All Saint's Day

The world is getting darker, but there is a promise of hope and light in the future.

In just 7 weeks, we will have the shortest day of the year and then a few days after that, we will be celebrating the birth of the most important man to ever walk the earth.

In the run up to the season that is like Marmite for most, I have found myself heading into London, to celebrate in a church I have known about since I can remember, but have never, ever been inside of, though has recently found itself at the center of the financial world and the church's world for the last two weeks. Standing on the steps of St Paul's, looking out at the tents, that are almost piled high, I wondered what had brought the world to this place - where a sit-in protest is the way for the people's voice to be heard. Anyway, I was eavesdropping - it is hard not to when the people talking are sat under your feet - on a conversation between some tourists and a protester who was commuting to the site every day, the tourists were genuinely concerned and interested in what had been going on. There were reporters and policemen everywhere, including a men in suits with large groups of people around them.

The Tent City at St Paul's

The Church now recognise that they haven't handled this well, but later on, I watched the general meeting and saw that the church had asked for the campsite to provide a group of people to liaise with them on a regular bases - whatever you think or know about the church, let me tell you this - we do things by relationship and you can not have a liaison with a different person every day. The group discussed the idea of having just 4 people to talk to the church, which I think is a fair idea, but because of what they stand for, you can't allow people to feel as though they have more power than anyone else (because that's where the mess comes from as I understand it) though the lady leading the meeting clearly had more power than anyone else! I came away more confused and wondering why it felt like I'd been at a deanery synod meeting for 2 days straight, it is very difficult to listen to something and understand what might be going on, when you have no clue!

A lot of the protesters took the opportunity to video the meeting, a couple had laptops, some were eating, people were coming and going, and there was every opportunity for me to go up to the microphone and tell them all to go home!

Anyway, back to standing on the steps - 5pm arrived and it was time to go inside for the start of the Sung Eucharist, now walking into St Paul's was immense. I have been inside 3 cathedrals in my lifetime, that I can remember - my parents might correct that, but since being a youth worker, I have had the opportunity to stand in Ely, Chelmsford and Canterbury cathedrals - and I now realise that all of these buildings blow me away. I am by no means the most clever person on the earth, so that these buildings have been constructed, leave me in so much awe and wonder. St Paul's just has a majesty about it. It is clean and feels uncluttered, leaving all the glory to God. Even walking down the isle felt different from every other place I have ever been in and sitting under the dome, looking at the paintings, the carvings and the length of the building makes me feel insignificant, but it was All Saint's Day, so there was an overwhelming sense of love and hope too. The sound just carries so much in that place too. I came away feeling really pleased that I had spent time, doing what God has called me to do, in a place that has been a beacon for many, but also wondering about the relevance for the younger people in the church, of participating in a service like that. Who knows I might be bringing my young people into London for an All Saints Day service in the future!

I am off to find out about the benefits of an oyster card...

Time for TinTin

This animated clip is an absolute stunner and has a wonderful story attached to it.

I wish I had this sort of level of creativity and forcefulness (you'll have to read the whole article to get that!).

I will buy this movie when it comes out. I'm over 3D and back into musicals again.

In other news, buying a flat progresses, though it still needs your prayers, and hoping that I can move out soon after Christmas, but we will see how we go. speaking to estate agents and the like is teaching me a lot. Some people have very cautious stories, others are full of hope for me.

Happy to say that the bible reading continues - we've made our way through genesis, exodus and job, with Matthew. We're only 60 days in, but the reading is relatively easy for me. I have read the law books before, so I know what is coming, but it does mean I skim read when I know it gets repetitive, especially in Leviticus. I know I shouldn't do it and I need to take slowly. Still, the psalms and proverbs are delightful at the moment and we're half way through Mark. Keep going if you've started. It will be a fruitful end to the year!

Something amazing!

You know how I like Disney, right? You know how I like Disney re-imagined, right?

Have a look! This is simply awesome. A good opportunity to find the real life versions of these characters, surely there must be women that look like this?

Time to get all legal!

So I am continuing the journey towards house owning... well flat owning. There is so much to think about, legally and just being in a place on my own. How do I work out so many different things to make this work? I have wanted to do this so desperately and now as it draws into my reality, it becomes so scary and so unreal, all at once.

So please pray for me. So far I have come across some wonderful people who have been very helpful and I know the right people will cross my path if this is what God wants. That is the important thing... what does God want for me?

Work is going well at the moment. We had an interesting Friday night, praying for the people that I came across, well that came across us, I don't go anywhere on a Friday night, once I am in church. And this has also been the week that the churches in Billericay have attempted to read the Bible, in it's entirety. I think we have done well. It is always difficult to figure out how long it would take, but as far as I know, we did it and hopefully made a difference to some of the people who listened to it.

The scarecrows are still in place, in church, though I think many may have been dismantled and certainly the winner's scarecrow - a boy on a scooter called Bob - has been taken away. I have had a chance to scare myself witless. if you've ever stood in a room with 30 scarecrows in the dark, you'll know that they can look quite human, when they are just shadows!

A lot of my twitter friends have spend this weekend at the youth work summit - I have been catching up with what went on, it seems that it has been monumental for some. So I will be looking forward to catching up with some of you, to find out out thoughts and if it is worth going in May! I missed out, but I did get to spend time with friends and family who I have missed a lot. I hope all of them are well, some of them have been really stressed out recently, so it was good to have a chance to let our hair down!

I am now on holiday for a week and I will be doing various things like my third ever tweetup and a chance to see Kay for a bit in Bristol, and meet her boyfriend! :)

All New to me!

MYSTERY MAZE! (interactive YouTube game) - YouTube

Have you ever read a book where you have to make the decisions? This is the youtube version of that, and well worth a go! :)

Harvest Festival

This weekend was the Scarecrow festival and Harvest celebration for Christ Church Billericay.

I had the privilege of being involved from the very start, and the only thing that stopped me from attending absolutely everything was a stupid cold that has found it's way to beating my immune system for the first time in ages!

So we had a lot of people at the Scarecrow making workshop on Saturday and have already learnt so much more about how to build a scarecrow, what to stuff it with and how to stand it up. My young people created a scarecrow of me and did a very good job in such a short time to make it look like me. It's pink and grey - with jeans, which is a little bit of a signature look for me!

About 30 scarecrows appeared during the day, most made at the workshop, but some had been dreamt up at home and constructed in the hall. I am told (via Facebook) that the barn dance was awesome and everyone seemed in high spirits this morning in church.

Today we celebrated harvest in a short service with a baptism as well. It was a lot of fun to see families interacting with each other and voting was well under way by the end of the service. I know I didn't win, but when community is involved, it is definitely the taking part that counts. I hope that we covered all parts of our community over the time and the food offering we gave will go to the womens shelter at Basildon.

I will be eating the jar of beetroot chutney Mollie was selling, when I find a brie to go with it! (and a crusty roll! It smells yummy!)

It is good to celebrate all of the things we have an opportunity to taste, see, smell through out the year. Harvest is an important time for a lot of people around the world still. We must not forget the people who don't have enough, or the freedom to make their own way in the world.

Today, I also had an opportunity to pray for all of the young people (and their families) that we see throughout the year.  As a youth leader, how often do you name your young people before God? It is becoming increasingly important for me to pray with team members and my boss as we see the church grow and the young people develop. The Spirit really did take over tonight and I found myself praying with a sickness in my stomach that there were still so many young people in the town that don't know God and what He can do. Fan into flame please God. Help the young people that know you to be radical for you.

A short personal aside. I am single. There is plenty to say, but not here. Thank you for all your support, Chris.

One Day

If you have read the David Nicholls book and my blog, you'll know how much I love stories being told in different ways. Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveller's Wife absolutely captivated me, and really still does. I have read it several times and will continue to read it again and again.

When I saw the advert for David Nicholl's One Day, I was intrigued.  I think I also saw an interview on This Morning with the lead actor. So I thought I ought to buy the book before I saw the movie, I'd seen started for ten a few weeks earlier with James Mcavoy and really liked that, so I was expecting something that spoke to me.

I was not disappointed. I almost wished that I hadn't started it. Thankfully I was reading during the holidays, otherwise I would've had a very sleepy and unproductive few days. I have the sort of imagination that gets me deep into a well written book. I can see characters and places. Some of the places mentioned in the book, I have actually been to, so that helps a lot.

