The Wonderful World of Becca

Reflections

2010-06-28T13:38:00.002+01:00

So, this family are leaving my church because we have a new vicar coming, she is female, and the family do not agree with women vicars.

What I find strange/amusing/intriguing about this particular issue is this;

The mother in this family was the driving force behind prayer meetings during the selection process to ensure that the right person was appointed. So... I wonder how she is feeling? what she is thinking? Does she believe God answered these prayers? Does she believe that the right person has been appointed?

Hmm....

Life is like...

2010-06-21T16:19:00.003+01:00

... a rollercoaster - it goes up and down, takes unexpected turns and you never really know where you're going to end up

... a box of chocolates - you never know what you're going to get

... a pressure cooker - pressure builds up and up and up until it explodes

Do you love me?

2010-06-08T20:50:00.003+01:00

So today's devotions... Jesus asks 'Do you love me?'

We unpacked the passage a little - first Jesus asks Peter 'do you agape me?' (the biggest love there is), Peter responds 'yes I philio you'. (friendship). The second time, Jesus asks 'do you agape me?' Peter responds 'I philio you'. The third time Jesus asks 'do you philio me?' and Peter responds 'I philio you'.

Again, I feel me answer somewhat similar to yesterday's.... deep in my heart right now, I'd probably say no. I certainly don't agape Jesus... and I'm not even sure I philio him....

Who do you say I am?

2010-06-07T22:51:00.002+01:00

So, college devotions this week are about questions Jesus would ask us. Today we looked at Jesus asking the disciples who people say he is. And we were left with the challenge of what we would respond if Jesus asked us 'Who do you say I am?'

Who do I say Jesus is?... I think my head and my heart would say 2 different things.

My head would probably spout of what 'I know', what I've been brought up to believe. And that is; Jesus is the son of God, the Messiah, the Saviour of the world, the reason I am here, a kind, caring, loving, forgiving, generous, healing person.

But what would my heart say? Does my heart really believe those things? Could I honestly, truly, deeply say any of those things and mean them? I'm not sure.

I think if I were to try and put something together of who I believe Jesus to be, right now, I would say; a guy who was written about in the Bible, who did good and amazing things to many people, and who now does similar to some people sometimes.

Doesn't bode well for a 'Christian children's worker' does it?

So why the doubt, why the uncertainty? Hmmmmm...

I'm not a teacher!

2010-06-04T17:13:00.004+01:00

Work really bugs me sometimes...

It's over a year ago I changed jobs in my current organisation and don't get me wrong, I love my 'new' post, it's varied, it's based around projects and there's lots more to do. But it does frustrate me...

Mostly because of my abilities... I don't really have a job description because the council were reviewing job descriptions when I changed roles, and so I didn't get one confirmed. My role was partly based on my predesessor's job, but also added new dimensions according to my skills and combined some of my previous duties as well.

Part of what we do as a music and arts service is wider opportunities teaching, a government initiative. This is something that I've been involved in for about 2 and a half years. Probably about 2 years ago I attended a development day at work about wider opps and a possible course with Trinity/OU. I asked about doing the course and was told 'you're not a teacher, so not now'.

Just over 2 years ago our 'endangered species' programme finished for the academic year... I asked if I could keep on the oboe pupil, but was told 'you're not the real oboe teacher, you do endangered because you're here anyway.'

At the beginning of this academic year I was told I would be teaching the new 2 continuers from endangered species. If I'm honest, one I was really up for teaching and the other one I really didn't want to teach. So I questioned why and was told 'well it's most convenient for you to do it because X can only come on saturday mornings and you might as well teach Y then too.'

Last academic year I was asked to fill in at a school and actually properly teach clarinet/sax through wider opps, I play neither, but I agreed and I've nearly been doing that 2 years now.

About a month back we ran a holiday course for 2 days, with approx 150 children in attendance. I ended up spending much of the second day providing one to one support for a boy who has autism. A few weeks ago a course came up based on working with autistic children in out of school settings. I asked if I could go and received the reply 'this is not an area that is directly relevant to your work'. When my line manager later questioned this response, she was met with 'Becca can go to it in her own time if she wants, but not in work time because she is not a teacher.'

And I get angered... I know I am not a teacher per say, my main role is admin work, but within that I do teaching; I do 3.25 hours at Wind & Percussion Centre on Tuesday nights, I do 3.25 hours at Orchestral Centre on Friday nights, I do 1 hour wider opps on Friday mornings and I do 4 hours at Young Musicians on Saturday mornings which includes 50mins of one to one oboe teaching.... Now tell me I'm not a teacher.

It makes me so irritated; when it suits them, I teach; oboe, endangered, wider opps, holiday course etc, but whenever I want to develop or show an interest, I get told I'm not a teacher.

Grrrrrrr!!!

People... God... me

2010-01-08T18:26:00.003Z

So it's been a while, I guess I haven't felt the need to blog for sometime. However for the past 2 or 3 weeks I've been feeling like I need to blog-out some thoughts/feelings and haven't got round to it until now. But today something happened, I had a conversation with a wonderful wonderful woman and she got me thinking again...

I moved out of my parents on Nov 14 and since then I've been living in the green-doored house with Nic, Suzy and Cat. They're awesome, it's a lot of fun, most of the time. But sometimes it feels weird, having come into a ready-made community. They'd been living in the house along with Dan for 14 months prior to me moving in. So they know each other really well, likes/dislikes, they can read how they're each feeling; they know when to ask questions, when to comfort & when to just leave be, they have inside jokes, random sayings, mutual sayings and shared friends. They are so awesome, I do love living with them, but there are moments, and I admit they've been more frequent recently, when I wish they knew me and I knew them better. Times when I've wondered whether one or other of them is ok, but not known whether to/how to approach it. There's been times I've felt low, but not had the courage to share and they don't know me well enough to realise. Tough. But God is good... I feel making this move was right, and we have a real sense as a house of this place being a real place of community. I guess this is somewhat displayed by the fact next month Cat is going to Japan, so Harriet moved in with us this week and she's going to stay for 6 months. So that's our house...

I do have a bit of a vision for this house... based on the early church in Acts 2. During my year out with my church, I preached on this passage, and titled my talk 'Devotion'... I long for our house to be like the early church; to pray and worship, eat, share, give, minister together. And you know what? We are doing some of that... we eat together when we're in, we do pray and worship together when we can. And it's exciting. But I feel God's got so much more to do. We can become a much stronger community, we can be like the early church, not only as believers together, but we can reach out to our friends and beyond. That excites me right now.

Nic got engaged over Christmas... I'm so excited for her and Hamish. But perhaps selfishly I'm sad too. Sad that it means in 2011 she'll definitely be moving out of the house with the green door.

On a note of loss, I'm pretty sad about church right now... before Christmas we heard that Lou will be leaving us in April. I knew it would probably be happening in 2010, but hadn't really thought about it, let alone mentally prepared myself for it. So, when I heard the news I cried... I cried all through church whilst attempting to play the piano and gave up on trying to sing. I cried myself to sleep that night and was just so so sad. Those who know me well will know that I'm really not much of a crying person, so for me to cry that much was a bit mental really. It was obviously needed though.

I guess my reaction was again a selfish one. It seems that everyone I get close to at church moves on; the Powleys, Stuart, Leona, Nana, Rita, the Shuttleworths, Rach and now Lou, and soon to be Pippa. It's crazy. Why is it that I always build relationships with those that move on? It hurts. It feels like the people who care are here for a season and then move on. In my mind this all stems back to Lee and Kathy's separation...

That was tough... I struggled with friends at school, and I chose to confide in my Auntie, Kathy... she was cool about it, she never said much, but she listened and she was fun to be with. The day I heard that her and Lee was separating I was gutted. My head knew that what had happened was horrible and that she'd over-stepped the mark so much, but my heart immediately forgave her and still loved her. I tried to stay in touch with her in secret, but Lee found out and I was told not to contact her any more. That was that.

By this point Mark and Ailsa were almost on the scene. When they arrived at church I just clicked with them straight away... Ailsa was so caring and fun to hang around, Mark was very knowledgeable and wise and Jonah was just cute. As their time in Croydon went on, I delved into theology with Mark and tackled some personal stuff with Ailsa, I babysat Jonah and then Zach too and there were many good times. They became like a second family to me. And so when they moved on, I was devastated. I felt like I'd lost parents, the best friends God had ever given me, my support network and a massive chunk of my life.

But God's been good... I don't feel though he's brought me intimacy like that with anyone, but he's certainly provided me with wisdom, fun, friendships and support, although I really feel none of it has been as deep.

So Lou... our relationship was forced... forced by her immediately becoming my college placement supervisor. It started with talk about church and children's work, but soon it also became a relationship of support and accountability. Lou is wise, perceptive and good with words. There isn't a huge depth, and is, I guess, very one-sided.

I think God is probably trying to teach me something and my guess right now would be that he's asking me to rely on him. I need to do so much more about my relationship with him, I need to seek him, I need to rest in his presence, to pray, to soak in his word, to be a witness. Right now I don't really do any of that. I must.

God has provided me with Dee. She is awesome. I work with her, she teaches cello, has 2 children, one of whom I teach oboe. Over the last year or so my relationship with Dee has really blossomed. I guess for one reason or another I latched onto her and things went from there. I have confided in her a bunch, she knows a lot of my feelings, she knows when I'm struggling, when I'm happy, often what I'm thinking and always what's going on in my life. But what is more wonderful than that is she often shares with me too, she shares struggles with her parents, general work stuff, things with the children and today a concern about her daughter. I felt so privileged to be able to listen. I guess it made me feel good that someone actually wanted to talk to me about something going on in their life. I have such intense compassion for Dee, I love her like my own Mother, in fact I often talk about her as my surrogate/adopted mum!! And she gives the best hugs... hugs that comfort and make you feel all warm and fuzzy. Dee is one of the few people that has experienced a proper crying Becca and she's been great with me.

She shared some pretty deep stuff with me today, it made me well up. All I could do was to listen, share a few thoughts which included a bit of my story and to just give her a big fat hug. I've been thinking about the situation, I should probably be praying. Oh how I'd love for Dee to come to know the Lord. Many times I've prayed for her situations, but oh how I'd love to pray with her. Sometimes I've struggled to share things with her because she doesn't know God. Again, it's partly selfish to think that it would be easier to talk with her if she was a Christian, perhaps I could benefit more. But actually, it would be so awesome to share in the love of God with her. For us to pray together and worship together. Oh I long for her to know Jesus, to know his love, his comfort, his peace. I'm sure that it would ease things so much.

I wish I had the zeal about God to care enough to evangelise. I was thinking about this at cell group on Wednesday. We came to the 'witness' section and I was thinking 'you know what, I don't even want to share God with people. I'm embarrassed to talk about him, embarrassed to evangelise to people'. How wrong is that? Especially since Jesus commands us to go out and tells all nations about him. Why is this I wonder? Where is my passion? My excitement? My zeal?

As I think about wrapping up this blog, my thoughts are such as this... will anyone read this? Are there people I want to read this? I kind of want my housemates to, particularly Cat, so we can talk about it. But why is that? Do I want them/you to live my faith for me? Am I idle? Have I become someone else?

Frustrations

2009-08-06T16:37:00.001+01:00

My job really frustrates me sometimes… it seems my company give and take away however they please. This is my first ‘proper job’, so I don’t know what the ‘norm’ is or what procedure should be or whatever.

Anyways, earlier this term I was asked to stop going to teach at one of my SoundStarts, they wanted to put another member of staff in there are part of his personal development. I was a little gutted, as this happened to be my favourite SS, however I totally understood and accepted it. A week or so later I was told I’d have to go back there as the other member of staff couldn’t teach at the moment. So I went back, after the children having been told I wasn’t coming back anymore. Then week by week a member of senior management would say to me ‘oh, I should know soon if you’re gonna have to keep doing that SS’. I got really frustrated coz of a) the children needing stability, but b) is it really fair for them to say ‘go here, now don’t go, now go back, but wait, you may not need to go anymore’… I just feel completely used by situations like that.

Then you get the case of sessional staff having work taken away for them to make up the hours for salaried staff. That irritates me… I mean fair enough if it’s just a few hours, or one small school from one member of staff, but when it’s a whole load of hours taken from one individual to be given to another, it just seems so unjust. As one colleague put it, ‘it’s like thieving from the rich to give to the poor’. And I totally agree with her. Then you get multiple schools taken from multiple teachers to give to one teacher… I mean, if you need to take that much work away, did you really need to employ a full time member of staff? I think not.

Then there’s the case of ‘oh, well, she doesn’t know it yet, but she’s gonna be doing that teaching in September’. Ok, fair enough if it’s the instrument you actually play and you’ve got time for the work, but hello… why put someone who can’t even play the instrument into the school to teach it… it’s like ‘well, she can play cello, so yeah, she’ll teach double bass now too’. This poor woman doesn’t even play double bass AT ALL. It’s ludicrous… what does it say about the quality of our teaching? What message is this giving out, regardless of who actually knows the whole truth of it all? I realise it’s personal development in a sense, like me teaching SoundStart Clarinet & Sax, but a cellist, who doesn’t play bass at all, picking up a bunch of paired and individual bass teaching… what’s that all about?

Can they do this? I don’t know… and it leads me to question… my ‘favourite’ thing at the moment!!

Away Day

2009-05-21T16:57:00.003+01:00

So today we had an away day with work. This day has been looming for a long while.... I'm sure it was before Christmas that Janet and I were clearing out the cupboard to make more space and we decided that this massive bass drum had to go; we don't use it and David even said we could get rid of it. So we took this drum from the cupboard to the office. We asked facilities management to chuck it out for us, but they said there wasn't enough room in the skip at the time. So it sat in the office for sometime... until Janet decided we could try selling it on ebay. So she put it on there, started the bidding at £50 and we expected to maybe get about that for it. So anyways, much to our surprise the drum went for over £1, 200... and work decided we'd have an away day.

A few weeks ago we had a timetable of the day emailed... morning sessions led by Sandstone, who we googled to discover they're some sort of team building people and afternoon sessions led by Croydon Music and Arts, my company. The prospect of the day didn't fill us with much excitement at all!!

Then last week we received another email telling us to bring a long an artifact from home that displayed the meaning of our work at Croydon Music and Arts. And we also had to prepare a question that if we knew the answer to, it would improve our work, the work of our service or our service to customers. Well, that set us all off!! Too much thinking, very ambiguous and general lethargy towards it!

Anyways, at the weekend I decided I wanted to bring a soft toy dog; as I feel, well not so much now, but in my old role very much felt that I am treated as a general dogs body. So I went into work on Monday and Janet asked me about my artifact... we weren't supposed to share by the way... but we did... and to our amusement, we'd both come up with the same thing!!! We found it pretty hilarious, but it also made us think... what does that say about our work? What does that say about how we're treated?

So, today was the day... we arrived to Selsdon Park Hotel; lovely venue, sun shining, bacon baps and fresh coffee... mmmm :-) I was one of the first there, so Helen showed me into the room... which was filled with cardboard cut outs of people like Captain Kirk, Angelina Jolie, Buffy, Bart Simpson, Scooby Doo, Arnold Schwarzneger etc... my gut reaction was 'wft is this about? what on earth have i let myself in for?'!!!

So anyways, we ate breakfast (!) and then went in... firstly we had to write down our questions... I decided to go with something that Mike and I always moan about... 'why do we try to do so many things in such a short time frame instead of doing fewer things to a higher standard?' Well, I didn't have the guts to even write the full question, I stopped before 'instead of''. We then had to go around the room with post-its either trying to answer each others questions or write suggestions... random, but cool.

Then we had the guy from Sandstone to lead us in an activity... we were split into 3 groups and I happened to be with Mike and Janet... whooop... good group :-) We had a bag of props, and a camera and had to take a photo which would be a screensaver... we had to represent how we could 'encourage schools to broaden their horizons in what we now offer as a service', or something to that effect. We worked pretty well as a team I felt... and it was hilarious coz we had random props like an inflatable pumpkin, an inflatable banana, a whip, various costumes!! So we did that and then there was a vote on which of the 3 groups won. I really struggled to vote because although group 1 had a really clear image, I didn't actually feel they had met their objective... whereas group 3 had met their objective, but they hadn't communicated about the link between the images (which we were supposed to do) and their picture was really 'busy', therefore hard to see. Anyways, our group won and we got a bottle of wine each! Whoop!

Then we had lunch; buffet thing... very tasty and awesome carrot cake for dessert!

After lunch Helen led us in finishing the exercise with our questions... we had to read people's responses and identify one word which stood out. We then had to write this word on the back and pass our cards around getting people to write questions about this word. Then we had to read through people's questions and identify our own response or an action to our original question. The aim was to get us thinking in a different way and to empower us to do something to change our work. I found it a bit frustrating that the questions weren't then collected in. With a lot of issues, I feel it's only the senior management who have a say in what actually happens and changes within CMA, so I feel it would have been good for them to see what our questions were. Especially seeing that half the time they're never in to actually speak to, and even when they are, I feel too low in the scale of things to even raise questions... so I had mixed feelings about that exercise.

Following that it was time to share our artifacts... we had to place them in the middle of our table and then walk round and look at each others. We did that, and then we all had to explain out artifacts. To be honest, most people's were pretty profound, so I felt a little embarrassed/scared to share mine, but hey ho, it's important I feel... who knows what SMT thought of it... then Graeme spoke last and he went on about future plans regarding funding and how he;s been off meeting people lately to help us in overcoming the puzzles we'll face in the future. I was so unimpressed at one point... he asked Chris about the impact of music on her children's life... and to be honest, it doesn't seem like it's had a lot... possibly not the answer he was looking for. He then asked Ify about the one thing she wants for her child as it grows up (she's 6 months preggers)... she said to know the Lord, which Graeme had anticipated... he then asked how she'd bring her child up to know the Lord... which I felt was a bit wrong, but hey ho... she went on to talk about her and her husband's lifestyle and reading the word... 'HA!' I thought coz Graeme blatantly wanted her to say about music and she didn't!! So he probed it by mentioning what he heard on her voicemail... which was music... worship music! So anyways, he went on to say about his first hair raising, spine tingling musical moment which was when he went with his wife to a Polish Christian church... he is an atheist, but his wife a Christian and there was some spontaneous singing and he said it was amazing and it was the spirit of music that united them and blah blah blah... he was basically trying to say music is superior to anything else and what can we do to ensure musical opportunities for children in Croydon... hmmmm

I have mixed feelings on that one... how he went about it I don't feel was right, but I do feel that he's got the right amount of passion....

Peter Stark weekend

2009-04-26T22:37:00.002+01:00

Wow, what a weekend...
I was kinda stressing out because I had to work loads... Friday was my normal admin day: 9-4:45, then we had orchestra 5-8. Saturday was work 1-8. Today was work 10-6. Mental times! It's coz we had Peter Stark, conductor from Royal Academy/Royal College of Music and he was coming for the weekend to conduct the youth orchestra playing Dvorak's New World Symphony. So we've been rehearsing it for ages... had 2 of his post-grad students come and take a few rehearsals and then he was here this weekend.

What an amazing and inspirational guy! He's just got such a warmth and brought a whole new meaning to music this weekend. His precision, yet fun-ness of the whole thing was remarkable. Like sometimes the rehearsals were a bit boring, yet coz he's so amazing there was just something about me hanging on his every word.

I think we learnt a lot from him as an orchestra and really hope it continues to improve our playing. And I think Bronia could have learnt a lot from him too, I expect she did. He;s just so passionate and amazing. He's well encouraging and is always says there's room for improvement no matter what... I agree.

He also said something I found quite controversial... he said that music is the one thing in the whole world that unites everyone in the whole world - it doesn't matter what language you speak, what religion you are or anything, music unites people. There's such depth and emotion in it.. it's just amazing.

So right now, I'm tired, I've drunk almost a whole bottle of rose, I've written nearly 2/3 of my research project, I'm totally buzzing and I'm listening to New World on youtube!! Whooop!

A weird Thursday!

2009-03-14T17:06:00.000Z

I had the weirdest day on Thursday… we had a morning of training at work. It was only meant to be a half hour session, but it turned into about an hour and a half… it was all about making financial revisions of a fairly new computer system we’re using. We’ve had it since September and so far it’s caused so many problems. I didn’t initially understand the financial side of it at all, but now I seem to have got it. And everything clicked into place really quick yesterday. So I found myself getting really frustrated; I couldn’t comprehend why the others in the office didn’t get it straight away. It’s weird, in my mind as they continued to wrestle with numbers and I waited for them to get it right, I compared it to when I teach. I often find myself getting frustrated when people don’t just get it straight away. Like if a child can’t seem to get the note out or play the rhythm right, I find myself feeling impatient and wondering why they can’t just do it. I wonder what that says about me… is it my personality? Am I an impatient person? Do I need to find new ways of expressing things? Do I need new teaching ideas?

