Liv’It

Liv’It is an annual camp held at Hollybush Farm near Thirsk, North Yorkshire. Around about 80 young people from various youth groups in and around the Manchester Area. Ran from Sat night-Thurs Morning. Main co-ordinator is John Rothwell.

Camping

So my first true camping experience. I had a 4man tent, two bedrooms and a central area that was standing height. We were pitched on a slight hill and it was quite windy. I got a bit frustrated with the whole tent putting up process, wasn’t entirely sure what I was doing so in the end the boys took over for me! Apart from one day of heavy which ran into the central section of the tent and i got a puddle outside my bedroom door, it remained dry. None of my stuff got wet, I didn’t get wet so that kept me happy. A large number of spiders congragated in the roof of the central section and made those wispy webs from floor to ceiling. Not nice walking in at midnight to a faceful of web. Got the boys to clear it out a couple of times. Showers were ok, forgot my flip flops one day which was a major mistake. About 6 hours sleep a night…up at 6.20am. Slightly deflated airbed and a few mystery bruises appeared on my legs and arms but other than that survived pretty well I thought!

Mealtimes

Breakfast, lunch and dinner (well up north they call it tea…sillyness) were all together in the canteen. I made sure I got matching cup, bowl, plate and cutlery every day. One day SammyJ’s combination matched my dress…was a good day! We sang grace together, either ‘God Is Great’ or ‘O Fill My Cup’, the later becoming a tune to get well and truly stuck in your head late at night and incredibly annoying when trying to sleep! The food was good, especially porridge in the morning!

Morning Sessions

The morning sessions were at 9.30am for approx 1 1/2 hours. They consisted of The Mix Dance, GMLC (Good Morning Liv’It Camp, a largely improvised slot myself and Andrew as Jenny and Jerry. We did items of news (provided by the young people, for example James Benson does an amazing impression of a pig, It’s Andrew Cox’s Birthday and Josh sat on the Electric Fence), the weather (told by Matt’s hair), Today In History and Who’s Been a Naughty Leader. It was generally a bit of fun, and in the last session Jenny declared her undying love for Jerry who whisked her off the stage in his arms.), sung worship and a talk with group work. Myself and Keel had a small group called Millionaires (all the small groups were lion themed). We had some good conversations and times of prayer with the group and it was good getting to know them. Talks were on prayer, worship, and friendship.

Academies

11.30ish-1ish were the Academies. Options included Craft, Music, Sports, Technical and Drama. So three 1.5 hour sessions to create something wonderful. Myself and Andrew Dimon headed up the Drama Academy. We did some games and character related exercises then gave the group of 6 the task of creating a piece of Theatre In Education. The end result, performed in the Wednesday evening session was a piece on Peer Pressure and looked at the consequences of actions. Was very good!

Q&A

Each afternoon we split into younger/older groups for a Q&A session. Sunday’s was theological questions, Monday’s was Boy/Girl questions (split up into same sex groups) and Wednesday’s was general questions on being a Christian. There was a whole range of stuff including Why is the Bible so big, why do boys have big heads, do all Christians read the Bible and how old is God. Was a really good oppurtunity to chat and hear their opinions as well as share our views.

Evening Sessions

Evening sessions were from 7.30pm til 9.30pm ish. These included sung worship, small group games, Jammin’ (awesome games of throwing inflatables through hoops), a talk, response time and an episode of the Story of Daniel performed by myself, Andrew and various volunteers! (A fairly relaxed performance with the catchphrase ‘But you’re a girl’. Many a hilarious rehearsal and generally good fun to perform. A highlight would have to be slapping Andrew on the last one! Also managed to get in lots of bad jokes!) The evening sessions were fantastic, awesome times of worship, had the priviledge of praying with some girls and seeing one guy become a Christian. The themes we looked at were making a stand, miraculous intervention, rescue from difficult situations, humility and influence.

Liv’It Up L8

Liv’It Up L8 happened from around 10ish til 11ish…very flexible timing! First night was a Taste gig and then the next 3 nights a combination of silly games, Liv’It’s Got Talent, Lady Starburst and Dim’ll Fix It. Dim’ll Fix It is basically where the young people write in their wishes and Dim (Andrew), with his sidekick Miss Nabraincel (Me) tries to make their dreams come true. So we helped Jonny English fulfil his dream of catching a criminal by rescuing Miss Nabraincel from Him’ll Break It (La Roche) who had kidnapped her. Claire provided the special agent, and a stuffed toy the informant. We also helped Elliott achieve his dreams of being a ghost busting bunny rabbit by dressing him up and providing him with a voice activated hoover to get rid of the ghosts (voiced by Keel – La Roche, the phantom of the opera; SammyJ, the ghost of the car park and Claire, the headless ghost). Was all much fun! Then after Liv’It Up L8 we headed over to the Halo Bar for non alcoholic cocktails and chill and chat until midnight before bed!

Light Water Valley

Tuesday was Light Water Valley Theme Park Day. Claimed to be Yorkshire’s finest theme park, with Europe’s Longest Rollercoaster. It was a great day…though mainly for the company, not the quality of theme park! We were there from 11-4, spent most of the day wandering round, dodging the rain. My back was sore so decided not to go on any of the bigger rides. Did go on the dodgems however…never getting in a car with Keel driving! I got held hostage for 10seconds by a pirate, scary experience. The funniest thing was probably the conservation area which boasted over 20 bird boxes, 2 butterfly boxes and a hedgehog box. We saw one butterfly. And they had screwed speakers to the trees and were playing 80s music…to the plants!

