I am so glad that the last 6 weeks have come to an end. it seems like it was a constant blur of things to do: applications for jobs to fill out, CVs to compile and send off, sermons to write for church meetings, weekends away with the leadership team and then with Form, working two jobs for a few weeks which meant 6 day weeks of total busyness and on top of all that trying desperately to fit in Christmas preparations. PHEW!
Tom and I are currently at my mum's house in Cambridge where it snowed last night leaving a wonderful blanket everywhere. I love how sound is muffled when it's snowed. It makes everything so much more serene and calm, something which automatically affects my mood in such positive ways.
Christmas was fun - spent with wonderful friends. New year should be fun too, and with a nice relaxing, doing nothing week in between I think I’ll feel prepared for some fun and frolicking!
I feel like I am still under scrutiny from the Lord, which I am also trying to run from with parts of me. I have succumbed to the temptation to hide myself in TV and food and books. So silly. The other day, in my quest to push on with the figuring out the healing issues, I picked up power healing by John Wimber - a book which has sat on my shelf for a couple of years unread. It's a good one, worth reading, but still didn't answer my questions totally. I then picked up 'the problem of pain' by cs lewis and turned to the chapter on human suffering. I read it and didn't really like it too much. I find him quite a struggle to get through sometimes - it's very intellectual and very modern in its approach. Later on whilst spending more time ranting at the Lord about it all, I felt a prompting to stop being so impatient. I turned back to the book and began reading from the start. I turned to the first chapter and read this:
"If God were good, He would wish to make his creatures perfectly happy and if God were almighty he would be able to do as he wished. But the creatures are not happy. Therefore God lacks either goodness or power or both"
I was almost thrown into the back of my chair. It is almost exactly what I had written in my journal just before. Tom, upon my subsequent reading of it to him, then asked me what the problem with the statement was. My first reaction was to say that God isn't powerless or lacking in goodness. But then realised that it is the start of the sentence where the enemy would seek to trick us: that God wishes his creatures to be happy. I'm sure it's good if we do feel happy. But I don't necessarily agree that that's God's aim. Or at least not our idea of happiness. One to chew on. It did instantly break some of the bubble I have been living in about what my rights are and what God wanted. It's so scarily easy to believe lies when they are told to you enough by a whispering subconscious and lying enemy. It gave me courage to go and keep reading, whilst starting to trust again in a God who wants the 'best' for us...

Tomorrow i have a job interview for a part-time job which will either suppliment or replace my job at the cafe. I think i'm actually quite keen on getting it, which is quite contrary to how i thought i'd feel. I think most of all though to be shortlisted for interview is significant in that i wasn't sure if my CV really added up to much at first glance - working in a cafe and lots of years working in churches doesn't strike me as being the best things that employers are looking for. Selling myself isn't one of my greatest characteristics so i think i've let God do it for me a bit - and of course he's come up trumps.

At the moment we are trying to figure out, as i imagine are most fo the country, what to do for Christmas this year. We are planning on going over to my parents' respective houses a couple of days after xmas, but whilst here what to do. Thinking currently is that we will invite people round to ours and just have a bit of fun and lots of food. Hopefully it'll work out. Christmas is such a tricky thing. It's meant to be a time of happiness etc but so often works out as a political nightmare trying to please everyone and making sure people don't get left out. I think it will only get trickier when Tom's parents move to Portugal rather than living in Dubai as it means they'll be within easy visiting distance. That's not a bad thing, don't get me wrong (who could complain about having parents-in-law who live 10 minutes drive form the beach on the south coast of Portugal in a beautiful big hosue in the middle of an orange grove!!). i guess it just adds into the mix of what to do, who to see when!

I am still loving the fresh frosty morings. We had some amazingly beautiful cobwebs that seemed to be spun out of diamonds in our garden yesterday. Tom was out snapping away first thing. I so got into the autumn spirit that i went into the garden and pruned everything, including a huge tree, which was once only a small bush and had grown way out of control. I fear i may have gone slightly overboard though. Tom was a little stunned to find simply a few stumps left this morning when he looked outside. Hopefully it's very robust and will grow back int eh spring. If not i'll be in big trouble with the landlords!!

Thoughts and ruminations from the past week or so include:

1. how god truly is amazing at planning things. So many times recently both in my life and others we can look back both short an dlong term and see how 'GOd works all things together' so that his plans work out in us and for us and through us.