Prior to that I’d had a mother on the phone. The second she spoke, I knew who she was, despite her not having told me. She’s Chinese and has a really strong accent, which I, unfortunately, really struggle to understand. It sounded like she was asking for Heather, I asked her to repeat it maybe twice, each time it still sounded like Heather. So I asked if she meant Helen. She said no, then it sounded like she said Head, so I asked her if she wanted to speak to Graeme. At which point she burst into tears and passed the phone to her husband. He didn’t really know what to say and I could just hear her in hysterics in the background. It was all very strange and completely threw me for the rest of the day!!!!

The evening was nice, cell group was actually really cool. I seemed to be asking ‘why?’ a lot… maybe critical reflection has finally become a part of my lifestyle!! But yeah, a good night :-)

With the fairies!!

2009-03-10T12:54:00.000Z

Wow, it’s amazing how off the planet kids can be sometimes…
I spend an hour on Tuesday mornings in quite a nice school. I team-teach with another colleague. We do an hour of what we call ‘SoundStart’; teaching guitar and keyboard. He has 20 kids on guitars and I have 10 on keyboards. Normally they’re a pretty ‘with it’ bunch… sometimes it takes them a while to grasp a new idea or a new song, but once they’ve got it, they perform well.
However today was a different story!! We started with a warm up, a song we’ve done many times before… but they sounded half asleep and when Cornelius and I stopped singing, you could just hear a mumble underneath!! Then we warmed our hands up by playing a ‘familiar’ tune, except that sounded like they’d never played it before!!!
So we move on with the rest of the lesson. 4 of my girls spent the whole time bobbing up and down, looking at each others’ keyboards and pressing buttons. Normally 2 of them are fairly able, but today they were all over the shop! The other 2 I’d describe as less able, but they do normally try hard. However today, one of them just insisted on playing ‘random chords’ to the rhythm of whichever piece we did! And the other was completely ‘with the fairies’. Like, completely with them… she’d be looking at a different page to the one we were on, she’d be looking across the room at a boy playing the guitar, and when we did one piece she had 1 finger on the last note at either end of the keyboard and was playing both notes randomly!! What was going on?! 1 of my boys never really seems to be quite there… he wasn’t quite there today, but that was no surprise!!!
Then I have the other extreme, I have 2 boys who are really very able, they learn the keyboard part very quickly, so often move on to learn the guitar part too, and when we play the piece as a group they alternate between playing both parts!!
So we play ‘Old MacDonald’, my 2 ‘gifted and talented’ children are playing the guitar part and my other 8, the keyboard part… when the keyboards played, not one of them was playing anything that sounded remotely like the tune!!! Their hands were everywhere, they eyes were everywhere and oh my life, it sounded horrific!!! It was as if they’ve never played it before, except they have and I know they can play it well!!!
We ended the session by singing a song we’d learnt the previous week. And we learnt a new bit to it as well. Then we split into 2 parts. When we did that, I was pretty much singing on my own, my keyboards just weren’t singing!! And I reckon about 3 guitars were singing with Cornelius!!!!
So yeah, all in all, a, errrr, great session!! Not!! I’ve never ever experienced anything quite as ‘with the fairies’ as that!!

Cuteness

2009-01-15T17:53:00.003Z

Wow, its been a while...
My colleague has twins and they're awesome. They're 2 and a half. I've met them a few times and spent a while chatting with them at work one saturday morning. After that particular episode they asked Helen when they could see Becca again. I thought that was sweet.

Anyways, one December morning Harry & Emily had to come into the office with Mummy. So Becca spent a good few hours talking, reading and playing with them. It was ace. We read iggle piggle and oopsy daisy, played with a wind up cat, nearly managed to destroy a computer and ate Christmas tree shaped cookies... awesome times.

Helen comes back to work in Jan and tells me how they took the children to Costa in the holidays and they chose tree shaped biscuits, to which Emily replies 'they're like the ones we had in Becca's office'. Awwwww how cute.

They barely know me, but Helen says they seem to have really clicked with me and taken to me. It's so sweet and so nice to feel wanted!!!

The things I never said

2008-02-19T17:30:00.002Z

Dear Gerry,
If only we knew our friends were going to pass on, I'm sure there are so many things we would say. But life has a strange way of showing us the unexpected, so many things go left unsaid.

I want to thank you...for letting me be a part of your life and Jane's life. Thank you for the times you've let me come round and hang out with Jane. Thank you for the times I've been able to call Jane and chat when she could have been spending time with you. Thank you for letting me turn up on your doorstep almost unannounced.

Thank you for letting me share short sweet moments with you and for taking an interest in what's going on in my life. Thank you for your support and encouragement. Thank you for just letting me be without asking any questions.

Thank you most of all for your inspiration and encouragement to me. I've not shared all that much with you, but I've had the privilege of being part of your life. I've learnt today so much more of you. Of your determination, your humility, your courage, your compassion, your skills, your passion and so much more.

You have 2 wonderful children and a beautiful wife to be very proud of, who will forever have a special place in my heart and life. I pray that your life will be a encouragement to spur me on and to keep me going when all seems pointless.

With love, Becca x x x

2 worlds

2008-02-15T14:30:00.003Z

Life is good... bumbling along nicely, but there's so much to do and so little time.

Yesterday I had the privilege of speaking at Thursday Fellowship. I did it in 2005/6 when I was working for St Mary's and it was pretty cool. This time I wasn't so prepared. Up until yesterday all I knew was that I was going to speak about my passion for childrens ministry. So I had yesterday off work.. I got up late and went into town and sat in Starbucks with my vanilla latte and wrote my talk. I didn't write much, just some bullet points with my story and how I felt God called me into childrens ministry. So I went along to and shared with between 1/2 dozen and dozen people. As I spoke I got more and more passionate about my work with children and came away feeling really fired up and generally encouraged. It was so obvious to me that the people there really appreciated me taking time out to come and share with them. Awesome times.

Then there's my other world... the world of music... where I work 6 days out of 7, the oboe playing & teaching, the bassooning, the love for music and so so much more.

And these two worlds collide and I wonder what the way forward is....

College

2008-01-17T14:40:00.000Z

I’m up at college this week and it is fantastic. It is so good to get away for 6 days, to have a change of scenery, to hang out with different people and to be reminded what I’m doing here.

I’m up near Sheffield and it’s amazing to be in the peaks. Yesterday we went up to the edge. The view was gorgeous, it was windy and chilly, but fantastic. There’s so much green and beauty. There were sheep too which was cool! It makes such a change than the concrete greyness of London, the dirty messiness of Ashburton Learning Village and the busyness of life in general. It always brings me back to our creator God; the awesome Father who by his own hands created such amazing beauty…. By this I shall always be stunned.

The people I’m with are fantastic. There are about 15 second years, 18 first years and 3 tutors, plus visiting lecturers. Everyone is unique, we all come from such diverse backgrounds, from all warps of life, each with a wealth of experience. Place us together in college for a week and it is fantastic. We can each teach one another so many different things; new concepts, ways of thinking, sharing ideas. It truly is fantastic. I feel so encouraged and inspired by those around me.

And to get away and be reminded by Father God what he has called me to do. So often I bumble along just trying to make it through each day with various tasks to do, people to see, messages to deal with and problems to solve. I get bogged down in the everyday and forget what I have been called to. I believe I have been called into children’s’ ministry and this week I have been reminded of that so much and I am being equipped with various tools to fulfil my calling.

Cliff College is a safe place… we are like minded, in that we all have a passion to serve God in children’s’ ministry. No-one is going to disrespect me or look down on me for who am I and what I am called to do. It is a safe place to question and not get accused of being heretical! We can try and tackle the difficult questions, we can bat around the tough issues; it is a safe place to do this and this is something I’ve struggled with. Naturally I’m not a questioning person, I’m not sure why. So to enter into debate and discussion and to start questioning has been a tough process for me, but I’m so thankful we have been encouraged to do it and I’m so excited that we’ve been given a safe place to do it in.

I cannot believe how quickly this week has gone. Monday seemed like it lasted for eternity, but now, all of a sudden it’s Thursday and I’ll be heading back home tomorrow. If I’m honest, I’m scared… back to the 36hour+ week at work (averaging about 45), back to being constantly at the end of the phone and email to questions and queries about anything and everything, back to trying to balance work, study and socialising, back to running X-Stream, back to being a good, caring, understanding, listening friend, back to reality. Today we had an introductory lecture to our research projects. They’re due in May 2009. It sounds a long time away now, but I’m sure the time will fly by. I am excited; excited at what God’s got in store, exciting about what I’m going to find out, generally excited. But I’m scared, I’m daunted as well and I don’t want those feelings to get the better of me.

Ramblings

2007-11-15T11:10:00.000Z

Wow, long time no blog!!! Not sure who reads anyway, so wasn’t all that worried about updating. But looking back over past blogs its reminded me how useful it is to have space to think by typing and work things through, or to generally encourage myself!!!

So since my last blog I’ve started my college course… as the residential week got closer I got more nervous, but it was an amazing week… I met so many inspirational people and learnt so much. It was a great time of equipping, being fed and ministered to. Time to get out of the hustle and bustle of Croydon and enjoy the beauty and fellowship in Calver. It was fantastic to meet so many like minded people with a passion for ministering to children. We managed to exchange ideas and generally encourage each other. It was overwhelming at the start of the week with lots of new things, but by the Wednesday I felt at peace and happy with what was going on.

A month down the line I’ve almost finished my first assignment and am constantly evaluating my ongoing placement at st marys. It’s wonderful to have the support of Louise as my supervisor. She’s fab 

If I’m honest I’m finding the balance between working full time, studying and socialising quite difficult. Obviously my work hours are fixed, as are the requirements for my studies, but it’s just fitting everything in! Social activities are really important to me, I think I’d go insane with seeing my friends and having a chance to relax a little. So it’s finding the right balance! Then trying to fit God, Junior Church, Brownies into the equation – oh boy! I knew it’d be tough, but I think I underestimated how much of a shift this would be… it’s amazing the difference between this year and last!

My job is perfect though… it’s been pretty quiet of late, but that’s ok, it’s given me a chance to write some of my assignment!!! I love the variety of things I do. On Monday I went into school with Dee and Kirsty and did 2 hours of SoundStart. I loved it, even though it was strings! I got to play the violin, which was very exciting!!! I’m also teaching oboe at the endangered species centre, which is such a privilege. My colleagues are great, I love them dearly. It is such the perfect job. And I’ve been put on a permanent contract, which is awesome and such a security blanket.

It’s weird how this academic year has brought about so much change; job, studies and even friendships. I seem to have drifted apart from a whole bunch of people which saddens me. I know that not all relationships are meant forever, but I do wish they were! Especially when you get particularly close to people and then for whatever reason things change and you’re not really that close anymore. That seems to have happened with most of TnT at church, which makes me sad. And also some folk from school, which is sad too coz we’ve been friends for so long. But these things do happen and you just have to muddle along. I do have some amazing friends still  I seem to be getting a lot closer to the 16-18 year olds at church which is cool and also to some of the more middle aged ladies, which is also cool  And of course there are new people popping into my life all the time; colleagues like Mike, course mates like Michelle, church members like Louise, so it’s all good.

God’s given me a bit of a kick up the backside this week… I stood in church on Sunday morning thinking ‘If I could just take God out of my life, then everything would be so much better… I wouldn’t be trying to be a children’s worker, so I wouldn’t have this essay to write… I wouldn’t be at st marys, so I wouldn’t have junior church to worry about… I wouldn’t be trying to fulfil God’s plan and purpose for my life, whatever that may be. It’d all be so much better’.

So that was Sunday morning…. Sunday evening I was round at Lindsey’s and seemed to end up having a rant and a moan about many-a-thing. So at the end of the evening she decided to pray for me… and I was totally hit by the Spirit. I’m not gonna go into everything that happened, if you wanna know, ask me! But yeah, God’s Spirit moved and after talking the experience over with Louise, I’ve decided it was basically God reminding me that he’s still here!! Not something to forget it seems!

This weekend is the TnT weekend away… I’m looking forward to getting away from Croydon, forgetting about my essay and having some chill time. But I’m a little anxious; about what God may do and about friendships. But we’ll just have to see what happens!!

CMS

2007-09-08T18:04:00.000+01:00

Well week 3 at work has certainly been manic.... my colleagues in the office spent the first 2 weeks saying "You just wait till next week/term starts". So I waited and I was hit with it this week!! OK, so it really was manic - there are so many different projects going on and things to get ready for the start of term, but things really weren't as bad as they made them out to be!

I enjoy being busy, in fact, I thrive on it! It was ironic coz while the rest of the office were completely stressing yesterday, there was me, calm as anything!!

No 2 days are the same, every one is different! I love it there :-)

major update!

2007-09-02T14:18:00.001+01:00

Wow, life has been busy… it’s been so long since I’ve been on here!

I didn’t even tell you about Portugal!! That seems like such a long time ago now! So I wrote in my last post about asking God why… well I guess it’s when things go wrong and this seemed to be what happened in Portugal on the last day… one of the guys was a complete idiot… the plane was delayed… Dee’s cello case got damaged… the coaches weren’t right… there were randoms on our coach who wouldn’t get off (they did eventually) and the coach driver managed to drive into a concrete pillar and smash one of the back windows (fortunately it was double glazed and no-one got hurt!!) So I was really asking God why… why did all this have to happen. Portugal was an amazing time… hot, musical and a fab week. It was a good time to really develop relationships. I got to know folk so much better; some I knew well before, some a bit and some not at all, so it was really good to get to know some of the orchestra and start and develop some friendships which I hope will last forever.

I came back and had Holiday Club at church the following week. That was another amazing week of seeing God move and developing relationships with the team and the kids.

On the Saturday after it was Jess and Aaron’s wedding; another amazing occasion. They both looked so happy and stunning. Jess’ dress was gorgeous and she was the happiest I’ve ever seen her in the 16 years I’ve known her. It was awesome. They are clearly so well suited and I just pray and trust that God will bless their marriage.

The following morning I set off at about 8am for Langton Matravers 1 – a CPAS camp in Dorset. I must admit I was feeling fairly nervous about it as I didn’t know anyone at all on the camp. But I was greeted with a really warm welcome and everyone was so friendly and made me feel at home and at ease within the team. The week flew by. I had an amazing bunch of girls in my dorm and the leadership team really were amazing. I seemed to fit in so well and by the end of the week it really felt like I’d known some of the team for years. On the second night I gave the talk and it was such a privilege to do. I didn’t feel all that well prepared for it… I’d tried to scribble some notes at 8am in the car on the way after having had 3.5 hours sleep – never a good start for giving a Bible message!!! Anyway, fortunately I had an hour in the morning of my talk to look over it again and get inspired. Fortunately at this point I turned to God and admitted my disorganisation and I called out to him to use me and help me get prepared. So the talk came round in the evening and it was amazing. I felt at such peace delivering it and the kids seemed to be really responsive. They just sat absorbed by what I was saying. I really felt like God’s mouthpiece and it was just the most amazing experience. So that was a tiring, but fantastic week.

The day after coming home from camp I went to Tenerife with my family. It was so good to get away from Croydon for a time and to be in the sun, in great company, with a swimming pool!!! As ever, it was gorgeous and much fun. I’m always drawn to God when I’m in beautiful surroundings – mountains, seas… my personal favourite moments were seeing pilot whales and bottlenose dolphins in their natural environment. We went out on a boat on 2 separate occasions to see whales and dolphins; it was awesome. Throughout the holiday I managed to work my way through the majority of the hotel cocktail menu!! I think I’ll be heading off to AA soon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We came back from Tenerife and the following day went to Beth and Jonny’s wedding. I had the privilege of playing piano in the band for the service. It was a wonderful service and again they looked so happy and in love. Beth looked stunning, as did the bridesmaids. It was so awesome to see some old faces again, especially the Ridouts and to be able to meet Lizzie’s husband and Dom’s wife. Good times.

I had a weekend to breathe before starting work at CMS! I was really looking forward to starting and I can’t believe that I’ve now done 2 weeks. I seem to have fitted into the office nicely. There seems to be a lot to learn, but nothing I can’t cope with yet!!! My colleagues are all lovely and it’s great to work with so many different staff. I think I’m gonna really enjoy working there. Having a job is great. I feel like I’m actually useful and that I can do something that’s actually gonna make a difference to people. My colleagues have been really encouraging and I really feel like God has placed me at CMS to shine for him and I can tell they can see something different about me.

This week has been the YG show at the Ashcroft Theatre. I’ve spent the week in room 4 with 10 new girls. It’s been amazing to be a part of their live’s for a week and to then watch them, and my brother, cousin and some friends in the show. They all did me proud J Seeing such a large group of talented youngsters makes me so emotional. I met 2 amazing mums this week as well. It was really odd coz when we first started chatting, straight away it seemed as though we’d known each other for years. It was so amazing. I later discovered they are both Christians and I had a few really encouraging conversations with one of them.

These past few weeks I’ve also been reading one of my books for college. It’s called Children Finding Faith. I’m really enjoying it. I find it so exciting and interesting to read. It’s basically about child development and how that links with children’s relationships with God. It’s so insightful.

I was reflecting recently how much God has changed me… a few years ago I wouldn’t say I was that much of a confident person, but now things are different… over the last few weeks, maybe even months I seem to have been in situations where I’ve had to meet and spend time with so many new people. Put me in that situation a year back and I’d have freaked out not knowing what to say. But recently it’s been awesome… I’ve made conversation and feel I’ve made some real headway into beginnings of relationships. In some cases it really does feel like I’ve known the person for years, especially on camp and with these 2 mums from YG. God has changed me so much and I’m so excited and happy about it. I guess it’s an answer to prayer actually coz I’m sure I prayed about it a while back.

It still gets me that so many people seem to have disappeared temporarily or permanently from my life… Kathy, Leona, the Powleys, Stuart, Zoe and various other people along the line. But I feel really encouraged… through facebook I’ve been able to get back in touch with some old friends… I’ve had the opportunity to meet up with folk and spent quality time with them… and I’ve had the opportunity to meet new people and start up whole new relationships.

God is good hey? I just need to remember that and trust him at all times instead of just when I feel like it!

His Perfect Timing

2007-07-21T17:25:00.000+01:00

Just come back from Portugal and will blog about that later this week, but for now... by the early hours of this morning I was really asking God why (you'll understand more when I blog again!!) and then I just read this and it really comforted me... Your in His hands
'I HAVE WRITTEN YOU'RE NAME ON THE PALMS OF MY HAND.' ISAIAH 49:16
Have you ever sat and thought about a Blue Whale? Probably not. Well, let's do it right now.... The Blue Whale is the biggest living creature in the whole world. Its heart is the size of a car, its tongue weighs as much as an elephant, 50 adult humans could stand inside its mouth and you could take a swim down its arteries. Don't you think that's amazing? Now check out the smallest frogs in the world: they live in Cuba, they never get bigger than a centimetre and they can happily sit on a penny! The point is; If God could think up, create and sustain such incredible creatures, taking care to give the mosT beautiful colours, character and making sure they are in the right environment to survive; how much more do you think He will do for you?. 'Look at the wildflowers...have you ever seen colours and designs quite like them? ...If God gives such attention to the wildflowers, ...don't you think he'll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you?' (Luke 12:26-28 TM). You don't need to worry or fear, coz God's got your back! Listen: 'I have written your name on the palms of my hands.' (Isaiah 49:16 ). Do you ever write something on your hand so you don't forget? This verse is saying that God has that sort of intimate awareness of your life. What an incredible thought; the maker of the universe, who flung the stars into space, thinks about you! He watches over you, making sure you're safe. Like a parent watches over their child, your Heavenly Father looks after you. Think on that today!

Smack

2007-06-06T17:14:00.000+01:00

Doesn't life come and take you by surprise? When you think life is dandy and the week is going well... oops... smack... life comes and hits you back in the face.

Today a great legend died.... I've had the privilege of knowing Jim Warburton for probably about 10 years. He was such a dude, a legend, a laugh, a top bloke. He was such an inspiration to me and I'm sure many others who knew him. His passion for music was like no-one else I've ever met. He knew how to combine humour with serious rehearsals, he could conduct an ensemble and get quality results. He was awesome.

He became an idol on CMS tours and was greatly loved by everyone. Many of the band changed the lyrics of 'I will follow him' to 'We will follow Jim' and this became his anthem in South Africa.

He will be such a loss to CMS, to the RPO, to his wife Jill and to many others I'm sure. But his flame will burn in the hearts of many and his inspiration will encourage myself and many other musicians for days to come.

Rest in peace Jim.

I am pregnant with a seed of God

2007-05-23T12:47:00.000+01:00

Was reading 'Battlefield of the Mind' again this morning and was totally struck by a paragraph. So I'm gonna paraphrase it....

In each of us God plants a seed, a dream and this is like a woman becoming pregnant. During the pregnancy as our dream grows, the devil does his beast to try and abort this dream, this pregnancy.

What an awesome illustration and what an obvious thing that just needs to be recognised. The chapter I read this morning really rang true with me and was such a help and encouragement :-)

Yoyo

2007-05-12T18:32:00.000+01:00

I was really struck yesterday... a guy was speaking about making life work and he used the illustration of a 'yoyo'....
Life is very up and down, sometimes it feels as though your head is spinning and sometimes it's as if you're going round and round and are never going to stop. But the fantastic thing is this; through the centre of your life, Jesus is running like a cord, holding everything together.

