Please meet my beautiful friend, Tamara!!!- jen
So… here we go.
I guess first it would be nice to introduce myself haha.
My name is Tamara and I’m 24 years old working in England (I am Dutch and from Nederland!!) as a missionary doing kidswork. I‘ve been a Christian as long as I can remember as my parents always took me to church. Alongside that I’ve always had a heart for mission and for kids. My dream of being a little girl was to become a teacher and maybe one day go to Africa to teach little black kids. I’ve always told my parents this so they weren’t surprised that one day I told them I wanted to go and serve God overseas. After a long process of praying and looking around, I found a project in Chile that I really liked. One of the things was working with the street kids there. So that would be brilliant. (I hear you thinking; ‘this is not England… but trust me I’ll get thereJ)
As everyone joining OM for longer than 6 months, they would attend a 10 day starters conference that would prepare them for going on the mission field. I absolutely loved all the different nationalities represented and the things we did were great. After being at the conference for 4 days, I had a conversation. Due to circumstances, Chile was no longer an option. I can tell you, my world fell apart. Ready to go, all packed and then, door closed. God, what are you doing??!! Long story short, I realised that I couldn’t walk away from God and believed firmly that He still had a plan. All the support that came in couldn’t just be wasted! The good thing was that there were lots of people from all over the world that I could talk to about where they worked and what they did. The one that caught my attention was Lifehope in England. Strange! England? Me? Really? Throughout the week it became clear that that was exactly what God had for me. So I decided to follow Him, and I flew to England straight after the Conference. Part of the time I was in a team working with a local church and part of time I worked with a team called Kids ‘n’ Things. This was the team I heard about at the conference and why I ended up in England.
I absolutely loved Kids ‘n’ Things from moment one. The team is a team that works with primary school aged children (5-11yrs old). We do creative ministry using puppets, mime, drama, conjuring to show kid who God really is (that He loves them and cares for them) and tell them about the meaning of Christian festivals like Christmas and Easter. We make all of our own materials, which I absolutely love. I like being creative and that works really well being part of this team. Next to that we work together with local churches and we do 5 day holiday clubs during the half term weeks throughout England. It’s a great opportunity to tell kids more about God and to answer some of the questions they might have.
After 4 months I stopped working with the church team and started doing administrative work. This was only for half of the week as the Kids ‘n’ Things team was delighted to take me on board for long term. This was amazing! I loved having more responsibility and being around for longer, working alongside some amazing people! God really opened a door that I would have never opened myself. The idea of working in England would have put me off straight away, just because… England a mission field??!!
I think, often when we talk about mission, we still think about the far away countries, living in extreme circumstances and nothing modern. This is, at least I think, changing. The population in England that has a living faith is less than 10%. Teen pregnancy is huge together with alcohol problems. England is in need of God! Kids grow up in very hard situations with families being separated and parents who don’t have time for them. We want to tell them that there’s hope. There’s a God that loves them, thinks their special, takes care of them and who will always be there for them! Isn’t that a message every child should hear? I think so and I feel incredibly privileged to be able to tell them that. To give them hopeJ
Being part time on the Kids ‘n’ Things team was great, but deep down I knew I wanted more. I wanted to do more. As much as I enjoyed doing admin, it wasn’t my passion and kids just are. Admin was starting to take over my week as it got busier and busier.
Luckily I’ve made some amazing friends over the last 2 years and one of them challenged me, without even knowing. ‘Tamara’ she said, ‘do you realise that on Thursday and Fridays you’re a lot happier then the other days of the week?’ Honestly, I didn’t. I was serving God where He had placed me, trying to make the best out of it. What I didn’t realise is that He was opening the door again. This time for fulltime kids work. This meant having a few very scary conversations. Such as, asking if fulltime work within Kids ‘n’ Things was possible, quitting my admin job, aaaaah! Those conversations are never my favourite, but the response was amazing. The office was rearranged within no time and after a period of handing over my admin role, I became a fulltime Kids ‘n’ Things member. And guess what? I absolutely love it! God has been amazing over the last 2 years, and 2 years ago I would not have believed you if you had told me this would happen.
One of the biggest things I learned is that I can plan all I want, but God’s ways are higher. I don’t understand them most of the time, but they’re good. He has good plans for me, He will give me hope and a good future (Jer. 29:11). How long I will be here in England? I don’t know, but He knows and I believe when time is done, He will show me. For now, I try to enjoy working where He has me, and most of the time, that is enoughJ
Wacky Weavers 