There are so many things that I learnt during my gap year, and one of them was to live in the moment - to enjoy life whilst it's happening instead of always spending my time planning the next thing. So for the last 54 days that's what I've been trying to do, and here's what's been happening...
Of the past 8 weeks since I stepped off of that plane into Heathrow Airport, I've spent only 4 weeks at home. A few weeks ago I had the absolute privilege of volunteering at a Christian youth summer camp run by Adventure Plus where I picked up a new nickname "Dave" (Don't ask!). It was a fantastic week, not least because we got to go out climbing, kayaking, swimming and all sorts, but what was even more exciting than that was that we got to spend the week sharing with a brilliant bunch of 14 year olds about what it means to trust God.
A week afterwards, my family took the opportunity to pin me down for a week on a canal boat on the Grand Union canal. I must admit that, when my parents weren't crashing the boat, it was very relaxing, and when they were, it was incredibly funny! It was lovely to spend the week together, especially as my brother John came too. We didn't eat as many scones as we were hoping to, but we did have plenty of 'incidents' to keep up entertained!
Well, after a week sleeping on a boat, I thought it would be a great idea (!?) to go straight to somerset to go camping for a week! So I've spent the last week at a Christian festival called Soul Survivor with my sister Clare (one of the gappers from Uganda) and the youth group from her church in Eynsham (the centre of the universe apparently?) We all had matching blue onesies with our names on the back which we wore every evening to the main meeting, and so we adopted the name of 'blue onesie army' and became progressively smellier as the week went on...
The week was fantastic. We got to spend time every day praising and worshiping God with thousands of other people and learning more about him and how we can live for him. What was also great was that 3 of the other gappers from Uganda were also there on the same week so we all got to see each other again which was lovely.
In the weeks in the middle I've been doing some work and talking non stop to everyone I meet about Uganda - sorry if you're getting a bit fed up! It's been amazing to catch up with people here who have been so supportive of me over the past year, and its been great to get to hear what everyone else has been up to whilst I've been away. I've also really been so blessed in the past few weeks to meet a lot of new people from various different places - (although a lot of them have been from Eynsham, as it is, of course, the centre of the universe!)
I can't even begin to describe how much I miss Uganda and everyone that I met there. A very small percentage of the past 54 days has been without tears, and not a single one has gone without a thought to my friends and family there. I pray that one day soon God will provide for me to go back and visit, but I know that now he is calling me to do new things for him and I'm looking forward to this new chapter in my crazy adventure with him.
So now I've got a lot of exciting things planned for the not too distant future. God has asked me to do some things that I hadn't ever considered myself to be capable of until a few months ago, and I've decided to dive in and trust him with it and see how he can use me. I'm so excited to see God at work and to get to be a part of it with him, so I'll do my best to keep you updated over the coming weeks and months. I'm hoping that this blog will be just as, if not more exciting and interesting than my last one from Uganda, so keep reading!
