13 nights of camping

In the past three weeks I've spent thirteen nights in a tent, but in the few days that I spent at home last week, my parents and I had some visitors from Canada staying with us (one of whom has the same name as me!) We had fun catching up and visiting a few different people and places around the area and I enjoyed sleeping in my own bed for a couple of nights.

After our visitors left, I made my way back to Somerset for a Christian festival called Momentum. This is the same as Soul Survivor, but aimed at people in their 20s and 30s, so it meant that we didn't have the responsibility of looking after a bunch of teenagers and also everything was a lot more relevant to us. Among other things we got to take part in a massive worship evening around bonfires with Rend Collective and go to lots of interesting and challenging seminars. It was a great week spent with some brilliant people and our amazing God who as usual taught me a lot.

The Big Top at Momentum

Among many other things that God taught me this week was this...

Kneeling on the floor with memories of people that I miss so much it hurts playing in my mind, God quietly whispered to me "if you miss them this much, how much more do you think I miss you when you take yourself far from me?" 

I find it way too easy to convince myself that by being in the place God wants me to be and by doing the stuff he's asked me to do, I'm staying close to God. In reality, I need to daily make him my first priority - even over his work. Time with God is so precious and so beautiful and the only place I should want to be is in his presence.

After Momentum, I got to come home again for a few days and to spend a bit of time with my family and also with Clare which was so lovely! In a few days time I'll be heading back to the island to make a start on my second year there... I've got plenty of vision and ideas for this year, so now I just face the task of actually making it happen!

With Clare