Shall we Sing a Song for you?

The Day Before

With us having been looking forward to Castlewellan 2008 since at least the end of Castlewellan 2004, me and James couldn’t resist the opportunity to take a tour round a day early, where, after weeks of pretty bad weather, the sun was out and things seemed to be shaping up pretty nicely for the week of Castlewellan…

Roy Keane (tempted to put the caption “Sunday morning, 11am)!

Then it was down towards the campsite to investigate conditions - things were looking good

And the grass was pretty dry too!

I would apologise for all the pictures of me but… 8)

And finally, a seemingly random picture of a road…

Castlewellan 2008

The same road, 24 hours later

Obviously, people were left asking, ‘Water we going to do?’ But before we get to that, here is a special SWS bonus from Sunday evening:

Mark Loughridge - A Call to Passionate, Persistent Prayer (whole service)

So after the first night, which most of the tent dwellers spent in the Castle thanks to the kindness of the Castlewellan people, on the Lord’s Day we had a prayer meeting, morning and evening worship, and in between a psalm sing in the form of a walk through The Pilgrim’s Progress by Nathan Hawthorne, which was the best psalm sing since the last time Nathan did it. In the evening the Owls made a great start to the week as we all had great fun introducing the people in our group to the other groups.

On Monday morning we had the talk followed by discussion groups and then various afternoon activities for anyone who could still be bothered with them. Those who didn’t have any went to Castlewellan or Newcastle to get wellies. In the evening their was a table quiz, with one of the songs you had to guess in the music round being the Termonfeckin song by Cromie Robert. Brilliant! Andrew and Pamela spoke at the Owls, which was immense.

By Tuesday things had finally dried up a bit, and those playing football on the Donard Park astroturf in the afternoon were in danger of getting sunburnt. In the evening there was another quiz type thing, but I wasn’t there, so can’t really comment, but I will take credit for the fact that our discussion group won it 8)

Times are hard when you have to nick pics from DMFWS, but this instance of high-brow humour is just too good not to share

On Wednesday afternoon, with the erection of a second Marquee on Monday for washed out campers ensuring that it wouldn’t rain again for the rest of the week, it was time for It’s a Knockout. The first game being to find where they actually were.

Getting extra points for chanting gets a big thumbs up

He’s back

Strobe on the original slippery slope before they made it twice as long

The big one

Clug and Brenna

Then it was probably time to start preparing for the concert, which rather disorientingly was on the Wednesday night. We had more fun composing the Castlewellan song than actually singing it, with brilliant lines such as: “Pitched our tents in mud and mire, while the rich sat by the fire”. Quality.

The usual Ivan-impersonation

Cromie was content with a backseat role this year

Camp v Castle

And at Owls we finally managed to get it a few minutes of Switch If. On Thursday there was rounders in the afternoon, which finished in a dramatic draw, followed by Nae Goat’s Toe, who contrary to expectations were actually very good. And they said we were the best audience ever, although for all we know they say that every week :-P

On Friday afternoon there was football again (20 a side stuff), this time played on the grass which the council were still trying to claim was waterlogged. In the evening after family worship we had Norman and Nancy trying to sell TermonScotland to us (which seems to have been pretty much a success), pigs on spits, Martin and Mary, and the party.

A pig on a spit

Alan Partridge himself

Following the party there was some mountain boarding down the hill in front of the castle in the pitch dark, with the only way to stop being to fall off, with hilarious results.

The sun sets on Castlewellan for another 4 years (at least)

Our tent - with Joel standing in for Mr Christopher Mr Li

Thanks to Ali G and PMO for most of the photos. What a week!

Just a few snaps really as I’m off to Dromore in a minute and we were busy entertaining our new minister and his family yesterday :-) (Obviously, the longer he goes without finding out about SWS, the better for all concerned!)

