Big Church Day Out

For our first music festival experience as a family, we couldn't have asked for a better one.  We were blessed with a rare 2-days of glorious sunshine and temps in the mid 60s.  We arrived in West Sussex, down on the southern coast of England in the middle of the afternoon on Saturday.  The festival was held on the grounds of Wiston House, which was a beautiful venue.  Here is a photo of Mia standing with Wiston House in the background.

Anyone who really knows me, will know that Christian music is a HUGE part of my life.  So as you can imagine, I was quite excited about this festival.  So many bands that I listened to in the US were coming and some British and Irish artists that I've fallen in love with over the last 2 years were there too!  I was most excited about a relatively new band called Rend Collective Experiment and they did not disappoint.  Through our church here I've also become very familiar with the songs of Matt Redman, and it was such a treat to have him be the final act of the weekend....finishing of course with 10,000 Reasons.  

We all had a fabulous time and look forward to attending more festivals in the states when we come home.  Hopefully we'll be able to get some friends to come along next time ;-).

 Here are all the girls, sporting our new BCDO T-shirts...a lamb with big headphones on!

 One of the early acts on Sunday...Jars of Clay!

Derbyshire Well Dressings

Over the last week we've had a chance to see some well dressings in our surrounding area. A well dressing is a decoration for a well, usually consisting of wood and clay adorned with flowers, seeds, rice, and other natural materials, in a mosaic fashion.  Many well dressings are biblically themed, but many are also themed after artists, stories, etc.  The first set of well dressings I went to were in Tissington, which I was told were not to be missed.  One theory of how the tradition began in Tissington was after the Black Death of 1348-9.  Although the population in the rest of England were ravaged by the plague, in Tissington all escaped, and the immunity was ascribed to the purity of the water supply.  It became the custom to decorate the wells in thanksgiving.  Another story about the Tissington wells comes from the severe drought of 1615.  Despite the severity of the drought, when thousands of cattle perished and crops were lost, the five wells of Tissington flowed freely and the surrounding district had cause to be grateful for the unending supply of water from the village. 

I found Tissington to be a lovely little village, and the well dressings were moving with their beauty and messages.

 

Last weekend, we took the kids to the well dressings in Etwall.  Most of these dressings didn't seem to be actually decorating wells (as far as I could see), and they were primarily secular in nature. The girls got to try their hand at pressing the flowers into the clay, which was a lot of fun.  Here are a few that we saw in Etwall.