I wonder if chocolate kills brain cells (by Andrew Wooding)

(Amazon UK link)

I had not heard of Andrew Wooding prior to reading this book. Apparently he has written others, and now works in the Church Army. I first read 'I wonder if chocolate kills brain cells' many years ago, and decided to read it again.

This is the story of the author's time as a young man when he went on a Youth with a Mission (YWAM) Discipleship Training School (DTS) in England.

It's in diary format, charting the author's experiences. It's written with honesty and (sometimes) humour. The people he meets are realistically described, and there are some amusing anecdotes as they learn to deal with new situations and get along with each other.

The book culminates in the second part of the training - the 'outreach' conference, and Andrew Wooding's knowledge that God's hand would be leading him in the future.

I found the book encouraging, thinking of my sons perhaps doing something of this sort in a few years' time. There is a slightly strange mixture of humorous and serious, which didn't work as well as (for instance) Adrian Plass's diary books do. But still, I thought it was well-written and honest, and I'm glad I read it.

Recommended, if you can find it second-hand; it seems to be out of print.