A brief run down of the week: Saturday - leaflets, Sunday - first ever Enniskillen RP church service! (well, for a very long time), Monday - leaflets, Tues - leaflets/show, Wed - show, Thurs - Marble Arch / BBQ, Fri - home (and Bible readings Sun-Thurs evenings)

Cameron and Elyse - Leaflets were given out to the 6,000 homes of Enniskillen

Hugh and Betty came every day and helped us

On the Tuesday I got into a debate with a guy in the most nationalist housing estate in Enniskillen about what my city is called. However, not being sponsored by the Ulster Scots, I was the one arguing that I could call it ‘Derry’ if I wanted to!

A lot of uno was played. And a bit of Phase 10, but it required too much thinking for most occasions. Don’t think anybody got further than phase 5

On Tuesday night, me, Andrew and Peter went to the presentation of the call, while the rest of them got started at the Enniskillen Show. Of course, we all expected it just to be the presentation of the calls and we didn’t expect we’d actually be getting an answer on the night!

The phone networks were red hot afterwards!

The team’s main role at the show was to do craft with children (all craft items of course coming with bible verses on them!) while the members of the home section tried to talk to people who stopped at the stand.

Please join our chruch

Wednesday night was of course the long awaited night of Neil’s party, but of course it would just have been mad to go to it, especially seeing the Bible Reading only started at half 8. However here are some pictures of it anyway.

The artist formerly known as Maccus

Carla and Alex

Beth, Joanne and Alex

Carla and Laura

These are all from the after-party - no pics of the party itself seeing it was basically finished by about 11! And we thought we’d be fashionably late!

On Thursday, after a g prayer time, we went to the Marble Arch Caves - we had been going to take some of the church kids but they weren’t able to make it.

Dave and Pete (as we tended not to refer to them as)

Carla

Catherine and Ruth

Pinky

The brain

Long John Silver - our guide may have been wondering why the first time she said millions of years we all laughed at her…

Then we went for a walk to see the Marble Arch

The Marble Arch - yes, that is actually all there is to it. The caves are named after that!!!

CTI wannabes

Peter up to mischief

Then we came back, via Cavan :-), and had a BBQ

The grown-ups

Elyse got up at 6am to make buns for Heather’s birthday. Me and Carla were up earlier tho…

Carla and Georgie

Please continue to pray for the work in Enniskillen as they try and establish a church there.

Did I mention I now have a minister?! :-)

So SWS was plugged at GAC, so I’ve been told to keep things Christian…

Our South African adventures continued the day after our hike when we went on an organised tour in a landrover, up the Sani Pass (in the Drakensberg) to Lesotho (a country). There were two landrovers went up, us all in one of them, and a few randomers, including the chain-smoking medics (who were english - plus another english guy they’d met who was doing the Cape to Cairo) who we had hung out with (well, watched the football in the hotel with) the previous two nights.

Setting off

The other group got some guy who had Irish parents - and we got Rudi. Who in one day just about made my all-time heroes list.

Rudi kept reminding us that the Drakensberg is a World Heritage Site

Leaving South Africa - time to get our passports stamped! - 4 times in one day. G!

Rudi: “Oops, wrong gear” as he ‘accidentally’ puts it into reverse on the most dangerous corner on the Pass.

Passing people from National Geographic with their massive camera

Our machine

‘One of the safest roads in Africa’ - Rudi

Definitely in Lesotho now

It was so high up there was snow

…So obviously we had a snowball fight! We got Rudi to race round a corner and then we waited for the other landrover.

Rudi was loving it!

We had our lunch at the top of this

The highest peak south of Kilimanjaro. Or something.

The Jesster

Then it was back down to the village we had passed on the way in.

Sheep!

Inside this woman’s house

Not Rudi - however he did speak about 4 languages

Bread

Strob not impressed by the local beverage

Yoooooooooooooo

The view from the highest pub in Africa

Then it was home time -

Ice corner

Meeting other vehicles was ropey enough!

Some view

And finally, here’s a video of Rudi in action. For censorship reasons I’ve had to add a random music track so you can’t hear what he’s saying. However I think our reactions are entertainment enough.

