The Lakes-son

While watching a dad ride his 7-year-old daughter around on a small quad bike outside my back door, I am reminded of my past week. It involves adventures of many a twenty, and Frau Milch is pleased to announce a come pack to politics after early retirement. That's right, I've been in the Lake District. Not just that, I've been in the Lake District with my brothers, my older brother's freind Phill, and my parents, Mum and Dad. Today you will learn my brother's names and also about what kind of things I have been doing. A little clue, I've moslty been walking.

My older brother, Sam (his name is Sam), came up from Uxbridge, West London, on Tuesday. He had a lovely six-hour drive with Phill, and when they arrived in Uldale (the tiny village of twenty people) my dog, Cassie, went crazy, my younger brother, Joel (his name is Joel), searched through all their bags for his power lead for his camera and began filming, and my parents welcomed them with a smile. My mum with a slightly larger smile, as they do. I will now, readers, give you a little challenge of working out which one is the odd one out in the above picture.

The first few days before "Sam" arrived included walking up Overwater, and Dodd Summit. We worked out later that Summit was for Egg, his name was Dodd Egg. Strange yorkshire folks and their "summit"s and "twenty"s, it gets us all in a pickle. The views from above were magnificent. If it doesn't show God's glory in that thenI don't know what does. It was truly wonderful, nature really sings quite a praise song to God. I now understand the song "if we did not praise, the rocks would cry out". The only thing I can't understand is the poeple who see this kind of thing everyday but remain unforgiven, even though the revelation remains fully accessable, and apparently 1 in 13 people in the UK is a believer so it's not like they can claim not to know the gospel. Oh well. I think I'll be making up for the Christians who don't realise they're in full time ministry. God has said "You're an Evangelist" consitantly for the past three weeks. Watch out you sceptics, and unbelievers.

Lamdon. A City of Delight, and Women in suits.

Some people say I don't have enough pictures on my blog. They say things like, "This could do with more pictures" or, "This is very boring to look at, why am I reading this if I can't pretend to read it but really just take in some random picture". Maybe one day I'll get a camera that could facilitate me with extra features for this page. For now though I think this is proving the power of words in a magical way. Yes magical.

Enough. On Wednesday of last week my parents decided to do an entirely planned surprise visit to London. It wasn't done very well because everyone involved knew about it. The upside was...Lamdon! When my brother's and I get together it becomes almost a tragedy, as Joel's camcorder is brought out, my older brother's...age, and my amazing whit, and charm, we make films as long as any sketch show about nothing, making the whole family laugh, and a few friends who promise not to show or tell anyone they exist. This year was the reworking of the weather while walking around the Museum of London, and not filming anything (therefore doing nothing) while on a tour of the Houses of Parliament. Did you know that as tradition when the Queen does the Opening of Parliament once a year a man is sent from the house of Lords to the house of Commons only to have the door slammed in his face? Truly, incredibly, British.

In other news the close knit group of Gateway and honorary Gateway members (Dot is honorary of the highest degree) is back together for one-week-only. Becky is back from sunny (and rainy apparently. Some kind of tropical thunderstorm ruined her phone. Enough about her) Mexico, Adam is frequenting Coventry and Leeds for the next few weeks, and Wills. Well...We love Wills.

Tomorrow I plan to meet with some Mormons and possibly have dinner with friends. Don't call.

A Newday

Well, this week has been quite exciting.

I've been stewarding at a conference for the youth of my family of churches called Newday, and what was the main message? "I'm coming" says the Lord. Ok then. I'm happy with that. Expectant hearts people, He came in force for 3 or 4 nights in a row. So shut up about waiting, and expect the greatest outpouring ever.

The teaching started well; the gospel message brought out of a story in Numbers. Stef Liston is good at that, because he continued to preach basically from the Old Testament about Jesus for the other three or four preaches he did. Joel Virgo and David Stroud made excellent appearances and were firing up, not just for the thousands of youth there, but also the leaders as well. It's not simple straight-forward "here's the gospel please respond" every night. Even Adrian Holloway's Gospel talk took a completely different turn; when a coffin is brought up on stage to make a valuable point about death you know there's going to be a response.

Quite amazing. A girl was healed of her dyslexia and reading problems. Before she had a reading age of 6 and needed special filters to be able to read pages of words, then she read, on stage, without glasses, straight from the bible, with no struggling at all. It was marvellous what God was doing. He entered over 230 people that night, healed about 50, maybe even more, and His spirit took over the meeting again.

The best thing about the whole event was the final night. I was stewarding on a door with a girl called Kit, and we were trying to greet everyone by name. This was made easier by the fact everyone had name badges. The teaching was about how to continue in faith after such an amazing conference - in brief: You are accepted by God, don't look for acceptance in others, continue to live for Jesus; have confidence in God, He is Lord of all, he gives strength to the weak, etc; and You will bear fuit because God say if you ask Him He will give it to you. Awesome.

On that note I left the campsite with a bad back and the prospect of working in a Football stadium kiosk that night. The upside being I wanted to share the Gospel with somebody that night. After an hour of serving people on and off and 4 hours of hanging around we got back to Leeds and walked home a girl I work with. Right there God gave me fruit, not a response in the sense of giving her life to Jesus, but in the way that I asked her if she knew the message of Jesus. She tried to say what she thought but got it wrong on the second point. I just had to correct her so she knew what the truth really was. After sharing it with her she swore at me. It was so wonderful. Gospel shared, thank you Jesus. The spirit gave me the words and it was so amazing that I said I would and I did.

I slept as well as could be expected but the important thing was I was in a real bed. Praise the Lord for He is Good.