BBQ and games

Well, yesterday was a noteworthy one for me, and not because of the World Cup. We had a Church BBQ and Fun Day, out in Ribchester. Started out on the Recreation Ground, playing outdoor games, including an interesting game of rounders. Interesting because of the [I]slight[/I] bending of the rules involved once or twice and the flexible attitude to who was and wasn't out... Had fun sliding across the grass to hit a cone, only to be told we weren't playing for half points :(. There was, in fact, no point to my leap (well, skid) to get in. Still, it was quite fun. Then there was (little) Tom's 'batting'. Well, Andy's batting with Tom holding the bat and nearly sending Tom flying instead of the ball... Oh, and Norma's amazing method of hitting things by flicking the bat straight up in the air with a squeal. Good fun was had by all. And of course, I had to take part in the sack race, egg and spoon race, bean bag on head race. Won none, but that was fine. They were really for the littlies, and given the size of the sack I was using, hardly surprising I didn't win :). Then we went back to Sue and Andy's for a BBQ, ate outside, relaxed, had fun, went on a walk, went paddling in the Ribble (bad move, more like scrambling bare foot over rocks that weren't too friendly and then standing in green slime...)... So yeh, good fun. Hattie came too, which was a bonus. Really enjoyed myself, got home and my nose turned bright red. And that was despite sun cream and hat! Still, it's not too bad now.

An Ending and a Celebration

Well, today Fresh Manna, which is the church I attend, officially ended. We're carrying on as a fellowship, but we currently have no name. Both our pastors have resigned see, so we kinda couldn't continue as Fresh Manna. Anyway, we had a service today to celebrate all that Fresh Manna has meant to people over the years it's been around. I actually can't remember being in any church in England where we've been as happy, or at least where I've been as happy. In fact, I don't recall even the churches we went to in America as being as amazing as Fresh Manna. It's the worship and the grace message I guess. That's what came out most.

It's kinda weird to think that Fresh Manna is no more. We're currently 'The Fellowship that was Formerly Fresh Manna' though I doubt that's any sort of official title. Oh well, we shall see next week what God's actully going to do with our church. I can't imagine He'll leave us dangling for too long. So yeh, big things happening. Oh, one other thing: it was so funny looking at all the pictures this morning. There were some really ridiculous ones of me--dressed as a chicken, at Junior Church housegroup, as a small child wearing fake glasses and dressed in ridiculously bright clothes and a hat. Not sure what that one was about... Still, it was quite amusing. So yeh, it's weird to think that something that's been a huge part of my life since I was tiny is now no more, but all the people are still there. The church meal is on Friday too--in past year's it's been called a Christmas meal, but as it's, well, significantly after Christmas, I don't think that's such a fitting lable any more. Should be fun.

Blest

I'm pretty knackered today I have to say. I didn't get home till about 11:15 or so, and then I woke up really early (as in quarter to six early) and couldn't get back to sleep for ages. But Blest was awesome! While we were singing 'This Is Our God' (Hillsongs), I just sensed that there were angels all around, and I was nearly crying. It was just incredible.

Sarah was talking about prayer, and she did an ace job. I didn't want her to stop. She just really brought it to life. I would've taken more notes, but it was kinda dark so I couldn't actually see my Bible... But she was talking about praying as we went through the day. So I prayed that the gears would change on my bike properly, and they did... but then the chain fell off. Meh. But it did go back on again without too much of a faff, so that was okay. Oh well. I didn't get run over or anything, so that was okay.

Oh yeh, and I've managed to volunteer myself for something again. Well, I've volunteered myself to do the first Creative Writing Group on Wednesday (we'll be talking about characters), and I also volunteered myself to play my clarinet at the next Blest. Maybe I should stop just randomly agreeing to do stuff, but it is quite fun. I'm looking forward to it.

Rather Unexpected...

[I actually wrote this on Sunday, not today. I've just not been on laptop connected to internet since then.]

