USA Day 5: Sunday

This was the last day at Lake Champion, so packing up was in order, then the final session, before heading off to Washington D.C. We drove for about 5 hours & ended up crossing 5 different states to get there. We arrived at a luxurious house to meet Lee Corder [Vice President of Young Life & Director of the Northern International Young Life Ministries] who we chatted to for a while, about who we were & where we came from etc. Next we headed to where we were to stay overnight, the name of the place I cannot say, but it was a place where many famous dignitaries & heads of state have stayed over the years. It’s a very stately place & extremely secret. It was the origins for the Good Will charity & the National Prayer Breakfast. It’s a very splendid & restful place.

My Grandma would love this place – it’s very much the sort of place she’d thrive in!!

Epic Failz

OK I admit it, I'm a blogging slacker, there's sooo much for me to catch up on with things going on with me at the moment: finishing off the america blog, more about Young Life/jobs & I've been to see Hot Chip & The Mighty Boosh live shows & said nothing about any of this yet.

So I'm pledging to try to catch up asap, so watch this space!

We continue

Day 4: Saturday

Today was more of watching Young Life activities & then had the afternoon off.

Day 3: Friday: Continued Camp

Today; quite busy, seeing the rest of Asian Young Life weekend away. We also helped in the kitchen after breakfast & lunch, before seeing in another weekend away group of about 250 young people, most of who weren’t Christians. The idea was to see a whole weekend of Young Life camp.

Day 2: Thursday: Seeing camp

OK today was a late waking day [jetlag grrr!] & basically had a day to have a look around Lake Champion, taking in their facilities, then went out for a pizza with Randy & the guys. Later on that evening, a group of 50 or so young people came over from Asian Young Life. It was great to see this guy’s ministry & see how he interacts with this young people from Asian descent.

Day 1: Wednesday: Arrival

So it’s Wednesday [OK really it's Saturday teehee!!] & I’ve been up for nearly 24 hours & am totally bushwacked, but here’s the story so far:

Got up at just after 5am & got on the 6:20am bus to Heathrow Terminal 5. With plenty of time I got through check-in & security & had a Starbucks breakfast & chatted to Maddie for a while before I boarded the plane. It was a British Airways 747 flight & nice & comfortable, but maybe not enough legroom for me – my knees properly caned afterwards. Good food on the flight & a couple of good movies kept me occupied for most of the flight, but did sleep [& dribbled!!] for a little while.

When I landed it definitely dawned on me that I’m coming to America [duh!], to meet with some people from Scotland & an American guy called Randy – none of whom I’d met before in my whole life!! Once through the intense security at customs, I got my case & went through the exit door – not know who I was looking for, or even if I could find them! Thankfully when I got through to the terminal, there was a guy asking every person if they were called Simon! This turned out to be Randy Nickel, & waiting for me just outside were 2 Scottish gentlemen - Paul & Graham.

We chatted for a bit & headed into Manhattan [a.k.a. New York], where we took in the sights of Times Square, went up the Empire State building saw the awesome views of the city. Next we had a wicked Chinese banquet & then headed off for a 2 hour drive to Lake Champion. We settled in & went to sleep almost instantly to a great place called Swiss House – the adult guest rooms.

Intro to trip:

This is what happened to get me to America: had a phone interview with a guy called Tom Hammon, from a youth ministry company called Young Life. Now some good friends of mine from CYM [Han & Sparky] both work for Young Life in Hillingdon [London] & had suggested talking to their boss [Tom] who is the head of the UK ministries. But they had also been singing my praises to both their immediate boss & their committee. People seemed pretty excited about me & the possibilities of working with Young Life in ministry. Anyways to cut a fairly long story short, I had a 45 chat with Tom Hammon & I shared a bit about me & my testimony. He suggested seeing if there was space with a group of Scottish guys who were going over to Baltimore & New York city to check out what Young Life is all about. Originally he suggested it was for a trip at the end November, then rang back shortly afterwards & said what was I doing next week! Obviously nothing, so I said why not – managed to get the funds raised for a flight & now I’m here!! What follows will be a series of blogs about what I get up to!

To be continued!

America Blog Part 1…of Many

OK this is going to be a series of old-skool blogger-blog’s from yours truly – what I did, where I went etc. enjoy peeps! Photos will be up on Facebook soon & I’ll try to post every day or so – there’s currently internet where I am, but not sure how long I’m here for! For those who don’t already know – I’m going to/in America for the next week or so.

Six out