A Bit of Ben and Jerry's

After the 13 miles on the weekend, aka the Cardiff half marathon, i'm indulging slightly with some Ben and Jerry's Chocolate Macadamia, which is surprisingly tasty AND fairly traded, 'a flavour with a mission' I like it!

This is my dad and I just before I started!

Have been contemplating faith recently and the lyrics of a Brooke Fraser song jumped out at me just now.

When I can't feel you, I have learned to reach out just the same

When I can't hear you, I know you still hear everyword I pray

And I want you more than I want to live another day

And as I wait for you maybe I'm made more faithful

Especially that last line, And as I wait for you maybe I'm made more faithful. I'll have to ramble more about that sometime soon!

Oh the last month or so....

... a random selection of activities

Starting my job - trying to organize hundreds of kids to have their photos taken

Spotify, love it!

Catching the common cold :o(

Mostly listening to Mat Kearney - Closer to Love and Leeland - Follow you

Helping friends move house which naturally involves baking a cake!

Weekend beach trip with Mum, Dad and the dog!

Rediscovering fig rolls and cups of tea

Psalm 29

Lots of coffee! and hot chocolate

Momentum, 5 days, camping, 1 big tent, thousands of people all meeting with God, awesome!

My ipod coming back to life a week after washing it with my jeans!

Training for the Cardiff half marathon

Not playing guitar enough

Reading: Praying the names of God by Anne Spangler

Crossing the seven bridge, yes i'm sad I like bridges!

erm did i mention drinking coffee?

mostly listening to

...Desert song by Hillsong, I don't remember how I initially stumbled across this song, but after hearing I knew I had already heard before. I have no idea where or when, but hey!

I've been pondering on some of the lyrics and occasionally busting out the lines that I remember, and even attempting to play along on guitar (something isn't quite right with my version, but I enjoy it all the same!)

Even though its called 'Desert song' it definitely has some truths for whatever season one might be going through. And well amongst the others line I really like the bridge and the chorus ok who am I kidding I like it all! and I cant pick a part that I 'really like' because I 'really like' it all. So I guess I would say the lines that have stood out to me most at the moment are as follows....So I'm near enough coping the whole song, so i'll just paste it all and highlight the lines that highlight themselves in my brain at the moment! Enjoy...

This is my prayer in the desert

And all that's within me feels dry

This is my prayer in my hunger an need

My God is a God who provides

And this is my prayer in the fire

In weakness or trial or pain

There is a faith proved of more worth than gold

So refine me Lord through the flames

And I will bring praise, I will bring praise

No weapon formed against me shall remain

I will rejoice, I will declare

God is my victory and He is here

And this is my prayer in the battle

when triumph is still on it's way

I am a conqueror and co-heir with Christ

So firm on His promise I'll stand

All of my life

In every season

You are still God

I have a reason to sing

I have a reason to worship

This is my prayer in the harvest

When favor and providence flow

I know I'm filled to be empited again

The seed I've recieved I will sow

dream dream dream

Waiting

So I read this little story today and, well, thought it interesting...

The story's told of a bulldog and a poodle who were arguing one day. The bulldog was making fun of the poodle, calling him a weak little runt who couldn't do anything. The bulldog said, "I challenge you to a contest. Let's see who can open the back door of their house the fastest and get inside." The bulldog was thinking he would turn the doorknob with his powerful jaws, while the poodle was too small to even reach the knob of his back door. But to the bulldog's surprise the poodle said, "I can get in my house faster than you can. I accept the challenge." So with the poodle watching, the bulldog ran to the back door of his house and jumped up to the doorknob. He got his teeth and paws around it and tried to turn it and tried to turn it, but he couldn't get enough grip on the knob to do it, so he finally quit in exhaustion.

Now it was the poodle's turn. He just did what he'd been doing every day for the last several years. He went up to the door and scratched a couple of times, then waited patiently. Within a few seconds his master not only opened the door, but picked him up in his arms, patted him on the head affectionately and carried him inside.

The words waited patiently very much stood out to me! And I related to often being like the bulldog, how I wish to say that I was like the poodle...guess i'm still learning that one!

Isaiah 30:18 And therefore the Lord [earnestly] waits [expecting, looking, and longing] to be gracious to you; and therefore He lifts Himself up, that He may have mercy on you and show loving-kindness to you. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) are all those who [earnestly] wait for Him, who expect and look and long for Him [for His victory, His favor, His love, His peace, His joy, and His matchless, unbroken companionship]! (Amplified Bible)

Two days...

