Bill Hebner

Though 2015 was the 7 th year of the Welsh based Middle Park Camp, it was for me personally a return to the beginning  in so many ways. Way back in 1987 I had the privilege to serve at the Young Life Malibu Club in Canada as a work crew boss.  My job, simple… to live my Christian life as a witness to the 50 young people sacrificing their summer to grow in Christ while providing the basic services necessary to operate the outreach camp for the 400+ leaders and kids that were there to experience the best week of their lives.  How did this translate in real terms….. I washed dishes.  Lots of them, 3 times a day for 4 weeks solid.  Fast forward 28 years and after returning from an extended time in Africa, I found myself after setting up the camp back in our rural mid-Wales field doing the exact same thing, modelling servant leadership to a group of teens and some twenty somethings by washing dishes.   I feel that within all of us there is a desire to p...

PART 2 of 2   UPDATE KYA SANDS  Easter holidays would not be the same without our annual YMP trip.  The group mostly from Wales and England this year descended upon the Judah Africa Ministry Centre and in the standard 10 day window with help from Rainbow FM and other local charities managed to put up a community kitchen, new administration centre and a soon to be ACE school to support the local township.  Community support was higher than we had ever seen with a local building merchant and a crane company donating their services.  These two acts alone allowed for us to not only build the school which was our goal, but add the two other structures as well.  Just amazing what this small team managed to accomplish while hearing the good news of Jesus Christ at the same time. The new location has put the containerized structures on a major roadway.  This has translated into a huge amount of curious people stopping to understand the cons...

PART 1 of  2 Over 20 years ago Stephen Covey in his book the 7 habits of highly effective people stated that if your life is a hammer you will see everything in life is a nail.  In all my travels I must admit that this has proven true.... If you are an engineer    ...you see everything as a structural problem If your pastor                 ....everything is a problem of the heart If you living in a Township           .... you see everything with a survival instinct, living day to day with no thought of the day after tomorrow...  Each of these views has been shaped by life experience via education environment and peers creating a specific truth... but then again…what is truth...   In order to see truth we must intentionally remove ourselves from the biases we live for example:   Over my past 3 months in Africa I ...

  TRUST  This (Proverbs 3:5,6) was one of the first verses I committed to memory as a young Christian.   It summed up just about everything I believed in according to my new found faith …. The whole nature of becoming a bond servant of Christ and the need to jump spiritually and say "How High?" and "W hat direction God?" on the way up.   This may seem unorthodox to most in our intellectually conservative world, but it is what the nature of obedience to the Holy Spirit is all about.   And it is how I have chosen to live life. So with this philosophy intact, I sit in a 1 bedroom flat 900m from the 2015 YMP project.   Listening through the night to the grumblings of a community faced with Xenophobic threats and uprisings that are growing due to outside sources…   At the same time I am trying to clean off my suit to meet with the Lesotho education minster about containerized schools while sitting in coveralls as I plan to try my had on some w...

SKIING IN AFRICA It has been a while since I have taken the time to write.   Mostly because life has looked a great deal more like a black diamond mogul run than the typical groomed slope of routine ministry here in the UK.   When you work with larger national charities such as Young Life and Urban Saints, seasonal routines of ministry come and go like trees passing along a gentle descending ski slope on a sunny spring day in the Rockies.   Don’t get me wrong, all of events and tasks are important, relevant in how and what they are designed to accomplish here in the UK.   But I could only parallel it with skiing a green run from the top of Lake Louise, loving the wind in my face as I had the time and the luxury to look up from the hill and see the glory of God’s creation in the blue sky and stark white snow.    My direction on this run, a collection of weight forward calculated carves bathed in prayer, consensus, tradition and community.   Sinc...

Another year has come and gone and as I stop to pause and to celebrate the birth of our Lord and Saviour and refocus on my family and friends, I trust that this letter finds you in the same mind-set; not too fractured by shopping nor to full from the abundance that most of us take for granted.   I wish you peace on earth, and peace in your soul as you prepare it for heaven as we all must do. My 2014 has been quite busy and disjointed even by my standards.  Here is a summary for those of you who are curious. For a visual of last year se my photo gallery  and video gallery . February - saw the whole family back to Canada for Christmas and a short season of western culture and weather.   It was good to spend some time with Mya traveling as a family through Alberta to Vancouver Island and back seeing many friends and family. March - once again saw us go different directions as I was off to do another mission trip for just over a month in Capetown wit...

 Click for more pictures and info   November has found me in a rural community just outside of Mtwapa Kenya.   The goats here out number the white residence about 100 to 1.   I am here with the Hope for the Nations charity, to build the two story residence for women wanting to break free from the streets and prostitution.   It is a beautiful community, quiet and just a little away from it all so it seems.   This is in contrast to the constant traffic jam that makes up the main roads through and to Mtwapa from Mombassa.   An 8 mile journey that should take 20 minutes but often is well over 1 hr at best.   The street is peppered with somewhat abandoned hotel builds for the European tourist trade, now left empty due to the recent rash of terrorism in the area.   This is unfortunate as the friendliness of the majority of the people rivals that of our dear friends in South Africa .   They do not have much, but are willing to help to...