My Mind

2007-05-10T12:35:00.000+01:00

I've been reading 'Battlefield of the Mind' by Joyce Meyer and what a mighty great book it is.... I know what my problem is - it's my mind.

I've been struck recently by this verse, which she uses a lot "For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he" Prov 23:7 KJV.

If only my thought life was positive and good "whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things." Phil 4:8 NIV, then life would be amazing.

So my verse for life at the moment is this... "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will." Rom 12:2 NIV

or in The Message..."Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you."

But my fave is J.B. Phillips' version "Don't let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould, but let God re-mould your minds from within, so that you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good, meets all his demands and moves towards the goal of true maturity."

The end is near!

2007-05-09T11:59:00.000+01:00

So I'm really excited that I finished all my course material yesterday! Wooooo!!! But it does mean I'm now supposed to be revising for my exam and I just can't be bothered!! So maybe I'll take it easy today and not freak out about it!!!

Why God?

2007-05-04T10:57:00.000+01:00

I often wonder what on earth God is doing. I know he's God and I know he's got my best interests at heart, but I often wonder why he's doing what he's doing!!!
My pet hang up at the moment is taking people outta my life.... I totally understand and appreciate that not everyone is in your life forever, but I just wonder why its the people you really really click with that get whisked away to some place else.... Auntie Kathy, Leona, the Powleys, Stuart.... and I can anticipate the next bunch... the Shuttleworths, Rach, Pippa....
Why God, what are you doing?!

Celebrate good times come on!

2007-04-30T21:35:00.000+01:00

So I've had a totally awesome weekend of birthday-ness....

Friday was a great start to what proved to be an awesome weekend - went and got my hair cut in the morning. Found a hairdresser in West Wickham who I really like - she's really lovely and does my hair really nicely :-) I then spent the afternoon at Jane's with the friday lifegroup where we trampolined and played table tennis. And she made me a birthday cake and they gave me a gorgeous necklace and some other gifts :-)

In the evening it was Brownies and I was totally struck by the profoundness of one of our girls... we've been doing communicator badge and they've all had to do 2 minute speech about a hobby or somewhere they've been or such like. So one of our girls spoke about writing. And I was totally struck by this one sentence she said... "When you are writing you are totally in control of what you're doing in your life". I thought that was a rather profound thing for an 8 year old to come out with!! I was quite taken back by it.

Saturday morning I woke up bright and early! You'd have thought that by your 21st the birthday excitement would have worn off, but apparently not!! 7:15am I woke up! I received some lovely gifts from my family and other folk; most excitingly - a digital camera, and then some CDs, DVDs, a necklace and candle. We then went horse riding in Woldingham which was VERY exciting. On the way we heard on the news about an earthquake that had happened at 8:15am in Folkstone, Kent. I was blown away from hearing this. Only recently someone had said to me that a child prayed that we would have an earthquake, so for this to actually happen totally astounded me. I can't remember who said about this child praying, I only wish I could remember!! It is from one of 3 sources - someone at Spring Harvest, Pippa from church or Clare the childrens worker at Emmanuel. But wow, how random is that?! So we got to Beechwood Riding School. Initially I was kinda scared - there was me sat on this horse with only what seemed like a piece of string to hold onto, but after a while I got used to it and it was SO fun :-) Then we had some time at home before going out with ALL the family to TGI Fridays on th Purley Way. That was such a great night. It was SO good to have my immediate family, Dad's side of the family and Mum's side of the family all together in one place to celebrate my birthday together. It was such a lovely night. I had battered shrimps with a Jack Daniels dip, wheich was SO good. It reminded me of the Bubba Gumps restaurant we visited in New York. Oh my, it was delish. And I had the most amazing New York cheesecake for dessert. It's weird coz I used to hate cheesecake, but now I'm a complete convert!! And then I had a birthday cake, but fortunately I wasn't made to stand up on my chair!!

After a good night sleep I did Junior Church on Sunday morning, then had an afternoon of chilling at home. And in the evening I went out with Mum, Dad and Matt and some girls from church for a meal at The Rainforest Cafe in London. That place amazes me. There is such a fantastic atmosphere and I love it so much. There are animals all over the place and it is basically turned into a rainforest. I had a 'plant sandwich' to eat with was basically a toasted sandwich stuffed with Mediterranean vegetables. Oh SO good. And I had another mighty fine cheesecake for dessert, which the waiter put candles in and announced to the whole restaurant it was my 21st and they all sang happy birthday to me. It was cool :-) I really enjoyed it.

So I'm feeling VERY loved following my weekend. And very chilled and refreshed and I'm in love with all my presents and just feeling fab :-)

Prayer of St Francis

2007-04-26T12:32:00.000+01:00

This morning I was struck by the words of St Francis of Assissi whilst drinking an iced vanilla frappe in Nero.
He prayed this...

Grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand,
to be loved as to love.

And it kinda came and smacked me in the face. How much do I long for people to comfort, understand and love me? Where as infact what God is calling us to do is to comfort, understand and love others. And if only we all did that, then we would feel comforted, understood and loved. Such a simple thing, but how many of us actually do it?!

Lack of motivation!

2007-04-25T11:42:00.000+01:00

Why is it that when motivation doesn't really matter you're so motivated and when it does matter you become the most unmotivated person alive?! Typical.... essay to write, assignment to finish and guess who has NO motivation what so ever?! I have my notes for my essay, which is fantastic I hear you say, but no, its not coz for some stupid reason I didn't reference ANY of my notes, so I'm now re-reading my course books to try and find where I got the info from coz I can tell some of it is a quote and I can't be doing the whole plagerism (sp?) thing! GAH!! Not good!!
I know this is attack from Satan. I am fully aware of that. So I've got some folk praying, but unfortunately that doesn't seem to be helping at the moment.
Come on Becca... 658 words down, 842 to go!!!

Inspired

2007-04-17T13:11:00.000+01:00

Feeling so inspired today... I'm pretty sure I've been feeling this way for a number of days, but couldn't pinpoint the feeling!! But today, it got unleashed!! I was planning our next All Age service with a friend from church...

The passage is Mark 8 where Jesus heals the blind man in 2 stages. I was so struck by it and the word 'growth' just jumped to me... I could see a lot of different things from the passage; God doing things in unexpected ways, Spiritual blindness, how we grow in faith and belief and likeness to Christ as we're touched more and more by him. It was just amazing.

I was so inspired by it and blown away by what seemed to be an ordinary, same-old, heard it all before passage, yet God totally revealed stuff to me through it and it was very cool :-)

The Father-heart of God

2007-04-15T12:58:00.000+01:00

I've been really struck lately by this simple thought.... if I know, and by this I mean really truly know, the Father-heart of God, how much more is my life gonna be in line with his will? I was reading in 1 John this morning about asking for anything according to God's will and him hearing us - if we truly know the Father-heart of God, then we're much more likely to ask for stuff according to his will. I know it's easier said than done, but I long to know God's heart and my prayer is that the more I read of his word and the more time I spend with him, the closer I'll get to his heart.

What an amazing God...

2007-04-14T20:17:00.000+01:00

Ah, I'm so excited not to have had the post spring harvest crash down to earth that I seem to have every year. Yeah, I miss the kids, the paint factory, my team, but God's good... He gave me SO much to take away and hold onto from my 11 days at Spring harvest and my prayer is that I'll keep clinging onto those things and just use them to deepen and strengthen my relationship with him.

I love spending time around other Christians. It always builds me up and encourages me so much. I really felt my faith and trust being stirred and increased and just feel so strong in God's mighty arms.

I know life's not always gonna be easy, I know there will be struggles ahead, but I also know that God is for me and that he's already beaten the enemy and that I can all things through Christ who gives me strength.

What an amazing God I serve...

Spring Harvest

2007-04-11T11:50:00.000+01:00

So, I'm back from the most AMAZING 2 weeks at Spring Harvest, Minehead. I worked on the 5-7's team; Paint Factory. It was SO good. God was good, He moved in the Paint Factory so much and it was such a privilege to be able to serve him in this way and see so many children responding to him. We looked at Peter's life with the children and included the stories of when Jesus first called him, when he denied Jesus and then had breakfast with him on the beach when he'd risen, the transfiguration, Peter's vision and Peter's escape from prison. And through those stories we were able to teach the children some fundamental truths from the gospel; Jesus wants us to follow him, Jesus wants us to listen to him, Jesus wants us to love everyone as he loves us, Jesus wants us to trust him when times are hard and Jesus wants us to keep on following him even when we make mistakes. What amazing messages for both the children and us leaders to take away with us from the week. Each day we had a clue which helped us to remember the message and in the first week the children learnt sign language actions to help them remember the messages :-)

We had a creative prayer day where there were 8 stations around the venue and children were free to roam around and respond to God at as many of the stations as they wanted. That was amazing and seeing the children spending time with God and writing prayers was pretty cool. One particularly cute prayer which made me and another leader laugh read "Dear God, Please help the paint on my trousers. Amen." How cute is that?! Then on a couple of occassions the leader who had told the story said that children were free to go to the prayer tent if they wanted to and about 30 children went over to it and wrote prayers to God or sat with their eyes shut praying. It was amazing.

In week 1 I led the Green Ladders with a guy called Tom. He was great and we worked so well together and got on really well. We had 15 7yr olds. Amusingly we had Eleanor Stockley's granddaughter in our group - Eleanor ran my GCU group. There was another girl in our group who was home-schooled and had difficulty in coping with loud noise. Unfortunately both Tom, myself and the special needs leader thought that this was a parentally imposed condition, as the girl seemed to be absolutely fine and joined in singing, shouting and screaming until her Mum came when suddenly her ears would hurt. I really felt for her. At the end of the week about 4 of the children bought Tom and I chocolates and Tasha gave us a card.

In week 2 I led the Light Blue Ladders with a guy called Mike and a lady called Liz. Liz was doing one to one support with Joseph who has asperges. On the last day Joseph wrote the most amazing song to the effect of "How great is the Lord, he is the best and I love him, He is the best, He is the best". Those weren't his exact words, I can't remember them, but that was the essence of the song and it just melted my heart. One of the Dad's was so grateful for the work we'd done and he was sharing how each night in the big top his son would remember the story was the same as what we'd done in the morning and he'd tell his parents what we'd learnt about Jesus that day. Another parent told us that Miles had asked Jesus to become his special friend during the week. How awesome is that?

We sang some awesome songs. It really hit me how kids songs are often the songs that really declare how great and important and mighty our God is. The chorus of one song simply declared "You are the Lord God Almighty". My 2 new found favourite kids songs are "Jesus Superhero" - it's a Hillsongs kids song and I love it for many reasons; firstly coz boys can relate to it really well coz its all about superheroes, but how God is better than any of them and the chorus declares that Jesus is my superhero, my star and my best friend. The other song is "Singing with the angels" and the chorus speaks to me so much... "You are Jesus, the best thing in my life, You are Jesus, You are the One, You are Jesus, the one who is my friend, you beat the rest coz you are it, you are the One." What wonderful truths are those?

The first week I went to the big top each night with my family. That was cool. There were some amazing dramatisations of the Bible readings and some really inspirational talks and we learnt some awesome new songs. My faves have to be "Oh Happy Day" by Tim Hughes and "Strength will rise" by Brenton Brown and Ken Riley (lead singer in YFriday). Martyn Layzell lead the worship and it was absolutely quality. Then the second week I went to the big top 3 nights with various members of my team. Geraldine Latty lead the worship. She is an amazing worship leader and has such a tight band. They did a couple of worship songs with the riffs from 'Lovely Day' and 'Walking on Sunshine' and then interspersed the lyrics to those into the worship songs. That was pretty neat. On Easter Sunday Steve Chalke spoke and he was very inspirational and uplifting. The last night was awesome and after the talk Chalkey did this thing where all the lights went down and we lit up the big top simply by the light of our mobile phones. And he commissioned us all to go out and be lights to the world. That was so cool.

In week 2 I went to an All Age Worship one night and manned the multi sensory area. That was cool. Jon Bonner led it and he was cool. It was full of energy and praise. The stories were down to earth and easy to follow. It was cool. At the end everyone got a glow stick and we sang a song about Jesus being the light of the world - that as cool.

In week 2 I also went to iscape. That's the stream aimed for 15-25's. I've never been before, so thought I'd give it a try. I didn't enjoy it that much, although it managed to really challenge me (more of that later). A Salvation Army guy was speaking and he was really good. Andy Flannagan led the worship with some random DJ, so that was a bit weird. We did this cool thing though (which we also did in the big top on week 1) where we wrote something we wanted to let go of on a piece of paper, screwed it up and threw it across the room. Then someone picked it up and prayed for you. Then threw it on and we did this for a while, so prayed for a number of people. That was awesome.

I went to a few big nights out. I went with the family to Andy Flannagan and Paul Oakley. They were both awesome. I love Andy Flannagan; his music is great and he is just so down to earth, so open, so humble and such a godly example. He read some extracts from his new book called 12 disciples, which I later bought and he signed, which was cool. Paul Oakley was good - it was like a huge worship session - always good :-) And I went with Matt to YFriday. They were great. They did some songs from Revolution and some from Universal; it was cool. No-one does 'strength will rise' like YFriday do :-)

I love the way how I go to serve God, yet he speaks to me and challenges me so much too. One night in the big top there was a response to a talk about having our hands dirty and clean for God. As a sign that we were prepared to get our hands dirty for God no matter what we had to go and get our hands clean in water and then get them dirty in mud as a symbol we were prepared to do anything for God. I didn't respond coz in my heart of hearts, I don't feel I'm in a place where I am prepared to do absolutely anything for God. I know I've grown and am prepared to do more for him now than perhaps I would have done in the past, but I don't think I'm yet in a place where I would be prepared to do anything for him. The night I was in iscape we were challenged to surrender everything to God and write on the paper what we needed to let go of in order to surrender to God. I know for me, I need to let go of fear - I need to be prepared to come out of my comfort zone and take risks for God. I know that's what I need to do and my heart wants to, yet my head is trying to reason with it. So when we'd written our things and thrown paper around the room and prayed for each other we sang "I'm giving you my heart" except I couldn't sing it - I couldn't sing those words "And I surrender all to you, all to you". I couldn't do it, coz I know its not true and I didn't want to sing empty words.

On one night I was feeling a bit lonely, so I met up with Julie, who was my team leader and I've known her through Paint Factory for 2 years (I've worked under her 3 times now). We got chatting about what I'm doing at the moment. As she's known me for a while, she knows I've kinda floated between doing one thing and another. So we got really under the surface of what went on and what's going on... we talked about why I left Roehampton and my experience there, we talked about my year for the church, we talked about my application to study music and theology at uni, we talked about my decision to do an OU degree, we talked about my change of OU degree, we talked about my thoughts about nursing and we talked about my constant desire to do children's ministry. Not only that but we talked about what had challenged me at Spring Harvest - totally surrendering my life to him and getting to a place where I can say 'God, I'll go wherever you send me, I'll do whatever you want me to do'. And we talked about fear. Julie is such a wise woman. She said some blunt things in love and hoped I wouldn't be offended, which I wasn't coz I know I needed to hear it and it was so helpful to hear. I know I'm in danger of wasting my life if I don't choose a path and go for it. I now feel I'm in a place where I can sort things out with God and work out exactly what I need to be doing. Julie was (and still is!) such an inspiration to me and gave some practical tips, not about what I should be doing, but about how the reach that decision. And she prayed for me and it was amazing.

I met some amazing people who I hope I'll stay in touch with. I met up with some old friends who I'll continue to keep in contact with. I learnt some cool new worship songs and some great new kids worship songs. I went to some fab seminars and got some practical tips. But most importantly I took time out and had many encounters with the mighty God who created me and the entire universe.

I've probably forgotten some stuff and I'll probably keep going on about this experience for weeks to come, but it was amazing and I just feel some blessed by it...

Serving

2007-03-30T12:46:00.000+01:00

This totally smacked me in the face today...

Live = Serve
''...THE SON OF MAN DID NOT COME TO BE SERVED, BUT TO SERVE...'' MARK 10:45
Jesus entered the world to serve. And we should do the same. Whether it is our school-world, our work-world, our community-world or our church-world. Serving requires no special training or qualifications. Here's three things to know about serving: 1) To serve is to love the overlooked. Jesus sits in your class wearing thick glasses, outdated clothing and a sad face. You've seen Him. Jesus lives on your street, pregnant again, no one knows the father. You've seen her. When you love the misfit and befriend the hurting, you love Jesus. '"...Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored...you did it to me"' (Matthew 25:40 TM). 2) To serve is to wave the white flag. We fight so much: 'Where do you think all these appalling wars and quarrels come from?' asks James, 'Do you think they just happen? Think again. They come about because you want your own way...' (James 4:1 TM). Real servants don't fight for their rights if it means someone else will lose theirs. No, real servants empty their own lives so that others can be filled. 3) To serve is to do something selfless every day. Pick up someone's litter. Let someone in front of you in the queue. Give up your seat on the bus. Tell someone you appreciate them. It doesn't have to be a big thing. Don't be too big to do something small. '...Throw yourselves into the work of the Master, confident that nothing you do for him is a waste of time or effort' (1 Corinthians 15:58 TM). Are you getting the message? To live = to serve.

I think sometimes I serve with totally the wrong motives... I want my heart to be shaped like Jesus' heart, I want to love the lost for who they are, not who it makes me.

God is SO good.... today I have such a peace, it's beautiful.

Aqua

2007-03-29T15:52:00.000+01:00

I went to Aqua Aerobics this morning. It was so fun... I love going, it gets me up in the morning and it totally kick starts my day.

It was really funny today, we were like proper school kids. The woman who does it is called Julia and she kept giving us her 'headteacher lines' coz we were hitting each other with woggles etc. There's a few of us who are substantially (sp?) younger than everyone else and we giggle a lot, hit each other with woggles and generally cause a lot of comotion! Anywho, this morning we were on top form, like no other Thursday morning to be honest. It was hilarious. I felt like a school girl again and it was so fun :-)

Indulgences, God vs the devil

2007-03-29T12:35:00.000+01:00

I've seen this before, but still find it completely hilarious!!

In the beginning God covered the earth with broccoli, cauliflowerand spinach, with green, yellow and red vegetables of all kinds so Manand Woman would live long and healthy lives. Then using God's bountiful gifts, Satan created Dairy Ice Cream andMagnums. And Satan said "You want hot fudge with that? And Man said"Yes!" And Woman said "I'll have one too with chocolate chips". Andso they gained 10 pounds.

And God created the healthy yoghurt that Woman might keep thefigure that Man found so fair. And Satan brought forth white flour from the wheat and sugar fromthe cane and combined them. And Woman went from size 12 to size 14.

So God said "Try my fresh green salad". And Satan presented Blue Cheesedressing and garlic croutons on the side. And Man and Woman unfastenedtheir belts following the repast.

God then said "I have sent you healthy vegetables and olive oil in whichto cook them".
And Satan brought forth deep fried coconut king prawns, butter-dippedlobster chunks and chicken fried steak, so big it needed its own platter. And Man's cholesterol went through the roof.

Then God brought forth the potato, naturally low in fat andbrimming with potassium and good nutrition. Then Satan peeled off the healthy skin and sliced the starchycentre into chips and deep fried them in animal fats adding copiousquantities of salt. And Man put on more pounds.

God then brought forth running shoes so that his Children mightlose those extra pounds. And Satan came forth with a cable TV with remote control so Manwould not have to toil changing the channels. And Man and Woman laughedand cried before the flickering light and started wearing stretch joggingsuits.

Then God gave lean beef so that Man might consume fewer caloriesand still satisfy his appetite.
And Satan created McDonalds and the 99p double cheeseburger. ThenSatan said "You want fries with that?" and Man replied "Yes, And supersize 'em". And Satan said "It is good." And Man and Woman went intocardiac arrest.

God sighed ......... and created quadruple by-pass surgery.
And then ............ Satan chuckled and created Medicare.

THE FINAL WORD ON NUTRITIONAfter an exhaustive review of the research literature, here's thefinal word on nutrition and health:
1. Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than us.

2. Mexicans eat a lot of fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than us.

3. Chinese drink very little red wine and suffer fewer heart attacksthan us.

4. Italians drink excessive amounts of red wine and suffer fewer heartattacks than us.

5. Germans drink beer and eat lots of sausages and fats and suffer fewerheart attacks than us.

CONCLUSION: Eat and drink what you like. Speaking English is apparently what kills you.

Fear

2007-03-28T14:36:00.000+01:00

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. 1 John 4:18

For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline. 2 Timothy 1:7

Send

2007-03-23T16:55:00.000Z

So I went to see Rita with Dan yesterday. It was SO good to see her. It's been a while, can't remember if I last went in November or September, either way, that was ages ago!!

We had a great time, a real giggle and she seemed well and quite happy considering. I think she appreciated seeing some younger people. I'm not sure how often any other TNT folk visit her, but she was so grateful to see us. It doesn't sound like that many people are writing or visiting at the moment, which kinda sucks. I can't believe she's been in there 2 years now. It doesn't seem real. That means she has a minimum of 3 years left, which is something.