...two cakes. Have been on a bit of a baking spree, the other week I made some scones, cause I felt like it, and then the last few days I got the urge again. This time I had a very good excuse, a birthday! And there happened to be a 'foolproof' cake book by none other than Mary Berry. So I thought i'd try the one that I thought most exciting and yummy. Turned out that this was the hokey pokey coffee cake, in memory of NZ, which i'm kinda missing right now.

So the first cake, a gift for Anne for her birthday. It was very scrummy, definitely make that one again!

The second an 'American' apple and apricot cake, I guess this could be in memory of my brother, James, he's in the states for 2 months. Have yet to try this one as its for a bring and share lunch. I managed to take the pictures before the centre of the cake took a turn for the worst, it caved in a little, but i was reassured, cakes with alot of apple do this alot, I guess the apple gets quite soggy! anyways...maybe i'll get up to some more baking this week as the job hunting continues!

update...update...update...

I’m back! 

Oh yes back in the UK! I wont lie its pretty nice to be back in nice homely surroundings after spending 2 and a half months in hot and sweaty Fiji. And thankfully getting to take the 3 hours plane ride back over the 5 day sail! which on the previous sail i may just have to add that i didn’t get sick once, seasickness meds seemed to do the trick, despite being excessively tired and restless at the same time!?

So the 3 weeks before we actually started outreach were really well lets say eventful! On the 3 days of being in Fiji, I managed to have an encounter with a ceiling fan! 7 stitches later by the dentist on board the ship and 5 days resting, i was well on my way to healing! the next couple of weeks 2 more of the staff fell ill, 1 leaving to head back home and the other spending days resting with a flu (who knows if it was swine flu!) It was a hectic few weeks, and on top of that trying to plan the second half of our outreach without the ship to another island, Rabi (pronounced Rambi)

God is faithful!! Working with the medical outreach was so fab Chatting with people before the got to see the dentist was great but not so easy after they had just had teeth pulled and were very subdued! Seeing the many happy faces on people able to read again after giving them reading glasses was also such a privaldge!

After 3 weeks on the ship, thats when the adventure began! Rabi island! Taking a bus on the worst ‘road’ in fiji, a dirt track by western standards, then a boat with the 10 in our team and all of our luggage, we beached up on Rabi! Many more adventure were had dring our time there. Lots of singing, lots of dramas, house visits, youth programs, church services, beach cleaning and lots of fish eating. Actually we ate shark on several occasions, stingray and lobster also made it onto our plates! The thing that stuck me the most was the generosity and servanthood of all the people we met, giving up the little that they had for us! the return journey to NZ was maybe just as exciting as getting to Rabi, a 3 hours sail to another island (I was nearly sick on this one) which we camped out on the pews of a church for the night before taking a tiny 12 seater plane to the main island where we flew back to NZ from!

I had a special last week in NZ before i few back here. The DTS graduation, dinner at the Sky tower and an awesome, ticky tour of Auckland, which include a visit to the chocolate boutique, which has dont you know been visited by Bill Clinton!haha!

and thats enough for now! peace

He will calm the seas!

Once again, what a crazy few weeks! And where do i start, I guess that last week was the most significant for me. Our speaker this week was speaking on the subject of identity, her powerful testimony and stories of how God has used her to influence the world of Hollywood. It continues to amaze me the lengths that God goes to, to display his love for us!!

Our identity has to be in Him, not our vocation or calling or how good we are but in knowing and understanding who He is and His Names reveal all! This is what we cling to despite the storms and the calm seas the droughts and the times of lush plenty! Orama, Great Barrier Island was a perfect place to really discover more of who God is through His name and intently gazing into His wonderful face!

Now we’re heading into the season of sailing, with just one more week until we set sail for 6 days until we reach our destination. Fiji. I’m pretty excited to see what God has to teach each one of us individually as we spend this time in the middle of the ocean!

Psalm 107: He stilled the storm to a whisper the waves of the sea were hushed.

....attitudes....

This quote really spoke to me just this past week, so I thought i'd share it!

What's your attitude?

Charles Swindoll sums it up beautifully.

'The longer I live, the more I realze the impact of attitude on life. Attitude to me, is more important than facts. Its more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think, say or do. It is more important than apperance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break an organization, a church, a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding that attitude we will embrace for that day. we cannot change our past, we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable.

The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have and that is our attitude.

I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you, we are in charge of our attitdues."

Being a tourist!!

So this past week I have just spent with my Mum and Dad! It was real cool to see them and go do the tourist things that I havent really done round here, visiting the kiwi fruit fields, climbing the Mount, walking on the beach, visiting the Gloworm caves and the beautiful views from the gondola in Rotorua! It was so great for them to be here and meet all the friends and family I have here! I was blessed and God was seriously moving!

Wow what an amazing start!!

