NOMAD @ Festival in the park
NOMAD @ FESTIVAL IN THE PARK
BURGESS HILL
The NOMAD team joined the Mid-Sussex Christian Centre (MSCC) on their annual event ‘FESTIVAL IN THE PARK’. The festival is free to the public and open to everyone in the community.
Team NOMAD arrived in Burgess Hill on the Friday afternoon, pretty much as soon as we got there we were set too work. One of our first tasks was setting up a gazebo; this was a mission in its self! But through some great practical & logical thinking from two members of the NOMAD team, the gazebo was set up very nicely and the fun did not end there. No sooner had this been accomplished; team NOMAD were off too set up the CAGE.
Gaf was particularly impressed with how Prince,
That evening Gaf experimented with the flood lights on the CAGE, it eventually looked amazing. LATENIGHT NOMAD CAGE football – Oh Yeh!
That same evening we met up with Pastor Christy Smith of the MSCC and his wife Linda at a local
On the Saturday team NOMAD met up early and set-up the CAGE and then had a brief NOMAD church before meeting with the rest of the Festival staff for prayer and briefing. Then the party started…
3 bouncy castles, a main-stage; a couple of bands performed, a very exiting kids entertainment group from MSCC performed for a while, puppeteering as well; the gazebo team NOMAD erected the previous day was used for fun challenges like splat-the-rat and knocking over cans for prizes. The main tent was used for the coffee and fresh homemade baking to be distributed, and a place where people could sit.
All day Saturday the NOMAD team were busy, the sun was blaring down on the Festival and people were getting outside to enjoy it. Although Gaf wasn’t feeling to well,
salvationcode.com, the band bears six colours; black – ‘I was lost in the darkness of my sin’, Romans 3:10; red – ‘Jesus died and shed His blood for me’, 1 John1:7; white – ‘now I am clean and my sins have been forgiven’, 1 John 1:9; blue – ‘I repent and am baptised’, Matthew 28:19; green – ‘I am growing in my relationship with GOD.’, Acts 2:42; yellow – ‘I have the promise of eternal life, a treasure waiting for those who believe.’, Revelation 21:4.
We handed one out to every young person that came to play in the CAGE; we had no wristbands left after lunch break. Through-out the day some of team NOMAD had some really good chats with some of the young people hanging around in the CAGE. Chris spent some time explaining what the wristbands are about and what they mean. Sarah got chatting to a young lad at the cage who ended up out with us for most of the afternoon.
In the late afternoon on Saturday team NOMAD, Christy and Tom (a lad from MSCC) came together and we played 6v6 football against the winning 5-a-side team, Christy maintained his depth in defence the first-half, helping Chris to keep a clean sheet. Staying up the pitch, in a very attacking position, Gaf missed a couple of what can only be described as sitters. At the change of ends, Christy exactly where he was on the pitch (now in attack), Gaf was a wanderer, but obviously scarred by her poor performance in the first half, kept a reasonably low profile.
The Saturday evening team NOMAD, Christy, Linda, Shell (Christy’s P.A), Dave (youth & worship leader), Dave and Rachel (kids workers at MSCC); all went to Royal Spice for an amazing curry courtesy of Christy and Linda. It was great to get and hangout with the people in Burgess Hill and socialise with them, hear about where all the ‘in-jokes’ came from and some fantastic stories and memories (some are hilarious about Sarah) from different people.
Sunday morning the MSCC had a family service in the main tent at the festival location. It was a great service and loads of fun, the kids worship leaders really put a lot into it, it was obvious that the MSCC are really passionate about the young people in Burgess Hill and about the need of really stimulating experiences in church. In the afternoon we opened the cage for a short while, but we went for lunch with Christy, Linda, Shell and Dave (youth & worship leader), again generously provided by Christy and Linda.
Sunday afternoon we open the CAGE for an hour and some kids turned up to play. A while later, Away from the CAGE Chris was chilling out, having a break and some young people came over and asked him why the CAGE wasn’t open and what he was doing. Chris told them that we were all having a break and it would be open in a while, also that he was relaxing and taking the time to have some prayer time with GOD. Chris was slouched in a chair with his feet up on another chair, hands behind his head. The young people said that they thought to be praying, you had to be on your knees, they were trying to make jokes, Chris kept it cool, he explained briefly about prayer and the young people were amazed by what he told them. They got the impression that being a Christian was cool
Sunday evening church was in the tent again, this was a healing and community service, it was well put together and very encouraging. Team NOMAD went for healing prayer, as we had injuries spawn right through the team at that time. We felt very encouraged by the words of the Pastor James (Elim Crawley Pastor) who prayed with us.
After the service everything had to be packed up and taken away from the park we where the festival took place. Team NOMAD got right in there and helped with a bit of the heavy work, transporting, donkey work and odd jobs. Afterward our usual social crowd from MSCC gathered at a local public building to chill out after a long weekend and socialise some more.
To some up this, Team NOMAD’s first mission, we arrived as people who at met each other, not all spent loads of time together, don’t really know each other; but we left Burgess Hill a well knit together team. We had worked hard together; we supported and encouraged each other. Team NOMAD left Burgess Hill having been servants to the MSCC, but more than that, we served Burgess Hill that weekend.
Team NOMAD are incredibly exited about the year ahead. Is it something you could be interested in???
