Home and thank you

Home after an amazing, but tiring two weeks at New Wine. I think it has been one of the best I have ever been too. I have been honoured to serve as a team leader and to have the opportunity to meet some amazing people who have surprised and inspired me. I saw some future leaders among them.
So, thank you to all those that were members of the stewarding team. Things didn't always go to plan and you were sometimes left on a duty a little longer than you expected or left sitting around apparently doing nothing. I appreciate your could humour despite being tired and without you I hate to think what would have happened. I hope you have gained something from your time on the team and will grow in your faith. I am sorry I didn't have the opportunity for proper good byes but with Facebook and other mediums I hope to keep in touch with you. God bless and I hope to see many of you next year.

Satan, you will not win

So, New Wine is coming to an end. Once again I feel humbled and honoured  to be a team leader. I can not thank my team members enough for the help and service they have given over the last two weeks. The last two weeks have seen many amazing things happen. It has also shown that Satan is still very active in the world and hates things like New Wine. We have however, been blessed with the gift of laughter/humour these last weeks. We have found even when we have been wadding in 'dirty' water and filling sand bags at 2300 and putting out fires been able to laugh and joke yet still get the job done in a professional way.
So, we all have to be on the look out for Satan and his cunning. But with prayer and trust in God he will not win the battle.

Busy Day

Another busy day with a fair share of 'missing' children and other incidents.There is a set procedure to cater for missing people, which involves shutting all the gates to prevent any one leaving and a description being broadcast  to all radios and a search made of likely places they may be. Most of these people are found quickly and usually in their own, or a friends tent completely unaware they are 'missing'. However, some go the wrong way somewhere and are genuinely lost and are safely reunited with their family.
We also had a serious incident involving a fire in a caravan. This fortunately was brought under control due to the prompt attendance of the stewarding team. We did however call the local fire brigade who attended and after checking with a thermal camera confirmed the fire was out. The caravan was a right off. We also had reports of a fire in a tent which turned out to be a citronella bucket which someone had inside their tent. 

What a lovely morning

Sitting outside the Hungry  venue listening to the worship and just having some 'me' time. It also gives me some time to reflect on the past 2 weeks as we prepare to return to the real world. We have thankfully few incidents and even those have, in the great scheme of things have been fairly minor. We have had the usual spiritual attacks from Satan, who must be very frighted by a event like this. We have overcome these attacks with prayer and a wiliness that the power of God will win through. I also have found him trying to attack me with financial fear and times of anxiety. We did have one heart stopping moment last night when a 'priority' call was made from control about a possible gas explosion on site. Hearing the call and other traffic from other radio users I and others really did feal the worse and we did rather exceed the 5 mph speed limit. In the end it turns out that the 'explosion' was caused by a lorry air bag failing. having had one fail on a bus I know how loud these are. It did, once again show how well the team can go from relaxed mode to major incident mode in a professional way. Today my team are on Ice packs and gates till midnight so hopefully they are all chilling like me.

No Pictures

Had a tidy up of my google+ photos yesterday. However, I did not realise that these were all the photos that are displayed on the blog. I tried putting the folder back but the links have changed. The result is that you will see a blank where the photo was. I have put a couple back but in the mean time I apologise for the bare look. This is a case of 'it it ain't broke don't fix it'

Last day LSE

Well last day of the first week of New Wine. Yesterday was a fairly busy day with gates and mobile to run. Had a couple of situations which showed the importance of all delegates wearing there badges. This has always been a little bit of an issue with some delegates saying that as this is a Christian site we should be trusting. However, the real world still exists and of course not all delegates are Christian and some have been brought here in the hope they will come to faith so we need the site to be safe and secure. Had one interesting situation at one of the gates. The light failed and the three lads were left in the dark only with torches. However, this gave them the opportunity to see the stars. We could see the milky way, stars to the horizon and even a couple of satellites. As they lived in the city this was the first time they had ever seen the sky like this. The comment though that stuck in my mind was 'how can you look at this and say there is no God?'