Banana Bread at Work

Hiya everyone. I cannot believe it is already August! If you know me well, you know that I am a bit of a procrastinator, and this explains why I have not blogged in a few months. I am working to be better about it, I promise!

The past four months have been a wild time. My placements are keeping me quite busy. I have two placements here in Liverpool. I spend Monday and Tuesday working at an approved premise for individuals who are transitioning out of prison and back into society. I absolutely love every day of it. The people I work with in the office are all characters, and just very wonderful! I am learning a great deal from them, and I am learning a lot from the residents as well. Everyone is different, and no day is boring.

My second placement is with a charity called Together Liverpool, and we work to help churches and communities in the Liverpool Diocese with their social action work. My work here has been enlightening as well. The team I have the privilege of working with is so great, and I love them all. In terms of the work I have been doing, I have been learning a lot. My main focus for Together Liverpool currently is a community asset mapping project. We’re working to map the social action happening in each deanery across the Diocese of Liverpool. When a deanery signs up to work with us, we send them a survey to document any and all social action projects that they have running. I collect the surveys and put each project onto a bubble map, which then enables churches to see what is happening around the deanery, and to utilize the resources available. If you want to check it out, I have included the link: https://togetherliverpool.org.uk/deanerymapping 

My other main project with Together Liverpool is planning a celebration event for individuals and projects that are a part of our Network of Kindness initiative. The Network of Kindness is a way to amplify stories of social action, and encourage people to be kind. Now, I have never planned an event before, so this is quite the learning experience! I knew a large amount of time and effort is put into event planning, but if you have never done it, I don’t think you get the full picture. I am thankful to have a project that is outside of my comfort zone, and is pushing me to learn new skills. 

Life in Liverpool has been wonderful. My housemates are great, and I am enjoying the (mostly) cool temperatures! I am thrilled to report that I no longer have to say “what?” after every sentence, multiple times. Now it is maybe only once a day when I cannot understand someone’s accent, so we love to see that! Plus, I have even made a few friends outside of my housemates! So major things are happening over here. I have also joined a rock climbing gym, and I try to climb two times a week. It is a blast!

I appreciate everyone’s love, prayers, and support, and will be better about blogging regularly (I PROMISE.)

Here is the link to donate! 

https://www.stthomaswi.com/give/ 

Select "give online" and then write Cunningham YASC in the memo box.

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