On the Tuesday we got up early to pick up the two hire cars. They weren’t much to write home about. Then we basically drove all day till we reached the Drakensberg Mountains. The last good bit of the drive was in the dark, rain lashing down, met a horse coming down the side of a mountain in the pitch dark. When we finally arrived at the youth hostel it was completely pouring and we thought it was going to be a miserable stay and we would need to get out of there asap.

However the next day dawned bright and dry and we set off on a hike by ourselves to the Balancing Rocks.

Stevie took a picture of this punk near the start of our massive car journey. However the guy caught him doing it, and for the next 15 minutes or so as we kept passing each other the guy kept giving us the dirtiest look you ever seen

The cars the next morning

Pilgs

Bros

The baboons threw rocks at us!

Stroby

Simon scampers on ahead

Matt

Flat out

Joelerz

Lunch time

Strob and famous people

And again

Life on the edge for young Curry

Up at the top

Some view

Matt

The balancing rocks

Homeward bound

‘Arty’

The Waterfall

Making a quick exit back down onto the main road

And to round off a just about perfect day we went out for a meal at the local hotel

Ted Donnelly on Daniel: Singing the Lord’s Song in a Foreign Land

1. Daniel and Pressure
2. Daniel and God
3. Daniel and Worship
4. Daniel and the World
5. Daniel and Witness
6. Daniel and Commitment

They’re about 25MB each. Will send Jeff lower quality versions to put on rpc.org

Bid-Up: Gregg hammering in 20 nails in 63 seconds

Streets of London

I’ll Fly Away

A Day in the Life of Renwick

This was definitely the highlight of the concert. Mark should get an Oscar for his scarily realistic portrayal of Rosemary! Sadly the recording is in two parts and it’s not all there, but the only bit that’s really missing is the ending when Rosemary and Andy meeting on the stairs at 5am the next morning, when Andy is getting up and Rosemary is going to bed.

Senior Camp Video Compilation

Courtesy Andy M

It doesn’t get much better than camp. It really is just about the best thing ever. Although sadly it seems ages ago already! Here are a few snaps and a bit of a summary:

On the first Saturday James Frazer put in one of the shortest Camp appearances of all time (half an hour at camp, 10 minutes on the football field) before being promptly hospitalised. The new regime flexed their muscles by putting all the football boys on tea dishes for playing football instead of having tea. Despite the broken dishwasher, we got it all done in about 5 minutes. Icebreakers duly followed, Chip’s game was my favourite. It basically involved lying on the wet grass, in the rain, and passing about someone holding a bucket of water.

Stevers getting into the spirit on the Saturday night

On Sabbath morning we had the first of the 6 talks on Daniel, the usual walk in the afternoon, and an evening service at night which Andrew Lytle preached at. Willy T turned up to make sure we were all behaving ourselves.

Our speaker and his wife

Monday afternoon saw the second Chip (and John’s) Challenges, which was another success. There don’t seem to be many photos of it floating around, which is particularly gutting in light of our team’s great painting of Willy getting chased by some of the striped creatures Frances warned about (which would appear to be wasps, not burglars, zebras or racoons). I found the tag in my Bible in the middle of Daniel at our first discussion group. Set the tone for the rest of the week (on the tagging front, not the discussion group front! - our DG was immense)

Update: Luke to the rescue!

It says “Ah I’m such a girl!”

The games at night were some craic too

Jessica trying to get people to guess a certain minister by drawing someone with an eye crossed out. A signed copy of the drawing is now on it’s way to said minister

On Tuesday it was time to make plate painting (or paint plating) cool again. PMO joined us in time to paint a mug and play some volleyball.

The lads painting plates

Lynda

Others did go karting and paintballing

At night PMO did a talk on Eric Liddell. The highlight of which was when, talking about THE 400 yards gold race, PMO described it in depth and then was like “But why talk about it when you can watch it - and I don’t mean Chariots of Fire - I mean the actual race”. Cue audible gasps from the audience, as we proceeded to watch it!