It is well written and worth a go, easy (for me at least) to read and all the twists and turns you might expect from a story about two people who remain friends through their life.

One day, I will also have my own house, and the process has started, but I am struggling. The website that is available has a lot of properties, but when I ring to ask for a viewing, I am finding that the property is sold or under offer. So pray, that I can find a good estate agent, or someone who can really help me out. I'm finding that people are making judgements about me as well, being rude unnecessarily, because they assume that I am something I am not. Hopefully I will get to talk to my parents financial advisor. It's a scary and exciting, daunting that I might be living on my own in the next couple of years. Here's to making space in the diary to view properties!

Please be careful

Tragedy as teenage girl dies minutes after applying hair dye - Yahoo!

This is the reason why skin testing is such a good idea. For the most part, people are not allergic to hair dye, but just in case, please skin test, every time you go to dye your hair - professionally or at home.

Harvest 2011

This year, Christ Church is celebrating Harvest as a family and for the most part I am involved in one way or another.

I have enjoyed the new ideas that have come along since joining the leadership team. This year is no different, we are into our second year of scarecrow making and I have a title to defend! We will be scarecrow making on Saturday, with a dinner and barn dance. On Sunday we have got a special service and any food we receive will go to a local charity, as well as the judging of the scarecrows! I have to buy a bale of hay - which is something I have never had to do before!

It should be a good weekend, the third and final one of a very 'churchy' time in October. The first weekend was last weekend (which technically started in September) when we spent time as a church, at High Leigh Conference Centre. it was a really good weekend and the Holy Spirit is definitely resting on the church, waiting for God's timing to bring the church together. I really love the church I worship in, the people who lead and serve, and even those who don't yet know how they fit, but still feel part of the family. It's great to see the holy Spirit at work in the people you love and trying to understand our future as a church is going to be a lot of fun.

This coming weekend, I have 14 young people to teach about being a young leader in the place that they are in a discovering their 'SHAPE'. I know most of them well enough to know that as leaders, Lucy and I are going to have a lot of fun!

So that's my October, some time off at the end of the month to take time out and think about other things that have happened. Reflecting on recent event.

World's Most Dangerous Road

Whilst I have been preparing pathfinders for Sunday, I have also been watching World's Most Dangerous Roads.

I am not the adventuring type - armchair adventure is as close as I get to getting on a plane and flying to the middle of nowhere! It's a good series though - good mix of 'celebrities' taking part in doing stupid things, so that I don't have to!

I'm still carrying on with Bible in One Year - we're just a week away from being one month in - it seems like I have been reading for a lot longer than that!

for the long term

Whilst I'm here, I may as well tell you about Sunday.

For me, the weekend went passed in a bit of a blur... up early on both days, with my head full of things that I needed to do!

Sunday was a 6.30am start! Eek, but it  was all for a very good cause. On the third Sunday of the month, Christ Church celebrates Communion at 8am, if you're looking for a spoken, reflective service, this one is definitely for you. It is really is a very sedate liturgy strong service. it's good for me to go to a service where I really don't have to do anything other than just participate.

This Sunday, however, we had a very special visitor. My long-standing friend (and mentor of sorts) Shirley Gowland joined us for both services and as Warner is away for Walk West Dorset, I was in charge of hospitality for Shirley - which meant being around for the whole morning. I was also leading the 10am service ans co-ordinating the Uniform Groups.

To say there was a buzz about church, would be a bit of an understatement. Shirley and I were both excited about what she was going to say to the congregation, teaching them about a resource that she has developed, called Bible In Literacy. The response from church was amazing, the children got involved and were singing their hearts out at the start too.

We are really starting to develop proper links with the community we live in, through the uniform organisations that use Christ Church as a meeting place. I love parade services and on a number of occasions I have been a bit overwhelmed by the joy that I get from working with them and seeing young boys and girls in the church. pray for them though, they really struggle with getting leaders and we're looking at how we can support them as a church.

I am really excited about Bible In Literacy, partly because it is an awesome resource and because it is ready to use for a lot of teachers. if you want more information about training or just to find out what I am on about, please leave a comment and I will get in touch with you.

I am really excited about schools work this term and how we are working as a team to bring the message to schools, as well as the relationships we have with teachers and young people. After three full years of being in school every week, it is starting to become easy! The challenge is still there though - how do we get the message of the gospel across to so many who don't yet know it.

Longevity is the key here, it is something that I can not stress enough, but I am still learning how to deal with longevity - I have never had a job that has lasted more than 2 years and even those weren't 'career' jobs. This is a calling, it is a career, it is something I know I am called to for now, and something I know I don't always have to do either.

I have said since the end of my 'year out' of youth work at the council that I am wholly grateful for the team that I worked for that year - they gave me such a great sense of what working in the 'world' was and it gives me a better idea of what working in the 'bubble' is!

Inner Geek

I love a bit of geekery and for the most part I am 'up' on stats for this blog and apps for the phone.

So this bit of geek-ness has made me super happy today, you can see my Twitter stats here.

If you are a tweeter, have a go, you might be surprised. I am pleasantly pleased that I have never tweeted at 4am!

Rally Day

Sat in the car after my second go round!

The rally car

The logo of the Christian Motorsport Team

Incredible

Raw Video: Burning Car Lifted Off Trapped Man - YouTube

It is quite amazing what the human race will do to save one of their own. :)

A change of pace

Someone recently told me 'If you're enjoying your job, you're in the wrong job!' I quickly realised I have far too much fun sometimes as a youth worker and this morning was no exception to that, however it was very extraordinary.

I have finished a very, very good week at school and a wonderful night at youth group as well (we were talking about the good bits of the OT compared to the NT).

Today has been mad because I was awake ridiculously early for a weekend... I'm talking before 9am and before 7am! Rarely in this house do I show my face before 10.30am on my day off, mostly because there's Saturday kitchen to be watched! This week however, I got an email from a contact that I had made at the CRE. I was so impressed with the work of the Christian Motorsport Team, that I wanted to give them something AND get them to Billericay at some point, so may young people could meet the guys and see the car.The fruits of my excitement at seeing a rally car close up was an email inviting me for a track day.

Now, I have only ever been to one track day, where I was thrown around in a Radical for 15 mins, and that only came about because Chris was asked if he wanted to have a go after writing about another opportunity... so I was hoping that I might be allowed to sit in the car, whilst it was stationary, and to be honest, that was enough. However, Paul Harvey, who emailed me to invite me, wanted to get me in the car! I didn't hesitate to say yes and he kindly paid for my passenger fee.

Paul is a very very good rally driver, being strapped in a proper seat, with my helmet on, and Paul talking me through some of the things that they can and can't do with the car, I felt really safe and being able to see where we were going made such a difference to how I felt as I got out of the car after a couple of laps around a very bumpy circuit (Woodbridge is an MOD site, so it's not really made for rally cars!), that however, did not stop me from feeling sick! We got up to 109 kph on the longer straight, there were some nice chicanes and a couple of really sharp turns.

Track days are a good opportunity for drivers and their friends to see how a car handles, how fast it can go and what it is likely to do when pushed. We had a couple of sliding moments, rear tyres screeching as we slid round some of the faster corners. Paul allowed Levi, who had done the website for the company, a go behind the wheel. I wouldn't want to push myself, I really don't have enough experience for driving such a powerful car! 

I really enjoyed my opportunity to sit in a car that was once driven by a world class rally driver... Chris puts it quite succinctly (pinched from his twitter account)

"I'm feeling somewhat jealous of my gf. She's been out in an ex Carlos Sainz Ford Escort Cosworth rally car this morning!"

Paul and his team will hopefully make an appearance in Billeircay, maybe not for a year, but the question is there and the work needs to be done to ask all the right people!  If you see a blue and yellow Ford Escort Cosworth behind a blue van, those are the guys that are working hard to bring the message of God to the track, by simply racing!

On other sport related things... Arsenal are just making it hard for themselves and Ireland have enjoyed a WIN over Australia.

There are some good stories being written at the moment, but none greater than the story in Genesis that I am currently reading. I really can't get my head around how odd this book is, though it is a lot of fun and very intriguing to know that Jacob and co had several issues - it wasn't all dreams and favour from Pharaoh!

Oh the madness

100 YEARS / STYLE / EAST LONDON - YouTube

Have a look at this super cool youtube advert for the new shopping centre in Stratford, London.

