This regular blogging is going well - 11 months since my last update! Oh well, better late than never.
I write at the end of an incredibly long and busy weekend. Those that know me, know I started a new job in July with Forth Valley Social Enterprises. Amongst the many amazing people supporting activities we carry out, the organisation has run the Stirling Highland Games for the last 4 years. The event took place yesterday (Saturday) and had morphed into the Sruighlea Festival with the games joined by a Foodie Festival, Traders Village, On the Fringe, Activities Challenge and Music Festival. This involved lots of volunteers including some who had carried out some core skills training through a partner trainer with the purpose of putting it into practice at the event, and others who were trained in historical information relevant to the site we use with the purpose of leading walking tours. All this meant I was on site around 7:30am and left just before 11pm! I was completely spent to be honest. My back was stiff from standing all day. My knees had seized. I was so tired but was still buzzing from an amazing day. Many highlights from the day but my favourite was when one of the supported volunteers whom I'd met earlier in the week at their induction, told me he felt so much more confident and had overcome a few issues during the day. He can now put this event on his CV and hopefully get himself into a job very soon.
To follow that, today (Sunday) was a special day in our Church. After a scaled back summer programme, this was us hitting the big time again with everything including the kitchen sink thrown into our time together as church. Labeled New Season Sunday, this was a chance for us to restart our programme, and to celebrate with all the groups we're involved in around the area. This included Camelon Juniors FC, the club I'm Chaplain too. We also followed the service with a free bbq with lots of family fun as well. Despite my continued tiredness, I couldn't help but enjoy the morning - and afternoon! Yeah we were there over 6 hours! What an amazing time it was. We had around 200 people across all age groups there but regardless of the numbers, there was such a powerfully positive atmosphere around the centre. We even witnessed another person accept Jesus as their Saviour. Everyone seemed to have a great time and were reluctant to leave! If it wasn't so tyring it would be great to do that every week.
So, at the end of this weekend, I may be very sore and very tired, but I consider myself incredibly blessed to be a small part of the amazing things that are happening just now. Here's to more. But first, sleep!