Highlights

It was such a good week at Liv’It, i pretty much loved every minute! There were lots of laughs and fun times, bust most of all it was great to see the young people engaging with God. To watch them change over the week and to hear their questions and pray with them was such an honour. We won’t fully know the extent of God’s work in people’s lives but we have heard one story of a guy who God really spoke to and is planning to get baptised. Just so rewarding! In one word…Brilliant!!

Tags: Academies, Baptism, Brilliant, Camping, Christians, Dim'll Fix It, Dodgems, GMLC, Halo Bar, Hollybush Farm, Jammin, Lady Starbust, Light Water Valley, Liv'It, Millionaires, Mix Dance, Peer Pressure, Porridge, Rain, Spiders, Story of Daniel, Theology

Friday

Solid is a youth festival held at Stubbers Activity Centre, South Ockenden. We headed over there in 2 vans at 9.30am on Friday. We were responsible for setting up visuals and the creative worship area in the main marquee. So we spent until about 5pm doing that, took forever to suspend 5 cargo nets in the creative worship area! We stopped briefly for pizza at lunchtime and then back to it! Youth groups started arriving from 5pm to set up tents. There were about 900 people on site over the weekend. There were several marquees set up as different venues, including The Fridge which held a few gigs over the weekend. My role for the weekend was selling the Check It Out resource and hosting the artists as well as a couple of performances. So I got to run around with a clipboard and radio looking official! Met Jahaziel and showed him around the site, taking him to the venue for soundcheck. We had a main worship session from 8pm-9.30pm with singing, a sketch from Dave and Rachel, a talk from Adrian Holloway (wrote an amazing book called The Shock of Your Life) and a time where a lot of kids responded. We then did a late night worship slot from 11pm-12midnight, different creative ways of exploring The Apostles Creed. This included me doing a monologue as Mary, the pregnant teenager. Keel had his first experience of using hair straighteners as I couldn’t see to do the back, and I’m sure Mary had perfectly straight hair! I performed it in front of a mirror and apart from microphone issues it went well. A lady came up to me on Saturday saying that her girls had been talking about it all day. Its really encouraging to hear how God can use me to speak to people. Got to bed about 1am in the lodge on site. Alarm set for 6.30am!

Saturday

Up nice and early to have breakfast and then be at the prayer meeting at 7.30am. Then meeting and soundchecking ready to start Solid Kickstart at 8.30am. Basically singing and a bit of a chat to get people going in the morning, including the infamous Mix Dance…see Facebook! Also we had croissants! Then 9.30am was Solid Deeper, teaching from Den which was really good! From 10.30 onwards we were getting things done, putting up the brand new Check it Out stand, chatting with the kids, the boys were running round playing football, rehearsing etc. I had some good conversations and sold a few Check It Out Resource packs. Was also running around with my Walkie Talkie looking official. I met Dweeb and The AFC, showed them the venue and took them to the lounge for a cuppa. Taste did an acoustic set in The Fridge venue and La Roche did a DJ workshop. Just time for dinner and then a meeting before the evening session at 7.30pm. Myself and Keel were interviewed about Optimum which was great, a few girls cheered when I mentioned Chelmsford County High! Envizage performed…well David with special guest Suzy Bower as Rachel was at a wedding. La Roche gave his testimony as part of the talk which was awesome, really moving. There were a few responses to Den’s message. Dweeb played a gig in The Fridge which I got to see the end of the sound was incredible and they did a fabulous cover of Destiny’s Child’s Independent Women. It was pouring with rain but the atmosphere was great. Then we did Late Night Worship session with reflections, David doing a monologue and ended in a bit of a praise party! Wanted to go and see The AFC (apparently they were really good) but my bed was too tempting!

Sunday

Up early again, except we thought the prayer meeting was at 7.30am but it wasn’t til was at 8, so we were ready early, and then couldn’t go anyway because we had to soundcheck! Solid Kickstart again at 8.30, with the amazingly improvised song ‘kick start in the morning’ by La Roche. More singing and croissants, and I had to take Keel’s place in the Mix Dance as he was too busy trying to fix the broken vision mixer. Then we had a meeting before the main marquee event which started at 10.30am. Envizage performed, I did my performance of Psalm 139, Rich gave his testimony and Den spoke and we all had communion.  It was all finished by 12.30, time to pack up the stage and creative arts area, have some lunch and then load the vans. Keel, Ollie and Dan stayed behind to do techie stuff for Junior Solid while the rest of us piled into the vans and drove back to the office – see Facebook for video of Matt and La Roche singing along to ‘It’s Raining Men’. By this point everyone is exhausted and everything descends into hilarity. We unloaded at the office using ourselves as a chain, and then headed back to Stubbers to wait for Junior Solid to finish. Then packed down visuals and The Hive venue, loaded the vans up again and headed back to the office for a final unload. Then off to The Honeypot for dinner. One of the most hilarious meals ever. If I tried to explain it wouldn’t do it justice, or probably be particularly funny. Just because we were so tired! Back home about half 9, straight into bed!

 

Highlights from the weekend

Seeing 800 young people excited about worshiping God
Seeing the faces of the young people, totally absorbed in the stories they heard of what God has done
A girl called Ashka who was at our schools week in Basildon back in June came along to Solid and became a Christian
A group of guys from Stratford becoming passionate after hearing La Roche’s testimony
Performing Psalm 139 – several people commented to me how much God had spoken to them through it

Playing on the Walkie Talkies…banter across the field with Tim and Rich
Selling Check It Out Resource Packs to people who knew nothing about it
The after festival meal…’sorry we’ve run out of…’…’do you want salt on that?’ ‘What shall we do with the change?’
La Roche putting the fridge in the cream.

For official photos and more information on Solid: www.solidnet.org.uk

Tags: Check It Out, Dweeb, Inspirations, Jahaziel, Mix Dance, Psalm 139, Solid, The AFC