A colleague and I were talking about the madness surrounding this place as it opened this week. There were pictures of the front doors as people rushed in to the shopping centre, screaming.

Screaming... it is just shopping. I love shopping, but it is just shopping. You will come away with tired feet, hands and an empty purse/wallet, with things you possibly don't need, you might even come away empty handed - if you are as picky as I am!

The good news is that it has created plenty of jobs for the area, though apparently only 2,000 local people got jobs. Some are saying that it's not enough, but with the economy the way it is at the moment, if a large place is creating a great deal of jobs, that can only help??

Never Forget

Some really lovely pictures from yesterday.

9/11 memorial service Photos | 9/11 memorial service Pictures - Yahoo!

Blooming Christianity

it's always exciting when a new family walk into church on a Sunday.

I can't imagine church that is overflowing, because I have never experienced it. Still the article below is good news for the world of Christianity.

BBC News - Christians in China: Is the country in spiritual crisis?

Something Awesome

9/11 Memorial Sculpture by Heath Satow | Colossal

Just to see what a particular artist is doing in tribute to those who lost their lives in 2001.

Look at what God can do

Yesterday we remembered the lives lost in 2001 in the attacks on America. Ten years ago, I came in from school and found my mum and sister glued to the tv. There was nothing else on. We didn't have sky or even a freeview box (I don't think) to distract from what was going on. And that is all it was, for a very long time, just a long shot of the devastated New York skyline. As the reports of other hijackings came into the newsrooms, it became ever more important to keep watch and try to understand what had been taking place for longer than any civilian ever knew.

In that time, I have watched people come and go, things have happened that I would never imagine (I went to university and started a BLOG!), not all of it positive, but mostly I feel happy about where the last ten years have gone. I am grateful for the people who have let me find out my strengths and weaknesses and those who have and are still encouraging me to work for God's kingdom in so many ways.

In the next ten years, I hope that god will teach me so many new things, I know I can look forward to an adventure. I hope there will be more friends, more people to encourage, more young people to say 'look at what God can do for you' to and many volunteers to teach, members of churches to talk to and networks to make the most of (and hopefully an extended study leave or two!).

We'll see if I am still blogging or if I have children to look after and a husband to live with!

The good news is that 24 men were rescued yesterday from squalid conditions, released from slavery. I hope the police and social workers that are looking after them will know how best to bring out the truth from them, find the families that are missing them and give them the life and the freedom that they so greatly deserve.

I heard on Wednesday night, as I listened to Canon J.John interview Beth Redman, about the work she is doing with A21 and how there are more slaves in the world than ever before, so seeing the news yesterday at a national level and all over the internet, was hopefully an eye opener for many in our country. I hope that the work the police are involved in continues and the people who are involved in people traffiking and keeping people in slavery are brought to justice.

Asking the Question

Just a quick blog as I finish a day at the 'desk'. Recently I have been asking questions Twitter (find me @lizzie_rascal84) of the youth work variety and I have found that people respond to me! If I asked a similar question on Facebook, I would not get a response at all. So thank you to Chris, who signed me up and to all of the youth workers who answer the important questions and support my thoughts.

Someone recently said 'it will be youth workers who change the way the church works together' and my prayer is that it won't be down to one person, but the support from congregations will be there. Anyway... the question I asked is dissected at Youth Leaders Academy, by one of the tweeters who asks strong questions all the time. I have yet to add my thanks to the comments and my other thoughts, but I am pleased that someone with a different perspective is answering the question!

Another question I have asked recently is 'Should youth workers have a sabbatical?' which all stems from hearing my line manager talk about his very exciting time next year. He's taking three months off to study, work in a different environment and spend time with his family. All of the responses I got were positive and I don't think it is a question that has been asked enough. I think that is because youth workers are renown for having a short-ish shelf life - perhaps only 3 years - which in my opinion is not long enough to even start work!

I have had a 'sabbatical' as it were - I worked for a year with Essex County Council and whilst I was still going to church, I was doing minimum youth work. It was nice to have time off - I'd had time off from formal education before and I took the year to read my bible and pray (though I was still shocked to get a phone call asking me if I wanted to be a youth worker!). God has definitely made the most of those 'time outs' to prepare me for the future!

I hope that my question will have more positive responses from those who are writing my contract at the moment and those who are reading this! If you have an extended thought (more than 140 characters!) then please add it! As a youth worker I love to hear what other people are thinking!

Elmo in the UK

Elmo made an appearance on Radio One this afternoon! I was listening in the car on my way home! It was brilliant and you can watch the well but heavily edited video here!

Term Begins

Today, term started in full force... with a good amount of time talking, thinking and praying! I feel quite set up for term, now into the beginning of my fourth year in post, I am ready to go. Three summers ago, I felt as though the world would fall apart if I didn't plan and now I feel as though there is still a need for it, but it is not as pressing... people know I exist, they mostly know what I am up to, they are willing to hear what I am doing and willing to help me out as well.

The term, particularly for what I am teaching at church, is already laid out before me, so I can spend my quiet days preparing sessions for Pathfinders and working out how best to use material that sometimes is hard to use.

So I have the story of the prophets of Baal and the Angels in the new testament as well as the birth of Jesus to teach to a lovely bunch of year 7 to 9 students. Anyone got any resources that can help me? I'm particularly interested in telling the story of Baal in an imaginative way...

Also, my twitter career is taking off some what. I met another, lovely tweeter today, so I am looking forward to hopefully seeing all of my twitter youth worker friends regularly over the year! I have also started to take a more advisory role... it's only a question or two here and there, but still, I never imagined that my job would lead me to a place where people are asking for my advice on important matters!

As a gathering of youth workers, we said 'see you soon' to Alice (who is actually wonderful!) as she goes on maternity leave next week to prepare for welcoming baby boy into the world! We're super excited for the family and looking forward to meeting him soon. It is really good to have a time with people I consider colleagues and watching them work together!

Next week I shall find out what my Billericay colleagues have been up to and will be starting schools work!

Night Terrors!

I'm not one who normally has nightmares... I had a few reoccurring ones as a child, but soon got over them. I do have very vivid dreams, some I can remember from my teenage years even down to detail as I write. I have a wild imagination and can get lost in a book or my own daydreams sometimes. I have even figured out some of the triggers to my more recent reoccurring dream.

So on to this weeks Doctor Who - I was excited that we were going back to Dalek-esque scariness this weekend, as Doctor Who and Torchwood have been missing this a bit recently. It's been focused heavily on the Doctor's 'departure' and Torchwood is currently working though Miracle day rather than saving Cardiff (just because the site gets blown up, doesn't mean 'intergalactic' traffic stops!)

If you have no clue what I'm talking about - please visit the website for more information - BBC - Doctor Who - The Official Site

I love proper scary - I don't go for gory as such, though I used to love medical drama, but Casualty and Holby City got too much for me after having a week off and not knowing what was going on! So proper scary is where it is at for me. An unknown factor, the thing out of the corner of your eye that you just can't see (yes, that's a torchwood line), the psychological and mosters that you could actually picture in your own life if you didn't know any better. (After coming home from the first installment of 'Saw' we did turn on all the lights!)

Doctor Who regularly gets that right... some of the very child-like scary things have appeared. And now as I'm watching Confidential I realise that alot of thought goes into the things that are scary and bringing them to life. For me it's the child's voice again... I absolutely hated the child who had the gas mask face. The use of the word 'mummy' still frightens me!

Please watch Doctor Who - I'm slowly making my way through the box set of the first 4 series!

In a Year...

I quite like the new Blogger.com layout. It's making me want to write! Also procrastinating...

I am procrastinating because at some point today I will have to read my own work, which I really don't like doing... especially when I know it is for an assessment. For the last two years I have gone back to my uni days a bit, learning more about church history and the presence of the Holy Spirit during Communion. There has been a lot more that I have been taught over two years and the last year has been really important in my own development. I have gathered a better sense of what it means to be a youth leader and an evangelist.

For me, gathering some formal training as an evangelist has boosted my confidence in telling people the Truth. The things that are in my heart, that God wants others to hear. Of course, there is a certain amount of discernment that goes with such a position, and I am learning that as well.

