Leading worship with the youth band

Well, the day which the youth band has been preparing for 6 weeks actually came today. And depending on how you look at it, it was either a distaster, or an interesting time of worship.

Our other guitarist and bassist never showed up, and so we went through the soundcheck sounding a bit different to how we liked, but still sounding good. We ran through the four songs we were playing, and they sounded pretty good!

Then I took the band into a side room, and eacham member of the band prayed seperately. By the time we had finished praying, it was 10:45, and so we got into the band area just as the service started. The notices were read, and I stood up to play the opening chord, and no sound came out. In fact the only sound that came about was the sound of people laughing (since it was probably quite a funny sight)! I can remember laughing, and just saying "the Lord will provide". And he did, he provided me with an accoustic guitarist who was willing to give me his guitar. Although I think by the way I took it from him, he probably didn't think he had too much of a choice! Dave Johnson is one of the youth leaders here, and he's pretty new to playing accoustic guitar, and he practiced hard for this service, so I'm really thankful he took it all in a good way. So the whole worship was done with me playing accoustic, and the rest of the band did great, since everythin else went perfectly.

I looked out at the congegration a couple of times, and they were all worshiping God. And the job of a worship band is to draw people closer to God in worship, and so however it was done, (and it wasn't how I expected), we still did that, and so it all worked out great, and even though we had to do things a bit differently to how we planned, it was an amazing service, and everybody enjoyed it!

Below are some audio clips of how the worship went. (And for all you silver surfers out there, if you can't hear it, turn on your speakers!). And the start's pretty quiet, so you might need to turn your speakers up.

Skiing

I really recommend working in the US, you go to concerts, beaches, and now even skiing! Makes me wonder what people do for fun...

Bob Chaney and Christian, one of the guys from the youth group took me to West Virginia on Friday, to do some work on a printer again and then to go skiing. We got to the ski resort at about 5pm, half an hour after the slopes closed, so we checked into a hotel and decided to spend the whole next day skiing.

That night we got some dinner, checked out some of the shops, (the shopping wasn't my idea this time!), and then we went for a swim in some of the outdoor pools! Christian and I decided to jump in one of the pools, and then jump out, and see who could stand out of the pool the longest. The first person to jump into the hot tub which was next to the pool (or the first person to die) lost. The loser got to sleep on the floor. Bob called it off though not long after we jumped out for fear of us catching hypothermia. So we went in the pool for a bit, and then in the hot tub for quite a while as well. Then we found out there was another two pools around the side of the hotel, so we decided to walk around to check them out. We probably stayed in the pools for around 2 hours.

After breakfast at Starbucks the next day, we hired out skis and boots, and then went on the slopes. Bob decided it would be best if he didn't ski, just in case something happened to him, and so it was just me and Christian skiing. I only fell over once as well! But that was to avoid two snowboarders who decided it was a good idea to sit in the middle of a blind corner and have a chat. In fact, there were many snowboarders who just decided to sit in the middle of the slopes for a rest. Maybe it's a snowboarder thing, because it appeared all the people with skis on had more sense, and sat on the side of the slopes if they needed a rest. We probably got on the slopes at 10, and I came off around 4.

Here are some of the photos we took:

I wasn't really cold...

When we walked from the first swimmig pool, round the hotel
to the other one, I thought it would be quicker if I didn't put
my shoes on. And I was right, I've never run so fast in my
whole life! I didn't have any feeling up to my knees though after.

The towel was frozen solid

Outside one of the pools

West Virginia Mountains

The evening on the first day

Christian was so tired after the trip, he said he didn't care where he slept

Me in my ski gear

In the pool. My hair was actually frozen!

Mini Christian!