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August 29, 2006
Life is Precious - The Fires in Hanioti, Greece
You may have seen on the news about the fires that have been in Greece recently. Well, my friends Jimmy and Marita were stuck right in the middle of it and Jimmy's written quite an amazing account of what happened. He said it was ok if I put it on here.....
"As some of you may be aware, there was a recent bush fire in the Halkidiki peninsula of Greece. My girlfriend (Marita) and I were staying in the beautiful resort of Hanioti when the fire broke-out.
This is my account of what happened that evening (21st August 2006).
We had just returned from the hotel pool area as strong winds had very suddenly developed.
At 7pm I was due to meet our Tour Rep (Hannah) to book an excursion to the “Waterland” fun park for the following day. On the way to meet Hannah, the hotel receptionist made small talk with me and asked if I had seen that there was a fire in the hills. I went outside of the hotel to have a look and sure enough there was a fairly large cloud of smoke bellowing from the hills. This did not in anyway seem to pose a threat as it was miles away and not very big.
When I arrived back to the hotel room (approx 7:15pm) I explained to Marita that there was a fire in the hills and we decided to have a look from our balcony. The cloud of smoke that I had seen 15 minutes previously had developed considerably. It was now much larger and a lot nearer to us. We decided to vacate the hotel room in order get a better view of what was happening.
I am sorry to say that at this time there was somewhat an air of excitement and interest in the fire as it was quite near but still not a threat (or so we thought).
At approx. 7:40pm it became apparent that fire was heading straight for us and people began to panic. We decided to go into the hotel lobby and demand that we have our passports and it was at this point we realized how enormous the fire was. As we looked out onto the road from the lobby area, all we could see was a wall of flames.
As we made our way out towards the rear of the lobby, the wind direction changed causing a massive surge of heat directed towards us. I remember being literally thrown back because of the intensity of the heat.
By now people were shouting and screaming and in a state of “what do we do”?
All of the local Greek people seemed to be fleeing in their cars which made us even more fearful - I pleaded with one Greek couple to drive us away from the fire as they were entering their car, but they said no.
As the heat grew even more intense and flames were appearing all around us, I began to fear for our lives
We proceeded to run towards the rear of the building where a gate that led down to the beach was situated. The gate was locked. It was approx. 5 feet high and had cast-iron spikes at the top.
Another heavy gust of wind occurred bringing the flames literally over our heads. Hot ash was blown into our eyes making it very difficult to see.
I remember Marita saying to me (as we approached the gate), that she would not make it over. She did not have the strength with what little leverage there was to pull herself up and over. Just as I was pushing her over the fence (in a very dangerous manner), a man appeared beside me and said:
“Don’t panic, we’ll get her over”.
And sure enough she was able to get over.
I immediately followed and began to run with everyone else down towards the beach.
My heart was now in my mouth as the enormity of the blaze became apparent.
Everything behind us was now engulfed by flames. Fire was falling out of the sky coupled with hot ash and very strong winds.
Whilst running to the beach I felt I had to contact my mum and let her know what was happening (I was not sure whether would make it out alive). I reached for my mobile phone and frantically searched for her number.
The fire continued to chase us down to beach where many hundreds of people were gathering.
The winds were now stronger than ever and with them came dense smoke from the fire.
Hundreds and hundreds of people were running up the beach with any means clothing over their mouth to help them breathe. The fire was as far as we could see – a deep orange glow all along the coastline.
After 5minutes of frantically walking I received a call from my sister who was very distressed – she had received the message from my mum that we were trapped in a fire. My sister asked me what she could do to help and the only thing I could think of was for her to pray for rain.
By this point my chest had started to tighten and the saliva in mouth gone due to the smoke which was now everywhere. We could not breathe.
An eerie silence fell around me as my mind told me that I was going to die through lack of oxygen.
We had to keep moving and by this point I was gasping for some water.
We came across a beach bar that bizarrely was still open and serving drinks. I said to Marita we have to stop and get some water otherwise we would die through dehydration. I asked the man for two bottles of water of which he gave me free. I vividly remember saying to him:
“My friend, do you think we will be ok”?
And he replied to me:
“My friend I do not know. I have a wife and a baby in a house on the hills and I am still working here”.
I did not know what to say to him except to thank him for the water.
As we continued to make our way up the coastline, the smoke became more and more dense. We had to rest as we were now extremely breathless.
We sat crouched down by the shores edge, getting what oxygen we could. It was still very difficult to breathe as the smoke was so dense. After about 1 hour sat wondering what the fate of our lives was to be, the wind direction (once again) changed. Only this time it was for the better.
The wind was now blowing from the sea into the mainland. Although this did not eradicate the smoke completely, it provided us with more oxygen and for the first time that night in about 4 hours, I saw the stars. This filled me we some hope.
The fires still raged on in what looked like a beautiful orange sunset in the distance.