I'm so bowled over by the opportunities she's getting and am really glad about all the stuff she's getting involved in. Yesterday was like seeing the real Rita again and it was really good. I always feel so privileged to be able to visit her and be a part of her life. I just hope things turn out ok in the long run...

Will definately have to go visit again soon

Bassoon, essay

2007-03-21T17:24:00.000Z

Today I had a bassoon lesson. I didn't have one last week coz Bronia was on a training course. I must confess I hadn't practised much since my last lesson. I meant to do some yesterday, but had to write my essay. And I wanted to do some on Sunday, but ended up at Carol's longer than I expected, then I had to play piano at church, so I didn't practise. So I think last time I did any was sometime last week, but can't even recall when!! So that's not a good start. But even so, I went to my lesson and loved every minute of it. Got a bit confused at times when I was reading tenor clef and then changed to bass clef, except I kept misreading it, but hey, it was fun. I'm amazed at how far I've come in about 18 months. To go from nothing to playing Mozart's Bassoon concerto listed as a grade 8 piece in 18 months is very exciting!! It gives me so much joy, makes me feel alive and like I'm acheiving something in life. And Bronia's pleased with my progress, which is fab :-)

Very excited that I finished my essay yesterday. It was becoming such a drag. I just couldn't get into it at all. Ok, so I know child abuse isn't the easiest subject to write about, but I don't ahve any personal problems with it and I had all the information I needed, so I really think it should have been easier to get into! Anywho, it's done now - woohoo!! That means I have one more essay left this module and exam! Very exciting!! Then to decide what module comes next... I think it'll be care, welfare and community which starts in October. Grand :-)

Tomorrow I'm going with Dan to visit Rita. Little worried we'll get lost, but hopefully not!!

Nothing in particular

2007-03-19T16:46:00.000Z

Ok, so i've not blogged in a while. I guess not all that much as happened. Matt turned 16 on Friday, but other than that, life is just bumbling along.
Things with God are kinda good. I've been using lent to try and really get into The Word and praise God it's working, so that's really exciting.
It's amazing how a year ago I'd never have thought I'd be thinking about going into health and social care, yet now, that seems to be where I'm headed. It's phenomenal how God totally changes things around and sends us in new directions.
Hoping to get some work experience leading up to the summer, so watch this space...

Exeter

2007-02-26T12:39:00.000Z

I had the greatest weekend in Exeter. It was a totally different kinda great to my time in Stoke, but it was definately great :-)

The train journey on Friday was LONG; 3hr 41mins. But fortunately we had reserved seats and all was well. Although the refreshment trolley man took about 2 hours to get to us, by which point Nana was threatening to eat Dan and I!! Anywho we arrived at Exeter St Davids and was greated by the lovely Stuart aka Nodz/Moose. It was SO good to see him again.

He drove us to their house in Clyst Heath. Apparently where they live used to be a mental institute and was converted into housing about 10 or so years ago. This picture is of an old institute not too unlike Clyst Heath. It was interesting actually coz once he'd said it, I could totally tell it from all the pictures and stuff I've looked at of hospitals and institutes in my course. We got to his house and were greeted by the lovely Katy. They have a lovely house, all beautiful and matching and just generally lovely.
So Friday night we ate and chatted for a few hours. And had a reasonably early night.

Saturday we had a lazyish morning and then jumped in the car and headed off to Dartmouth. We went on the ferry tugboat thing across the Estuary. That lasted about 2 mins and then we were in Dartmouth. We pootled around a bit looking at the sea and some shops. We had lunch in Cache - a cute little cafe and then had some lovely Salcombe dairy ice cream. Stuart got really excited about it!! Then we got back in the car and drove down to Slapton Sands - the beach!

It was gorgeous to be by the sea with great friends. Dan and Stu tried to skim stones, but didn't do too well! Then they decided to play chicken with the waves and got caught out first time!! It was hilarious! We found some beautiful stones and shells. We wandered along by the sea, watching the tide come in. Dan found a fish, which was kinda gross, but really cool. He picked it up and everything!!

We stopped off in a cafe and had a cream tea. Mmmm, it was SO good! Then drove back to their house and lounged around a bit. We decided to go out for dinner, so we headed off to the Countess Wear Beefeater and had a mighty fine meal. Then back to the house for several games of Pictionary which proved to be very funny. Dan showed his incompetence at drawing a blue tit, well a tit to be precise!! And Stuart stuggled to guess what a black eye was by asking 'what are you doing to it?' when I was consistently circling this eye with black rings! Dan had no idea what a periscope was and it was generally very amusing.

Sunday morning we went to Trinity Church. It meets at the school in Clyst Heath. It is an Anglican church, planted from St Leonards in city centre. It's been going about 4 years I think. It was cool. Quite informal, yet with traditional Anglican stuff. We had communion, sang some cool songs and the vicar spoke on Joseph. It was good and nice to be at another church :-)

We went back and chilled for a bit while Stu made us fajitas for lunch. Mmmm, so tasty! Then we headed off to Topsham, had a look around the quay and went to Darts Farm. They had a huge farm market I guess which was full of food, gifts, home furniture (kitchen stuff really), agas, alcohol (home brewed) and generally very cool stuff!!

Then back to Exeter St David's to go home :-( Because Nana is working in Bristol today she stayed on last night. So just Dan and I on the way home. Mummy Smith had prepared a train picnic for us to prevent the hunger attack we'd had on the way up!! And it was time to say goodbye. It was really sad and I had to try hard not to cry. I love Stu and Katy so much and really miss them being around. It was so beautiful in Devon and great to be with such wonderful friends.

Anywho, the train journey was LONG (same as before) but Dan and I chatted and we read through Titus and got talking about Paul's letters. When we got to Clapham Junction this woman asked Dan for a cigarette and then for some money. He gave her a cigarette, but had no money. It was so funny coz she said "No I didn't think you'd have any. You look like you're the same as me, on social benefits and that". Oh it was SO funny!!

Ah, good times weekend.... Love you guys

Trust

2007-02-23T13:09:00.000Z

Last night I was in the car with Mum and Matt coming back from Bluewater via Swanley. Mum was worried about getting from Bluewater to Swanley without getting lost, so I paid close attention and we did manage to get there ok. However because we've come home from Swanley so many times and we were so busy talking that somehow we got lost. We were on the M25, but heading in the wrong direction. So we came off at the next junction and I saw a sign towards Brands Hatch. I knew that if we got to Brands Hatch we could get back onto the M25 coz there's a turning off of it to Brands Hatch, so I told her to keep going to Brands Hatch.

We'd driven a few miles and came to a petrol station. I knew Mum would stop and guess what? She did. I told her she didn't need to coz if we just went on to Brands Hatch we could get back onto the M25, but she still insisted on asking the guy in the petrol station. I got a bit annoyed and told her she didn't trust me, but she said she did, but just wanted to double check. So after checking, she discovered I was right and we were indeed heading in the right direction.

This annoyed me and I said straight up that if Mum really trusted me she'd have kept driving the way I told her and wouldn't have asked in the petrol station. Anyway, we kinda agreed to disagree... I was determined that if she'd really trusted me, she'd have kept driving and Mum said she just wanted to double-check.

This got me thinking about my relationship with God.... He calls us to trust him 100%, but how many times do we think we know best and try to head off on our own way. How many times does he say "Go do this, but instead we fumble around, ask other people and try something else first". Yet God doesn't want us to to that, he just wants us to trust him. Fortunately I'm not God, so Mum didn't need to trust me 100% coz I'm only human and I could have been wrong. But God is God and he totally wants us to trust him.

Then today I flipped this over the other way.... God's trusting us with his world, like totally. Ok, so he's still in control and such like, but how much trust is he placing on us to look after his world and to do his will despite giving us free will?

How much am I trusting him?

******

Aside from that... I'm off to Exeter later to see Stu and Katy. Yay :-)

Stoke

2007-02-19T21:39:00.000Z

I had THE most amazing weekend in Stoke. It went a bit like this...

Friday afternoon I got THE slowest Thameslink train from East Croydon to Kings Cross Thameslink. I then walked to Euston only to find all the virgin trains were delayed due to signal failure and a broken down train at Watford Junction. Eventually my delayed 18:35 train left Euston at 19:00, but oh my life, it was packed... there had been problems with electrics on the east coast, so GNER trains weren't really running which meant that people had to travel to places like York via Manchester or such like, so they were shunting people onto virign trains like no tomorrow. So I had to stand for the whole journey, which fortunately was only 1.5 hours :-) But I had to share a space of about 6m cubed with 4 other people. It got hot, it got smelly and wasn't very comfortable!!

Anywho I eventually got to Stoke and Zoe was there to meet me at the station and we took a brisk walk to her house. She cooked me pizza and we chatted and laughed. Then decided to go on the dance mat. Approx 4 hours and 400 calories later we stopped!! It was well fun though. We chatted lots more and went to sleep about 4am!

5 hours later my good old body clock woke up, so I crept out to have a shower. Being the lovely person that I am, I decided to leave Zoe to sleep and I washed up from the previous night, which also included her housemate's washing up from the previous 2 days breakfasts!! Went and woke Zoe up and within an hour or so we were walking into Stoke. It kinda reminded me of Croydon in it's scabiness (sp?), but it was cooler in terms of its indoor market and random fruit and veg stall and other assorted cool shops like ethel austin - oh yes £1:50 flip flops!!

Then jumped on a bus and headed into Hanley. Hanley is AMAZING! But quite dangerous... there are SO many shops! And it was cool coz there's your big high street chains, your random gifty shops, random market stalls, an indoor market, assorted local shops, alternative grunger type shops and probs loads more. It was grand and we spent a fortune!! I bought some cool new jumpers though, some star shoe laces for my converse :-), some funky shoes (they're red!) and lots of other bits and pieces. Our final stop was Tesco to pick up some chocolate for the chocolate fountain!! Then back on the bus to outside Staffordshire Uni and a quick walk back to Zoe's.

We were exhausted when we got back, so chilled out, chatted, cooked dinner (mmmm pasta with courgettes and leeks), Zoe combed Charlie (don't ask!) and she tried on everything she bought!! Decided to prepare for the chocolate fountain. So, we read the instructions and bashed up the chocolate as we couldn't get chips or nuggets in Tesco. So Zoe broke it into squares and chucked it in some sandwich bags and I took a hammer to it!! It was quite a laugh! We mooched around before deciding to go for a quick drink before doing the chocolate fountain. So we headed for the union only to find it was comedy club and you had to pay to get in - nooooo. So she took me to Terrace (I think) a cute little quiet pub. We had a quick drink and then went to buy some potatoes for Sunday's lunch.

Went back home and went for the chocolate fountain. The chocolate took quite a while to melt, so I left Zoe to that and I cut up and arranged the fruit and marshmallows so that it was asthetically pleasing!! Then to the chocolate fountain... it was a laugh, it was fun, it was yummy, but VERY filling. We spent ages eating various fruit and dipping it in the chocolate and we watched two pints of lager and a packet of crisps -classic!

Then the fun really began.... it took us 1.5 hours to clean the wretched thing!! We started by scooping out the leftover chocolate with wooden spoons, but it was hitting them, sticking and solidifying!! So I resorted to using my hands to scoop it out. It was quite amusing and it actually felt really nice. Needless to say my fingers and hands ended up completely brown!! Eventually it was clean, but that was quite a mission!! And we hit the sack at 2am.

The good old body clock struck again and I woke up shortly after 9am on Sunday. I went and washed and then kicked Zoe out of bed. We went to church. It was a New Frontiers church called Grace and met in one of the uni rooms. It was small, but friendly, welcoming and cool. It amazed me how we managed to spend 45mins singing only 2 worship songs!! During that time the congregation can contribute to the service by reading scripture or giving a word in between songs... this I found cool, but what was even greater was that 2 girls, probs no older than 12 or 13 out of their own accord and totally independently came up and shared some scripture. It was cool and that really encouraged me. I enjoyed church.

Back to the pad to cook lunch and continue the dance mat extravaganza!! So I made potato wedges and my classic veg in tomato sauce. It was good :-) Then to pack and get the train home. Fotunately the train was empty in comparison with Friday night! So I could sit and chill and enjoy the journey back to Euston.

I did have the greatest weekend. It was so amazing to be away from Croydon without the worries of study, church or any other commitments; I could be care free and have fun :-) I miss not having many people my age around at home who I can hang out with and be dead serious or behave like a 5 year old with. It was great to feel loved and have a laugh. It was great to have some d & m's and be honest. It was just great and I had a ball. Thanks chicken, you rocked my world :-)

Today's thoughts - and I've remembered to pinpoint the negatives between 2 positives!!

2007-02-16T14:13:00.000Z

Not all that much to say, just a few things on my mind

I'm really looking forward to going to Stoke later and spending the weekend with Zoe
I'm scared that I might kill Jane's guinea pigs while she's in antigua!! Obviously not intentionally, but if I do something wrong whilst looking after them!!
I'm SO excited that Rach got the job :-)
How do you tell someone you love that something's not right? That you're hurting and help them to understand it's not their fault?
I'm so happy my assignment is done and posted a whole week early!!

The God of hope

2007-02-14T22:38:00.000Z

I woke up this morning and one of the first things I noticed was a verse of scripture printed on the bottom of a thank you card. It read "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace" Rom 15:13. And then a song popped into my head, I think it's a kids song and it basically quotes this scripture. I thought nothing more of it and went off to the gym.

On coming back from the gym I was met by the post and opened a prayer letter from an SU worker and at the beginning she quoted "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit" Romans 15:13. Wow, to be hit by that same verse twice in one morning from 2 completely different sources... so I've kinda been meditating on that today.

Other than that, I wasn't in such a great mood today... woke up feeling refreshed, but by the time I got to the gym (about 9:30) I felt exhausted already and kinda unmotivated. The morning plodded on and I studied a bit. Then I had a bassoon lesson this afternoon and that sure changed things. Boy do I love music. It fills me with such joy and my bassoon teacher is such a doll. It was great. Then I spoke to Jane on the phone, that was good too. And I chatted with Joe about my assignment and that was SO helpful :-)

Yesterday I had to teach 6 kids the oboe. That was kinda cool. 2 kids stood out to me - one was great and one didn't really have a clue. I found out today that the great kid has been on casualty and some advert on tv - cool beans, I taught a famous kid without even knowing it!! Ok, slight exaggeration, but hey hum!!

To bed...

Dad's birthday celebrations

2007-02-10T22:42:00.000Z

Today is Dad's birthday. We've spent most of the day in town as we went to see The Lion King. I saw it about 5 years ago for Jess' 16th, so it bought back memories of back then. But it was still fab second time round. I was so struck by the music and the beauty of the costumes and the thought and time and effort that must have gone into making that show what it is. I love music, it evokes so much emotion within me.

In the opening song Rafiki is singing and when she started singing this really cute asian kid infront of us jumped up and flung his arms wide open - he was declaring the show open!! It was cute, he was obviously excited and wanted to show everyone around him the effect the show was having on him!! I on the other hand just felt full of emotion and wanted to burst into tears!!! And that happened again in the last song! I don't know what it is, but music just wells me up with emotion like nothing else has ever done!

The show really spoke to me actually. The bit where Mufasa is telling Simba that he is always with him and will always be a part of him was like God speaking right to my heart.

It made my think about my life and what I'm doing with it. It reminded me of my passion for music and it made me wanna get myself into some decent orchestras, so watch this space!!!

After that we went to Smollenskys which was cool. Had a falafel burger which was gorgeous and lots of white wine!! A really lovely day and I feel really happy :-)

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free

2007-02-09T17:23:00.000Z

Today at life group we talked about freedom. It was quite a heated discussion in that one lady in particular seemed to have a lot of issues with our government and how we can possibly live in freedom if we have all these silly laws to abide by. What she was particularly referring to is things like kids under a certain age and height have to have a special booster seat when travelling in the car, so neighbours can no longer help each other out by collecting each others' children in an emergency. We talked about the concept of needing to be set free from sin, but also the guilt that comes from having sinned or from feeling you should have done something that you've not actually done.

"It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery." Galatians 5:1

God wants us to be free from sin and the great thing is that we have been set free and all we need to do is grasp onto that promise of freedom that Jesus has for each of us.

Birds often symbolise freedom to me - they can just fly off anywhere, anytime and they don't have to be accountable to anyone for their whereabouts.

"Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." John 8:32

It is through God's mighty word that we can be saved and it is that truth we need to hold onto. We can try many other means to get freedom, we can get our tarrot cards read, we can seek new age spirituality, we can do many things, but it's only God and his word that can set us free. And once we're free, what an amazing freedom that is. A freedom that nothing or no-one else can give us. And it's mighty and it's wonderful and it's simply amazing.

Holding hands

2007-02-08T16:18:00.000Z

Unfortunately I've not had any amazing revelations from God recently. Maybe I'm just being ignorant.

I guess the one thing that keeps coming back to me is trusting him totally and taking his hand as he walks me through whatever lies ahead in life. I've probably said this before, but something I realised I'd learnt in my year with church is that God taught me how to hold his hand and in times I let go of his hand, he just kept on holding onto mine.

Often I want life to be all this extravagant (sp?) stuff and I think it's not alright to just be. Well actually all the time God is taking me on a journey and more often than not it seems that I don't know where he's taking me, but I just have to totally trust, totally surrender and never let go of his hand!

God really does care

2007-02-05T14:32:00.000Z

Have had a good weekend over all...

Saturday we had a band morning at church. It was good. An opportunity to read the Word, to pray and to learn new songs together. It was fun, it was a laugh, it was great to worship together and I really enjoyed it. Then in the evening I baked cookies and watched Notting Hill (yes Rach, Kat; I've finally seen it!) And I really enjoyed that.

Yesterday I had both services off from St Mary's, so decided to make the most of it and head up to town. I went to HTB in the morning, that was good. The worship was amazing; the perfect balance of old, new and in between. And I was totally enabled to worship God for myself and not worrying about who was around me and what they were doing. The message was spot on and perfect for me - it was about perseverence. The context was about the early church and how Paul and Barnabus persevered with evangelism. But the principles can be applied across boundaries and I was just encouraged to persevere with life, but especially with my relationship with God.

After that I got the bus to Oxford Street. I managed to find a comfy seat in Starbucks and sat there for 2 hours prolonging the eating of the most amazing tropical fruit salad and the drinking of a might good mocha light frapp :-) And I managed to write to Rita and Chris and I did my 'purple page' study for Anna and wrote up the notes (from scrappy paper to my notebookk) from the message at HTB and I read a bit. And that was really good - relaxing, chilled and perfect. Then I took a meander down Oxford St, browsed a few shops and saw some cool tops and then wanted to satisfy my baguette craving!! So I went in every coffee shop and cafe trying to find a nice baguette and somewhere to sit, but didn't have much joy. Eventually I settled for a panini in a very overcrowded Starbucks at Tottenham Court Rd. Was good though!

Then to Hillsongs. It was a service of pure worship, no message. So I was a little annoyed at that as I really wanted to hear another inspiring, uplifting and encouraging message. But oh well! The worship was good and it was really smelly and sweaty in there, not so good! Towards the end of the night the Pastor did he appeal for new Christians. And he stood there saying "If you accept Jesus into your life he'll make your life new and he'll make everything amazing and fab and he'll do all this wonderful stuff for you and life will be fantastic". I recognised my attack straight away... My heads going "Yeah whatever, that's not true, Jesus hasn't made my life amazing, so why is he gonna make anyone else's life amazing?" And it went on like this in my head and I knew I was spiralling down into a bunch of negative thoughts about my relationship with God. I felt so ready to give up everything, yet I totally knew this was attack. And I couldn't pray much accept for "Jesus help me".

Came out of church feeling pretty negative, my whacked on my ipod and decided when I was on a mainline train I'd ring my friend and see if I could invite myself over for a quick cuppa. So I got on the train, got my phone out and my hands were shaking so much and my heart was beating real fast and inside I'm thinking don't ring her. I knew if I didn't ring her, the enemy would win and the rest of my evening would turn out badly. So I managed to ring and she was more than happy for me to pop in. So when I got back to Croydon I went in to see her. I was still really scared and felt I shouldn't go coz I was invading her time etc. But I knew this was just the enemy. I did go and I had a really good time. Stayed for about an hour and we just chatted and laughed and drank tea and it was good. My heart was at rest. I left her house and the first thing that came into my head was "And the enemy has been defeated, death couldn't hold you down, gonna lift my voice in victory, gonna make your praises loud". Jesus has won, I'd taken that step and he'd helped me all the way.

Today I went to give blood. Every other time I've given blood I've always felt really faint and dizzy afterwards. So I prayed so much that it wouldn't happen this time coz it just feels so horrible. I guess I even tried to bargain with God. I was like "come on, if you really care about me and if you really want me to believe that you care, please just let me be ok, please let me feel fine" and in my head I'm thinking, if these are physical symptoms of the fact I've just had a pint of blood taken out of me, then what's God gonna be able to do about it. And you know what? I was fine, I felt totally normal, not one little sign of light headed-ness. And I came out and was like "you know what God, you do care and I know you care, even about the smallest things".

