Question: when is a holiday not a holiday?

Answer: When you're running around like a lunatic for a week trying to keep up with 60 teenagers whilst teaching them the gospel!

Ah Venture. I do love it - that is when I don't hate it. It's exhausting and emotionally draining. But it's also joyful and gloriously uplifting.

So, things I've learnt during the past week:

1. "And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times have reached their fulfilment - to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ." Ephesians 1:9-10 taught in a classic memory verse style-e.

2. "You were taught with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness." Ephesians 4:22-24
P.S. You have to sing it to the tune of Aladdin's 'A Whole New World'. It's a less well known memory verse strategy, but a hugely effective one!

3. Paintball is NOT for me. I'd always thought as much but decided I should give it a go before passing judgment. Perhaps I was missing out on something amazing? I wasn't. Unless by amazing you mean painful and tear inducing. I got shot in the head (ouch) which was then compounded by the accidental coming together of a team-mate's gun and the exact spot on my noggin that had just been so violently introduced to paint (double ouch). I decided to bow out and did so ungracefully and inelegantly. But not before I attracted a shot to the thigh that eventually yielded a bruise on such a scale as I'd never seen before and hopefully never will again. despite my lack of enthusiasm for the paintball experience I am strangely proud of that bruise.

4. Dead fish don't dance - more on that story later.