I now have a week off and it’s very strange! It’s great, but strange. Having spent 13 days with the team, being crazy busy it’s kind of an anticlimax feeling to then be without them!

Saturday was a lazy day, unpacking and sorting out my room. Went to the cinema with Lewis to see Up (it’s brilliant…totally recommend it!) and then caught a lift back to Braintree with him. Sunday I woke up at 12.30pm. I NEVER sleep that long! 13hours sleep! Clearly I was tired! Spent the day with Matt, Sarah, Maddie and Emi which was lovely. Monday morning I spent sorting out my stuff and then went to Sainsbury’s in Stanway with Mum. I bought a grey cardigan and a black jumper and introduced Mum to Vanilla Lattes. Had roast gammon for dinner, apple pie and custard….wonderful! Today I looked after Maddie and Emi while Sarah went for an ante-natal appointment; Jasmine, Joseph and Samuel came round - was so lovely to see them. Can’t leave it so long next time! Went to Pram Service with Sarah, Emi and Maddie in the afternoon. This is a Mums & Toddlers group at St Michael’s Church in Braintree. I used to go there when I was little and it still smells the same!! Amazing. It was really cute – they sing songs off an OHP and everything! Me and Mum made Toad in the Hole for dinner tonight and then watched Holby City…oh my goodness! Got to watch the second part tomorrow now!

I’m going back to Wickford on Thursday.

The gig was awesome!!!

We had about 150 young people, which meant the church was packed out, so the atmosphere was brilliant…as well as very hot! Taste were fantastic, you could just see how much they loved performing, and their fans certainly enjoyed it! We performed Street Tuff which went well (always get so nervous about that one!). Andy gave a message which is always a challenge as the audience is so hyped up and noisy! The response seemed very positive though and we gave away a lot of Check It Out tracts. Sales of CDs were good and we had lots of requests to sign things and have photos taken!

Pack down was good and Keel did an awesome job of a rather difficult load! He went straight back to Selby and Jack to Sheringham, leaving us with more space in the van! Back to Essex…I was in bed just before 2am!

I have loved the past 2 weeks, its so much fun and so rewarding. Answering questions such as ‘Who made God?’, ‘What does God think of climate change?’, ‘Why doesn’t God come to Earth?’ and to be able to share the amazing difference Jesus has made in our lives…there is no better feeling. It’s so easy though to get caught up in the planning, the busyness, the fact you are exhausted, the ‘celebrity’ status (autographing flyers, having your photo taken), the buzz of a gig, the manic-ness of packing down…but why actually do we do it? We say the measure of a successful week is if just one person slightly alters their perception of a Christian in a positive way. We really want to make a difference in these kids lives. We don’t want to be the hype of the week and then they forget about us, well it’s not about us it’s about God. I really believe that God will have made an impact on these young people’s lives and I just hope and pray that they act on it.

Because that’s what all this is about.

This week we are in St Hughs C of E which is pretty much next to Ambergate.

We arrived at 6.40am, unloaded and have set up in their hall. We were just about ready on time although could have done with a bit more of a soundcheck. We had Year 10s first of all for a Soaps lesson, then Year 7s for a Values lesson. After break was Year 8s for an Abi Lesson and a Year 10 Assembly. Ate with the students at lunchtime, my best compliment was from one girl who said I didn’t look or sound anything like Abi! After lunch we had a Year 7/8 Assembly where myself and Ben ran the Adverts Quiz which was so much fun! After school we had a bit of sorting out to do, then our daily trip to Asda (stock up on Wispas) and back to Dave and Les’s to watch a recording of Abi from last week, debrief and plan tomorrow.

After dinner we spent some time praying as a team. We seem to be under quite a lot of stress so your prayers would be greatly appreciated. Personally, I’m quite tired and in danger of getting grumpy and snapping at people so pray that I don’t! Also been having stomach pains (am on medication for it) which I could really do with not having!

Tomorrow is a full day seeing Years 7,8 and 11.

Ambergate was brilliant!! The kids were just amazing, so friendly and just wanted to do anything to help you. They absolutely loved having us there and wanted to spend time talking to us. We saw everyone for at least 4 lessons so got to know them quite well. They all saw Abi, the year 10s and 11s being particularly vocal during the play! We did a gig for them today before lunch, about 40 of them squashed into the room, got pretty hot in there! They got involved and had a really good time and a lot of them gave us letters after which was really sweet, I’ll put up some highlights from them later.

We had lunch (the dinner lady was the best ever because each day she saved me a small bowl of salad without onion in!) with the kids and then packed down all of our gear, finally sweeping up and leaving just after 3. Then for our daily visit to Asda (I bought some new boots yesterday) and a Vanilla Latte in Costa.

Tonight we were at the youth group in Grantham Baptist, playing some games and doing a condensed version of our Values Lesson. Tomorrow we are running a Check It Out group in the morning and then heading to Nottingham for a chill out!

So we have spent 3 days in Ambergate now and it’s brilliant! We are having one or two year groups at a time, ranging from 10-25 young people so we’re getting to know them which is great. We’re set up in a room in a church next door to the school. We did our first All About Abi today which went really well, few improvements to make so we’ll see how it goes tomorrow! We did a youth group last night, spent some time playing table tennis and some games which was really good.

Currently we’re all being ridiculously anti social and all sat in the same room all on our laptops!