Paintballs, mud, and Jet skies!

Yeah, those are fun.
Tomorrow some of the men from my church are going on a day away to a place called Life Discovery. It's a Chrisitan based event where guys get to have fun doing a load of stuff (4X4's go carts, jetsskies and paintball to name a few of the day's activities). The main goal of the day is actually for non-believers, to show that we are Church go-ers, but we aren't afraid to take risks and have fun.

I'm excited. In spite of my knee probably making me a darn good target in paintball (ok, more of a target than usual :-) I think the day will be a load of fun and good bonding time as well.
Other than that the big news is all the planning for the big three events of summer: New Wine, Soul Survivor and YOB camp.

New Wine: This is a family oriented week away.A number of people/ familes from church are going to this event. It's loaded with guest speakers and christian artist and fun stuff for the whole family. I signed up to serve on the Youth team, but as of this entry I haven't offically heard if I'm on or not :-) We'll see how that unfolds...

Soul Survivor: I might have mentioned this before, but Soul Survivor is the big youth event of the summer. 5 churches here are going, and a good chunk of my time these last few weeks has been preparing for this one. We had a great meeting last thursday of the youth leaders in Bognor, and we came away very excited about meeting more regularly to encourage and support each other in our shared call as youth leaders in this community. We have about 8 -10 young people going from Vineyard, and they are all very excited over what God has done in years past. I'm very excited to see the relationships and faith rise from this experience.

YOB camp: This is Youth Of Bognor Camp. Young people ages 8-12 will be away for this week to learn about God in a fun and active environment. We had a leaders meeting a few weeks ago and it was a great time to talk and share about the expectations and plans for this event. I hope that by this one I won't be too worn out, as we are leaving for YOB camp two days after I get back from Soul Survivor!

The weather here has been rain, rain, rain and more rain. Today is the sunniest it's been in over a week and a half. Our church camping last weekend was canceled due to rain :-( and there has been a lot of flooding up in the north regions of the country (suddenly people realize it's not a smart idea to build houses in flood plains). I've been wearing jeans and long sleeves these past few days, and it's JULY! It's supposed to be warm! Oh well....that's england for you! I'm sure you all back in Chicago are enjoying the summer heat...

The universtiy students have all gone home for the summer, so socially things are kind of slowing down. It does give me a great chance though to spend more time with the youth, and this has been really wonderful. Yesterday was the second week of meeting for lunch and a chat, and we look forward to more times to talk, pray and socialize.

Not everything has been peachy though. We've had our times of trials (leaders stepping out of leadership) and dealing with the fallout has been very difficult for a lot of us. Stress and rough nights of sleep have been common for a few of us as we are growing in new areas of following God. This church may be a world away from most of you reading this, but as part of Christ's body we need all the prayer we can get. The road has not been easy by any means and behind the smiling pictures and happy faces has been intense trials and at times a severe longing for home. But God has been so good, and the stories of His faithfulness are sure to be what I remember for years to come.

Till next time,

~Paul