This year, I am going to try to read the Bible in a year... with help from Andy Croft at Soul Survivor and hopefully a colleague or two, those who I see regularly and the 'Twitter' colleagues as well! Last year, when I headed to Soul Survivor for the first time ever, I was very skeptical about it. I didn't want to get carried away with the emotion of being with so many young people and their leaders, so I did distance myself from what was going on a little bit, until the end of the week, when tiredness caught up with me and it became a bit overwhelming for me. This year, when they talked about reading the Bible in a year again, I felt really heavy in myself... which for me, normally means that I have to do something about it, or God is just going to show me that I have missed out on this. So I went to the Soul Survivor shop and got myself a Bible specifically 'chopped up' for reading in a year. I love my Bibles, I have several versions and I don't really have a favourite...though if asked to read from it, I will read from the NIV.

We only started yesterday, but it has already raised some questions and brought to light some interesting things. I might end up posting about it every day! When we read something that we think we have read before it becomes easy to skim-read. Hopefully I won't do that, but I will encourage others to give it a go. It is important that we know the Bible, the easy bits and the harder parts, so that we can have a good view of what God has done and is doing for the world that we live in.

Right best start reading the words that will hopefully help me to understand more about evangelism!

FairyTee Goes Wild

You may or may not have noticed the little bit of change that has gone on.

Recently I said 'See you soon' to Verity, who has headed to Uganda for a year to do DTS with a lovely bunch of people called YWAM. She's gone, but definitely not forgotten...and has to blog about her experience, or I shall have to go to Africa to find out what she is doing!

So her blog is here and if you know her, would you kindly support her, by reading all about what she is doing and going through the highs and lows with her.

She is a wonderful lady and she's doing it all for God, who else!?!

All well and good....

Once again, Yahoo! are reporting things again and getting it ever so slightly wrong...

Winslet flees fire at Sir Richard Branson’s house | Movies Blog - Yahoo! Movies

Of course a huge house fire like this is not good for anyone, but if you are going to talk about a huge start like Kate Winslet... at least get her movies right!!

Finding Neverland was an awesome movie and Finding netherland doesn't even exist!

Hypnotic Folding Furniture

Hypnotic Folding Furniture - Lovely Listing - Odd Finds in Real Estate Listings

This is really worth watching, some awesome design features. I really wish I had known about this when I was redesigning my bedroom. Then i would have space to play on the wii and have a double bed!!

Amazing

I do love a good story... and this will be one that this couple will tell their children and their grandchildren for such a long time.

Surprise: Bride didn’t know she was getting married — until she showed up at her wedding - Yahoo! Shine Canada

It took a year of planning and a lot of quiet moments from friends and family I can imagine.

Everyone was in on it... can you believe it. I don't think my friends would be able to keep a secret like this. I certainly wouldn't be able to!

Some awesome art

I know artists have used pin point for a number of years.... but push pins is something new to me!

Work | Eric Daigh

I am now in recovery from Soul Survivor and my cousins wedding. I have had an awesome time with lots of young people and leaders. As well as an amazing time with my family.

Once I have put the photo's on my laptop I shall put them on here. Considering I am on holiday this week, I should have already done it really!!

Dude Craft: Gulp! - Worlds Largest Stop Motion Film by Aardman Animation

Dude Craft: Gulp! - Worlds Largest Stop Motion Film by Aardman Animation

From my small world of blogging comes a large animation of awesomeness!

Dude Craft in its own right is awesome... the place I go to for a little bit of rest and imagination using, also to look at things that I could only wish of owning.

All this wonderful things will keep appearing in my life until such a time as not having the internet or forgetting about it.

Today the weather is horrible, I should've finished my talk for Sunday and there might be football on later... yesterday the weather was lovely, I took a day off from my talk and watched an early evening thunderstorm.

I'm hoping that time at Soul Survivor will be refreshing next week, that I will get an opportunity for a tweetup and a chance to be fed.

Photos of Dogs

Heart Touching Photos of Dogs with Humans

Some cute pictures celebrating dogs and the relationship we have with them.

Apparently we have cats.... not entirely sure if Mum and Dad have agreed to this... I haven't and I'm not sure our dog is very happy with it either... still they are up in my brothers room, probably causing havoc.

I am trying to write a 5 to 10 min talk for Sunday and look for an appropriate craft activity too. I'm thinking about bandages and sinners... I think I have something that will work, but I'm not entirely sure that it will occupy the young people (there were 4 or 5 in church on Sunday) for a while. Still I will find something for them to do. Might steal some Schools work ideas.

We're barely a week away from Soul Survivor, Verity is on training this week for her African adventure and my other volunteers have been giving me lots of opinion on how Shaken Up should work in September, some very exciting ideas, hopefully facebook will help us get some ideas...

Onwards and Upwards... Nan is recovering well from her operation on her hip, in high spirits after seeing her Daughter, Son-in-law and grandchildren yesterday (who loved the crutches she's been given!). Mum and Dad are at New Wine with various church members and the young people are preparing to lead worship next Sunday.

I'm looking forward to spending more time with Chris this week as he is photographing a couple of horse events. We've been together for over two years and celebrated on Saturday (belatedly) by going out to London for lunch, dinner and a show. I am very fortunate to have a wonderful boyfriend. The Lion King was awesome. Dinner at Circus was slightly disappointing - Chris came away hungry and we both had a headache by the end of it - nothing sweets from Cybercandy can't solve...

All exciting. Tomorrow I'm going to pop into Basildon to sort out holiday things, visit my Grandad's grave on his birthday and pack a bag to spend time with Chris!

Robbie Williams confirms Take That exit - Behind The Music

Robbie Williams confirms Take That exit - Behind The Music

This is totally not a surprise... and actually I am quite pleased that this is happening.

I am a Take That fan and have been since the band began their career all those years ago. When Robbie left the first time, I didn't cry, I was upset when they called it a day but wasn't everyone? It was only every going to be a one term thing and it feels like Robbie has ridden the wave of the Take That come back for all it is worth and decided now to write again and tour off the back of it. What a surprise. I am a little angry about it as well.

I know plenty of people love Robbie so I won't say much more about this, it just not a shock at all.

In other news... transition lessons for year 6 groups have been really good, and finish today. Also, CCS finishes today, so I have to try and remember where I'm going this evening and leave a little early with the food in tow.

Tomorrow we're off to SOLID for the weekend with 11 boys and 3 other leaders. It's going to be an awesome weekend. I do have to print out some more behaviour agreements though, for the boys who haven't signed them! Pray for us, that we will be safe, that we will have an opportunity to chat and that we can connect with what is going on. Pray for changed hearts! (And that we get some sleep!) And for the weather... the list is endless!

What a rip off

Premier League - Parents to complain over kids' kit prices - Yahoo! Eurosport

Have a read of the article above and ask yourself the same question the survey asked.

Are replica football kits too much money? Are they a rip off?

In my opinion, yes the are. I brought my brother an Arsenal shirt last year and that was expensive (and simply because I'd gone to Lakeside before looking online).

We live in a world where things are expensive, cost of living etc, and a football shirt is a luxury - but it shouldn't be the sort of thing you have to dig into your savings (or take out a mortgage) for!

Well Done mumsnet for taking this to the top and asking the question about the massive mark up... if a shirt didn't cost so much, the team wouldn't have so much and the players wouldn't be paid a stupid amount for 90 mins on a pitch.

Rant finished... I have become a reactionary blogger :(

YouTube - ‪theshures's Channel‬‏

YouTube - ‪theshures's Channel


Late night giggle! I won't be at work until lunch time tomorrow!

This made me laugh. I love good covers - and The Shures are amazing! I would love to be this good! and obviously there's Nick Pitera - if you can get over his cheesy 'I'm on my own but I'm pretending I'm not' face! Best to just listen to him, rather than watch him!‬‏

24 Hours in A&E - 4oD - Channel 4

24 Hours in A&E - 4oD - Channel 4

If you can watch a couple of these (but only if you are over 16, please) I would really recommend it. It might restore your faith in the NHS and in hospitals or it might not, but the least you can say is that it will open your eyes up to the world of an E.D. no end.

This weeks episode is a bit of both... watching humanity ruin itself and also watching the older generation benefit from health care (private and free).

The couple who talk about having a spliff in a hospital and the little old lady who just wants a man like her husband.

Today has been a really quiet day and watching 24 hours in A and E finished it off nicely for me.