Not sure where to start or if i'm going to remember it all either! So for me the main exciting thing for me was the privaledge of baptising Christina, one of the girls in my small group! It was a very touching time and God was right there in the Pacific ocean with us! That was such and honor for me and just the beginning of an exciting 5 months! One of the other guys Matt got baptised too, it was a great afternoon of celebration!!

Warriors!

Heres the latest photo shoot, haha. This is my lovely fellow staffers minus our school leader Cheyne! The swords are the newest edition to the team, just a visual for us to remember were fighting a spiritual battle!!

Tiki Tour!

Oh yes, its 2009! and so much has happened this year already!

Disclaimer...ok here's the deal...its 10.30 pm in Tauranga NZ right now..and it appears that I'm in a very strange mood...and i just convicted myself of how bad i am at procrastinating! I just posted a comment on a friends blog! and well i managed to do that so why shouldn't i post on my own blog! simple huh...anyways the disclaimer is...i have no idea what I'm about to post...verbal diarrhoea i think they call it! so i will probably apologize in advance!

So i just got back from just over a week away with a Lane: friend, come partner in crime for the past month or so and fellow staffy staffer on the upcoming Discipleship Training school! We we so so blessed with a place to stay and awesome meals at a friends parents house in New Plymouth on the west coast of NZ in an area called Taranaki, or the Naki for short! By day,(which generally started at 6 or something ridiculous,apparently the surf is good then, no wind or something!) Lane surfed, myself far to scared to brave the ferocious waves of the west coast, so I hung out on the beach, learnt quite alot about surfing and got a bit of a tan! And by night we had dinner, hung out with our friends parents and their lodger and then went to bed! It was wonderful! Actually on a more serious note...wow a serious moment...it was just great to get away from living on the ship for a while take some time out to focus on God and do some praying and reading and just relaxing, after the busy past 6 months!

Lane and I both had our birthdays whilst we were away..and the two of them were well...quiet different! On mine we went to the beach in the morning and then I wanted starbucks..it had been a while and i still had a voucher left that was a gift at the end of the last school! But i actually got it for free 'cause Lane told the guy that it was my birthday! Thank you starbucks New Plymouth, the Caramel Macchiato was wonderful!! Dinner consisted of Kiwi tucker all round! We had an NZ delicacy, White bait...they are real small fish and you just eat it all,yep the whole thing guts and eyes the lot! they don't really taste of much but they were good, we had them in these pancake type things, then we had Lamb for main and the Kiwi Pavlova for desert! yummy yummy yummy! OK so that was my birthday... On Lanes we decided to head up north about 2 and half hours to Raglan...this place apparently is the 9th top surf spot (or so the surf magazine suggests) Unfortunately we got there and there was no real waves to surf! hmm...and we didn't have a place to stay! OK Ive got to pause here!

Tiki tour...this is a kiwi term for just a bit of a random outing..not really planned, just having a look round, see whats happening in a different place! so yeah that's what we had embarked on out little 'road trip' as we previously called it before we were enlightened on the term 'Tiki tour'

OK so being the nature of a Tiki tour..or the kind of tiki tour we were on, we just headed off with no real plans...including a place to stay! and well frankly sleeping in the van was an option but very highly undesirable! We had kind of got this thing in our heads that we should just find a church and see we could crash in the church and hope that they would take pity on us and would invite us to their home! oh another thing...we were trying to spend as little money as possible..so checking into a backpackers/hostel was very much out of the question! So anyways..i kinda said to God..OK if were gonna do this which church should we go to! Then just a couple of minutes later...we drive past a house and i noticed a sign hanging out side saying...Christian Fellowship! surprising actually because we had already driven down this road about 3 times already on our exploration of the town! so we stopped outside and on the advice of a friend via a telephone conversation (Thanks Dahvede!) we decided to go chat to the guy who was sat out front and just see where the conversation lead to! Well a half hour later and an interesting chat with Ken (who was actually blind) he calls his wife and just checks with her if its OK if we have dinner with them and stay the night! They had only been living there a year and just recently had their one large spare room converted into 2! Perfect! So we were truly blessed! Also turns out that Ken had done a DTS with YWAM many years ago, before he had met his wife Julia! So that was 'sweet as' as the kiwi's would say! An all round wondeful trip, picking up our 4th and final Staffer Caroline arriving from the highest mountains in switzerland the next day in Auckland!

Great Im so proud that i blogged but my energy levels are now dropping, so I should be wise and stop the rambling for now and start getting ready for bed. I have another full day of staff training tomorrow, which is quiet fun, but it requires brain power! Actually today i learnt again that my personality type is very much that of a golden retriever with a beaver coming in second! interesting, perhaps I'll blog about that when I'm next in this strange random mood!

(Good job i just ran the spell check..it was quiet incomprehesible!)