Rescue boats had started to appear and were scouring the shoreline for what we later learned was a German tourist who had drowned trying to flee the fires.
I have tried to describe to you the intensity of the heat, the size of the fire and paralysing density of the smoke which we experienced, but I feel I could never really get across how horrific this actually was. I genuinely thought my time was up.
Thank you to everyone who said prayers for us all that night. Although the rain never came, a change in wind direction did and this saved us. Thank you.
I am still finding it hard to believe that this actually happened and occasionally (usually when I’m going to sleep) relive what happened that night. The doctor tells me that talking about what happened is a good way of coping with it, so as you can see that is what I’m doing."
Video Footage:
I was able to record some footage of the fire on my mobile phone just before we ran for our lives. Please understand that at the point of recording we did not think we were in any danger from the fire and was still in a typical holiday, jovial spirit.
You can watch my footage here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hy81K72q4wE
Here's the coverage from the BBC News Website.
Posted by daveszt at 12:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 19, 2006
Wendy Granger Gets Married!
To round off a summer of weddings Wendy Granger got married to Ed today. It was a really nice wedding with lots of people that I havent seen in ages there. It was all quite weird though because I've known Wendy since she was about 10 so for her to be getting married was somewhat scary making Laraine and I feel very old!
Hils was a bridesmaid and looked great. She also sang a song during the singing of the register and sounded great. 
The only problem was the PA guy needed a kick up the bum because all the microphones kept getting turned off throughout the service but other than some technical stuff, it all went smoothly!
Dan Usher led worship and did a great job. Was nice to see him too after Emily's wedding last week.
Congrats Wendy and Ed!!
Posted by daveszt at 08:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 13, 2006
Emily & Phil Get Married!
Well, this weekend has been a VERY eventful one. Mostly for the fact that Emily Webb got married to Phil Coleman and what a great day it was.
We arrived at Letton Hall Christian Centre in Norfolk (in the middle of what seemed no where) on the Friday evening as Laraine and I had volunteered to help with the table decorations. Little did we know that it actually meant please can we lay all the 25 tables! We spent 2 hours on the Friday night setting a few up in our 'staging area' at the back of a gigantic marquee that must have been about 100 meters long and about 25 wide with three sections. We realised we might have quite a task on our hands when after two hours we'd only done a total of 5 tables! 20 to go!!
The next morning (The Wedding Day) we decided that we would try and complete as many tables as possible in the morning as trying to lay that many tables between the ceremony and the meal would take forever, even if we did have lots of people helping. Fortunately in the morning we managed to rope in quite a few volunteers who also helped set some of the tables. Another 4 hours passed and we have managed to do 20 tables and had also managed to fit them all into the small area that was also to be the dance floor. One more hour and we had done all 25 tables! yay!! The next problem was getting them all moved down the huge marquee after the wedding service, but we'd worry about that one later..... onto the service itself!
Now there was this guy who did all the PA for the wedding who'd also turned up on the morning of the big day. Phil's dad had been worried about the amount of kit that would be needed to be able to amplify the length of this huge white monster marquee but he needn't have worried. Phil knew a chap called Richard who had more kit than Wembley. Richard turned up in a hire van with more flight cases than an Oasis concert and so the setting up began - very cool!
The wedding ceremony was about to begin when we saw a familiar face in Lucy Cairns who we'd said bye bye to at camp a week before and it was really nice to see her again. She had her whole family with her as we'd found out previously that completely randomly she'd grown up with Emily and by coincidence Lucy, Emily and Phil were chatting once about mentioned they had a friend called Laraine and then worked out that Emily actually lived with Laraine and was going to be her bridesmaid, very bizarre but that's what happens in these Christian circles!
Emily looked amazing as you can see in the images and Phil scrubbed up OK too! :) The band was awesome but we all knew they would be as they had Pete Webb in the band. I think the fact that they also had such an awesome PA and an equally awesome chap to run it all helped too. The wedding ceremony was really nice with God being the centre of the whole thing. Phil's family are great and most of it was conducted by someone from either the Webb of Coleman family, all of them giving God massive praise and thanks. It truly was a great wedding. 
Right, back onto Laraine and my bit..... we got everyone out of the tent as quickly as possible so that we could start moving tables from our staging area to the main part of the tent. What i failed to mention was the fact that it was chucking it down with rain outside the tent at this point and there was a wind that felt like the marquee could lift off at any moment..... well we began carrying all the tables (fully laid) all the way down the tent. This was a bit of a logistical nightmare, especially with far to many Chiefs and not enough Indians but hey, isn’t it always the way. But anyway, after about another 45 minutes of faffing around we managed to get all the tables in.... hmmm except for one and guess where it was and guess where it needed to go. That's right, it had been missed off literally the far end of the tent from where it currently was sitting. So 5 of us got around the table and (VERY CAREFULLY) lifted the table over all the others dodging chairs and marquee support beams to get it to the other end! Apart from a couple of glasses falling over on the table, we made it! It was quite comical by the end!
