So I won’t start at the beginning, because I’m not really sure when that actually was. Where I will start though is Soul Survivor 2008 (for those of you who don’t know what 
Soul Survivor is, visit the Soul Survivor website). One of the evenings, during the worship time I just felt like I couldn’t/shouldn’t sing. So I lay on the floor and just prayed, listening to the sound of 11,000 people singing praises to God. A couple of my friends asked me if I was okay and I said I was fine, but asked if they could pray for me. I don’t know why, I don’t know what I wanted them to pray for, but (thankfully) they did. As they were praying for me, I increasingly felt God’s presence in the tent. And then I had a vision. It’s kinda hard to explain (people who’ve heard me try could tell you that), but I’ll do the best I can. If you’ve ever been to a concert/festival (or things like the Big Top at Spring Harvest) and they have live video of the band and stuff relayed straight onto the screen behind the words… well that’s probably the best way to describe it. So this ‘camera’ was ‘filming’ out towards the congregation from behind the worship leader on stage. She was there with her arms raised in worship to God, leading these people in their worship. And then this ‘camera’ came round to the front of her, showed her face… and it was me. I was kinda confused at this but kept it in mind.
So after the worship session had finished that evening, I headed off to the Toolshed (a resources exhibition kind of thing) with a couple other people to just have a browse. When we got in there, however, I heard music – and me being me, I headed towards it (I do that. Don’t ask!). It turned out to be the Nexus stand where they had some current students to talk to and prospectuses (prospectus’, prospecti… whatever the plural of ‘prospectus’ is!) to take away. So we had a lovely chat with one of the students and I took a prospectus to look at, which I was reading over and over for the rest of the week. As soon as I got home to a computer I went straight to the Nexus website to read more about it.
After looking through the whole of the site (several times) I found a notebook I’d done a few drawings in previously (I like to doodle and stuff). I opened it up, and the first 
drawing I came across was of this girl, with her arms raised in worship… the drawing was effectively my vision. I’d drawn it in November 2007 (so almost a year before) based on a song I’d learned at Spring Harvest. This song is called The Stand (by Hillsong’s Joel Houston) and the chorus goes ‘I’ll stand with arms high, and heart abandoned in awe of the One who gave it all. I’ll stand, my soul, Lord, to you surrendered; all I am is Yours.’ So this song has been something I come back to whenever I need to re-focus my worship back to God, and I often use it as a prayer and a promise to God for my life.
It all kinda snowballed from there really. Dad took me up there in March 2009 to check it out – I didn’t want to set my heart on it over my A-Levels and then go up towards the end of my final year and realise I didn’t like it or whatever. SO we went up for the Open Day and, seriously, I fell in love with it as soon as we walked in. I sat in on 2 classes (drums, and keys) and spoke a fair bit with the keys tutor (Matt) about Nexus, its courses etc. We had a look around the classrooms, had a talk from the Director, learnt about the courses in a bit more depth, and watched an LPW (Live Playing Workshop).
I sent off my application form, after a lot of prayer, back in November 2010. I also went up in December 2010 for their Christmas Concert (along with Dad and Mom) which was truly AMAZING! It gave us the chance to see the quality of the training involved, as well as have a good time and meet one of my friends who is studying there at the moment. I also spoke again with Matt and we had a good chat – he’d briefly looked over my application form before the show but was going to look at it properly over the weekend. He was very encouraging and it seemed like he was looking forward to interviewing me.
My third trip up to Nexus was on January 19th 2011 for my interview/audition. It was fantastic to see Matt yet again and having met him before made me so much more relaxed for my interview. My two audition pieces went great, and the interview itself was so relaxed as well. I felt so at ease and like it was completely the right place for me to be going. So when I got my acceptance letter about 3 weeks later (depite it being dated 19th January – my interview date!) I was ecstatic, I cried, and I was so thankful to God for giving me this opportunity, opening this door and paving the way forward for the next year or so of my life.
