Rome, Venice, and Paris, but most importantly about my time here in England.

as always, thanks to everybody who made all of this possible, and most importantly, glory to God.
Love,
Hunter Brooks--formerly known as Glen Coco

Feeling 22!

Hey everybody! Sorry it's been so long since I've posted, let's get everybody caught up on what God's been doing in the Tees Valley! Shall we?

These past few months have flown by but they've been so good. We've started a new Thursday night group and some new guys have been coming to it and Wednesday night group as well. So it's been a great opportunity to just hang out with some guys and build relationships with them! They're quite easy to lure in, just soda and pizza and boom, they're there.

We've also been doing the Easter story lately at Galley Hill Primary School (Holds no candle to Greenbrook Elementary lol) and the kids have been great. Before that we got to do a lot of the Old Testament with them and I got to lead a session on the story of Jacob and Esau in which we blindfolded the kids and had them try and guess which classmate was which just by hearing their voice and feeling their hair and face...they surprisingly knew most of their classmates! Many of these kids love just talking to Lindsey and myself and playing with us on the playground. Most of these 10 year old kids are miles better than me at football (or soccer if you're a lame american)

I've had so many people who ask why I've come all the way to the Tees Valley from America and through that I get to share my faith through my testimony, and it's been so great. Then they think I'm crazy when I say I actually like it here. We've got a lot of new outsiders coming to youth groups though just because they meet Lindsey and myself out on the streets after school and they have continued coming back.

A few weeks ago our house group of 8 went on a retreat near the Lake District. I had a lovely time, everybody got to lead a bible study, prayer walk, or worship session during the weekend and it was so great to just go away with people my age or older than me for a change. The theme for the weekend was God's love, or Agape. I did my session on 2 Tim 2, and just talked about having a world view. While planning it, I thought of how Getwell does the thing where we pray for the persecuted church in a different country each month and I really started to miss everybody at Getwell. The weekend was full of Glorifying God then going and exploring God's glory, overall a great weekend, and it snowed!

As Easter approaches I've been going through all the prophecies that described the Messiah in the OT, and I just love how everything that they said would happen did with Jesus. He was and is the only one who could ever defeat death and wash our sin away.

I'd like to thank everybody on the church staff as well! Received your birthday cards yesterday and they were great! (Especially the picture Michelle sent me!) Just to let everybody who was wondering back at home know I have not gotten married and I haven't seen Prince George or One Direction (Sorry Getwell Girls)

PRAYER REQUESTS!
1. I've gotten to know so many kids and teenagers over here and build relationships with them and I would love to start seeing some fruit grow from these relationships before I leave so just please pray that my time with them would be glorifying to God and that I would take the backseat to him.
2. We had a Wednesday night group that has been cancelled temporarily until we find a new venue and these are with kids that desperately need people hanging out with them that will show them love. They live about 30 minutes away and we used to drive out and have a club with them but it stopped a few weeks ago because the people who owned the place we went to couldn't afford to keep it open.
3. Just general prayer for Guisborough, we've had a few meetings about where the Methodist church is heading as far as Family and Youth ministry go and we just need \God's help and direction. Then prayer for Lindsey as she decides whether or not to stay in Guisborough for a 3rd year.
4. Prayer for Energy, I've got just under 4 months left and I want to make sure I give it my all while I'm here and I'll be needing a lot of energy to keep up with these kids.


I miss everybody a lot and can't wait to see you all again, and I really want to thank everybody who has been supporting me, you guys have kept my ministry going in so many different ways. There is no way I would ever be able to explain to you guys what this year has meant to me and it wouldn't be possible if it weren't for everybody back at home supporting me through prayer and finance as well.

Lastly, if any of my friends from back at home are reading this and have a passion for working with youth and young people, the bridge will need somebody to replace me when I leave at the end of the summer. TVYFC needs gap year students to put into Guisborough. If you're at all interested message me on Facebook and let's talk about it! I can connect you with Mike Taylor and he can tell you even more than I can but the kids and teens here are great and they've impacted me just as much as I hope I've impacted them!

Love you guys and gals, miss ya!