Time to head on out...holiday beckons!

Well I sit here exhausted after an intense 3 weeks here in Colorado, but what a great 3 weeks its been!

I didn't really know what to expect coming here this summer, being a part of the conference team for the biggest bi-annual Christian organisation staff conference in the world (!), I expected to work hard and to have some fun along the way, but I didn't really know what I'd be doing. Hopefully you've been able to pick up some idea from my posts and emails these past few weeks, both what I've been doing physically and what God has been doing spiritually.

I've felt so welcome here, working hard on the tech production team for the main conference, registration for 5,000 or so staff and general bits and bobs of question answering, preperation and packing away. I have learnt a lot that will be beneficial in what we are doing conference wise in the UK, that was the point of being here so to that end it has been a success.

Tonight we had our end of conference staff party which was fun and someone said they figured that as a team (at least on the production side in the main arena) we have been a lot like a "band of brothers", mucking in together and getting each other through with fellowship, hard work and a good few laughs! Last night I got to bed at 6am having spent the entire night ripping down the set in the arena, chairs, carpets, lights, sound, desks, stage, trusses, cables, furniture, stairs, you name it we broke it down and loaded it onto lorries until the sun rose! Although I'm completely exhausted it was so great to be able to serve both Christ and the other staff together in that way and make some great friends (you don't need anymore American friends I hear you cry!). As I walked back with the sunrise this morning I was able to thank God for what He has been doing and what He has allowed me to be a part of here.

I've also had time to do plenty of entertaining stuff amongst all the work. White water rafting on the Poudre River, the trip to the Rodeo, connect with old friends and make new ones, take in the sun, taste some fine Colorado micro brew beers, relax in the Rocky Mountains and had the priviledge of hearing the likes of John Piper, Steve Douglass, Joe Stowell and Alice Mathews share God's word.

It will be sad to leave Fort Collins in the morning but I get to spend the next 2 days with Aaron and then a few days with Chris and Dan before Jeff returns from Macedonia and I get to spend some time with him...I've been looking forward to it for ages, he's a great friend.

All that remains from Fort Collins is to thank you for your prayers whilst I've been here and to ask that you would continue to pray that my holiday would be relaxing, as I recover from this time and also prepare for returning to the Uk in August.

I love you,
andy

Yee-ha! Rockin' Rodeo!!!!!

Today was my only official full day off and I found myself in Cheyenne, Wyoming for the most ridiculously American experience of my life...a professional rodeo! This has to be one of the craziest things I've ever seen...what possess a man to get on the back of a raging bull or horse for sport is beyond me, it was however very entertaining, although I did wince regularly at things that looked VERY painful for both humans and animals! Definitely something you have to experience...and I did it at the biggest professional outdoor rodeo in the world.

If you're vegetarian...don't go.

5,000 staff in one place? It's all systems go!

Things have gotten slightly crazy over the past few days with the start of the main staff conference. Up until now we have been having individual ministry conferences (Student Ministry, Athletes in Action, Jesus Video Project Team, etc.) but now everyone is together in the main arena, around 5,000 people! There are also 2,500 staff children here in the child care groups! It is amazing to be here and see the scale on which we work in the US, when I get to UK staff conference in Nottingham in August it will feel tiny!

Lots of things have been going on and I've been doing a lot of production stuff in the main sessions, lights, prompting, guiding, etc. Its been excellent to be able to do that and meet some people that I normally only see in books! The onset of all staff conference has also meant extremely early mornings with meetings at 7am each day and crew calls at 7.30am, I am not a morning person so this has certainly seen me leaning on the Lord!

You can see pictures from the conference by clicking here, I know I appear on at least one of them if you can spot me!

Incidentally you can also watch the recordings of the main teaching sessions from the conference by clicking here!

As I have been saying on here over the time I have been out here God is certainly teaching me more about Himself and challenging me deeply. The last few days haven't been that easy as I have wrestled with what God is teaching me, things I perhaps didn't really want to learn but He has been showing me things He wants to do to help me grow, showing that sometimes my heart can be so stubborn to letting Him that He has to bring me to a point where I can't crawl away anymore! That's very much how I have been feeling. It took me a long time to understand what the Lord was doing and saying but, as usual, as soon as it became clear I saw exactly why the Lord had to work in this way. The Lord is showing me where to grow, what to bring to Him, what to surrender and how He wants to mould my character to be more like Christ, I praise Him for that even though its humbling and can hurt. How great is our God?! Please continue to pray for me, that I would let the Lord work through things He is showing me, it won't happen over night and being refined by God can be painful but in the long run so fruitful!