GirlTalk

It is dangerous for me to be outside today, so I am hiding from the sun...knowing that if I go and sit outside, I will shortly become very pink and very ill.

So I thought, amongst emails and preparations for camp, I would tell you about a amazing Thursday that I had last week. Often my creativity flows from writing something unrelated to what I am thinking about.

It was an early, panicked start for me, but Margaret and I got on the train with seconds to spare and headed towards Denham station, stopping at Paul's Patisserie for 'breakfast' and once we got there we were greeted by our transport to the venue. If you have never been to Denham Grove, can I encourage you to go. It's a little bit lush!

At 10am we started with worship, led by Nicki Rogers,and we quickly moved into hearing from Mary Pytches who was just amazing. She told a bit of her story and used the time really well to teach us about the work of the Holy Spirit.

After coffee, we had time with Julie Sheldon, who was a Dystonia sufferer and again, had an amazing insight into the work of the Holy Spirit and how to evangelise to a group at a specific event. if you don't know Julie Sheldon, her story is amazing - she was bedridden for a while with Dystonia and was completely healed in one morning. I couldn't believe it and I can't wait to read her story.

After an awesome lunch (Prawn curry and Tiramis-oooo!) we heard some more from communicators who are trained professionally and use unusual forms of communication to tell the story of the Gospel. Then J.John spoke on some really practical pointers for preaching in general.

I really enjoyed the day and came away from it knowing that I have some really practical points to make writing talks easier and getting the evangelistic point across. I will probably use the points in my next talk as it is probably the most evangelical talk I will have done.

Yesterday we spent the late morning in the park, joining with all of the other churches, to praise in the sun and see some of the work that the churches are doing throughout the town. It was a good morning. Not a lot of people around, but the heat was getting too much for me.

SENNA

YouTube - SENNA International Trailer

If you are a motor sports fan, you will know the name Ayrton Senna - if you're not, then just read a little bit of what I have to say abou the movie chris and I went to see.

Chris had mentioned the Senna movie a number of times and I'd seen it on Twitter - because I follow a lot of motorsports people. We'd been to Le Mans and quickly booked the tickets of the only showing we could make, which was a wise move, because when we got to the cinema, they were already queuing. Full of high spirits, not entirely sure what to expect, we were chatting to chris' friend Alex on the way in.

As we sat down, for me, the anticipation grew and I really began to wonder whether I was going to make it through the movie without crying. People had said it was quite a rollercoaster ride and they weren't wrong.

I am a tad nostalgic about the early 90's, so hearing Murray Walker's voice set me off. There were a number of moments where the whole audience shook in shock and laughed at some of the small things. If you know these characters, you know their little things and spot them. Seeing Damon Hill as well was quite funny.

Towards the end of the movie, when 1994 came up, Chris took my hand and didn't let me go. (For that I am hugely grateful)

Ayrton Senna's death will always be a shock to me and knowing what he went through makes it harder too. He died doing what he loved, what he felt he was made for.

I cried solidly and I'm told I wasn't alone. Death, in any way it happens is never easy, this programme doesn't make it any easier.

I can't say much more, but I know it's had an impact on me. Hopefully I won't forget it any time soon.

I am pretty certain that the advances made in safety started at that point, the world was shocked into doing something so effective that 18 years on, the world can watch a car desinegrate upon impact and then not 5 mins later, the driver is talking and walking about and at the very worst knocked unconcious. We will continue to see crashes in motorsport for all the years there is racing, but, and we have to know we aren't invincible, we hope no more death.

In other news, and possibly related, I feel like I've been crying in my sleep. Strange! And I've got my tax disc for the next year!

Dear Photograph

Dear Photograph

This website looks like an awesome idea. Makes me want to dig out the photo of my 13th (or 12th) birthday and do the same. There are so many photos I could chose from!

Tomorrow is another day though and there are a lot of new things to do. Lots of memories to make.

Le Mans

You may or may not have caught the news over the weekend that there was a bit of a major race on in France.

Chris and I were there, our first experience of camping together but not of travelling a couple of 100 miles to get to our destination. I wasn't worried about travelling, Chris' driving is good and his awareness of what is going on, even in a foreign country, is impressive. we both found it a bit weird being on the 'wrong' side of the road, but you get used to that when you decide to travel through every town from Calais to Le Mans! We skipped the toll roads, thinking that it would be cheaper but it definitely wasn't quicker - as we found out when we travelled back on the toll roads.

After doing our shopping in Carrefour in Calais - which was a good idea - we made our way to the circuit. Along the way we saw some amazing buildings and towns. The countryside is really flat for the most part, there are some lovely scenes (French people have a thing about putting things in very straight lines - trees and wind turbines in particular)  but mostly we were so focused on following the sat nav that we may have missed some things. Still here are a few pictures.

Lovely buildings that caught my eye. I don't know the name of the town they were in but I would go back and shop there in a flash!

We got to Le Mans and then spent an hours sitting in traffic to get to La Sarthe, to the campsite. We were shown to our pitch and quickly realised we had quite a lot of space, because the people either side of us hadn't arrived yet. We set up camp, which is fairly easy when you have a pop up tent, blow up bed and a pop up gazebo. If there were more people involved I would show you some pictures of set up! Chris and I work really well as a team, we both know what needs to be done. One annoyance was that the gas cooker had become a little stiff, so we botched a solution for the first night and had a very good bolognese! We then headed to the circuit for night practice and a chance to look at the shops on the outside of the circuit.

It's a big site, but we happened to be quite close to the main entry point and so was our stand. It's better than I expected! Plenty of people, places to get food, and excellent radio service to tell you what is going on. we watched the end of night practice and walked back.

On Friday, we spent the whole day in Le Mans, waiting for the drivers parade - here's a picture of my favourite driver

Giancarlo Fisichella - on the left. We waited for the whole day! Travelling on the tram was fun, nice and smooth, easy to get around. We spent time eating good french food and drinking with Chris' friends. We walked back through the village, looking at all the car stalls and different sponsors.

Saturday was race day and a chance to see the start of the race. We hung around for a bit and saw the Alan McNish crash. I surprised myself by sitting for 4 hours watching what was going on. There were 20 hours left but dinner was calling. We went back to the track at about 9.30pm to see what was going on, only to witness another crash, from the same team. 2 Audi cars down, one to go, 18 hours to go.

The good news is, that when we woke up the following morning, the Audi was still running, and eventually, we watched it cross the finish line, only 13 seconds ahead of the Peugeot. Giancarlo Fisichella finished second in his class. It was an astonishing race, lots of drama and plenty of stories, that will hopefully turn into a classic! (We also saw Stirling Moss retire at the age of 81, though we didn't know it at the time!)

An amazing weekend, rounded off by a trip to the museum and a second BBQ!

We travelled home so quickly and watched the Canadian Grand Prix, so all in all it's been a pretty amazing weekend for the high end motor sport world!

Onwards and upwards...back to work today to mentoring and meeting with youth workers. Getting ready for a trip to Ely... going to have some Brie and pack my bag.

Shocking headlines

Teenager Kills Girl To Feed Video Game Habit - Yahoo! News

I have read this article several times, one because I cannot get my head around how a young adult can do this and two because it is badly written.

Sorry for blogging it, but i will try to focus on the story, rather than the way the story is written.

There are few things that I am addicted too... at 2,852 tweets (at time of publication) since December, I am not shy of sharing my thoughts in less than 140 characters - in fact I shall probably tweet that I have written this! I am mildly addicted to shopping, shoes and my hair straightners. Things that give me little comfort, but some none the less, whilst I go about my day to day life. I was addicted to blogging for a while, but even that I have kept in check and understood when enough is enough.

Where do you draw the line for the things you really like doing? Do you have a voice, a feeling that tells you to stop?

I have little understanding of addiction on the scale of the boy in the article, so I only really have a lot of questions in my head and most of them point fingers at the obvious missing pieces in his life... We will see if the answers come in the days to follow. I guess the good news to come from this is that there is a group for Gaming Addicts - and I applaud anyone who works with addicts, it is often thankless work and quite hard too, from what I know.

There's not a lot else of me to say. I started to write in shock, but I realised that it's probably not best to rant.

The sheer power of it

I know I have a really odd relationship with God - especially for those who are looking from the outside in. Sometimes I really can not believe that God loves me and wants me to hear and then share what He's telling me. I tend to get extremely emotional and find it really difficult when I tell God's truth to other people, even thinking about it now, I'm getting a little upset!

