Hey everyone,
Sorry this has been so long in coming, but it feels like I have been away for a month as I have done 3 trips in 5 weeks. All of our trips are over now so I figured that I would give you an update on each...
New Wine USA
This was an excellent weekend in Statesville, North Carolina. For those of you who have done Soul Survivor or New Wine int he UK it is basically the same thing. St Andrews, our neighboring Episcopal Church has been chosen to head up New Wine in the States, and this was the second year that they had done it. 650 people attended and about 50 of those were High School students which was the age that we took, along with a handful of college kids. Any way, we had an excellent weekend and saw God doing many powerful things in our students lives, along with one guy becoming a Christian. In general it was just a really fun weekend as there was plenty of time to hang out and have good fellowship with each other. We had a couple of gazebos set up with camp chairs under, and the best times were when all of us were under there just chatting and joking together.
Camp Bonnie Doone (aka Crusaders USA)
Wow! What an amazing week! And it was the first one we had ever done! Running much like Crusader Houseparty (early morning swims, morning groups, arts and crafts (although sadly no chocolate making Jane...!), siesta (a big hit with the leaders!), book reading, seminars (although they weren't optional), The Rag (of course! I will send you the videos once I have them! Very funny!),
Word of the day from The Redneck Rag duo 'Thunder & Lightnin''!
OC Games, Docco, and of course waitning at the door of the dining room to be let in by the Adjy (aka JB)! We had to change some of the timings as the camp wasn't flexible ontheir meal schedule (hopefully next year), but that allowed us to put in seminar time after Siesta, which was definitely a success. The kids had a choice of two, but had to go to one. Our padre were two married youth ministers from Vancouver (via Australia and the US...), Ken and Julie Moser, and they did an incredible job with the MGs, QTs and most importantly the evening meetings (a little longer
that CHPUK - 8-9.30pm). I was praying that we would have 40-50 people and 57 signed up in the end! We had an excellent leadership team of Junior and senior leaders which really helped make this go incredibly smoothly.
Morning leaders meeting
Shock at doing the room inspection and finding the boys cabins were tidy!
One game that needs to be introduced to Crusaders UK is kickball! This was definitely a big hit with the kids and leaders. Think rounders with a very soft football. You use your feet as the bat obviously!
Any way, it was an excellent week and I can't wait to have JK join us next year and see what he makes of it. I held off on doing our songs Jonny so that we can do them together next year!
You can see more photos at www.holycross.net/student.htm. Click on the Boonie Doone pix link.
There's loads more I can tell you, but I have to go...! God worked powerfully and we saw kids lives being changed. The feedback we have had from kids and parents has been incredibly positive, so here's to next year!
God bless,
Jonathan.
. The flights are booked by the way and we will back from Dec 21-Jan 2. I will be in London and Heswall at various stages hopefully so let's make sure we see each other again.
though you were obviously lacking a chocolatier!