Well, today was a bit of an unexpected day. I was, as I described earlier, somewhat thrown in at the deep end with regard to Junior Church. Well, I say thrown in at the deep end, to be honest, I jumped although I was expecting the water to be a little shallower. Still, I enjoyed it. Then there was the whole playing around with a laptop thing, which I kinda decided to do off my own bat, but still, not something I would expect to do. I'm now lying on my bed, typing this into open office because I don't yet have wireless (and probably never will at home, it's a bit too unsecure for my parent's liking and I have to say I agree with them on that), on a laptop. Which I never really expected to have. I knew I'd probably get one before I went to uni, but I wasn't expecting my granddad to give me his old one, well before I'm going away. Seems to be working perfectly fine. Still getting used to the keyboard a bit, though thankfully there don't seem to be too many random letters in not quite the expected position. Anyway, that wasn't the most unexpected thing that happened today...

It appears that I can play the drums. Yeh, I say that as though I didn't realise it. I kinda didn't. Got to church this evening, and Buster apparently said to my mum that Hil wasn't here so it looked like we wouldn't have a drummer. Mum half volunteered me, so I thought why not and hopped on down, not really expecting anything to come of it. Hil duly turned up, but then said she didn't want to play, she wanted a night off. So all of a sudden, yes I was playing the drums at church. Bear in mind I have never played with a group before—a few months ago (maybe around Easter time, maybe before that even) we got the electric drums out and I had a bit of a go with mum. Since then I haven't played them. But I sat down and had a bash and it went pretty well. Talk about jumping in at the deep end (again, can't really say I was thrown in, it was my choice to go for it). I have to say though, I did quite enjoy it, especially when I was starting to get the hang of it. My dad said on the way home 'wasn't that a bit stressful', and to be honest, I never really felt that stressed. Church on a Sunday evening is an environment I feel very comfortable in, so I was okay with that. I think God had a hand in it too :D. In fact, I know he did, cos there is no way I could've done that in my own strength—I was shaking after my last clarinet exam, and clarinet is something I feel a heck of a lot more comfortable with than the idea of me playing drums. Apparently it sounded okay. Buster said I lost the beat slightly once or twice, but that I did pretty well over all, so I guess that was okay. So yeh, a bit of a day of firsts for me.

Junior Church

Well, today I did Junior Church at Fresh Manna. Well, part of it. I got a call on Thursday night from Ruth, she said could I do the under fives on Sunday. So I said sure, came up with an idea and a bit of a plan, including an activity. Got it all ready on Saturday evening. I made ten baby Moseses out of salt dough, and baked them all (and since I had some left I made some other things too), which was quite good fun. Painted them up this morning. And I ended up getting to church and after a bit of confusion based on the fact I was supposed to be going in with the rest of my group today, I wound up teaching the whole of Junior Church, with a load of parents listening in, about Moses, and then handing round my Moseses. There were just enough apparently, because I then had to scurry off to my group. Nicky and Ruth both said I did pretty good. Apparently the babies went down well :D. Unfortunately, the origami boxes were rather more complicated than anyone else had anticipated (actually, they're not that hard, but you do need to have someone to show you how to do it), so they didn't manage to do that. I enjoyed it any rate, will hopefully get to do it again some time.

As an added aside: I am writing this on a laptop for the first time ever. My granddad gave me his old one, dad's modified it a little so it has enough ram to actually load the antivirus, and now it seems to be working pretty good.

Fresh Manna by the Youth!

I've just realised I never wrote about the service we did the day after Encounter! My youth group took the whole service (although admittedly we pinched Buster to drum and Dave to play base). Good fun. I think it went better than last time even. I was certainly more relaxed playing my clarinet, partially cos I'd done it before. Apparently you couldn't actually hear me very well, but never mind. It went well. The drama was fun. Hopefully we'll do it again soon, it's quite exciting to take over church for a week :D.

Encounter!!!!

Wow! It was so amazing! Huge youth event in the Guild Hall Preston for those of you who've never heard of it.

The music was fantastic. I discovered why I could never find one of the songs I love that we've sung at Devoted to download--one of the people at Devoted wrote it! It's amazing, based on Timothy where it says don't let anyone look down on you because you're young. Very lively. I was most impressed with their version of Abide With Me, which involved some pretty cool dancing to it.

Very emotional in the second half. Nearly crying at the drama about the girl who ran away from home. Des was speaking, really interesting what he was saying about going home. Will write more about the content on my other blog, http://pointofcontact317.blogspot.com.

Absolutely awesome. If you didn't come this year, you really have to come next year!!!