This has happened a lot recently - I'm having dreams about what to say to people and the pictures and visions are becoming clearer. God is definitely moving towards something big, He doesn't just drop me in it, I can feel that he's surrounding me with something, getting me ready.

Before I went to pray at lunch time for a local school I felt a bit battered and bruised, I'd been worrying about a number of things and people recently... so on the walk to school, I took a deep breath and said 'here, you have it, I don't want it any more' to God and what followed was a time of connection that I haven't had for some time. I had two visions of trees after the lady I was praying with said she felt like she was in a forest of bad stuff.

God has a thing about trees - I can think of several times when I have used them in illustrations, where God uses them to teach. I can see how important they are for the landscape, for the wildlife and for us. I prayed once that the students would be like the trees that surround the school, with deep roots and tall branches and that imagery has continued and developed, this afternoon it came to a crescendo with the vision of the tree being full of good fruit and bad fruit - and guess what? It has deep roots and tall branches, and the classroom it grows through is in the school's RE department.

There is a constant battle that we must not forget we are fighting... we must have the fruits of the Spirit and the Armour of God to help us!

See... weird... but helpful for me, none the less, and it makes me ready for every day that I have to face, knowing that God is right beside me, continuing the battle over this world.

TV Adverts

I love TV adverts at the moment, there are some really clever ones



and some that are just right to lift my mood when I need it the most



Love!

That's clearly two people in that jacket... that must've taken a lot of practice to be able to move like that!

I'm sure I have said before that I have a fascination with the way things work... Cadbury's have always flumuxed me! Enjoy! And if you can find something impossible, please share it!

Ready for more?

Can you also tell that I'm making a concerted effort to blog again. I need to start writing about things to help me realise the important things in life. 140 characters is not enough! I do think in more than one sentence and I have quite a lot to say, I'm finding new things to be excited about all of the time, sometimes I just need to talk about them.

I am coming back to quoting Romans 8 constantly as a reminder to myself that God will love me, no matter what we go through together.

Here's hoping networked blogs on Facebook catches up with me soon! how social networking has changed my life. Sorry little blog and the audience that keep checking up on me... I will try to get the balance right!

Match.com

I have mostly spent Bank Holiday re-introducing my friend to Match.com.

The last time I was on Match, was two years ago, and boy, how much has the service changed. It's more expensive, more interactive and generally very different. It is really interesting to see that there are nearly 70,000 people at one time. THAT amazes me. I know there are 60 million-ish people in the UK, but still... who would've thought that it would take off like that AND they are still running adverts for it... it must be worth millions!

Well, it has been interesting to see what is now going on in the world of match and to help someone get back on their feet a little bit too.

Chris and I met through Match and we have not looked back since. I am kinda kicking myself that I deleted all the emails he sent me, cos I thought I wouldn't want to look back at them, but after this weekend I do.

It's just over a week and a half until we go to Le Mans too. we're getting things ready and that means that I have to pack for France, though I don't know what the weather is going to be like! Tomorrow will be the day to get the suitcase down (because the weekend bag will not be big enough) and try to fit the first attempt at packing in! I have grown to love camping since forcing myself to do it with young people in 2008 at SOLID, so I do know what to expect... it's just being in a different country that scares me!!

And finally....

If you haven't seen this, you need to. I showed it to my youth group for the first time on Sunday and it went down well I think.

I cry every time I see it. It really brings home to me the love that Jesus has for me and that he will not let go whatever is going on.

'We're convinced that neither death nor life, angels nor demons, nor height or depth or what's to come, can cut us off from the love of God, God is still for us, turn around' (Jonny Parks 'God is still for us' and Romans 8)

Follow Up

or possibly something to do with food.

Eric Lanlard is a little bit of a favourite at the moment... he's been Baking Mad on Channel 4.

Then there's Cupcake Wars and good ol' Duff over at Charm City Cakes. If you've ever seen Ace Of Cakes, you're not missing out at all. I love Man vs Food, though I am completely surprised that the guy who presents the programme hasn't had a heart attack yet.

Too many food programmes when you have Sky and the BBC. I'm still quite glad I missed out on Stacey Solomon on Saturday Kitchen, it's bad enough that she's on an Iceland advert at the moment.

24 Hours

A lot can happen in 24 hours and a new documentary on Channel 4 is showing us the ups and downs of Kings College Hospital Accident and Emergency. 

It has always been interesting to see how documentaries are done, how reality television has changed over the last 10 years or so, since the rise and fall of Big Brother and what affect it has on the people involved.

'24 Hours in A and E' is not very hard hitting, but it does use the experiences of the staff and the reactions of the public to tell stories. The amazement of one professional was quite interesting - I found myself smiling at his disbelief. A man had come in via the 'red' phone, the one that rings when someone is severely ill, he had been trapped, folded in half at the waist and was in danger of losing his life. The staff reacted calmly and quickly to finding out what was wrong, what needed to be fixed and how. The doctor who was overseeing the whole department spent the rest of the programme complimenting his staff on their hard work, on the phone to a loved one and shaking his head in sheer disbelief that this man was still alive.

It was wonderful to see the man who arrived on a bed, get up and walk around his flat at the end of the programme. Modern medicine is a wonderful thing... and Bizarre ER is another programme that proves that the work of the NHS is invaluable to some. although, rather unfortunately I watch it on iPlayer too late at night! I'm not very squeamish so it's not too bad for me, but i do wonder what goes though the directors mind when he's ready to show a mangled finger!

Whatever I'm watching, it tends to be something to do with the emergency services. I love Police Interceptors and the Paramedics in Birmingham that have their own show on 5. I can't believe, still, that there are people who treat the Police, Fire and Ambulance services with contempt, it is really disrespectful and makes their job a lot harder.

For me, I'm hoping that 24 hours will make a difference to Chris, because he's been in bed for nearly that long with something nasty.

Post-Easter Blues

After working so hard at Easter and having so many things to do, I have found that people are asking me if I'm ok. Apparently I look really tired. Some of the time I am genuinely tired, I don't sleep well when stressed and I get flustered more easily when I am tired, some of the time I jusy have a lot on my mind and it shows in my face. Really, I think I am still trying to get over all of the things that have happened... I have to think more about what I am doing day to day, but I am processing what I have done and what there is still to do.

My boss and I are having important conversations about the best time-management stratedgy - blocking out days at a time to do the work that needs to be done, well in advance of what is happening, hence I have meetings moving around and am more willing to say no to people, because I do need the tiem to prepare. I still don't get it right some times, but I am learning from my mistakes and taking my days off seriously.

Time for photos briefly before I sign out again...

The happy couple

Sophie and Tim worked really hard and the whole day was really good fun.

I can't get the fully length photo of Chris and I to work, so you will just have to wait to see how beautiful we looked!

The Passion

We're now half a week away from Easter, having suffered a Bank Holiday or two, it's back to work briefly and doing prep work, catching up on emails, sorting out all of the stuff that is going to happen over the next bank holiday and the next term.

I've already had a wonderfully productive and funny meeting with the schools workers about the half term that already feels so short. It almost shocks me that soon I will be having conversations about Christmas and Harvest. In fact I have been already with some people! How can we invite more people, how can we work with our community, how can we make it inclusive, how can we be better at what we do?

It is a lot of fun at Easter, this year we had a holiday club that I was involved in, albeit in the most background way, but I got to learn how the sound system at church works, after years of abusing it, I know that you can't have things up too loud, or you'll scare yourself as well as the rest of the street!!

We saw a smaller number at Eastingle than we have done in previous years, this was most likely down to the glorious weather we've had and a long holiday before good friday. It is really easy to forget that there is something to be at! But we had a lot of fun remembering the story and eating hot cross buns.

Throughout Holy Week I was expecting texts from The Passion Experience, a different telling of the story of Holy Week, but they didn't arrive and I was less impressed with the facebook and twitter feeds that were supposed to be in real time, but they were talking about the world going dark at midday, which if you read scripture at all, it says 3pm on that friday... so I wasn't really very happy to correct that, but I did any way! I have re-read the tweets (only 39) and some of them are good, but it is just a retelling of the story, Natwivity did better at christmas, for me any way. There is something about only familar characters 'talking' that makes something exciting, for example, we had Peter speaking... but he only denied Jesus once... that's not how it happened, it seems that it has been thought through, but not written well enough for it to really be worth while following, and the phrase 'We Jews do it each year' is just wrong, Passover is so scared for Jewish people and it needs to be treated that way to have a real impact on the Christian community, it is our heritage after all and deserves the proper respect.