On Wednesday it was back to the Share Centre, which was brightened up slightly by playing uno during the archery. The guy doing it asked us if we’d been following the football (as in gaelic), which was a bit awkward! The traditional BBQ didn’t follow! But Ruth saved the day by getting us a good big supper.

Then we came back for bid-up, which was definitely the highlight of the evening activities.

The one regret of the evening was getting carried away during my attempt to name 65 campers in a minute and not staying focused on the task in hand. I beat Hugh’s previous record (of about 8!) but only ended up with 53 in the time. 60 would definitely be possible though. Next time!

Sheep was one of the few who successfully followed up their bid!

Willy shows how it’s done

Staring contest

On Thursday we had a photo challenge, which was alright for a change. The girls seemed to enjoy it anyway. And of course it left time for yet more sport before tea.

Life on the edge

Damsel in Distress?

In the evening we had the concert. There were a few good things - for videos see the next post. Followed by unofficial psalm sing. PMO was loving the camp bant so he stayed for the rest of it. Stayed up to like 4:15am, which is ridiculous for the Thursday night.

Sarah

Cromie was only allowed one song!

On Friday we had competitive sports, followed by a final session of volleyball. Then it was time for the party as the tagging started to intensify.

Then on Saturday it was up early after another few hours sleep, just in time for Gavin Tagwell to end up the loser of his own game and facing the prospect of joining the army!

See ye!

What a week! Absolutely brilliant. Gregg - 15 years in a row. Legend!

Some more random pictures from the week:

Emmaline and Daphers

Paul and Anne

Ali and Tim

Joel McCavro graced us with his presence for a few days

Booyah!

Back in uv

Hannah, Ruth, Lydia

David - headphones firmly on as usual!

Emma and Abigail

arm

Jonny getting schooled

The sun shining out of Ali’s head

Sarah

Debs and Claire

Oh!

I think this was the photo Megan didn’t like… :-)

Phil, Tim, James

Strobe

Meant to get most of the South Africa stuff done before camp, however there were too many distractions! Here’s some photos of the first weekend, which we spent with Walker and Kate in Pretoria.

On the plane you could listen to every British Number 1 ever. I came to the conclusion that the golden years were from 97-2001. After that it all went wrong.

An arab Eric Cantona look-a-like!

Pretoria

If Pinky worked in South Africa, he’d have a gun

Kate’s school, where we stayed for the first two nights

After an hour or two we dandered down the road to Loftus to watch South Africa v. Wales

50,000 capacity and World Cup 2010 venue

Kate!

The man himself

As expected, I was enthralled!

The Springboks ran away with it in the end

Then it was back for pizza and craic, during which Kate made the famous statement that “You can sleep in as long as you want tomorrow cos church doesn’t start till 10:30″. I had to ask, in all honesty, ‘am?!’ (Walker would later be slagged off by his new father-in-law at the wedding for not usually getting up before 7!)

Central Baptist Church, Pretoria - Great!

Then we went for a dander and came back for a braai.

In the bleak mid-winter…

Braai

The craic was nine o

We went to a different church at night, which wasn’t that good, but on the plus side led to a rant by Walker on the way home (while he was driving) which was one of the funniest moments of the trip.

On the Monday we tried to hire a car, went for a dander about Pretoria, played a bit of football and took Walker and Kate out for tea to Ocean Basket:

And finally retired for the night to Pretoria Backpackers:

Complete with outdoor shower!

COMING NEXT: The Drakensberg. And Rudi!!

So we’re back from South Africa! Which was brilliant. Photos etc are coming soon, but in the meantime here’s Tim and AJ with Dale Ralph Davis @ the Castle two weekends ago.

The audio will presumably be up here shortly. The speaker at it next time (Christmas) will be Liam Goligher.

Update: Here are 2 sermons and an interview from DRD at the Tron. The Tron had him preaching one week and Alistair Begg the next! (for sermons see linkblog).