Contagious East // 2012 [After]

You know when you love something – a series, a band, the progressively dwindling collective IQ of the Big Brother house – and it just gets better and better until you don’t think it possibly can improve any more, and then somehow they pulls it out of the bag and step it up to the next level?

Basically that.

Contagious East this year was the best Contagious I have been on. It was probably the best week of my year. After four weeks of kids work beforehand, I was worried I wouldn’t get the full experience, but the Lord blessed me with enough energy to enjoy the week to the full. It was wall-to-wall brilliant teaching, loving fellowship, good food and quality Christian banter. Once again, I’m finding it hard to pick out the best things from the week to share with you, but here’s a rough idea.

Contagious East // Summer 2012 [Before]

Hogwarts, yes?

If you’ve been following my blog over the summer, you might have observed that things have been pretty non-stop. I started the holidays with 5 weeks of nothing, so it’s probably all been some kind of comeuppance.

My action packed summer continues this week with a return to Contagious East. Contagious is a Bible centred youth conference for 14-19s, originally set up by my uncle Trevor and two of his colleagues. Over the years it has lived up to its name  – there are now East and West conferences, as well as Contagious Nano for 11-14s and (making its debut this year) Contagious Scotland.

Fusion Camp // Summer 2012 [After]

I don’t think I’ve ever so readily fallen asleep on the sofa as I did when I got home on Thursday afternoon. I was absolutely knackered. But it was a beautiful kind of exhaustion. It was an exhaustion that was more than worth it.

Fusion Camp was a phenomenally blessed week. Thank you so much to those of you who were praying for us. There was a real sense of God’s presence in all things throughout the week, and I was just so encouraged and overjoyed by how clearly he was working amongst us and the 44 kids we took away. Slightly unexpectedly, we also had a strong sense of K’Naan’s presence, as his World Cup 2010 theme song become our Olympic anthem for the week…

<p><a href=”http://vimeo.com/10085362″>K’NAAN [Waving Flag]</a> from <a href=”http://vimeo.com/nabilelderkin”>nabil elderkin</a> on <a href=”http://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a&gt;.</p>

Fusion Camp // Summer 2012 [Before]

Dalesdown – where the magic happens!

It’s not unlikely that your life has felt pretty empty since my final post on Kids Club 2012. The Twittersphere has been mourning the acute absence of the #KidsClub2012 hashtag, and with the imminent closure of the Olympics, I’m sure you’ve been asking yourself over this weekend “WHAT IS THE POINT OF MY LIFE COME MONDAY MORNING?”

Well folks, the summer youth work odyssey continues. There’s a new hashtag in town. #FusionCamp2012 has arrived!

Fusion is the youth group run by my church for school years 3-6 (ages 7-11). I was a leader for two years before heading off to university, but have been drafted in again for the annual Fusion holiday.

Kids Club // Summer 2012 // Week 3 [After]

Would YOU leave this lot in charge of your kids for three weeks?

First thing’s first for all of you avid #KidsClub2012 fans out there – huge apologies for not putting up a “Before” post for Week 3. If this left your prayers haphazard and without direction, I am profoundly sorry.

Moving on. It’s over. It’s all over. Three weeks, 7:45am – 4:30pm, all day, every day.

I’m knackered. But it was all worth it.

It’s impossible to bring together all that happened during three weeks of Kids Club into one post. It’s even impossible to bring all that happened in one week together! So much has affected me and I’m sure the rest of the team – and hopefully the kids as well!

Kids Club // Summer 2012 // Week 2 [After]

I blame the kid I ran into.

Time sure does fly. At the start of Kids Club, three weeks seems like a mammoth amount of time. But now Week 2 has come and gone, it’s hard to believe there’s only one week left.

The second week of Kids Club is where signs of fatigue/general wear-and-tear begin to show. One particular sign of it was my first carpet burn, acquired Monday morning. To be honest, I’m surprised it took me that long, but it was a stinger and has now formed a tasty scab. It was definitely outdone however by the boy who, on Friday, acquired a huge carpet burn directly above his right eye 10 minutes into the day. Then, shortly before the end of the day, he whacked the same spot into the climbing frame, and so it looked as if he’d been in a rather vicious fight with someone a lot bigger than him. Explaining the epic injury combo to his mum was fun.

But aside from the usual bumps and scrapes, we had another hugely blessed week. God’s presence was felt and seen in so many areas. Here are a few!