Pray also for continued refreshing and equipping for all the staff here, that we might learn and be ready to go back out into our vineyard in whichever State or country that may be. Pray that the people of Fort Collins (especially the students of Colorado State University) would be blessed by the presence of 5,000 Christians and that many might wonder why we come here every two years and question the big things in life, that they might accept Christ into their lives.

Thank you for all your support and love,
God Bless
andyx

John Piper

We have successfully got people registered, finished setting up the main arena and have got going on major conference meetings! Its been a crazy week but its done and things are looking good.

All the campus minisry staff ae here and its been good to see some old faces...standing in the registration tent seeing people come through is one way of meeting up with friends from all over the place!

Meetings are up and running like I said and today we heard from John Piper, the pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minnesota and famous author! He was great with a challenge from 2 Corinthians 4:3-7 on what actually is the gospel? The gospel is the joy of Jesus Christ, where we aren't seeking joy in Christ we are not really seeing the gospel! It was extremely challenging but really helpful to think through. Some of the time I am on the tech team for the main meetings...I don't know if I will be asked back after today though when I broke a head-mic dashing to put something on stage in a blackout! We weren't really organised for doing it and all of a sudden I had to with no lights, my mic got caught on my foot and fell and dragged around. It stopped working. Ooops.

The weather is still very good and I'm relieved that I have a bit of time today when I don't need to do anything other than relax, my work for the day is done which is good as I've been going long into the night the past few days...I started at 7am today too!

Please continue to pray as I try and work out the things God is teaching me here. Those same things that were confusing over the past days are still there and I don't really understand why God seems to be saying one thing and doing another! I am just resolved to trust him and surrender to him!

God Bless
andyx

Praising God in everything

Things are still working well here. After two days of beavering away in the main arena setting up for the conference (lights, sound, staging, etc.) I am now arranging registration processes for the weekend when all the rest of the 5,000 staff arrive. Its going to be a challenge for sure and that many people standing in a queue (EVERYONE has to register whether they are just arriving or have been here all summer) will be difficult, especdially outside in the heat (often upward of 100oF!).

I'm also getting chance to spend plenty of time with the Lord which is great although over the past day or so I have to say I've been finding it hard to understand Him with some of the things he's teaching me out here. Today has been one of those days when I had to make a real conscious effort to praise God when I got up even though I was having a hard time understanding Him and didn't really want to! Matt Redman's song "Blessed Be Your Name" has been ringing round my head! You can pray for me as I continue to seek Him and make sense of things he's teaching me, as the day has gone on I've really felt more and more at peace with Him and trust in His ways. That's awesome but not easy!

Right, I have to go to have lunch and help set up the registration area, hopefully in such a way that people queueing are happy and don't get annoyed by it or frustrated...with 5,000 people to get through over the weekend that won't be easy!

I appreciate all your prayers!
God Bless
andyx

Relaxed and Ready

Well after the adventure of travel things have settled down somewhat over the past two days, to such an extent that I feel more relaxed than I have for ages! I have had two days going slow which has been great for beating jet-lag (although I still wake up at 5am thinking its midday!), yesterday I had nothing but a staff meeting in early afternoon and today I worked 9am through until 3pm. Today I was busily helping set up childcare (for 2500 US staff children!), collecting things from the store garages, setting up and building cribs and finally sterilising everything (toys, cribs and anything else the kids will touch...this is litigation culture after all!). It was great to get to know a few people I'm working with and also to get started lightly.

The light couple of days have also meant I've been able to connect with a number of friends I haven't seen in a while, I'm hoping the busyness I'm about to embark on doesn't stop me doing that some more as it's so wonderful to be able to do so. Plenty of people I miss!

I've also had a great evening tonight, relaxing and spending time with Jesus, sitting in the American sunshine to pray before heading off to a coffee shop (where, in true British fashion, I took my own tea bags and had a very nice cup of Yorkshire Tea...none of this American rubbish) to read and journal. It was fantastic to get time to focus my mind on the Lord and get ready for the craziness of the weeks ahead...and also deal with something which I've banged on with in my own strength for quite some time!

Tomorrow is my first really big day, working on preparing conference registration and finance in the morning and then spending the afternoon and evening setting up the main arena for the start of main conference next week. So I punch figures and talk hosting all morning and then carry, fetch and build for the rest of the day...a good workout in this heat!