Quiver

On Saturday, a bunch of us from Fresh Manna (the Fresh Manna youth plus a few extras), went out to Blackpool, in a minibus kindly driven by Norma. As you can see, I'm still alive, so she obviously did a pretty good job. Twas amusing on the drive down, we were in a Variety Club bus (they help special needs children), and we waved to loads of old ladies who didn't quite know how to react. :D

Quiver was a youth event run by Elel (I think that's how it's spelt), and it was really, really good. It was aimed at 18-35s, but Megan and I snuck on anyway. They didn't mind. The worship was very good, and then the speakers were also fantastic. I'll write more about it on my other blog: http://pointofcontact317.blogspot.com. But it was well worth going.

Lukas did a bit of drive-by evangilising on the way back... He shouted out the window at a random passer-by 'Jesus loves you!'. Quite amusing. And a good idea. After all, if people go around with lyrics advertising sex pouring out their cars, why shouldn't we go around shouting 'Jesus loves you'?

Blest

It was Blest last night, great fun. Really enjoyed it. Lukas was speaking, about opening doors for people and not missing opportunities. I'm gonna try and get more involved with it. I've been a couple of times now, although I missed the last one cos I was ill *waaa!*. Anyway. It was at this little church that looks like half of it's been sawn off. We watched our little video again, that our group did for Fresh Manna.

Fresh Manna Christmas Meal

Yup. We had our Christmas Meal last night, at a Golf Club. Good food, plenty of fun. We went early though, because Mum was shattered and not feeling well, and James was pretty knackered too. As was I, but I'm sure I could've coped... At least we got pudding. The sticky toffee wasn't quite as good as Sally's, but still pretty decent. My favourite pudding though. Yum!
To explain: we have our Christmas Meal after Christmas because then it doesn't clash with all the festivities and stuff. Not because we're so disorganised we can't get it sorted before. Well, maybe a bit...

Fresh Manna by the youth...

Our youth group ran church this morning. Went pretty well, even if I was involved and may be slightly biased... :D Quite good fun to be honest, once I got over complete stage fright that comes from looking at a hundred or so people and playing a clarinet into a microphone. They were all singing, they wouldn't have heard... Anyway, it went well. I heard pretty positive comments about it. Not that people were likely to say anything too bad, but still.

Sunday night...

I meant to post this before, but cos I've written about it elsewhere, I kind of didn't. Anyway, on Sunday I went to church in the evening, cos I've started to do that, and towards the end of the service, Big Dave (we have three Daves at our church. All three are pretty big. Big Dave is the middle one I would say, but the bigger Dave is Heather's Dave...). Anyway, Big Dave said he felt like there were people at church who God was calling to step out and stuff, and they wanted to do something, but they weren't sure what direction to take, and it was like he was talking just to me. I knew I had to go see him and get prayer. And so I did. Anyway, I'll be sending Nutmeg Angel to an agent by the end of this week. Hopefully tomorrow. The other thing that came out of that, was that he told me to write it down when I got home. I was intending to do it on here, but I ended up doing it in a notebook, and it turned into a prayer, and I've found that a really good way to pray is to just free-write and talk to God.

Holiday

Well, my holiday was fairly good fun. Hebdon Bridge is a really pretty site. We parked the caravan by a stream, so we could hear it all the time, which was nice. Friday, before James came, we went to a clog factory, which was basically a clog shop and that was about it, and then we went to Hebdon Bridge, but Mum got tired so we came back to the caravan. James came by train on Friday after school, and then Saturday we went to Halifax. Had dinner at a Chinese buffet and saw a parade go past, but Mum got tired then as well, so we went back to the van. I read two hugely fat books, one six-hundred page one and one seven-hundred-and-fifty page one, the Dirk Pitt ones I mentioned in the last post, or maybe the post before last, I forget. Anyway, we came home Sunday, went to church in the evening and we were in our new location across the road from before and Dad couldn't get the projecter working properly to do the song words. Oh well. He managed it this morning anyway.

Stuff is happening

Just thought you might like to know. Stuff is happening. There's going to be a huge outpouring of the holy spirit in the Preston area soon. There've been loads of visions about it at my church, and stuff is definitely happening there. Didn't have a sermon again on Sunday night, we were just worshipping. It was amazing. I want to do something. I don't know what, but I want to do something, to be involved. I don't particularly care what. Even if it's only taking tea to the healing team that's going to be be starting up soon on the flag market, I've forgotten what day, think it's going to be a Saturday, I want to be involved.

