Our music week at Christian Endeavour’s Beechwood Court in Conwy, North Wales was a lovely time of fellowship, music-making (behind masks!), Bible teaching, worship and gentle ministry.
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the week for me was that Beechwood currently has no staff. Normally the place would be filled with young people from overseas, but that is not possible with the pandemic. Instead, we were looked after all week with great good-humour and servant hearts by two couples on the staff of the charity that runs Beechwood together with a lady chef. The food was delicious, and the atmosphere relaxed and happy, despite all the stresses they were coping with.
Programme:
Sunday evening – England playing Italy. Extra time and penalties ended in disappointment, but all agreed that our boys had done the country proud!
Each day we began with sung worship (Wales allows people to sing behind their masks) and Bible teaching from Roger, ending up with a ministry song and openness to the Holy Spirit. After ‘coffee’ (no drinks served – but we could go to our rooms and make a hot drink), I went through Torn Curtain and we enjoyed learning the vocal parts. Afternoons were free, and the evening events were:
Monday – CMM’s Covid Creativity: my presentation sharing our YouTube videos, Zoom rehearsals, Singalong musicals, collaborative projects – as well as describing just how difficult and frustrating it can be making a recording on your phone!
Tuesday – An evening with Heather Butler: Heather describes herself as a ‘Prophetic Psalmist’. As Roger or myself played the keyboard, with Keith Harrison ornamenting on percussion, this became the platform for Heather to sing over individuals and the whole group. Ann Steer joined Heather in singing prophetically, and both sang over people. A very special evening.
Wednesday – An evening with Ann Steer: Ann shared things from her life journey, illustrated with her own songs. Another uplifting and moving evening.
Thursday – An evening with EBRG (East Birmingham Renewal Group – the support house-group for CMM that meets every Thursday evening). Thanks to the technology of Zoom, EBRG joined us for the evening! They had been given the Christian names of all the guests – nothing more – and were invited to ask the Lord for words, Scriptures or pictures for individuals. It is what we do every week, waiting on the Lord, but this was something new. Several of the words that were given ‘landed’ in a very significant way, and guests were deeply moved that the Lord had spoken to them very specifically.
Friday – Torn Curtain musical. We used the CD recording to sing along to for many of the tracks, but several we did ‘live’ with Roger on keyboard, Keith on drums and Rosie on flute, with me directing. We had just 5 visitors watching – we were only allowed a maximum of 28 people in the room. They were very moved by the performance. A fitting end to a special week.
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