D: were as brilliant as ever, playing their old and new songs. "I Could Sing Of Your Love Forever" was familiar to almost everyone, and there were anthems like "My Glorious" - a new one for us to sway our arms to. Laura, Helena and I gave ourselves headaches and bad hair evenings by headbanging to "Gravity" as well, (David and Sarah obviously much too mature to participate in such foolishness)!

Ok, I won't go on about the gig any more. Afterwards, Helena and I disappeared round the back of the arena to see if we could catch the lads before they disappeared off. The other three went to look around the exhibitions and met up with Hannah (Docherty). We didn't get to meet Delirious? unfortunately - they must have seen me coming - and by the time we went to queue up for the train it was already about 11:30pm. Oh well, we thought, forgetting that the train we wanted to get back to our Church hall wasn't very frequent, to say the least.

It wasn't until we boarded the train to Canary Wharf that we realised we had about fifteen minutes before the last train we could get left Waterloo. Oh dear. What followed was an extremely painful ordeal of running around London Underground stations, up stairs and along platforms as I realised how unfit I was and remembered why I quit football. Bear in mind that this was just after two hours of jumping up and down and about seventeen hours since we last sat down.

Somehow we managed to get to Waterloo one minute before our train was due to leave according to the timetable. Well, it wasn't there, and I began to have visions of staying the night right there in the station (and after all that running the idea seemed quite appealing). We did actually find another train which took us within a couple of miles of our church, and David decided that we'd walk back from the station. We

kept telling ourselves, "one of these days we'll look back on this and laugh". Ha.

Eventually a couple of the nice leaders of the other group staying in the hall rang us up to offer to give us a lift. We said thank you about a million times and then finally got into bed at about 1:30am.

The following morning we were up bright and early again and went back to the Arena for the morning's events. This began with the launch of World Vision's appeal in aid of street kids, "Streets Apart". It was interesting and saddening at the same time to find out about the horrible situations so many kids are in, and it reminded us how much we have to be thankful for, and that we have a duty to do all we can to help them.

There followed a short break, and then we were back for the morning's teaching and sung worship with the CJM band which was brilliant. Finally, we all said goodbye to the arena and left feeling tired but inspired!

I think it's fair to say we all had a really great time that weekend, and I also really enjoyed meeting up with people again. A huge thanks to Bev for organising the whole thing for us!!!

Jen Brewin

Time for a prayer…

Dear Lord,

We pray for all who are caught up in the Foot and Mouth Crisis, both farmers and those in the tourist trade. Please help the politicians to find an effective way to eradicate the disease in the quickest time possible.

As we think about the risen Christ let us remember that he died and rose so that we might live. Through our actions, and the way we live our lives, may we show others that Jesus is alive and with us today.

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