Thank you Lord.

***

Aside from that, I was delighted to pick up an email from Becky this afternoon (yes, I had a computer free 42 hours and it's been lovely!) And she knows I've been talking about moving churches. So she's sent me a link to an article in the press over in the US. Oooh it made me laugh so much that I want to post it here...

Alison Matera of New Port Richey, Fla., should have done just that last Friday, but instead her ruse was exposed when she sat among mourners, listening to friends and family celebrate her life.

It all started, the St. Petersburg Times reported Friday, when the 27-year-old told members of her church choir that she was dying of cancer, and that she soon would start receiving treatments.

Matera then started giving her friends regular updates during her "treatments." Then, near the end of last year, she told them she was giving up her fight and entering a hospice so she could die, the newspaper reported.

She "left" the church, but choir members said they continued to receive calls from a "hospice nurse" with updates on Matera's health. The same "nurse" then called choir director Timothy Paquin on Jan. 18 to say Matera had died. Paquin said he then received a call from someone identifying themselves as Matera's sister, detailing the family's arrangements for the body.
The strange thing, according to a report filed with the Pasco County Sheriff's Office, is that all the choir members said the callers all sounded exactly like Matera.

Paquin said he called the hospice and local funeral homes, but none had ever heard of Matera.
Then, when the church family gathered to mourn Matera's death, a woman looking exactly like Matera showed up, claiming to be her sister, they said.

Choir members called the sheriff's office for help, and when deputies went to Matera's apartment she confessed the hoax, saying she needed to separate from the church community.

Oooh, that made me laugh! Don't worry Becky, I won't do that!!

A few thoughts

2007-02-02T21:35:00.000Z

Last week I listened to a talk Joyce Meyer gave. It was quite thought provoking… she was saying that so often we rant, rave and shout about our problems, but what difference will that make? It won’t solve the problems, so instead we should just go with the flow. That’s all very well, but what if going with the flow is painful/uncomfortable?! I guess life isn’t all about being comfortable and yeah God calls us to take risks and come out of our comfort zones, but flip does that take courage!

I frequently wonder what the point in life is and why I’m here etc. I read something by John Eldredge the other week and he said that Jesus said the point of us being here is to love God and to love others. And I guess Jesus must be right!! I know in my heart that if I just focused on loving God and making my relationship with him better then life would generally be much better, but how much do I actually want that? Sure, I want my life to be all red and rosy, I want it to be fun and comfortable and exciting. I don’t want it to be full of discomfort and uncertainty. So why don’t I trust Jesus with it?

Beauty

2007-02-02T12:29:00.000Z

Yesterday I went to see Miss Potter. I was totally in love with the beauty of the landscapes. I think it's filmed in the Lake District and my is that a beautiful place. I've not been there since I was 6, so I don't remember anything about it. But I was totally astounded by the beauty of it. This kinda beauty always points me back to God and it really excites me.
In May I'm going to Inverness and I'm really excited coz I know it's gonna be beautiful and will hopefully draw me closer to God in praise for his wonderful creation.

Emotional nothing-in-particular-ness

2007-01-28T21:27:00.000Z

Had a manic weekend of various celebrations mostly involving food (!) for Mum's 50th! Brunch, dinner, dinner, lunch; busyness! Good though.

Feeling a bit overwhelmed with emotional nothing-in-particular-ness!! Dad and I made this DVD for Mum's birthday of photos through her life. It brought back a lot of memories coz we had to look through a LOT of photos. So many memories were brought back; times as a kid, times when I had an Auntie, times when my Uncle was fit and healthy etc. And a bunch of emotions were stirred up -when I was a kid life was simple, I was thinner than I am now (altho I was quite a chubby kid!), life had a purpose (altho what it was I'm not so sure!) and it was all good (well, mostly).

Now things seemed to have taken a different route and life's not quite so mapped out and hunky dory all the time. Wouldn't it be grand to feel great and loved and be doing amazing things all the time?! I wish I could just click my fingers and everything would change!! Wishful thinking though me thinks.

Today someone came up to me at church and said "God's told me you're gonna be a vicar. So when you gonna start training?" I was quite taken back by this, but amazingly unalarmed and it did kinda sit with me. Hmmmm...

Bowled over by God!

2007-01-24T16:30:00.000Z

It never ceases to amaze me how it often takes other people to point out to me how God is working in my life and which doors he may be opening. Again with this friend this morning I had quite a conversation.

We talked about my love for pre-school and how I'm not gonna have much work there for a wee while. And we talked about my degree and how that fitted into my work at pre-school. I'm not sure it does entirely, but who knows! I guess it is loosely connected seeing as it's childhood and youth studies and at pre-school I work with 2-4 year olds!

She asked me if working at a pre-school/nursery/playgroup (whatever you wanna call it!) is something I could see myself doing more long-term. And I guess it is (so I said it was!). So we talked about the possibilty of me finding more permanent work. I think in order to do that I'd need to have an NVQ level 2 in child something or other!! So we talked about the possibility of me doing this NVQ. I've tried to research it a bit online, but not had much joy. I'm hoping Croydon College can send me some more info about it. But I can definately ask my colleagues at pre-school and one of my Brownies' Mum's is doing it too.

Ironically this friend said pretty much what Becky's comment said on a previous entry of mine; how Magdalene pre-school has given me a taste of working in that kind of environment and how my eyes have been opened to it and I've loved it. So maybe it's God opening a door and showing me the way to go.

So hopefully I'll hear back from Croydon College and then I can see whether I'd be able to do an NVQ and whether I can do it alongside my degree. It may be possible, but I'll have to wait and see. I'm still in awe of how God's changed me... When I was in 6th form I hated studying, I had no self-discipline, I was not motivated and studying was a joke. I really feared this would happen with my OU degree, but God has amazed me again. I've been so disciplined and motivated. Ok, I've had a few bad days, but ultimately it's been all good! And I've been succeding, I've had good marks and it's going amazingly. Thank you God! So that gives me comfort and it makes it seem slightly realistic that I could do module 2 whilst doing an NVQ.

My eyes had been shut to this though. Before my friend made these suggestions about church and pre-school this morning, someone else had actually mentioned the church thing and Becky mentioned pre-school. But on both occassions I didn't follow it up, I stayed away from it coz it felt uncomfortable. The fact that these things have been suggested to me by a few people who don't even know each other, suggests that maybe God is actually in this and maybe this is his way of unfolding his will to me.

Ultimately it's not about the comfortable life is it? As I said earlier if the friendships are so important at church, they will remain. The same stands for work, if the friendships with my colleagues are so important, they'll remain. Coz that's what my gut reaction with pre-school was; I love the kids, but more than that, I know and love the staff, it's comfortable, it's good. I guess it may be time for me to take a risk, to leave my comfort zone. But I can't do it alone. I need God and I need him to mark my steps out so clearly.

*****

Aside from that, last night it snowed, so it looked all pretty when I woke up this morning :-) But it did mean the traffic went a bit crazy! And it also meant the car needed scrapping and my fingers got cold!!!

Tonight I have to go to church - Stanley Tech have their founders day service and Richard has asked me if I'll open up, supervise and lock up. Groan! Well it is money at least, but it's gonna be flippin' freezin'!!

10 principles

2007-01-24T16:10:00.000Z

I read this devo online just now. It made me take a step back. In principle it's an amazing bunch of principles, but so hard to actually do. Or is that just me?!

10 Principles
'...AND IT WAS VERY GOOD...' GENESIS 1:31
God knew the 'you-shaped' purpose you were born to fulfil, so He provided all the gifts you'd need. Having designed you, God stands back and with a satisfied grin says 'Very good.' Can you say that about yourself? It's important that you can. Why? Because others will treat you according to how you treat yourself! This is not pride, it's just healthy self-esteem based on God's opinion of you. When you have it, it affects every area of your life. Truth be told, it determines how far you'll go in life. Stop and ask yourself today, 'How do I really feel about myself?' Be honest! Then read these 10 principles: 1) Never think or speak negatively about yourself, GOD DOESN'T! 2) Spend time thinking about your God-given strengths and learn to encourage yourself, for much of the time nobody else will 3) Don't compare yourself to anybody else. You're unique, one of a kind, an original. So don't settle for being a copy 4) Focus on your potential, not your limitations. Remember, God lives in you! 5) Find what you like to do, do well, and strive to do it with excellence 6) Have the courage to be different. Be a God pleaser, not a people pleaser 7) Learn to handle criticism. Let it develop you instead of discourage you 8) Determine your own worth instead of letting others do it for you. They'll shortchange you! 9) Keep your shortcomings in perspective - you're still a work in progress. 10) Focus daily on your greatest source of confidence - the God Who lives in you!

Moving on?

2007-01-24T10:50:00.000Z

So I had a bit of a rant about St Mary's last night - whoopsy!!
Anywho, I met with a friend this morning and we had quite an uncomfortable discussion. I tried to tell her how I'm feeling about St Mary's, although I had a lot of trouble articulating it properly. We came to the decision that I feel trapped by it. After all, it is my home church, I've been there for almost 21 years. That's a long time to be in the same place!!

So she suggested I leave (or say I'm taking a sabbatical) and go to a new church. We talked over a few possibilities, but nowhere really struck a chord with me. But that doesn't mean to say it's not right.

We both recognised this would be a really hard thing for me to do. Especially coz I've been and still am involved in so much at St Mary's. It would be quite an uprooting. What would make it even harder is that my family would still go there and I'm still gonna be living in the same place.

After the initial shock of this suggestion I thought back to yesterdays entry. What is it actually keeping me there? And I guess there are only 3 things; there's a handful of friends, there's the fact that I do so much there and there's the fact that I have wonderful opportunities to develop my gifts (preaching, leading services etc).

I guess if the friendships are so important to me, even if I left St Mary's we'd still keep in touch coz it's not as if Addiscombe is far from where I live. Come the summer I can take myself off every rota, I can step down from all I do and I would no longer be tied to St Mary's. And if it is really my calling to go into ministry, God will give me other opportunities to develop my gifts in other places.

So what's my conclusion? I guess I feel God is opening some doors. I think it may be right to move on, and I need to pray my socks off for God to reveal his will in this situation. If I'm gonna move churches I really need God to show me exactly the right place to be. So if you wanna join me in prayer, please do! And if God says anything to you about it, let me know!!!

Flat

2007-01-23T21:31:00.000Z

Feeling kinda flat tonight. I'm slowly realising there's not a lot to my life at the moment - I study in my bedroom, I go to the gym, occassionally I go to work and I've practically sold my soul to St Mary's!!

Studying is ok. It's long, but it's enjoyable and at least when it's over I'll have a degree to my name - always good!!

The gym is cool. It keeps me fit, helps me burn off unnecessary calories and now I have my ipod shuffle (thank you guys) I can even listen to worship music whilst working out :-) So it's mostly good - anything to keep losing weight ey?!

Work, as I said yesterday, is amazing. But as I also said yesterday, there's not that much of it coming my way at the moment.

And St Mary's. Well if I could get out now, I would. I used to love my church, it used to inspire me, it used to feed me, it used to help me grow and I used to enjoy going. But now, I'm rarely inspired, I don't feel like I've grown at all and I don't enjoy going. A few years back I remember a particular incident where a woman had rubbed me up the wrong way and I'd gotten really angry with her. I had to be reminded quite harshly at that time that church isn't about the people who go there, it's about Jesus. Someone asked me "Who is it that you're following is it that woman or is it Jesus?" Wow, what a whip back into reality! But I go along, I do Junior Church, I play the piano, I lead services, I preach, I do this, I do that and why? Well it's good to serve God right, but I'm pretty sure my heart's not in the right place! I don't want this entry to turn into a rant about my church, so I won't let it. But now I go to church because there are a handful of people there who I love and who encourage and inspire me on a more personal level. How wrong is that? It's as if I'm following the people again and not Jesus. What's up with my backward heart?! *mental note to self - gone off on a complete tangent, this post really wasn't meant to be about that!*

So that's my life; study, gym, work, church. And it ain't good!!

I saw Kaylee today and we were talking about my social life, or lack of it. And it got me thinking 'why?' I guess it's partly coz I don't actually have all that much money, so can't really afford to go out much. But it digs deeper than that, it's about friends and my social network. I know a lot of people and I guess I do have a lot of friends, but why don't we go out/do stuff? Is it coz they work? Is it coz we don't try to organise stuff? Is it coz our relationships are superficial? Why is it?! A bunch of who I'd consider to be close friends are infact a lot older than me and have families and jobs etc, so sitting in a pub or going to somewhere like reflex isn't necessarily their scene or am I just making that up? Have I actually asked them? I dunno!!

But I do think my social network is lacking. And that is becoz I spend so much time in isolation. Most of my friends are connected to St Mary's. Other than that, there are work colleagues, but I'd only actually ever meet one of them outside work coz I don't really know the others that well. Then there's band folk, but as I'm like the oldest one there I've only got a few friends in it now and I'd only go out with Beckie. But where else do I go?! Nowhere!!

So this has become a bit of a rant, but hey ho! It's helped me to articulate what's in my head and begin to work out why I'm feeling flat! If you've made it this far, thanks for reading!!

A quiet season

2007-01-22T18:13:00.000Z

So today was a sad day - I was told I'm not gonna get asked to work as much coz pre-school are a bit short of cash at the moment. Lorraine said they'll ask me when they really need someone (like when Katy's has hospital appointments etc) but not just random times (like the afternoons I've been doing this month). So that made me sad.

I know it's no reflection on me, I know it's not personal, but it still hurts.

I love pre-school. It's weird coz when I first thought about working there I had so many questions about whether I'd enjoy it. I mean lets face it - how is playing with 2-4year olds for days on end fun? But it is. It is amazing. I never knew it could be so great. I've been given the privilege of helping these small children develop. I can do activities with them, we can discuss what they're doing, I can develop their understanding of things. It is such an amazing privilege and it brings me so much joy.

Being a part-time student doing a degree that lasts for 6 years isn't the most inspiring thing in life. Ok, so I'm genuinely interested in the degree and I am enjoying it, but that's not enough to make me see it through. My degree is no reason to get up each day. But pre-school is a reason to get up in the mornings. If I'm working I get up no problem, I'm eager to get there and get on with the session ahead coz I love it, I guess you could say I thrive on it. But when there are days I'm not working, getting up is hard, I have almost no reason to, unless I'm doing something or seeing someone special.

And despite knowing it really is no reflection on me, I still wonder why? Why is God letting this happen to me? Finally I find a reason to live, a purpose in life and its pretty much snatched up from under my feet. If I didn't need the money and I didn't need the fulfilment and I didn't enjoy it then it wouldn't be so bad. But I love pre-school and I do need the money and I do need the fulfilment, so why God? What's going on?

Praying for a miracle....

A blustery Mary Poppins kinda day!

2007-01-18T17:21:00.000Z

What a day and it's not even 5:30pm yet! Went into work this afternoon where Anne told me what an awful morning they'd had with kids screaming, kicking, peeing and pooing themselves and how they all just really wanted to go home. We hoped the afternoon would get better, but it turned into quite an interesting one.

The kids come in at 12:30 and by 12:45 they were so noisy and horrible that Anne had shouted at them loads and we had to put the climbing frame away coz they couldn't cooperate. Anne and I took them to do register during which we heard Ivy and Asia screaming from the kitchen - the shed had started blowing away!!

Quick interlude to explain the shed situation... over the summer we got a new shed coz the other one had mice. It's made of corrugated iron and a bunch of Dad's put it up. They didn't do a great job, so Anne and Frances' husbands came and had another go. The shed leaked and we've been on at Argos coz it's faulty and generally crap.

So when it detached itself from its base and started taking off it was kinda scary. So we've got loads of excitable screaming kids (24 to be precise) and a shed thats about to take off!! so there's 2 of us with the kids and the rest of the staff are holding down this shed. It was our manager's day off, but we had to phone her and she insisted she came in. We tried to call out someone to take it down for us, but that was gonna cost £200. We rang for the fire brigade, but were told there were 200 people in front of us!! So Lorraine (our manager) got a mallet out and started bashing the shed, trying to flatten it, so we could hold it down until the fire brigade could come. Then Frances remembered her husband was at home, so she called him and he and their son came to try and help.

So the kids are finally being picked up and there's me, Lorraine, Anne, Frances and Katy clinging onto this shed, while Mick and Paul are unscrewing it bit by bit. We had to empty it and take all the bits into the hall. It was kinda scary yet amusing all at the same time. And all the while its still blowing up a gale and the rains pouring down. What a day!!

So by 4:30 the shed was dismantled and in pieces in the hall, the contents were in the hall and we're sitting having a cuppa. And along came the firemen!! We had called to tell them not to bother, but apparently they just come anyway. But they were glad we'd managed to sort it coz they had loads more calls to go on.

So the kids aren't coming in tomorrow. Lorraine's given me the day off coz I stayed late and coz there's no kids. Everyone else will just be cleaning wet, dirty toys and taking the shed to the dump!

What a joy!

Dirty Trousers

2007-01-17T16:17:00.000Z

So I worked at pre-school this morning. As ever, it was fun. I spent about 45mins on the playdough table and have ended up with yellow playdough stuck to various parts of my trousers! All the kids seemed 'depressed' today (well that's how Ivy put it!). They seemed quite flat. We had 3 new kids, 2 of whom cried and screamed for the majority of the morning. We had our usual 3 tearway, crying children and then a bunch of miserable looking kids! I know it was raining, but honestly. Talk about Seasonal Affective Disorder. I've never seen a bunch of 3&4 year olds look so miserable.

I then ended up doing the activity again. I did it on Monday and it was the same thing, so at least I knew what we were doing! We did printing to make dolls houses. We had a square stamp with funky stripes on it and a sponge so we had red windows and a blue door. It was cool and I was able to talk to the kids about shapes and colours and dolls houses :-) So to join the playdough I also have red paint on my trousers!!

Tonight my cell group are doing the catering for Alpha. I'm not entirely sure what we're making, but no doubt I'll end up with some of that on my trousers too!!

Life story work

2007-01-16T12:32:00.000Z

So lately I've been thinking a lot more about blogging and how it's a really good thing to do. I think if I blogged properly, I could type what's on my heart and it could be quite theraputic.

This morning I've done some studying and I've been reading and hearing about 'life story work'. It's a process carried out usually between a child and an adult. The child has normally been placed in care and is about to go into foster care, but this isn't always the case. Basically it's normally carried out with a child who has been separated from their birth parents for some reason. The work can take the form of a book, a photo album, a video etc etc. The child and adult work together piece-ing together parts of the child's life. Together they talk about what happened, try and gather information, revisit old places. Generally it conjures up a lot of emotion and helps the child to come to terms with what's happened in their life. And because it normally ends up as a book, the child has something concrete, something physical to look back on and it can also be helpful for foster parents to understand their foster child.

So there was a case study of a boy Jamie who with his social worker, Sophie made this life story book. He hasn't seen his mother since he was 5. He was placed in residential care by his father for stealing 36p and then placed in foster care. Jamie and Sophie visited Southend, where Jamie had lived in a flat with his dad and his new girlfriend and her children for a short while. They were able to go to the social services department and re-live the memories there. His foster mum gave him loads of photos of him and his foster brothers and sisters. Jamie and Sophie were able to piece together his life through photos, meeting people, visiting places etc. It was a difficult process, but has enabled Jamie to come to terms with what happened when he was separated from his birth family. Through this he has been able to re-establish contact with his sister too. A made-up case study I know, but this work really does go on; people really do make life story books and social workers often use this as a form of therapy.

Now I know I'm still with my birth parents and that I've not had to experience care or any trauma like that. But I was thinking how amazing it would be if I made a life story book. There's not any huge issues for me to untangle and piece together, but how amazing would it be for me to have a life story book? Take for example when I die (which at some point I will) family and friends around me won't necessarily know my whole life story, but how cool would it be for them to be able to find it out through a book I'd made. One thing picked up on in my reading this morning was that the process of a life story book never ends - even after Jamie and Sophie had made the book up to the present day, Jamie moved on from there and found a girlfriend and they had a baby - he has more he can record in his life story book.

So I might make a life story book. I was thinking about doing it on my blog, but actually I think I might make it in a ringbinder. Watch this space...

It reminds me of the devo book I've been reading - The Ransomed Heart. It's by John Eldredge (great man) and so far it's talked about how our life is a story and how God is part of that story and how we are part of bigger picture. Neat ey?

Thinking about my life story reminds me of a song called Lifesong by Casting Crowns:

Empty hands held high
Such small sacrifice
If not joined with my life
I sing in vain tonight

May the words I say
And the things I do
Make my lifesong sing
Bring a smile to You

Let my lifesong sing to You
Let my lifesong sing to You
I want to sign your name to the end of this day
Knowing that my heart was true
Let my lifesong sing to You

Lord, I give my life
A living sacrafice
To reach a world in need
To be Your hands and feet

So may the words I say
And the things I do make my lifesong sing
Bring a smile to you

Let my lifesong sing to You
Let my lifesong sing to You
I want to sign your name to the end of this day
Knowing that my heart was true
Let my lifesong sing to You

Hallelujah, hallelujah
Let my lifesong sing to You

When I re-affirmed my baptism vows in 2004 I had to give a testimony. A guy was filming it and then edited it later on and made a baptism film. The line he picked out to quote me on was "I wanna make God no. 1 in my life". That has kinda become my moto for life since then. Ok so it's fallen by the wayside sometimes, but ultimately it's still there and that's what I wanna do. So, lifesong is my prayer for today...

