by tashmcgill | Apr 17, 2007 | eastercamp, god ideas, Uncategorized, worship

A Big Space Of Empty Going Nowhere Fast
The weeks after Eastercamp are always strange and new for me. No one year follows the same pattern of ‘winding down’. Usually there are a few glum days, and a few days where the feedback piles in on top of me, followed by a few indignant days while I wrestle with the theology often presented to me in that feedback.

This year though, as with so many years past, there is a healing process that transpires in a little cafe in Mt Eden called Circus Circus. Many of the Eastercamp dreams have been birthed sitting in the low-slung narrow pavement facing seats, looking across at the Eden Methodist Church building on Ngaruahoe St watching the world go by.

So on Friday, when I was decidedly blue and funky, instead of going home, where the kind office boys sent me.. I ended up there instead. 3 long blacks, 4 and a half hours and pages and pages of journalling later.. I left feeling just as blue as before but much much less alone.

I don’t know if it’s simply the busyness of Mt Eden Village, or that familiar faces and friends passed me by as they went about their business, but sometimes sitting in a place like that for a few hours is just what the doctor ordered when it comes to celebrating the work that was, and birthing the work to come.

So many people have asked me whether or not this camp was the best ever. I think I would like to say that it was a great camp, but not the best yet.

It’s The Lonely
For me it’s the lonely hours between sleeping that are the worst in these days. I feel like I am my most complete self when I am working with and leading my crew and watching, listening and responding to young people hearing the Gospel for the first time, alongside youthworkers and leaders who are seeing it with desperately needed fresh eyes. Once everything is packed away and there’s nothing left to it anymore..

I miss the familiar faces, the voices, the smell of closeness with the dearest and best people I know over those days. There are some of the best friends I know who sacrifice so much of themselves over that weekend because they are loving serving my dream and my passion for this camp. They work so tirelessly on my team and they love it. I am blessed beyond belief .. Surely it’s nothing of my hand in this, because I am undeserving of such loyalty.

I miss the ‘standing alongside’ element of it all. That the dreams and God ideas that take shape in my head then take on arms and legs, and I stand alongside the people that carry them out, and that God uses as instrumental in the process. I miss that so much.

Those that come to camp will never know the depth and the significance of the love that the crew pour out on them. They pour out over one another, and over the place. If there was ever an example of building an atmosphere of praise, where the tangible presence of God could be seen and experienced.. then it happens in the team that makes it all happen. And that is a good, good, good thing.