Our young people returned from Newday on Saturday 6th August and so for the first time ever were able to be with us as a church family during our Sunday celebration on the day after their return from Newday. 

It was wonderful to hear some of the stories of what had happened during the week. Here are four stories that we hope will encourage you to pursue God in your own situation whether it be for God to bring healing or breakthrough in your life or to raise your expectation for God to break in, into your every day life. 

Bo attended Newday for the first time this year and he was playing volleyball on site and dived for the ball and realised that he had bent his finger back in doing so. Tim mentioned that it was a pretty heroic dive to try and get the ball. So, Bo realised that it was pretty bruised and then the finger began to swell up really large. He couldn’t really use his left and hand or bend the finger at all because it was so sore and swollen. A few days later it was the evening of Newday where we pray for those who want to receive healing, for those who are sick or in pain and ask the Lord to heal them. Bo said that at this point he put his other hand on his finger and that Adrian Holloway prayed. The first time Bo didn’t feel anything happen, Adrian prayed again and as he did so Bo felt a really sudden sharp pain and then the pain in his finger completely stopped, there wasn’t any pain any longer. So Bo tried bending his finger again and it was fine and all the swelling had gone. 

Jane spent the week in our 12-14s sessions where they were looking at the book of Jonah in the Bible. We heard how he initially ran from God, then ran to God and then ran for God and in that context Jane felt that she should respond. She said she felt that she needed to commit herself to God because, for example she would really easily get angry  and when that happened she would throw things around and shout at her family. She realised that she didn’t like feeling like that, and that she really just need to ask God to come into her life and change her heart so that she wouldn’t be angry like that any more. 

Jane shared this story with us which takes such a lot of courage to admit to God that we need him. That we’re in a place in which we don’t want to be but that we want God to come into our lives in His fullness and that we want to follow His ways. This is so exciting! 

Tholoane is one of our youth team and she initially just wanted to testify to God’s goodness in that every time she has been to Newday she’s had some kind of issue with her body and that every time she’s been there God has come through and healed her. 

Anyway Tholoane arrived at Newday this year with a hand brace on, because one morning not long before Newday she woke up and she just had this pain in her hand. She didn’t know what was going on so she went to A&E to get it checked out. They said that the hand wasn’t broken but they also didn’t really know why she was experiencing pain. So she arrive at Newday in pain and then on the morning of the healing meeting she bumped into someone who offered to pray for her and the pain totally went! 

Tholoane went on to say that she arrived at Newday not really feeling as though she was like "the good youth leader" but God actually stepped in and sent someone to speak into her life while she was there saying “well done, you are doing a great job!” Not only that but personally you see, we can so easily go to something like Newday thinking we’re going to serve the young people but actually God also does something in your own life. So just to encourage everyone thinking about serving that God will surprise you as you step out and serve His people. 

Poli

Many of you will have met Poli who wasn’t around during the service but she wanted to share a story of something which happened to her during Newday. Poli recently arrived in the UK from Ukraine and shared some of her story with us a few months ago. 

So as you may have picked up by now Newday takes place at the Norfolk Showground and pretty much since the beginning of Newday the main meetings altogether have always taken place in a big top. This year the event had to take place in the open air as the big top company weren’t able to set it up. Anyway so this meant that we were open to the elements and this meant that because the site is relatively close to an airport flights could be seen taking off and landing. At one point during a meeting a big military plane went overhead and you can imagine with what is happening in Ukraine at the moment that sort of thing gets you on edge a little bit (understandably). 

Anyway one night at about 2am there were loads of planes going overhead and Poli was getting quite nervous and eventually began having what she described as a panic attack - which again is totally understandable. 

The team weren’t aware of anything going on until the next morning. Poli was staying in a tent with two other leaders Ella and Lisa and the following morning they’re going around our little site asking the guys “did you come in our tent, or did you hear someone around our tent cause someone with a man’s voice was in or near out tent last night. 

It sounded a bit odd to us but they said that Poli was having this panic attack but that she then heard someone speak to her in Ukrainian saying “Poli it’s going to be okay or words to that effect”. Then Ella said, "yeah, well actually I heard a voice but I didn’t hear it in Ukrainian but I heard it in English”. So they were trying to work out if anyone from our site had come over to speak with them. The team that were awake had actually been trying to get the boys to quieten down as they’d been playing cards. No one had been near their tent. 

The only real explanation we have for what happened was that it was someone from heaven, may be even an angel. As Tim was saying he’s never known anything like it before but that everywhere we looked during that week, in everything that happened it was so obvious that Jesus was moving, that His Holy Spirit was with us, meeting us and giving us strength not only through healing, salvation and restoration but also He wanted us to know that he was with us! 

You can watch these testimonies below and Tim sharing the story of Poli’s experience at the end of his preach on our media page: www.jubilee.org.uk/media 

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