Lord, may my life be a beautiful song to you today and always.

Happy New Year!!!

2007-01-14T14:51:00.000Z

So I'm so bad at this blogging lark. One day I'll post regularly!! But until then, hello to all who read and a belated HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Vision

2006-12-09T14:55:00.000Z

Was sat in a tutorial this morning and there was a discussion going on about young people and how there isn't a lot to do for 14-18 year old in Croydon. Then my tutor told us about a project her mate started which has turned into a business. it's in yorkshire and basically they have a youth cafe and loads of projects the youth can get involved in -like boating and the like. Initially it was set up coz the crime rate was really high and the drug scene was getting way out of control. Now the youth are getting involved in this cafe and are helping to run it too and the crime and drugs have decreased.
Then I had this amazing vision that I could set up a youth cafe in Croydon with katherine. She's always wanted a coffee shop, so we could bake together and do coffee-ness and we could have an amazing youth cafe that loads of young people from croydon would come to and the whole of croydon could get transformed.
I know this is quite an out there idea, but I'm not gonna totally disregard it!

Oliver

2006-12-09T13:49:00.000Z

So I played in the musical Oliver at a local high school this week. We rehearsed on Sunday, dress rehearsal which was watched by some junior school kids was on Wednesday and we performed on Thurs and Fri. Tonight they're doing it again, but the lady I covered for is playing today. Wow, it was so fun. Before we did it I was really scared coz I've not done ANYTHING like that EVER before, but it was so fun. I found it really satisfying and fulfilling and it totally renewed my love for music. It's given me a bit of a dilemma... I met David Cox, they guy that conducts Croydon Symphonic Band and I've toyed with the idea of joining before now. He'd love me to join and i really wanna join, but it's on wednesdays and that's TnT night, so I totally don't know what to do! I so love music, it gives me such joy and peace and I really feel like I'm playing for God.
What to do....

Work

2006-11-09T17:40:00.000Z

Woooooo, so I totally haven't been on here forever!!!
What's happened? Well my studying is going well - I've now started and finished the first unit of block 2. There are 7 blocks in my module. I received back my first assignment with a nice 85% mark!! Unfortunately it's only worth 4% of my overall module result! I've written assignment 2 and that's worth more - can't remember how much though!! So it's all pretty hunky dory. This unit I finished today has been one of the more interesting ones! It was about environments, particularly homes, disabled environments and hospitals.

I got a job!! YAY!! Very exciting! It was totally outta the blue! When we were on Brownie Camp a wee while back, I was chatting to Claudine, one of my Brownies Mum's and she suggested I asked pre-school (who are loosely connected to my church - they meet in the hall and share the name!) if they had any vacancies. So I finally got round to it at the weekend and I got a call on Tueday asking if I'd be 'bank staff' - which basically means I go in whenever they need someone. And after Christmas I may get more work :-) Then I got a text a few hours after the phone conversation asking if I'd work on Wednesday. So I worked yesterday. It was fun. Most of the kids are lovely. So I basically spent the morning playing with them and it was cool. And we sang kiddies songs, which was funny coz then they got stuck in my head for the rest of the day!!

Tomorrow I go to Battle and spend the weekend with TnT. So I shall post more when I'm back! Have a good one...

Modules, Blocks, Units, Sections

2006-10-05T22:19:00.000+01:00

So I've not updated for a while. Well, I've finished my first unit of my course :-) That makes me really happy and excited! I'm enjoying it so much which is so fantastic coz I didn't think I would at all! At the end of this first unit we have to do a practise assignment, so I did that today. It was hard to start off with, but once I got into it I really enjoyed it. It makes me so happy that I'm enjoying this :-) It's weird how it all works, but basically the whole degree is made up of 6 modules. I do one module a year. This year the module is health and social care and it's broken down into 7 blocks. Each block has so many units and each unit has so many sections! Baffling I know! So basically I have to do a unit a week, but was allowed 2 weeks for the first unit. So unit 1 of block 1 is complete! Phewf! You follow all that?!

I had my hair cut on Saturday. That was cool coz the woman was REALLY lovely AND it was free coz my uncle won a voucher. And she cut it so wonderfully. I really like it :-) New hair makes me smile.

Alex and Katherine are back from Devon. Sounds like they had a cool time. I went round there tonight. It was really nice to spend some time with them.

So tomorrow I have a horrible meeting with someone I find very difficult, then it's creche for lifegroup and Brownies... fun fun fun!

The Wedding!

2006-09-24T17:26:00.000+01:00

So, yesterday was one of the most amazing days I've had in ages...
The big event was to take place at 3:30pm, so I got there at 2:30 so as to have time to run through the music with David, especially as we'd not played the Mendlessohn before. So we ran through both pieces - they were sounding good. Alex and all the groomsmen and the groomswoman arrived and the photographer - lots of photos, congregation started arriving, quite a lot of people there, but not quite as many as I expected. Lots of the older folk from St Mary's which I was really glad about.

Pam and Carla (the mums) came forward and lit a taper candle each on the altar. Then the bridesmaids and man of honor walked down the aisle to a CD. They looked stunning - they had black silk dresses with pink ribbon around the middle and a pink underlayer. They were beautiful. Then David and I started playing Gabriel's Oboe and George escorted Katherine down the aisle. Obviously at this point I was reading my music, so couldn't see K, but as soon as I'd finished I looked up and saw K looking the most beautiful and gorgeous I've ever seen her!

The service was so wonderful and deeply personal. Rach managed to get through her reading without crying - she was kinda worried about that. Other Paul prayed the most beautiful prayer over Zander and K. Then Christina (K's sister) read (she didn't make it through without crying, bless her) followed by John (Zander's dad) reading. Then Richard spoke. His 'sermon' was so personal and so amazing. He told of how they met at St Mary's and Alex was preaching on the reading John read (a passage in John about sheep) and their eyes met over communion and Mary Thomas introduced them etc etc. Then they exchanged vows and rings. This was a beautiful moment - after the official vows they'd both written personal ones... Alex was crying reading his and they were so so lovely, both of theirs. They lit a unity candle to symbolise the joining of the 2 families - that was wonderful. Then they took communion and signed the register - during the registration we watched a dvd of pictures of them both as they grew up, then pictures of them together, with the most gorgeous song in the background. It was so lovely.
Then they recessed to which David and I played the Mendlessohn Midsummer Night's Dream thing. It was cool

It was the most beautiful, romantic and gorgeous wedding. They are the perfect couple and are so made for each other. I had the most amazing sense that God's blessing would be upon them yesterday and it was and I know he'll be with them every step of the way.

Then the reception. That was cool - photos, mingling time - got chatting to Carla (K's mum) which was nice. Sat down to eat at 6:30. Was a help yourself buffet of international food - pretty damn good! The tables were funky - they had heart shaped confetti/sequin things and a photo of Alex and Katherine on each table, with jelly belly beans scattered across the table. And we had bread rolls and wine and champagne.

Then came the speeches - flip those Americans are emotional!! First came George's (K's Dad) and he was so choked and what he said came so much from his heart. His love for his daughter and for Alex was just so clearly displayed for us all. There weren't many dry eyes left in the room! His final words were gorgeous - he went (and I quote) "back to the reading in John where Jesus says "Feed my sheep" and Alex I ask you to take care of my little lamb". That melted my heart. Then John welcomed Katherine to the Shuttleworth family and gave her a box of pencils with Katherine Shuttleworth printed on them!!!!

Then I think came Alex. And he talked a lot about Katherine's beauty both on appearance and her inner beauty. He showed us a letter she'd written him on a continental airlines sick bag!!! His favourite bit was "seat occupied". He declared his love for her, which was so evident anyway and toasted to beauty. He shared his first meeting with Joe and how he'd threatened Alex with a huge knife and said if Alex hurt her he'd kill him!! Alex shared how the knife was a comfort seeing as he was locked in a bedroom with a huge homosexual!!!!! Then came Joe he started by saying he knew Alex & K were worried about what he might toast (at this point he pulls out a slice of toast!) and that what he said may be a bit corny (out he pulls a corn on the cob) and then carried on, correcting Alex's story in that they were in fact in the garden! And that he's threatened Alex in that way coz Katherine was like a sister to him. He talked about how we have 2 families - the natural, blood family - our chosen family and the family we chose for ourselves. Katherine is part of the family he's chosen for himself. And he welcomed Alex to his family as a brother.

Finally Si's (the best man) speech - he recoutned Alex's hideous hair a uni - Hugh Grant style!! And how they'd lived together for the best part of 10 years. He noted that although not a believer himself he could see that God was an integral part of their relationship and this God had clearly, together with each other, bought out the best in both Alex and Katherine. And he toasted the happy couple.

Si then declared the chocolate fountain open!!! And they cut the cake. Man Katherine made THE most lush sponge cake - boy it was SOOOOOO good! I went and spoke to Christina who was somewhat upset at the loss of her sister. She said how they had a spare room in California and told me I should go over there!!

The dancing began and even I was dragged onto the dance floor - I dunno how they did it, but Katy AND Nici AND Serona all managed to get me up there at different times! Was cool though and I danced with K. The happy couple left at about 10:40 and the clearing up kinda began. John came and threw his arms around me and was so glad I'd played a part in the day and he was just over the moon (he's so lovely!) Melissa (K's sister) was really upset. She was saying she's really sad and it hadn't sunk in until then that this is Katherine's home now and she's really gonna miss her. It must be so hard for those guys coz they're such a close family and California and Croydon are miles apart!!! I guess it'll just grow their relationship so much.

Everything ended around 11:15. We took some stuff back to church (speakers, left over cake and flowers) and then came home. Really struggled to sleep coz was still on a bit of a high, but hey!!

It really gives me hope - not all marriages are a shambles, some do work and some really do have God's blessing and that was so evident in Katherine and Zander's. Gosh I love those guys. Here's hoping they're having a fab time in Devon...

Wedding prep

2006-09-22T20:40:00.000+01:00

Don't panic it's not me - I'm NOT getting married! But Katherine is, tomorrow and it's so exciting. I'm so excited for her and Zander. It's gonna be beautiful. So, we've had some cool happenings leading up to it....

2 Saturdays ago we had the hen night. We went into town; first to a mexican restaurant, then to a pub, then to a bar/club. At each place Katherine was given a clue (so she could work out where we were going next) and some puzzle pieces (to make the puzzle as we went along). So we had some mighty fine mexican food - ooooh it was DELICIOUS! Then we had a drink and did kareoke in the pub (well K and Sarah sang Waterloo!) Which was followed by some more drinking and some dancing. There's some real sleezeballs in Croydon - one danced with K, so we formed a ring of protection around her with Joe (yes a bloke) on the outside with his arms folded! You've got to have met Joe to understand the affect he has! (Man I love that guy) The last clue led her to Zander and he had the final puzzle pieces :-)

Then 2 Wednesdays ago we had a bridal shower. It was grand. We had nibbles and drinks and lots of cakes. K LOVES to bake so she had lots of baking presents bought for her and we all bought our fave recipe to put in a book for her.

Then on Tuesday just gone I went round to pick some stuff up from their house and they invited me in. So I spent a good hour there, getting to know K's family (coz they're all over from America!) and we watched the DVD that's gonna be shown at the wedding. It was gorgeous!! Man those guys are so cute!

Then last night we had the rehearsal which was cool. Met the rest of K's family, her friends from New York and Zander's parents. Rehearsal went well. Then 16 of us bundled down to Planet Spice and had Indian! It was delicious. I sat with Joe and Chrissy and Will and Rach. I love K's family, they're all so amazing and lovely. They just chat away and love you as if you're part of the family. It was so special.

I'm so looking forward to tomorrow. Alex (Zander) and K are the cutest couple and I have an ENORMOUS sense of God's hand and blessing being totally upon them like I've never felt anything else like it before.
Will tell ya how tomorrow goes...

60th post!

2006-09-16T22:29:00.000+01:00

Ok so this thing really does need an update...
Here's a quick round-up of the summer... after our Jungle Jamboree holiday club at church I went off to Witney (well Standlake Ranch to be precise!) in Oxford for 6 nights with the Girl Crusaders' Union. We had 25 8-12 year old girls in 3 dorms and I was co-leader of one dorm. It was a really lovely week. Hannah and Rachel lead the camp and they're in the GCU 20's & 30's group, so I know them really well and they are SO lovely. It was really nice not to have any of the big names there!! The team was more or less the same as the Adcote team 2 years ago, so that was kinda cool. A good week all round!

I was back for a weekend and then went to NYC with my family. That was great. It was SO busy coz there's SO much to do there, but it was awesome. We did all the touristy things; Empire State, Macy's, Bloomingdales, The Met, Staten Island ferry past the Statue of Liberty, Ground Zero. Saw Beauty and the Beast on Broadway - it was awesome. Went to some great restaurants. My 2 faves were Bubba Gumps - the most amazing fish place (well shrimps mostly) and also Serendipity - just an all round swell place. I bought far too much - some T-Shirts, Hoodies, sweets, general souvenirs - all good!!

Was back for the best part of a week before heading off to Greenbelt @ Cheltenham racecourse. Went with Zoe and we managed to get there without getting lost. We shared a 4 man tent for the weekend - that was pretty neat and SO easy to put up! I did kids work for the weekend, so spent a lot of time with the workers on team, especially Phil & Chris and their girls - I met them at GB a few years back and we've stayed in touch and got quite close, so it was LOVELY to spend a whole weekend with them :-) Also met up with Deanne who's been on team previous years, but wasn't this year, so that was pretty cool. Although I was working I felt well relaxed and refreshed from it, I think coz I was just able to have a good time without having to think about what was coming next!! Zoe and I got spectacularly lost on the way home, but hey, such is life!!!

Then the following week my brother was in a show. So I was a chaperone in a dressing room for most evenings, which was cool as I'd met most of the girls last year. Then saw the show on the last night - it was awesome. I was such a proud sister - my bro was one of the Kaisercheifs (sp?) and the Pogues - he was so good!

Did a 5K - walked it, that was cool - so now I have my first ever medal!!

Then Mum & Dad went to Venice for 3 days, so I played Mum!!! Cooking, cleaning, ironing, washing - it was cool, but couldn't do it for life!! I think I could cope with just myself, but no family or anything please!!

Life's back to normal now... job hunting... course material has arrived... church is kinda busy... life is getting insane. But hey, we press on...

3 things

2006-09-05T23:30:00.000+01:00

So I stole this from Becky. This thing needs an update and I can't be bothered, so... without further ado...

3 things that scare me:
-not being able to see the floor
-big spiders
-being alone

3 people who make me laugh:
-rachel
-katherine
-zoe

3 things i love:
-hugs
-my friends
-percy pigs

3 things i hate:
-bananas
-peas
-adverts

3 things i don't understand:
-history
-medical stuff
-life

3 things on my floor:
-oboe
-bassoon
-cor anglais

3 things i want to do before i die:
-find a job (!)
-go to Australia
-ski

3 things i can do:
-play oboe
-read
-cook

3 ways to describe my personality:
-caring
-friendly
-organised

3 things i think you should listen to:
-classical music
-me
-old cheesy girl bands

3 things i don't think you should listen to:
-nu metal
-politicians!
-my Dad when he goes off on one

3 favorite foods:
-pasta
-cous cous
-cucumber

3 beverages i drink regularly:
-water
-apple juice
-tea

3 shows i watch:
-friends
-casualty
-neighbours

Jungle Jamboree

2006-07-29T11:01:00.000+01:00

Wow - we've just had the most amazing week at church. Holiday Club was so much fun. I never thought kids work could be so much fun. Well, actually, I guess I did, but really, it was so great! I was upfront with the vicar, which was kinda odd. I basically carried it and he was the one that didn't really know what was going on! Fantastic!
It was so amazing to see and hear the children responding to God. We had some open prayer times where we passed the microphone round the kids and it was so good to hear them speaking to God. Mmmmm, great times!

The Weekend

2006-07-25T11:54:00.000+01:00

Wow - I had the most amazing weekend. Left here at 9:50am on Saturday to pick up Dan and Rach to head off to the wedding, so we headed off. We hit the Brighton Road, the other side of Purley and flip was there traffic. It was madness. It's meant to take around 45 mins to get to Pyrford, but it took us 2 hours!!! The traffic was madness. They were doing gas works in Hooley, so we just got totally stuck. We were good folk though coz we text/phoned round everyone else and warned them. Praise God that we left so early though coz it meant we got to the church at 12:30, which gave Rach and I half an hour to change and then get into the church before Katy arrived!!!

The church was completely packed. It was wonderful. There's nothing nicer than a good Christian wedding. It was fantastic. Everyone sang the hymns really loudly and there was just so much joy. Katy and Stu both looked great - Stu scrubs up rather nicely in navy tails and Katy's white dress was simply gorgeous. Unfortunately it rained as Katy arrived and continued to rain throughout the service and when we left the church. But, praise God when we got to the reception it had stopped.

In between the service and the reception us St Mary's lot zipped over the the hotel we were staying in, to check in and re-do the hair that'd got frazzled! It was like a travel lodge, quite nice, ensuite etc. So then we got a cab to Painshill Park, where the reception was. Lovely lovely place.

The reception was in 'The Conservatory' - like a huge marquee, but really lovely, with proper floors and stuff. We were in a walled garden, which was very pretty. The photographer took photos for at least an hour, probably even more. We had a 'Croydon friends' photo, which was hilarious. We were by far the noisiest lot there! There were about 15 or so of us - maybe more - 12 from TnT plus Mark, then Richard and Anna, and Michael - ok so that makes 16!

We sat down for the meal at about 4:30/5 - I was on a table with Dan, Nana, Mark and then the curate, Neil and his wife, Helen, from Pyrford. Was cool. David and Leona were supposed to be on our table, but didn't come. We had like salady veg - carrot salad, rice salad, green bean and cherry tomato salad, and then I had a stuffed pepper and some veg - was yummy. We drank lots of champagne, and wine and water (!). Dessert was the wedding cake - mmmm chocolate - with a coulis and raspberries and a strawberry -yummyness! Then we had coffee too. We each had a little box wrapped with a ribbon saying 'Katy and Stuart 22nd July 2006' and inside was jelly bellys! :-)

The speeches were cool - Katy's Dad sang Katy's praises and talked about how wonderful K&S would be together. Stuart talked about his beautiful bride and how hard they'd had to work at their relationship. And Malcolm showed us an embarrasing photo of Stu and then sang his praises. It was all very lovely - lots of laughter and tears.

Their worship group turned into a jazz band for the afternoon, which was lovely. They had the first dance - can't remember the song - oopsy! Then we had a Kaylee in the evening - coz Stu's Dad is Scottish. That was hilarious and I really enjoyed it. I danced with Nana and then Paul H a bit later - was funky!

Stuart & Katy left about 10:30pm, then us Croydon mob left about 10:45. Stopped off at Sainsburys to stock up on liquid and got to the hotel about 11pm. We then all went into Nana's room and stayed there til about 1:30am. Chatted and laughed our socks off - good night! Then Nici and I stayed up chatting till about 2:30. Was cool.

And I got up at 7:30, left just after 8am and got back to Croydon in time to lead the All Age at St Mary's - all good! I stayed on the M25 until junction 5, so I didn't get stuck in the Hooley gas works this time.

Service was good. Richard got me up front and thanked me for all the work I've done this year as youth assistant. He asked me how I'd found it and for a highlight - which I decided was the youth concert. And he gave me a card and a £50 cheque. All good!

After church we turned the place into a jungle, ready for holiday club today. Was good fun mostly, but I just needed to chill out a little more. Was probably due to the fact I'd only had 4.5 hours sleep - all good really!

So... Holiday Club starts in approx 4 hours, so I'll be going off to have some lunch now...
Love to everyone who's reading!

Quick Catch Up!

2006-07-22T09:05:00.000+01:00

So I haven't blogged for over a month - whoopsy! Oh well!
What's happened in that time? Quite a lot actually... work has been so busy coz Holiday Club starts on Tuesday. I think we're nearly ready now, but a week ago I wouldn't have said that!!!
Stuart's now left me too, but praise God I'll see both him and Mark today coz it's Stuart and Katy's wedding - YAY! It's gonna be great coz there's loads of us going from St Mary's.
I took my bassoon exam, grade 7, the other week. I should hear the results of that kinda soon.

We had an interesting PCC meeting at church on Monday. I really feel they all need a wake up call/a slap round the face with a wet fish - anything like that! Talk about ye of little faith! I really do wonder whether they actually trust God at all sometimes! No, I'm sure they do, just not when it comes to strategic decision and money/the budget!! Fun times!

Well, I'll post again soon, but for now, it's time to get ready for the wedding :-)

Love

2006-06-20T12:14:00.000+01:00

A woman at church stood up and said this on Sunday....