Pat (from Kenya)

On Saturday, a lady called Pat came round to our house, to see my parents, because they sent some money to the orphanage she runs, called Covenant Home, in Kenya, and she was coming to our church on Sunday, but since my mum's not allowed to come, Nicky said she was making sure mum got the chance to meet her. She's amazing. She was talking about the violence, and how it's not really gone away, it's still there, lurking below the surface, and it isn't going to take much to spark it off again. It's a totally different culture. The police and other civil servants aren't being paid, and so when the police need food, they go out and make up a couple of charges, but you can't really blame them because they're starving and desperate too. Anyway, it was really interesting, and it's incredible to listen to Pat talk about it.
Here's the website, have a look.
http://www.covenanthome.co.uk/
It's amazing what God's doing there. Because of all the violence, they needed security, and they were going to have to contribute to a kind of neighbourhood thing, when really they need all the money they've got for food, but the neighbour said that they'd put her on it without her having to pay, because of all the good she's doing for the people of Kenya.
Anyway, I'll be off now, to do some more writing, and maybe some revision at some point...

Fire...

Yeh. I don't know how to explain this really, but I want to write it down all the same. At church this morning, Moya went up to speak, and she was saying about this conference and there's a revival going on, a revival of fire, and she was passing it on, and she said we were to all come up if we wanted her to pray fire for us, and then she said it was a double portion for the youth and I went up. It was like electricity flowing through me, and I couldn't stand up. Someone, Dianne I think, helped me to a chair, and I just sat there and couldn't move, and then I was shaking, and my hands especially were all tingly and I really want to share it with other people in my school, because it was such joy and peace and completeness, and then towards the end of the service I was just laughing and shaking still, and Dianne took me over to Lorena and Christine and we just sat there and we were laughing and laughing and just couldn't stop laughing, it was amazing.

Cathedral

Well, it could've gone a lot worse this morning. Of course, despite sending an emergency message round yesterday to tell everyone we had to be at the Cathedral by half eight, Mr Tarney didn't start choir until ten to nine, and I had to get the bus at half seven, so I was a little peeved, and now I'm tired. But oh well. Two of the songs went badly wrong. The Agnes Dei kind of failed to start up, because we didn't actually know it very well, and in Lift Up Your Heads Oh Ye Gates we didn't quite manage to get the A... Never mind.
Mr Whyte's song at the end was good fun, plus we did nice songs which we picked. So we did Servant King, Shine Jesus Shine, and one other which I cannot remember the name of but I love and we sing it at church sometimes. Oh, I know, I'll just go look, cos I have the sheet. It was My Jesus, My Saviour, and I love that song. But the best bit was Mr Whyte's song, mainly because it was so hopelessly out of time with everything but we belted it out anyway. LOL. Couple of people were crying because it's our last ever Cathedral Service, but it doesn't feel like it's soon to me. I mean, yes I've got a leaver's book and I'm going to get everyone to write in it, but there's still a fair bit left.

Revolutionary

Encounter last night was absolutely awesome. James didn't really enjoy it, but I did, it was great. It's a shame Naomi couldn't come, but that's life. I'm really tired now, because I've now had three late nights in a row, plus I woke up at ten past six this morning. I really want to get more involved with the church and stuff, and I'm going to reach out to people, like the speaker was saying. I'm going to hold what hands I can and see what comes of it. And I'm going to get involved in Hope 08 somehow.

Encounter!

Encounter last night was absolutely fantastic. I think Naomi enjoyed it too. I'm probably going again tonight, but right now I'm absolutely shattered. I think I might just say forget the word war and go sleep for a bit.

Christmas meal was good

Yep, that's right. Our church Christmas meal was last night. Good food, and lively company. Had a great time. Tired now, but I'm awake and can't get back to sleep. Humph.
Did you konw taht eevn thoguh tihs lokos bad, you can siltl udersntad it bceasue yuor barin deosn't raed the idinvdiaul ltetres but the wlohe wrod? Probably. I've seen this more times than I can remember, just randomly decided to post it on here.