7000 young people encounter God in Norfolk
 2010: For the last week 7000 young people have descended on the Royal Norfolk Showground to encounter God at the Newday festival. Reporter Aaron Curran gives a personal account of the event.
Newday is a Christian event run by the New Frontiers group of churches and is aimed at young people aged between 12-19 and has now been running for seven years, two years in Norfolk. Newday 2010 saw nearly 7000 campers come from all over the UK to encounter God.
The heart and purpose behind Newday is to give these young people an opportunity to meet with God and also to serve His people and community. This year thousands of young people went out into local communities such as Norwich, Lowestoft, Aylsham and Poringland and got involved doing a wide range of tasks from painting fences to talking to people and sharing God’s love with them.
 As well as the community outreaches, there were plenty of things for visitors at Newday to do when not in the daily meetings and seminars. On site, there were a wide range of different cafes which allowed attendees to meet with new people whilst giving them time to relax.
Despite a lot of rain, there was a positive vibe about the camp and it was evident that God really had moved amongst the young people during the week. This included the news that during the main evening meeting one night, over 300 people became a Christian for the first time and 300 people renewed their faith in God. Also, around 400 people were healed, including reports of blind people receiving sight and deaf people being able to hear.
Sasha Steggles, of Christ Community Church, Attleborough was one of the young people at Newday, and said “My favourite bit about Newday was the worship and the evening meetings. There were lots of Holy Spirit encounters and prophecy.” Other campers added that it was a great experience to hear Matt Redman lead worship, which he did during a few of the main evening meetings. Another camper summed up his week at Newday as “awesome”.
 The event was brought to a close with a final evening meeting filled with praise and worship and then a time of prayer. The presence of God was very evident as thousands of people started dancing, singing and shouting in praise to Him. This was followed by everyone standing in agreement over prayers for our cities, towns, communities and churches.
On a personal note, God really changed my life during the meeting I attended as He poured His Spirit upon me and it is clear that through Newday, God has impacted the lives of many people. www.newdaygeneration.org Pictured are scenes from Newday 2010. | 