When we are really loved by people, we realise they we are worth loving and when we love ourselves, we really know the love of God.

Personally, I've found that so true. When she said it, I got somewhat emotional because I realised that it was Mark and Ailsa that taught me how to love myself and they left on Sunday, so it was a bit of an overwhleming realisation, but praise God they taught me how to love myself coz now I really do believe in my heart and know that God loves me.

The end is nigh

2006-06-05T11:57:00.000+01:00

Well, today I had my last supervision with Mark for the year. Even though I don't finish until July 28, he leaves on June 18, so we tied up as much as we could today. We reflected on my year; highs/low/lessons/lessons about myself/God dimension/what I can take for the future. My it was so interesting and amazing. Like I know this year has been so full of ups and downs and lessons and God's just been amazing, but to have it all written down, well not even all of it, on a piece of paper in front of you is just amazing. I was overcome with awe. So I wanted to share some things...

Lessons:

Don't try and organise transport for TnT!!!
Phoning people really isn't that bad
Deal with difficult situations face to face
Practise giving talks no matter how long they are
Take time out just to listen to God
Lots of people don't need to know everything
TnT needs working at when it gets difficult, not running away from

Lessons about myself:

Big events are spiritually and emotionally exhausting
I need to engage in Bible study in order to let God speak
Bible study isn't about me, look outwards
Be more assertive!
Buying clothes doesn't solve emotional pain!!
I'm not very good at responding to things I don't want to hear e.g. uni advice from Mark & Bish Nick
Congruence is so important - what we say must match what we're thinking, what we're feeling and what we're doing

God dimension:

Keep on trusting - He won't give up on me (my hip)
If God's not saying something specific for you to do, concentrate on obeying his word
God does actually heal (Dom's sister at Spring Harvest)
Spending time with God each morning really does help the day ahead
God really has changed me e.g. self harm

Mindset it everything - don't let yesterday get in the way of tomorrow

I'm still in awe of all God's done. What an amazing year! And it's not even over yet!

BBC

2006-05-30T21:54:00.001+01:00

So today I went with Dad on a tour of BBC Television Centre. It was well cool! They have security like in airports and prisons which made me smile. I didn't beep though.
We got to see most of the studios and we got to hear Nelly Fertado live coz she was being filmed for 'Later with Jools Holland'. Was very funky.
I got a bit excited coz I bought a BBC cake cookbook. I'm well into making cakes at the moment and was running out of new cakes to make for Dad's cell. Now I have 101 new recipes - wooo! Fun times!
So that was my day - all very funky.
Tomorrow - work.

My loopy Brownies

2006-05-26T22:49:00.003+01:00

We played a game at Brownies tonight. You know the one where you say 'I went shopping and I bought a ....' and the next person then has to say 'I went shopping and I bought a ... and then add something else' etc. You know the one?
Well tonight, my Brownies went to Tesco and they bought 'a loaf of bread, some plates, a pair of shoes, a cuddly bunny, cling film, a pony (!), a lemur (!), a banana, a chair, an advacado, a chicken, a toy car, a paramedic (!), some ice lollies, a shop assistant (!), a church (!), an elephant (!), a carrot which was then changed to some chocolate, a cucumber and 2 other things which I've forgotten!
My goodness, they were all something else tonight!

The House...

2006-05-09T22:57:00.000+01:00

...of Tiny Tearaways

Ok, so I am officially completely ADDICTED to this TV programme. If you don't know what it is, why not?! Go watch it - BBC3 8pm Sun-Fri.

So, what is it? Well 3 families are put in a house. Each family has a child with some kind of problem; eating, sleeping, temper, speech etc. In the house is also the clinical psychologist (sp?) dr Tanya Byron.

It's all Mum's fault I started watching it. One evening she watched it, this was series 2, week 2. Then I watched it the next evening and got hooked. Somehow I then saw the first series through repeats and now I even missed cell group tonight to watch it. And yes we do have a video recorder!!

So yes it's wonderful. During the week these families are in the house dr Tanya works with the parents and the child(ren) to try and solve the problem. Often it's mostly the parents fault and they're often carrying a lot of emotional baggage.

It's interesting coz I think to me, it really emphasises the need for people to deal with issues in their lives, to seek help, to talk things over, to see a counsellor even. Dr Tanya is so great with them. She always has the right words and is fantastic at identifying things and spelling them out, but not in a rude or in your face kind of way. She also has a lot of love towards the parents and it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy to see the way she shows this.

I guess it reminds me that this world isn't all doom and gloom. Even though the world is fairly broken, there are still good people out there, there is still love and there is most certainly still hope.

Praise God for this!

A few thoughts...

2006-05-07T16:03:00.000+01:00

I know I'm not a very regular blogger, but here's a few updates...

Tried out an orchestra in Orpington this week - it was fun
I officially LOVE playing my bassoon
I'm now a clothes size 14 - 2 sizes smaller than this time last year :-)
Last night I had a night in - I watched 50 first dates - thanks Katherine - I'd forgotten just how much I really do love that film!
Today I have to play keyboard at church - I don't like playing keyboard
On Wednesday I go back to see the specialist about my hip - I hope he can fix it
I got a veggie cook book for my birthday - I'm really excited about using it
I need to hear more sermons, I'm never in church for them any more
I feel so great!

So....

2006-04-27T17:22:00.000+01:00

So, these past couple of months the whole world has been asking
me what I'm gonna do in september, so...

As I dwellt in the concept of uni more and the course itself I
became less and less convinced about it. I have no problem with
moving out of home, but I think the studying would be quite
hard. My heart was no longer in the course, so I rejected both
places at uni.

I then came across a course run by the OU in childhood and youth
studies. So after much prayer and discussion with a close friend
and my parents, I've decided this would be a good option. So I've
applied for this and am awaiting the final confirmation in a few
weeks time. It will take me 6 years to do the degree. I'll be
studying one module a year, for 9 months of each year, with about
16 hours of study each week. Alongside that I hope to get some
work in schools, either as a teaching assistant or an individual
support assistant. During these 6 years, I will continue my
involvement at St M's and also supporting Eleanor in GCU. I will
also spend this time trying to discern whether full time ministry
or full time childrens ministry is where God wants me, as
currently I feel this may be where he's calling me. So that's my
6-7 year plan!

So, that's all very exciting!
Tomorrow I leave my teenage years behind me. I'm gonna be 20!!
Wooo! Not doing anything majorly exciting! Going to a random
founders day service for my old school, which is kinda groovy!
Then doing creche and Brownies. And in the evening I'm gonna
get a pizza and a DVD and chill out with the family.
Good times!

No warm fuzziness

2006-04-16T13:27:00.000+01:00

So, it's Easter Sunday - woo hoo! Yup, that's right, I was being sarcastic.

So, Jesus is alive, Jesus rose from the dead, Jesus has been resurrected. Sure, that's sweet, but I'm not feeling at all warm and fuzzy about that. I walked into church this morning and everyone's all excited, hugging each other, saying happy easter; there's a general buzz and a sense of joy. Our twice a year church goers make their easter appearance, our easter only church goers make their's too.

But, amidst it all, there's no warm fuzziness in my heart. Wait a minute you say, this should be the most exciting day of any Christian's year; Jesus rose from the dead, which means all our sins are forgiven through his death on the cross and we can have eternal life with him.

Sure this is cool, but I'm just not feeling it. Don't get me wrong; it's awesome that Jesus rose from the dead, there is so much hope in that. I realise that without Jesus, without his death and resurrection my life wouldn't be worth living. And I take comfort in that and it's awesome news and such an act of sacrifice that I couldn't even begin to imagine how it felt, but it just doesn't get me all warm and fuzzy inside. I don't get excited, I don't want to stuff my face with chocolate that relatives give you because it's easter. What is Easter? It's a celebration of Jesus' death and resurrection. And through that we hav new life in Jesus. But why wouldn't you celebrate it if you don't believe it. Ok, so maybe you believe it, but don't believe in it. So why give easter eggs? Why get drawn into the consumerism? It's so stupid!

I know this all sounds so wrong. Surely I shouldn't feel like this especially as a church worker. But I do and I have to deal with it and if you're reading, go ahead, comment!

This Easter time...

2006-04-14T13:10:00.000+01:00

So, it's that time of year again. Unsurprisingly churches get busy places at this time of year, so I've been a busy bunny this week. But praise God for some time off starting Monday!
So, what have I been up to?

Wednesday evening was cool; TNT1, TNT2, Steakhouse, House and our associate students all went bowling. So there were about 25 of us and we had 4 lanes. It was mighty hilarious. IJ thought it'd be a good idea to talk all the way down her lan, stand about a foot away from the pins and try to cheat. More fool her; she still missed! That was funny, until Sean decided to do the same and then we had security onto us. These Christians ey?!

Yesterday should have been a day off, but I worked. Then in the evening there was a passover supper at church. I've never been to one of these before, so I went. It was cool... we did like 3 blessings for the wine (or grape juice in my case!) then we had 'bitter herbs', which was lettuce dipped in red wine vinegar and then we had matzos (unleavened bread) and lamb soup (or vegetable for us veggies). Then we shared communion together which was groovy. I sat with David and Lindsey and Ailsa.

Today, we had our All Age worship this morning; was kinda cool. Then we did our walk of witness and reinactment of the crucifixion in town. Flip did it rain. I made the mistake of wearing jeans that were way too long for me and suede trainers. Needless to say my legs and feet were soaking! I always find the reinactment kinda odd. I've seen it so many times it almost seems just like a show. Although it was brought home a bit more today; I was standing with Mark and he decided to join in by shouting 'crucify him'. That didn't sit well with me; initially it made me jump, then it just made me feel bad! On reflection, technically he was doing the right thing coz the crowd were shouting crucify him coz they didn't like him. I guess it's just coz I'm watching it as a Christian who loves Jesus, so I find it hard to then think about shouting 'crucify him'! With all the rain though and Andy on the cross (as Jesus) wearing a pair of boxers, a loin cloth and lots of make up (!) it made me realise more of what Jesus went through... We don't know what the weather was like when he was crucified!

The Bible doesn't talk about the weather much does it?!

So, this afternoon the relatives come over. Don't know how that will be. No doubt the TV will be on and they'll all fall asleep! That's what normally happens. Maybe I'll do some work!!!!

Spring Harvest!

2006-04-07T20:21:00.000+01:00

So, Becky wants to know what happened. And for anyone else interested....

Spring Harvest.... So, sure I went last saturday. I was proper excited for 3 reasons; firstly some time away from Croydon and my church, secondly a chance to do the same work as I normally do, but in a different place with different people who have different ideas and thirdly a chance to see some of the folk I met when I went last year; all good! So it was really exciting.

Day 1 was just registration for the kids and then we had a team meeting etc.

Day 2 was our first day with the kids; all good; got to know them a bit, got to know more of the team etc.

Day 3; first exciting day; L's Dad came in and told us that D's sister had been rushed into hospital with poison pouring from her head, had seen 7 drs and none of them could help (ok so you're thinking that's not exciting) well, the dad asked our venue leader if we could pray for M, so she suggested J & I took our group to 'the prayerzone', which was a little gazebo for the kids to pray in. So we went in there and each child took a post it note and wrote a prayer on there. Then I passed round a glue stick and when a child had it, they could pray if they wanted. Many of them did. Was exciting to see so many of them responding to God.

Day 4; D & L came running in; M's out of hospital and she's ok. Praise the Lord! So L tells me about his dad's ear and how it's all blocked up and saw etc. So during the songs, L, D & myself go and do the post it and prayer thing.

Day 5; L comes in; Dad's ear's better! Praise the Lord! L & D were so excited that God is a healer and that he hears and answers our prayers. Was so lovely.

Day 6 was kinda cute; J (my co-worker) and I got bought 3 lots of chocolates each & a bracelet each. We also each got a card from B which said " Thank you for sharing God's love with me". That just melted my heart. Now I know that chocolates and gifts aren't the way to measure love, but it sure made us feel loved! Then at the end L's mum was telling us how much she appreciated it and how her & D's mum had brought 10/11 foster children with them and they'd all had the best week of their lives. Then she went on to say how the 2 boys had seemed to have the best time of all of the kids. And when they filled in the parent evaluation form she asked them what they'd change about their group and they said 'nothing it was perfect'. By this point she was in tears and hugging me. It was so gorgeous. There are so many other examples of how God worked and moved, but that's enough! It was so wonderful!

I went to a groovy seminar about guidance and another one about prayer. I felt really challenged to sort out my prayer time with God and become a prayer warrior. The guidance one was cool (although it didn't really help me much!); I was challenged by something the woman said; she said that sometimes God has something specific he wants us to do and sometimes he doesn't. And in the times there's not anything specific for us to do, we shouldn't worry about what we should be doing, but instead we should try and follow the other guidance he's left for us in the Bible. That was cool.

The other thing I really liked.... we were put into these groups called 'care groups' and at the end of the week, our care group leader awarded us all certificates and mine was 'Star of the week for Green ladders prayer co-ordinator' (green ladders was my group btw) And that made me smile lots coz I dunno, it just did!

So I had a great week. I went to hear Andy Flan and Lou Fellingham in concert. I also went to some hench Hillsongs worship evening; that was amazing.

Man it was so great; God is so good!

I'm back

2006-04-06T22:06:00.000+01:00

Read above! Will post more tomorrow or sometime!

I'm off

2006-03-31T22:58:00.000+01:00

Hey to all who read this. I'm off to Spring Harvest tomorrow until Thursday, so will tell you all about it when I get back! Have good weeks and say hello if you're reading!
xxx

Service

2006-03-31T11:36:00.000+01:00

Was reading again last night... I'm reading Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster. It's a really cool book actually. My church are reading Rick Warren's Purpose Driven Life, but I thought I'd really CoD this lent. It's bizarre though because up until yesterday, nothing had really challenged me.

So I was reading the chapter about The Discipline of Service and it was talking about the differences between self-righteous service and true service. So I read a couple of sentences that went something like this... Self-righteous service seeks approval. It needs to know that it has been worthwhile and appreciated. True service does not mind whether it has been appreciated. It is content in being hidden.

I was so struck by that. People are often telling me how much of a servant's heart I have and how they aspire to follow my example. Sure, I do serve quite a lot, but what does my heart look like? Those sentences weren't the only ones to describe the 2 types of service, but they struck me.
When I do things for people I like to be acknowledged, to have someone say thank you. And if that doesn't happen, sometimes I do get a little frustrated or something in my heart wonders whether what I did was worth it. But, I shouldn't be like that should I?

My gut reaction to those sentences was 'but it's only natural to feel like you want appreciation. I'm sure everyone feels that way'. But maybe they don't. Do you? So what am I supposed to do? Never expect any thanks? Not care whether people know what I've done or what?
It seems odd, maybe that's the way it's meant to be. Any thoughts?
I shall go and dwell on this for a bit!

Princesses

2006-03-30T10:45:00.000+01:00

I was reading this neat little book last night. It's designed for women either to work through together or alone and it's pretty neat.
I read the prologue last night and it was about a Dad calling his daughter a princess and as it went on and the girl grew to become a woman, she turned to faith because of this unconditional love she felt when she'd been called a princess as a child. It's a pretty cool story and I don't tell it very well, but let's face it, how many converts to Christianity are we going to get by going round and telling women they're princesses? My guess is not many.
I was struck by this book though and it helped me to remember how much God loves me and how important I am in his eyes. And I liked that.
In God's eyes I am a princess, I am a somebody and he loves me. Mmmmm. It reminded me of a conversation I heard between 2 sisters a few weeks back. It went like this...
Claire: Oh, I'm so rubbish at colouring.
Emma: Claire, you can't say that coz if you're rubbish at it, that means you think God is rubbish.
Claire: What? What are you talking about?
Emma: God let you be able to colour, so if you think you're rubbish at it, that means you think what God's has let you do is rubbish and you think he is rubbish.

When I heard those girls a few weeks ago I was struck by it. Now, I'm not one to like the way I look, but by saying I'm not happy about it I am in a sense saying I don't like how God created me. Mmmm, now there's some food for thought...

***

And with that, it's time for my bone scan.... The department of nuclear medicine here I come!

Newsflash

2006-03-29T14:02:00.000+01:00

I no longer feel like a pressure cooker. Guess why?

I got some awesome news today.....

Alex and Katherine are getting married! Woooo! How exciting is that?! It made my day :-)

Boring me!

2006-03-27T23:25:00.000+01:00

So yet again this place is in serious need of an update! One day I might actually have something interesting to say on this blog, but until then, I'll just waffle!
Hmmm, so I have a concert for band on Weds. That should be fun.
Feeling like a pressure cooker right now. Time for bed!

Inspired

2006-03-08T18:50:00.000Z

So excited yesterday... CMS produced a DVD of South Africa Tour and I got my copy yesterday. Watched it this afternoon and it brought back many many happy memories! I felt all inspired and blessed again. Was so wonderful. I miss Kate and Jacqui though!
Oh, such good times!

My week

2006-03-03T10:42:00.000Z

So I have a bunch of work I need to get done today, but right now I'm not feeling to go and get dressed and start the work! Whoopsy!

So this week's been pretty cool... on Mon after a 2 hour prayer/supervision with Mark I went to Selsdon Bap to meet a bunch of youthworkers. It was really cool to meet them and hear where they're all at with their youth. Then I had band and a holiday meeting. I think I was a bit too talkative at the meeting, maybe I was just too excited! We've chosen something to do with a Jungle as our material for this summer. I'm well excited and am really looking forward to being upfront. It's gonna rock!

On Tues Ali was down from Cardiff for the day coz her uni (RWCMD) was doing a concert near home, so I went and met her, rushed back to her house before the concert so she could check out her new bathroom and went back to the concert. I stayed and watched the concert which was really cool. It makes such a difference to hear a string section that can actually play. It was a cool concert; they played a selection of stuff from Fantasia.

On Wed I got up late, helped at parent and toddler in the afternoon which was cool coz Jane was there, so that meant I could talk to her a bit. It's gettting better now coz that's the 3rd or 4th time I've done it, so I'm getting to know the names of some parents and children and don't feel like such a wally! In the evening I had to help with Alpha catering again as the group couldn't serve, except they could serve, but didn't stay and wash up, which kinda annoyed me, but such is life!

Yesterday was a cool day... despite the cold I've been fighting all week coming out, I did a few cool things... I had to speak at the over 60's fellowship. I spoke to them about some of my experiences in South Africa and told them of how God spoke to me whilst I was out there. That was cool. They really enjoyed it and I'd taken some photos and it was generally very cool. Then I had a bassoon lesson, which is always great fun!

Today, well, I'm due to do creche for Ailsa's cell. Other than that, I've got to do some Child Protection admin and sort out the rest of the Informal song files! Then tonight it's Brownies and we're having a dinner & dance. Pippa and Mark are coming to judge. It should be great!
And with that thought, I should probably go and get dressed!

Those oh so wonderful questionaires...

2006-02-16T21:48:00.000Z

So, I got bored of watching the Brits!!!! Here's one of those fun questionaires!

1. WHAT COLOUR ARE YOUR KITCHEN PLATES? white with green leaves around the edge

2. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING RIGHT NOW? Cafe Theology by Michael Lloyd

3. WHAT IS ON YOUR MOUSE PAD? my dad (!) yes I know that's sad!

4. FAVORITE BOARD GAME? Articulate - oooooh it's such a laugh "Elephant" - shouts Stu!

5. FAVORITE MAGAZINES? Good Food

6. FAVORITE SMELL? I dunno! Baking cakes maybe

7. LEAST FAVORITE SMELLS? banana

8. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU THINK OF WHEN YOU WAKE UP IN THE MORNING? nooooooooo, morning already?!

9. FAVOURITE COLOR? Pink and purple

10. LEAST FAVORITE COLOR? yellow

11. NUMBER OF RINGS BEFORE YOU ANSWER THE PHONE? depends how far from the phone I am!

12. FUTURE CHILD'S NAME? Children?! You are joking! But I do love the names Luke & Sophie

13. MOST IMPORTANT THING IN LIFE? feeling loved and accepted

14. DO YOU LIKE TO DRIVE FAST? absolutely! oh the adrenaline

15. DO YOU FALL ASLEEP WITH THE TV ON? yeah a fair bit!

16. STORMS - COOL OR SCARY? cool to watch, scary to be in

17. WHAT TYPE WAS YOUR FIRST CAR? SECOND CAR? still have my first, it's a peugot 106

18. If YOU COULD MEET ONE PERSON DEAD OR ALIVE? Dr Tanya Byron; isn't she just amazing?!

20. WHAT IS YOUR SIGN & YOUR BIRTHDAY? taurus, 28 april; so send me a card!!

21. DO YOU EAT THE STEMS OF BROCCOLI? who doesn't?!

22. IF YOU COULD HAVE ANY JOB WHAT WOULD IT BE? dunno, perhaps a pastor or a counsellor or a pyschologist

23. IF YOU COULD HAVE ANY COLOR HAIR, WHAT WOULD IT BE? i dunno

24. HAVE YOU EVER BEEN IN LOVE? No way

25. FAVORITE MOVIE? Billy Elliot

26. DO YOU TYPE WITH YOUR FINGERS ON THE RIGHT KEYS? of course

27. WHAT'S UNDER YOUR BED? bassoon, cor anglais, shoes, trainers, slippers, trivial persuit, letters, my bin, who knows what else!

28 WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE NUMBER? don't have one

28 FAVORITE SPORT TO WATCH? tennis

29. WHAT IS YOUR SINGLE BIGGEST FEAR? failing

30. SAY ONE NICE THING ABOUT THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU. Pippa is cool. She was my french buddy and makes me chuckle!

31. PERSON MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND? n/a

32. WHO IS LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND? n/a

33. FAVORITE CD? impossibly beautiful by note for a child

34. FAVORITE TV SHOWS? neighbours, casualty, house of tiny tearaways

36. KETCHUP OR MUSTARD? neither, they're nasty

37. HAMBURGERS OR HOT DOGS? neither I'm a veggie

38. FAVORITE SOFT DRINK? water

39. THE BEST PLACES YOU HAVE EVER BEEN? South Africa oh it's beautiful, Kos, Corfu, Gran Canaria

40. WHAT SCREEN SAVER IS ON YOUR COMPUTER RIGHT NOW? picture of my friends

41. McDonalds OR BURGER KING? neither, they're both horrible

42. PALM TREES OR PINE TREES? palm trees coz that means sun!

43. GERANIUMS OR JASMINE? who?!

Random selection of thoughts

2006-02-15T15:24:00.000Z

What I have learnt today - your entire view of someone can totally change simply by spending time with them

What I have eaten today - cheese & breadsticks, peach & mango, truffle cake

Habit I want to change - eat good food

Places I may be going today - Alpha Catering tonight!

Main issue today - so much to do, can't decide what to do when!

Things I am proud of today - errrr nothing I don't think!

Music I want to listen to today - mmm, there's a vineyard cd I really really wanna hear!

Information I have stored in my head now - errrr the keys of loads of Christian music

Things I look forward to - Spring Harvest - wooooooo! Seeing Katherine, seeing Alex

Bible verse I thought of today - romans 8 - good stuff!

People I miss today - the Powleys, Katherine, Chris

Places I would like to travel - South Africa again! And New York!

You know you're loved when...

2006-02-08T19:15:00.000Z

... old ladies tell you you're looking good
... old ladies ask if you're losing weight
... someone sends you an encourgaing text about something you said to them a few days back
... someone send you a sweet text at 4am in the morning
... someone you barely know asks you for crucial advice
... you feel good and there's no real reason for it!

So people do read here!

2006-01-23T21:48:00.000Z

So, people read, lets give people something to read!
So what's going on with me right now... I guess I'm trying to make some major decisions about my life; whether to go to Canterbury or Chichester and study music with theology or whether to apply to Bible college or what to do. It's all a bit nuts! Hmmmph.
Other than that, church work is going grand. Got a few little projects that I'm dealing with and all's pretty dandy.
I don't really have anything interesting to say. Maybe one day I will, so until then....
take care y'all!

In need of an update

2006-01-21T23:47:00.000Z

Hey folks, I know this place is in SERIOUS need of an update. Our computer was down over Christmas, then I forgot my username/password, and only just recovered it! Will blog soon, but I'm not convinced anyone reads this. If you do, please say hello!
xXx

Glimpses of some place else

2005-11-23T11:56:00.000Z

Mmmm, so I haven't blogged for SO long. Oopsy!
I must get the urge to blog everytime I go into Addiscombe High street, coz I'd been there just before I blogged last time!
Anywho, yeah, today's given me a real snap shot/glimpse of some other places. I was in school this morning, I did 2 assemblies with the boss; one secondary, one primary. After the secondary we had a 'meeting' with the Headteacher and we got a glimpse of life in his shoes. Was a real eye opener. Then in the primary, at the end some of the kids were waving and saying bye. I thought about it for a second and it took me back to south africa, the friendliness and love of the black kids and guess what? These 2 kids this morning were black!
Yeah, so I've figured I've glimpsed a lot recently... watched the 'Take That' documentry last week and was actually really moved by what Robbie Williams said about giving anything to swap his life for Gary Barlow's (he has wife & kids). Mmm, he needs loving!
So there's my bunch of random thoughts....

You know...

2005-11-04T13:05:00.000Z

You know you're missing South Africa when...
... you see a bag of sweets and immediately think it could be biltong
... you're still thinking about what you did this time last week
... you still have all the concert pieces floating around in your head
... you wake up and expect to be sharing a room with 2 other people
... you walk round the corner and half expect to see half of Croydon Music Service
... you get excited at the prospect of seeing anyone from tour
... you can't wait for the post tour concert
... you miss eating ostrich meat despite being vegetarian
... you look at the chocolate in shops half expecting to see 'astros' and 'tempo bars'
... you're already looking at flight prices for next summer
... your head is clearly still out there from October half term
... your heart is clearly out there in August next year

South Africa Diary - Uncut!

2005-10-31T23:18:00.000Z

South Africa Tour 2005

Wednesday 19th October
Travelled to Heathrow, spent a good 5 hours there chilling, drinking coffee and the like. Commenced the LONG flight to Johannesburg!

Thursday 20th October
Landed in Jo’burg after a LONG, claustrophobic, hot and sweaty flight! Went on a coach tour around Alexandra. The houses were all on top of each other; very small and shabbily put together. Up to 10 people would live in one of these ‘houses’. It was a real shock to see the conditions this community were living in, but I was comforted to see the amount of churches there were. One church struck me; it was fenced off with barbed wire, and covered with tarpaulin, there was then a large open area with many chairs inside; we were told a service here would last up to 5 hours, comprising of 2 hours of praise and worship, a 2 hour sermon (as the preacher generally got excited and had lots to share) followed by a further hour of worship. The congregation would then go and have lunch all together as a community.

We then flew onto Port Elizabeth, which was a fairly pleasant and short flight. On arrival in PE we were met with much wind, which came as a shock to the majority of us. We checked into the Formula 1 hotel, only to find that each room comprised of a double bed and a bunk, which everyone was highly unimpressed by! In the evening we ate in Spur; a chain of Steakhouses in South Africa.

Friday 21st October
An early start on our first morning, with an outreach concert at Chatty. We were all fairly tired and didn’t really know how the morning would work, so we took it in our stride. It was a good concert, followed by the children from all the different schools singing the South African national anthem to us, which was really moving.

We then went on to Addo National Park, where we looked high and low for elephants. We saw many tortoises, warthogs, kudu, antelope and deer, which a few elephants and much elephant dung along the way. By the end of the 3 hours in our coach, Beckie, Mike I had moved to sit right by the windscreen (as the layout of SA coaches are different), which was much more comfortable and amusing as we’d have been arrested if we’d done that in this country! During this time Beckie and I had a really interesting conversation with Jim about his time with the RPO and CMS. We talked about orchestras and their conductors and he really inspired me to get more involved in music locally.

We ate dinner at Addo and celebrated Veronica’s 18th birthday with a good old CMS sing song! We then returned to F1, with a short pee stop, in a bush, for Beckie on the way back!

Saturday 22nd October
We spent the morning at the Boardwalk shopping mall. The majority of this time was spent in a music shop, where a Scottish guy and 2 Jamaicans taught us lot how to African drum and play the hose pipe. It was a really good experience. 12 of us then had a Chinese for lunch and took a stroll along the pier at PE.

We then travelled to the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University where our first formal concert was to take place. We rehearsed, ate pizza and gave our first concert. It was a great experience which was also shared with the University’s brass quintet and French horn ensemble.

Sunday 23rd October
Another early start, where we commenced our journey to Kleinplaas by coach. We drove through many mountains and other beautiful landscapes. With a ‘Beckie stop’ en route! We stopped for a picnic lunch by a huge gorge and then went onto Kleinplaas.

On arrival at Kleinplaas we checked into the resort, this time to find we were in a chalet/little house for the night, consisting of a double room, a twin room and 2 single beds in the living room. We had a patio, driveway, kettle, fridge, oven, TV etc – very novel compared to F1! Kate and Claire joined us in our house, but we hardly knew they were there. Most people went for a swim, but Catherine and I drank tea and sat by the pool – the weather was SO good!

We then took a trip to Cango Ostrich Farm, where we met a baby ostrich, saw some ostrich eggs hatching, some got to kiss Linda, by holding food in between their lips and Linda going round and eating it and then 6 people got to ride on an ostrich. It looked SO scary! We ate at the farm and it consisted of ostrich meat and rice. It was SO good, mmmm I love ostrich!

In the evening we returned to Kleinplaas where Catherine, Mike and I had a quite night in, errrmmm, or you could say quite a noisy, giggly night in, where we drank more tea and ate lots of chocolate! We were then joined by a rather drunk Beckie who shouted at Simon from our door that he was horrible and she was gonna give him evils (!) and then Jacqui came to take Mike away otherwise he would have yet again been the last boy in a girls room!

Monday 24th October
Nothing like some scrambled ostrich egg to start off the day! Mmmm it was SO good! Bronia and Julia had bought it at the farm and then got up to cook it for us; they’re so good! After a wonderful breakfast, we departed Kleinplaas for the Cango Caves, with many hung-over students including Simon who later showed us what he’d been drinking! I chose to do the standard cave tour; wise move, as I later found out the others had to climb, crawl, get stuck in small places and in some cases get completely lost and separated from their group, mentioning no names, Bronia, Dave!

We had a quick lunch at the caves, which was SO nice and then went on to a farm thing, where I rode a camel and laughed at the staff riding camels and going on the Foofie-Slide (the SA equivalent of a zip wire). Dirkie, our coach driver was particularly amusing to watch and I'm led to believe that Kate caught him on camera! Whilst there we saw a beautiful yellow bird, at which point Kate and I burst into song and laughed lots. Neither of us had ever seen a yellow bird before!
When the second coach joined us we departed for Cape Town, which was to be quite a journey. We eventually got to the waterfront at 10 and were taken by Dirkie and Soli to the Sports Café, where we had a rather disastrous dinner! Then we checked into the F1 and slept like logs!

Tuesday 25th October
After a continental breakfast, or simply fruity tea in my case, we headed back to the waterfront, where we caught a ferry to Robben Island. After a 45 minute rocky journey of most of the tour feeling rather rough and looking very green in some cases we arrived on the island. This wasn’t a great morning; we were taken round a prison by an ex-convict; they do all the tours. The conditions were appalling; I felt awful walking round it. The guy told us many stories, showed us where everything took place and showed us Nelson Mandela’s cell. Many took photos, but my camera stayed securely in my bag! We were then taken on a bus tour around the island, where we were shown some of the quarries the prisoners worked in and a rock pile Nelson Mandela started when he was there.

We then took the ferry back, had a pancake lunch (mmm, so good!) and went to the cable car station. By this point Pav was looking and feeling really rough, so he slept on the coach while the rest of us took the cable car up the mountain. Wow, it was amazing. Very windy and very cold, but the views were stunning. I walked round with Beckie and Bronia, which was rather amusing as Beckie had worn a skirt and it kept blowing right up, so she had to walk around with my jumper tied round her arse! Very amusing! After mooching around up the mountain, taking some pictures, Simon attempting to take a ‘Tour photo’ of everyone and seeing a dassie (a large guinea pig!) we went back down and headed back to the waterfront for a shop and some dinner.

Beckie, Catherine, Mike and I did the ‘tour staff shop’, which proved to be harder than expected as Bronia, Kate and Julia were following us around the Red Shed and the Blue Shed was shut, which wasn’t so great! But we managed to get 8/10 presents that evening, so we were pleased! We then had a Spur dinner, which was all good! We then went back to the hotel and slept!

Wednesday 26th October
We spent most of the day on a coach again! We did the Chapman’s peak drive, which was really pretty, attempted to whale watch, but didn’t really get anywhere. We stopped off for a coffee and a quick market shop where we got the remaining 2 staff presents and then had a picnic lunch randomly in the peninsula somewhere! We then went up to Cape Point where the views were totally stunning! During the drive back down through Simon’s Town Kate and I were talking about my future, which was rather cool! We talked about music degrees and the like! I don’t even know how the conversation started, but it was really cool. She’s knows me fairly well and what I'm like etc, so she gave me some options of places to look into/at. And we talked about orchestras and ensembles and it was all good!

On the way back from there we went to a Scratch Patch, where Graeme paid for us all to fill a bag with gem stones. It was a strange experience as no-one really wanted to do it, yet a whole bunch of students filled their pockets, bras, hats and even condoms full of these things. Back on the coach, the staff found out about this and went ballistic. Jacqui collected in 4 500ml and 1 1.5 litre bottles full of these gem stones!

We then went to a beach where we watched the sun set, it was SO beautiful! Nathanael decided he’d take things one step further and go for a swim in his boxers! He got in SO much trouble; wasn’t allowed out of Graeme’s site for the rest of the night, which was rather amusing for us all! And then I went to ‘The Grill’, another Steakhouse, with Hattie, Evie and Emily and had a gorgeous chicken burger for dinner.

Thursday 27th October
Another early start with a concert at Silversands. We were warned this one would be a bit different as the school was in a run down area, the drum kit was broken and the keyboard adapter stolen, so CMS paid for a new adapter and the keyboard to be fixed, so that we could use it and then leave a little something with the school afterwards. We were also told there weren’t going to be any music stands. Our initial reaction ‘How bad is this concert gonna be?’

When we got there all the children were singing. It took me a while to work out what they were singing about, but when I did, I was in awe; they were singing about Jesus! There they were in a little run down town, with hardly any resources and they were singing about Jesus and they were so FULL of joy. I was amazed and really struck by it. As we went on setting up, these children went on singing. They sang ‘Give thanks’ and ‘Give me oil in my lamp’ amongst some SA songs and others. It was amazing. So we played the concert and in between ensembles the children would sing, they sang ‘Seek ye first’, which really got me; I love that song! Then the jazz band played. Our guys were up in the balcony and I was sat with Jacqui, Julia, Jane and Kate near the children. Our guys started dancing and all the school children copied them. They were clearly having so much fun. It was totally amazing. I was so challenged by their happiness amidst their situation.

After the concert we were able to meet the children in the playground. They all came up to us saying how much they enjoyed it and were hugging us and asking to have their pictures taken. It was lovely, such a wonderful experience. They were all so excited that we’d visited them, it truly was wonderful.

We then went to Canal Walk for lunch, where I went to St Elmo’s and had pizza and chips – mmm! We had time for a brief shop before getting back on the coach and heading for Hugo Lambrechts Music Centre, where we rehearsed for our 2nd formal concert.

The concert hall reminded us all of Fairfield, except with a music better acoustic and it was SO nice to play in! It was a great concert, we all really enjoyed it!

We then returned to canal walk for dinner in the Cattle Ranch, where we waited ages coz Graeme managed to get himself and 2 students lost on the way to finding us, which was quite amusing. We had a really great evening; all 94 of us eating together, we did the tour staff presents presentation, which went down well. Then the staff sang to us! They’d written a song to the tune of ‘What shall we do with a drunken sailor?’ (one of our Wind Orchestra pieces) with verses comprising of What shall we do with a late Kate Hughes? What shall we do with Rebecca Carey? What shall we do with a case of leg braces? What shall we do with a dietary deficient? What shall we do with the boys in the girls room? What shall we do with Nathanael’s panties? What shall we do with William Gillett? What shall we do with a load of gem stones? What shall we do with the vomiting Coates’? It was absolutely hilarious!

We returned to the F1 at around 12:30am and all went straight to bed!

Friday 28th October
A slighter later start to the morning, although no more sleep than usual as we’d been so late back. We set straight off to the Kayamandi Trust Centre where an exciting day awaited us. On arrival we were greeted by Nana Wagner; a German lady who welcomed us and had organised our day. We began our day with drum lessons; we were all able to learn African drumming in groups of 9; it was really fun, but quite difficult! Now I know why I'm not a percussionist! During this time the kids in school came out to play and began dancing with our girls. This was followed by lunch; chicken, rice, carrots and spinach!

We were then taken on a tour around the Kayamandi village. There were lots of young people around as school had just finished; Fridays are early finish days. We went into another really run down area, similar to Jo’burg, where houses were close together, small and in really bad condition. As Nana took us around the village, children latched onto us and came back to the Kayamandi Centre with us; they have no gardens, so the streets are their playground.

On return to the centre their girls danced for us and some of our guys joined in. Then their brass band played for us and Brendon told us all about the sound start project that CMS are helping the centre with and he presented them with a brand new trumpet; the first of 30 instruments we’re buying for them; it was cool! Then our guys played the SA national anthem with their guys and the rest of us attempted to sing it! It was really cool! Kate thinks I should spend the rest of my year out there!

We then head off via Brendon and Kate’s SA house, to Stellenbosch Uni; where Brendon studied for his degree. We got excited at the prospect of being able to buy fruit from the supermarket in the student centre, as most of us had a fruit deprived week up until then! Then we did our final concert in the Stellenbosch Konservatorium. It was flipping amazing! We had SO much fun! The jazz band ended the concert and everyone else was standing up and dancing. Us lot did the conga down one side, along the front and up the other side in the last piece; it rocked!

Saturday 29th October
After some initial confusion, half of us headed back to the waterfront for some last minute shopping and the others went to district 6. When we got back we did a small presentation for our 2 amazing coach drivers. Soli got quite emotional, which really was lovely. Apparently we were his first group!

Then we went to the airport; strings checked in and took off; we checked in, hung around, had a coffee and then took off! Matt, Catherine and I played uno for most of the Cape Town to Jo’burg flight – was quite amusing! Then we hung around at Jo’burg airport for a while, had another coffee and took off for the mission of a flight home! After take off everyone swapped seats as they’d done on the way there and I sat with Jacqui and Dave, which was cool! Jacqui must have been a good influence, as I slept most of the way home!

Sunday 30th October
So I was awoken at 5:45am, which had I been in SA still would have been 3:45, for some breakfast! I didn’t have any! We landed at 7am and then took an age retrieving luggage. Unfortunately some muppets in luggage had mistreated some instruments, so a good number of large instruments in the hold had damaged cases when they came out, which meant Brendon had loads to sort out at Heathrow; not good!

Then our coach driver (we wanted Dirkie back!) decided he’d go back to Croydon via Orpington, as you do! So the journey took twice as long as it should have done! But hey, we arrived at Trinity at about 10am.

Final words
Tour was absolutely amazing! God answered so many prayers; good eating, good friendships, safety and fun to name a few also some Becca arrow prayers whilst we were out there! I have a totally new perspective on many things. I have unleashed a new musical life, which I'm very excited about! I'm slowly unravelling the prospects of a music degree and/or working at the Kayamandi centre. God’s rocked my world and I wanna be back in South Africa!

I'm back!

2005-10-30T23:00:00.000Z

Hey peeps
This is just a quick hey I'm back post! Had THE most AMAZING time in SA and will post all about it tomorrow!
Time for some sleep - it's 1am according to my body clock! Eeek!
Mwah x x x

Off tomorrow!

2005-10-18T13:29:00.000+01:00

Howdy folks,
This will be it for a few weeks; I'm off to South Africa tomorrow! Very excited; need to pack properly et al, but it's gonna rock! I'm gonna miss all my folk from Croydon and those I speak to on MSN, but you can all wait darlings, I'll have much to say when I'm back!
Had a busy few days; church leaders day on Sat, which was actually a really positive experience and my church has MUCH to thank God for. Mmmm, I'm in SUCH a good mood today; I'm very happy! Dunno why, just am!

So, gonna be a bit random...
Fave songs of today: Teach me to love - David Gate and Good and Gracious - Gareth Robinson

Fave quote of today: "Don't let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould, but let God re-mould your minds from within, so that you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good, meets all his demands and moves towards the goal of true maturity."

Fave food of today: Natural yougurt with honey

Fave colour of today: dark brown

Fave person of today: Who do you think I am? I don't have favourite people!!!

Fave clothing of today: big black jumper coz it's really cold outside

Fave book of today: well i finished the Da vinci code yesterday; wicked book, but reading 'God's homepage' at the moment and TOTALLY loving it!!

Ok, enough waffle! That'll do!
If you're bored, do this... http://www02.quizyourfriends.com/takequiz.php?quizname=050926182046-652943&c=1&a=08

Stupid times!!!

2005-10-12T16:44:00.000+01:00

Urgh, Graeme Smith is such a plum! Two things - just spoken to him on the phone and I'm like 'do we need to take towels' and he goes 'well obviously we'll be at Heathrow for about 5 hours, so you might want to buy a burger there, but otherwise the rest of the time, we'll get food in South Africa'! What an idiot - towels man, towels! I dunno what the hec he thought I was talking about!
The other thing that pissed me off - I've not been offered the job with CMS coz I've already got full-time work and James & Steven didn't! So what! I wanna get out of my lil Christian bubble, I was actually gonna take the job if I'd been offered it - I was so looking forward to it! I know I prayed about it and told God that if it wasn't the right thing, I didn't want it offered to me, so I guess I've just gotta trust and stop moaning!!
Stupid man though!