The rest of Holy Weekend was spent with Chris' family and family-to-be celebrating the wedding that is coming up. I'm so excited for Tim and Sophie! Looking forward to being involved and watching Chris in his suit!

So you're a little bit up to date with what is going on... Sorry I have been so quiet, my life has actually taken over!

Fabulous things!

Few things make my day much like an early morning tweet that is about typography!

If you head to here, you'll really see what I mean by beautiful.

Seriously, some of the detail is amazing and some of the rest of the posts are amazing (even a quick look at restaurants and coffee shops will blow your mind!).

The words of some of the type are really good as well... and I have been really encouraged by the words of Abraham Lincoln recently. People have started to quote him on twitter and I never really knew that it could have the impact it has. Certainly a very good American man, who spoke a lot of sense. I wonder if he knew that he would have a great impact on a little English girl in the 21st century? I don't know the impact on his own country, but I hope there will always people speaking sense.

it's realy time for Easter. I'm preaching on Sunday and then the following friday... lots to do, and now less time to do it in!

Filling out the Census

I'm sure if you're a UK resident, you're probably sick of hearing about the Census for 2011 or you're already over it and have sent it off in yesterdays post like I did (on behalf of my parents, who then wondered where it had gotten to!).

If you're a similar age to me, the last census was in the middle of A levels, or just after we'd done our GCSE's. I'm 26 and I am already nostalgic about the last time I sat at the dining room table and filled out a form, with my Dad's help, knowing that I was helping in some way, but not really sure how or why I was having to fill this form out as the fourth person in the house. (At this point I feel sorry for the family with more than four children).

I am now the third person in the house and wondering (probably like my parents) where the last ten years have gone, what have I done that has brought me to the point where I am back at home and what did I think all those years ago about where I would be in ten years.

I certainly thought I would be married and living with my husband, but my world has changed so much that I can't afford a mortgage. I can't see how I will ever afford a mortgage. I thought I would have children, but I am simply not ready, because of the first thing not happening. I have found that I don't really want to bring children up at the moment either.

I know that just because I haven't done these things, doesn't mean I am a failure. I have a job I love doing, with colleagues who support me and a family who were more excited than I was when I started working for the church. It has been a journey and I have used this blog to tell you a little bit about it. At times, I have suffered from randomness and boredom, other times I have been busy, I have not felt happy about blogging what I was going through, so things have been quiet, but I hope that the next ten years will see me blogging still, telling the stories from the past and future hope and dreams. One day, I will set up a mobile blog properly!

Here's to marriage, to children, to a house of my own, to a family that continues to grow and share the love and hope of Christ, in the local area and further afield.

 

Fair trade!

Hello, I am just resting up, whilst at the start of a very busy week. I managed to work 5 and a half hours before 1pm today, which is highly unusual for me, being a youth worker and all, things don't normally start til 10am or at the latest lunch time, so I'm flagging, but I have a meeting later on, so going to bed and staying there for the rest of the day is not an option.

I have been gathering helpers for fairtrade activities for a couple of weeks now and I'm happy to say that the church were willing to help serve the community for the third year in a row. This year we have upped the anti a bit and have started doing breakfast as well as afternoon tea.

People are really excited about fair trade, heck, fair trade is excited about all of the things that are now fair trade, the food, the clothes, the craft, the kitchen stuff!

If you haven't seen the absolutely huge list of suppliers on the high street (and on the interweb) head here. You will be as surprised as I was by this list! Also, I found my fairtrade skinny jeans, on the web, from Marks and Spencer. Woop! Trusty M&S.

These are not just any skinny jeans...

Uh hummmm... yes, moving on.

This weekend has been different from any other. I have spent two straight days in school, dealing with a very sad situation, with my colleagues from schools ministry. It is such a privilege to be asked to help and being the first port of call, knowing that the school recognises that we can help them in their time of need. I spent Saturday morning with a fair trade producer, listening to his story about carrying fruit 5km (and being annoyed by the old women who talking over him - when you travel a couple of 1000 miles to talk about how fair trade has changed your life, you can talk all you like) then Chris and I went over to Basildon to buy pre-made pancakes for this week. I'm cheating a bit, but it is a lot easier this way (and would anyone like a jar of ft chocolate spread. I have 5). Then we went to Lucy's 30th Birthday Party and it was a surprise! I've known Lucy for two years now and we have done lots of fun things together, including living on a boat and celebrating her move to full time youth ministry. This girl is wise and wonderful and full of cracking ideas! I don't go to surprise parties that often and almost played a part in spoiling it for her, but had the sense of mind to be sensible about it. Luke, her boyfriend, had arranged it all and chose an awesome restaurant. We got to sit with some wonderful friends and made some new ones too.

Sunday was busy, with fairtrade stuff, left right and centre, lent things starting and young people to talk to about attending a course for young people, run by Alice. I then had a couple of hours at home and headed to see Alice for the course and promptly got pulling into Looking @ Jesus too!

Here's to the busy life, and the sleep that is needed for it. As part of Lent, I think I might go to bed a little earlier, after being told by someone younger than me that midnight is not sustainable!

I'm also going to stop buying clothes after putting out four bags of clothes a couple of weeks ago. And shoes, no more shoes for lent. I'm not even going to tempt myself by looking at the converse website!

Fair trade

Soon it will be fair trade fortnight, and we will be 'showing off' our labels, in support of fair trade and to promote clothing etc.

So part of that is actually finding something to wear during fairtrade fortnight that fits, won't look to shabby and will allow me to do that. I've already got a tshirt that is branded by fair trade, so that's not a problem, but I wanted a pair of jeans to go with, so that I can show people what the cotton can be made into.

Problem is, I can't find any... I want a skinny pair in black or dark blue and there's nothing :(

I shall search high and low, but if someone can point me in the right direction, I will be grateful... I might tweet this!

 

Valentines Day

I started off late out of bed and arrived at church with the vicar hot on my heels!

Every Monday we gather at Christ Church for morning prayer, which is Bible reading and obviously, praying for the community. This morning, our readings, which are set by the lectionary (I think) were from 1 Chronicles, Psalm 44 and John 15.

John 15 is a very famous passage about vine and branches, but of course with it being Valentines day, what stood out for me, was entirely different, yet still in the passage.

⁹ “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. ¹⁰ If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. ¹¹ I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. ¹² My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. ¹³ Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

A good passage for today! 

Love is some times a hard thing to do and sometimes it's the most natural thing in the world, but knowing that the love I have comes from God is really helpful for me. It's a gift that I can share with others and I hope I'm doing some good by doing so.

It's all fun and games at the moment. We headed to the cathedral for SOLID Remix, which was a really good night. we had a few little glitches but actually, the young people enjoyed it and gave some good feedback on the night about how they would like it to develop! I do love that my young people are so engaged with everything and I'm hoping that it will continue throughout their lives. 

Saturday was the most relaxing day and recharging after a pain in the neck stopped me from being able to work properly (though I think I tried too hard), a chance to go to the football and spend some time with Chris. Sunday was the launch of the quest for volunteers for Fairtrade fortnight.

I'm hoping the next couple of weeks will be fruitful... looking forward to a half term recharge in Brizzle!  

Blogging more often

You know what? I can be a numpty sometimes. I thought I had a problem but I don't. I wish I paid more attention to what is really going on. Although sometimes, I'm too switched on to miss anything and end up over thinking something.

I haven't been sleeping well this week, probably because I stayed up to watch Superbowl on Sunday night. I got to half time, but still that is 1am and the knock on effect means I didn't get to sleep til two this morning, and that was only after deciding to read my Bible for a bit, in an attempt to pray myself to sleep - which works for me, as does counting!

I was watching 'Young, Unemployed and living at home' too last night as well, as the last bit resonates with me (I'm not young and I'm employed) and I wanted to see what Greg James looked like, as he'd been talking about it on the radio during my travels yesterday, constantly. It was interesting to hear about how many young people are struggling to find a job. My family are fortunate, my sister and both of my brothers have jobs that pay over the minimum wage, I think, and although it is tough sometimes, we all have a skills set that could get us a job elsewhere, when the time comes. Unfortunately, three of us are still living at home, because it is just not worth moving out. We all work in Billericay or commute to London, so prices are high, because we live within 40 miles of London. I would live with someone else, but finding the right person or people is difficult. And I'm not living with my brothers!