So then the tables were in place. The rain kept coming, anyone by a door (including Dan Usher and Me) got drenched (bad planning on our part, we could have moved our table to the middle!) but it was a great day. To top it off at the end, there was a power cut at about 10.30 which lasted nearly 2 hours in the whole village. All the city people were saying "This wouldn’t happen in London" but then again, it would have made the day far less interesting!
About 30 people were left in the Drawing Room when I returned from dropping Dan and Sabrina off at their hotel and there was a chap who seemed able to play absolutely anything on a piano and everyone was singing along. It was a great way to finish off a great day. I think that Emily and Phil thoroughly enjoyed it and it is definitely a day we won't forget in a hurry.
The next day, we all had to dismantle everything which took most of the morning. I'm quite pleased we had people to do it at ours. I think that I’ll be staying out of the wedding organising business for a while!
Posted by daveszt at 07:57 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
August 09, 2006
Martin and Emma Dyer Move to London!!
Today is a very exciting day. “Why” I hear you cry… Well I’ll tell you….
One of my two best friends is moving back to London today with his wife Emma.
Martin has got a job at St. George’s Church in Ashtead as chief Youth leader. He’ll be looking after a team of youth workers and will no doubt do an excellent job.
I’m extremely excited as Martin’s been down in Plymouth now for 8 years and has finally seen the light and moved back to London bringing Emma with him. All that needs to happen now is for Ben to do the same with the Police and all will be well again!
Posted by daveszt at 08:15 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 08, 2006
Sony Mylo
Sony have announced that they are going to release a wireless instant messaging system called the Mylo which stands for “My Life Online”.
I’ve had MSN messenger on my Smarts Phones for quite a while now but I rarely use it as it is quite inconvenient signing on and off all the time but it would be nice to be able to use it more easily. I guess with the mobile generation where we want to be able to talk to people whenever we like and wherever we are, this sort of thing could take off. I know a lot of people who are permanently on MSN messenger and I guess this means they’ll be on it more.
Companies like IBM use IM for administering where people are when and it is a great tool. They have 300 000 people in the company so it's great for contacting people when they are in the office.
At the moment, the Mylo is going to support Yahoo Messenger and Google Messenger. But Yahoo and Microsoft are going to join forces for their IM software so I guess that means that MSN Messenger might work too (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/5176032.stm).
The Mylo is only going to be available in the USA at the moment but I’m sure the UK wont be too far behind, especially with new devices like the Microsoft Zune coming out very soon.
Posted by daveszt at 11:34 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 05, 2006
Bassenfell 2006
Well, the time has come again where Laraine and I pack pretty much everything we own and take it all up to the Lake District. I always forget how much of a good time it is until we arrive there and then it feels like we've never left.
We arrived late after it took us a massive 11 hours in total to get there. Last night we stayed at Alex Parson's house in Burnley and it was really nice to see her again. As soon as you arrive at the Manor it's pretty much all hands on deck. We only arrive 2 hours before the campers do and we have to get everything ready for registration.
It's always really nice to see those campers (and leaders) who have been to Bassenfell before but is also really nice to meet loads of new really cool people. I don’t think that I’ll wrote down everything that we did this week otherwise this could go on a couple of days!
My highlights were:
Mountain Biking through the Lake District....
You can't beat this. Some of the areas that we cycle through are spectacular. Sean and Esther always make the rides fun and enjoyable. I'm sure some of the kids would disagree... especially the ones who had 'offs' but that is all the fun of off-road biking!
Seeing the Kids Connecting with God
Each year, leaders at camp spend a lot of time trying to get the right balance at introducing God. I think this week most of the campers are connected with a church and so seemed to know an awful lot about who God was and how he related to their lives. Our discussion group (DG) was brilliant with some of the kids teaching me things I didn’t know or getting me thinking about things in different ways.
The evening meetings were great. Laraine did a brilliant job leading them and the people who spoke in the evenings were clear, straightforward and easy to listen to.
Watching the RAF Practice
Can you get better than watching an RAF Tornado practising low altitude flying about 500 metres above our heads whilst cycling through the hills. AWESOME!!!!
The Aqua Olympics
I don't think this will ever get boring. 
The only thing it was missing was Derek who had to go back to work but thankfully came back on the Friday to a rapturous applause!
The Talent Show
This really showed all the leaders how inspired some of the kids are. We had everything from stand-up comedy to puppets and all of them were absolutely brilliant.
Like I said above, I could keep on going but basically, camp this year was just as good if not better than the last 2 that I have done. On Sunday, Laraine and I were thoroughly depressed that fact it had to end and I am now back at work but roll on Bassenfell 2007 which will no doubt be amazing too! Thank you to everyone who was at camp this year and who made it so special.
I've put up all the photos from the week here:
http://www.daveszt.co.uk/bassenfell/photos.html
Posted by daveszt at 12:22 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack