Luton church launches a ‘gap year’ programme

Stopsley Baptist Church in Luton has launched a new “year out” programme for 18 to 25-year-olds called EPIC (Experience, Participate, Innovate and Communicate).

Mark Scanlan, Stopsley Baptist Church youthworker, explained: “EPIC was born out of a desire to extend our commitment to young people beyond the age of 18 and to give young people the chance to have a mission experience both at home and abroad in the Philippines.

“EPIC is a great opportunity for young people to develop skills and talents while receiving training, and gaining youthwork experience in two vastly different cultures; all in one amazing gap year.”

Dan Nolloth and Hannah Li have just completed their EPIC year. “Basically, you spend four months at Stopsley as a youth worker ... then another four months in the Philippines working with an organisation called International Teams,” said Dan. “I signed up for EPIC simply because I didn’t have anything planned for the next year after college, then this popped up so I thought about it for a while and went for it. It’s been great!”

Hannah added: “I’m very interested in helping local young people, but also had a great desire to travel. Personally the destination was also perfect for me as I was already looking into taking a missions trip to East Asia during my gap year. The experience abroad can’t help but highlight how incredibly fortunate and blessed we are in the West, and what a huge responsibility there is on us to be wise and sensible with what we have.

“There are some tough times - it’s not an easy option - but I am glad that I went because the difficulties have helped me grow, and learn new things about the world and about myself. I have wonderful memories.”

Find out more at www.stopsley.net

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