There were occassions during the programme when I wondered how the young people Greg James' was talking to were unemployed or struggling. Most of them were on job seekers allowence, which is only £50 a week, but some of the circumstances they find themselves in, makes you wonder why they aren't claiming more, or what help they are getting from the government. I could say more about this, but I have never been unemployed for more than 6 weeks, so I can't really say very much about the situation.I have been very blessed in my life with the jobs I have done (most I fell into or was asked to do).

Any way! I have to get back to finding out more about India for SOLID Remix on Friday!

'But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.' Rom 8:25

Wonderful blogs that make me spend my money

I have a little obsession with something the webworld would call 'noms' and 'squee' - in regular terms, well made, cute food and well made, cute items. I am semi-concious of things being ethically sound, fairly traded etc... so when I come across websites that combine these things I tend to get very excited and normally end up spending some money on things that reflect my personality or things that I would like to define a little bit of who I am in the future (I have a pink bible I'm known for and at one point, I had a felt covered bible). So let me point you in the direction of some of these, that I visit regularly, to aid my sense of self and deminsh my money pot!

The people that started it all are the wonderful world of icanhascheezburger.com where you can find noms and squee to your hearts content - it's a little addictive I warn you! (Some of it is also not safe for work, so please be careful bloggers, and small children!) I love IMMD and LFMF, you just need to type these into google and there are hours of good/bad short stories of how to make people happy and how to get away with not doing stupid things!

I visit cake wrecks on a regular basis (just for Sunday sweets mostly) and less often I visit Epbot which is the sister site to cake wrecks and often directs me to another site to have a look at, so the writer came across Dude Craft which put me on to loads of websites (I would go three or four pages in to see some really amazing paper/book craft and I so want a steamed wood coffee table when I'm all grown up!) which has just blown my mind... now you might be put off by the amount of adverts on the site, but I emplore you to click Cosa Verde which is all about things that are ethical etc! And that is where I came across my latest purchase from REDSTARink. So gutted that they don't have a UK shop, but hopefully that will change, because there are some amazing stationary bits to be had!


Also I love Pink Whisk which is a blog of one of the finalists from The Great British Bake Off from the summer. I'm going to try macaroons soon! 


I'm sure there are plenty of other blogs that I haven't come across, but I will definitely be keeping an eye out for some more wonderful food blogs and ethically trading etc blogs/shops.


And if you haven't come across Heaven's Attic please have a look and see if you can buy something for your family from there, it's a eally worth while cause.


I'm done!

More from Twitter and life to challenge me!

I thought that since we were nearly in February and I hadn't said a lot, that it was time to talk about January and all of the exciting things that have happened in the last couple of week, plus the things that have reminded me of who I am and what I can do. I've only got half an hour so I'll be short!

Like I said in my last post, I have an addiction to twitter. I don't have normal conversations with people any more and Chris and I often chat abut what's been said by people we both follow, or sometimes I'll talk about the slightly more obscure people/ideas that I follow. I am currently proving that I can exist outside of 140 characters, so that's really good news for me.

I follow Twitturgies which is 140 or less characters of pure God gold, now they don't tweet as often as everyone else (I think it's meant to be less than once a day) so it becomes exciting when they have done the deed. And it is always challenging, which is why most of the time I will re-tweet. Yesterdays was interesting as it fitted nicely with what I was watching on TV. The BBC has a habit of showing Open University programmes after the 10 O'clock news and last night was about pain and pleasure, the things that cause it and the things that stop us from feeling pain. The final statement was 'The greatest pleasure is sharing things'.

'Right' I thought, 'I'll tweet that'! And so I did. I didn't get much of a response because it was late at night, but hey-ho. I looked at twitturgies and they had this 'I set aside hostility to practise hospitality. I journey from exclusion to embrace. Help me God to find your grace in every face I see' which in a way speaks more to me more than the final statement of the programme I was watching. (it's called Pleasure and Pain with Michael Mosley and will be on iplayer for a week! and you can follow twitturgies here)


'Help me God to find your grace in every face I see'

It's a challenge for me, because we are all human and some of us are nastier than others, yet of course there are some real saints in the world. It's easy to see God in the things we like, what we enjoy doing (I love my job, but what about those that don't?), who we like but what about the negative aspect of all our lives, where can we see God in that? 


I don't know the answer. I'm trying to figure it out for myself as it is regularly something that smacks me in the face and well as the sort of human I'm called to be in God and that nagging voice in my head of 'you shouldn't' or 'don't do that'. I am free, I know that, but I'm not sure how to live it and how to make a difference by living it.


I think that is something that a lot of my generation struggle with as Christians from a church upbringing. We are the generation who could probably put down our faith and not really be bothered. The rest of the world has, those in their 20's are not really fussed about attending church (making it hard to find someone for marriage!) and those who do attend often don't have the teaching background to further their faith or aren't passionate about what Christ has done for them, or they simply don't see the relevance of their faith to let it shine though, for fear of being ridiculed or put down, or being asked tough questions.It can be something we just do on a Sunday because it's something we have always done.


I was privileged enough to be asked to join my friends on a weekend away to Longleat for Momentum Weekend. It was exciting, I love centre parcs a little too much sometimes, so spending a weekend worshipping as well as being in the middle of a forest, yes please! Also, one of my favourite speakers is part of the Momentum movement, though he does go on for a bit! My friends were introduced to the delights of Mike Pilavachi and Andy Croft - who have a wonderful relationship and a go at each other now and then to show that off! Their teaching was fab and it was a great encouragement for me to see 300 young adults (and 2 babies!?!).


They started the weekend with this video but also got us talking later on in the weekend about how we worship as a church and when our worship occurs. I came away with a greater understand ing of my faith and my friends, and hopefully an opportunity to take them to momentum or Soul Survivor later on in the summer.


I have now talking about far more than I wanted to and the blog has fallen into Friday afternoon, rather than Wednesday before school (all the best things take God's time). There are plenty more things to discuss... like the creeds from the early (300 year old) church at CCS and the new phone I have and how I can't find an app for anything I want to do, as well as the ridiculously small manual they sent me and the work we are doing in school and at Shaken Up.


Any comments...??

Twitter addict

Maybe it's time to add my twitter feed to my blog as I have already tweeted over 500 times since joining up to the thing just before Christmas. I am a fan of tweetdeck although it doesn't really help me to type in names of people I want to tweet, none the less, it does spell check for me... though currently I'm sticking to simple words and just replying to people I know.

I'm still not 100% sure on etiquette for twitter and sometimes I feel as thought I am breaking some unsaid rule about what I'm allowed to say. It seems that my facebook friends know be well enough to know that I occasionally ramble in scripture or chat about what God is doing in my life, whereas the twitter friends I have are all by some sort of motorsport association, so it's interesting to me when there is loads of reaction on facebook, but barely any on twitter. Still there are things that will always be taboo, no matter where you are and what you are doing.

The life of the youth work carries on (and every so often explodes) I have found myself in bed for the most part of the later half of this week, working out a cold that has taken over. My body was waiting for the 11th Jan to completely break down on me, having fought off every other thing going to get me through the Christmas busyness and New year celebrations, plus a weekend away at Centre Parcs with 300 young adults (well 18 - 30's (why would you bring babies on this sort of weekend)). So the last couple of weeks feels like it's taken forever, yet it's now really far away. We're already up to the third Sunday.

God, in His infinite wisdom (yes, surprise!) Has taught me a lot about love and worry in the last couple of weeks as well as mission and Biblical perspectives on things that I never thought I would understand. Amos keeps cropping up in my life and has done since I turned 16. I would say that it's odd, if I didn't know any better!! But I do and I'm grateful for the work that God is doing in my life and in the life of those around me to work for His glory.

I have an over-riding sense of the Holy Spirit resting on my life right now, like He's waiting for me to catch up with Him, to figure out what I'm actually doing and where I need to be in the next term or so, to have those moments where I learn from God and gather myself for another wave of work.

Right, I need to get my sleeping sorted, otherwise I'll never get well!!