Duncan is now here (my former campus director in Newcastle) at the regally named "Global Campus Movements Summit", he's enjoying it but they are working them hard! As we're staying in the same place it means we can walk over and eat breakfast together which is nice as he discipled me and we don't get to do stuff together very much since I moved to Birmingham.

Time for bed before the heavy work begins tomorrow, thank you for all your continued prayers.

God Bless
andyx

Fort Collins, Colorado, USA

Well here we are (finally!).

I would like to be able to sit here and tell you that it was a pleasent and straight forward trip, unfortunately if I did I'd be lying! So here goes...

After the London bombings I had the problem of needing to get through London in order to get to Gatwick and the transport systems weren't gauranteed. After plenty of head scratching my wonderful, kind hearted brother drove from Sheffield to Birmingham and then drove me all the way to airport the next day. That saved a lot of bother for me...and caused a lot of bother for him. Thanks bro (again!).

All seemed to be going well and I got on my flight, sat back, relaxed, watched "Hitch" and thought everything was fine...until we got to Buffalo and the captain told us our plane had a malfunction with the anti-skid mechanism in the landing gear, apparently this wasn't dangerous it just meant the plane couldn't land in the rain and yes, you've guessed it, in Atlanta it was raining! We were rerouted to Cincinnati.

So we land in Cincinnati and the very nice Delta Airlines people have booked me on a flight to Denver from there, no need to go down to Atlanta as per the original plan. Phew. The flight was at 8.55pm. Problem. It was delayed by bad weather in New York until 10:55pm. Oh dear.

I tried to phone through to let people know, no one answered so I called Shannon instead and told her and asked her to pass on the message.

Anyway, I finally get the flight and land in Denver about 11.30pm Mountain Time (6.30am GMT!), I roll out of the airport and by some miracle of the Lord the guy who was collecting me was still there, waiting for the National Director of Mali! He was on the same flight as me. The message I tried to send through had got a bit garbled and they thought I was just delayed in Atlanta so had been a bit worried when I didn't arrive on that flight. Praise the Lord for the National Director of Mali!

But if you thought the adventure ended there...no...oh no.

I was driven to Fort Collins and managed to sleep a little (1.5 hour transit) and rolled up very eager to sleep...soon. Problem, I didn't exist on the system and didn't have a room. Oh dear.

After trogging round campus to another dorm (its now 2am MT...9am GMT!) I ended up back at the first place where the very nice porter guy tried to find an empty room...the first one we tried wasn't empty and woke someone up...ooops. The second effort was better and I finally got to bed at 3am...10am GMT! Praise the Lord.

Thankfully the person who was going to be staying in this room has been moved and I've been given it (I was supposed to be staying in this building anyway, there was an oversight). I've managed to register and see the guys I'm working with and tonight I have a reception with the rest of the conference team so its now working out nicely..but getting here was an adventure.

Don't you just love travelling!

God Bless
andy

A black day for Britain

Well what can be said on a day like today? Emotions have been all over the place today with the tragic events in central London. Firstly I just want to let you know that all Agape staff based in London are safe and accounted for which is a great relief but I still have other friends whom I haven't heard from, my thoughts and prayers are with those who have lost loved ones and those who are unaccounted for, as I'm sure yours are. There is little else we can say or do at times like this and the only comfort is that somewhere in all this the Lord knows what's going on. This is further proof of the worlds brokeness and the need for Jesus.

At the moment I still don't know the position ahead of my flight on Saturday, I am due to travel through London and use the Underground which now looks extremely unlikely, my brother has kindly said he will drive me all the way down to the airport so all being well it should work out.

This week has been a bit tough. I finished my assignment at the weekend and was busy in the office Monday and Tuesday but felt quite unwell all that day. I ended up taking a trip to A&E in the night with chest problems, sweating fits and faintness which was all quite scary. They think its just a viral infection and although the chest is much better I'm still feeling pretty rough. Please pray that it would sort itself out quickly so I feel better for travelling on Saturday.

I won't be able to update again or be in touch until the middle of next week when I settle in Colorado but I do intend to try and put as much information on here as possible. I don't know how easy it will be to email regularly so please do keep an eye on this site for whats going on! I will also have my mobile phone but won't be answering calls because of the cost, I will however be sending and receiving texts so do drop me a line.

Last I heard it was 90+ degrees out in Fort Collins, hopefully that continues, my infection clears up and the travel goes off without a hitch. We shall see...

God Bless
andy