2. that we have been looked after and provided for financially more than i could ever have expected. Truly humbling and inspiring

3. that my husband is fantastic. every day at the moment i am a bit more overwhelmed by how much of a blessing he is in my life and how thankful i am for him. It's coming up to our 2 year anniversary and it's incredible to think how much life has changed since then, how much better it's got, how much wholler (?) i am

4. that once again i love autumn/winter and frosty mornings and wrapping up warmly and sweeping my feet through leaves and putting on hats and long coats. i really hope i can spend the rest of my life with each season being fresh and new eaach year again.

5. that God is determined to help us be the people he originally intended us to be even though sometimes that hurts. I have been struggling my way through the 'why don't you heal' questions over the past few weeks, finding that the usual answers you can tell others aren't sufficient on yourself and in this phase of being honest with God and him sorting out hidden fears, that i have to bring the big ones to the table and really start to thrash them out into some workable theology for myself and not keep living off of others' thoughts and working-outs. I was brought up short for not following though on my comments the other day by a lovely friend, how i can easily throw big thoughts out there but never finish thinking about them. i will try harder this time as i know it's something that God's not going to let rest in me.

Back to looking after some children for some friends for a few days now. Such fun to be around people who get a kick out of sniggering for ages over realy silly things and for whom a sticker is the most valuable thing in the world. Oh for uncomlicated ignorance!!

This is a quick post as i'm waiting for Tom so we can go for lunch. Still trying to figure out what to do about the job and am in the process of starting to look for other part time jobs that can either rplace it or work alongside it. Wait and see i guess. God's come up trumps in providing us with cash though just with a whole bunch of random finding money in pockets, some in bank accounts we'd forgotten about extra. Some may call it coincidence but it's not often that i wake up thinking about money, remember to pray and then feel totally peaceful about God as total and utter provider and then find heaps of cash.

Last weekend we went away with our lovely neighbours to the cotswalds. we walked lots, ate lovely food, and endured HUGE amounts of rain and wind. All in all a great weekend : )

Husband's here so i will dash...

Today i had some frustrating news: Mike, owner of the cafe, is probably going to be closing it on Tuesdays and opening on Saturday nights and sunday lunchtimes in order to make it all more cost-efficient. This means, if i want to keep hold of my marriage(!), that i may well have to start to look for another job : ( Saturday is the only day i get to have off with my lovely husband and then sundays are church days so i couldn't do those anyway leaving not much time to earn any money. Not good. Hmmm...

(NB This is a very quickly written splurge of thoughts as i'm in a rush so if it sounds rash and brutal in places i apologise for not hvaig fully digested my thoughts before committing them to the world for analysis)


Had a great lunch with my wonderful girlfriends last Monday, had the formettes round for a take out on Tuesday, saw some of Tom's old work colleagues on Wednesday for dinner, chilled on Thursday and Friday and then spent Saturday in Winchester at a Vineyard Leaders' day (not leader's day as written on the advertising brochure as i think that make John Mumford sound slightly egotistical!). It was nice to see some old friends, great to see God working in the formettes and for them to be praying for people. In the evening we then totally vegged at the cinema watching Wallce & Gromit. Very very funny and totally a must to see at the cinema rather than on DVD.


Sunday was the church service, in which Andrew did a great job talking about spiritual warfare and some cool ministry stuff happened at the end. Then we babysat our very lovely god-daughter for a while and then headed off to a party for the 1 year old daughter of my boss at the cafe. She was also getting christened that day so we had some interesting chats with the 'godparents', none of whom actually believed in God at all but thought that it was important to have good values and morals in life. They talked about how they found the church where the servcie was held to be a place where there was a really welcoming, caring community. I thought that was a good thing. I guess whyen it comes down to it you either believe in God or you don't and you can't try and persuade people into it. Slightly candid maybe but i've always thought that 1. seeing who God is working in and 2. showing them who he is thourgh practical demonstration is always a much easier starting place. Maybe just the way i work. The kingdom always works its ways round peoples' intellects anyway. Phew! We also chatted for a while to a muslim woman who was looking into Christianity. So interesting!!!

That's it. I have to dash, things to do, poeple to go and see.

so another month has sped by and it's now the middle of november. much to my delight the leaves are changing colour and the autumn winds are starting to blow. I love days that are nice and blue-skied, leaves blowing around your ankles and a fresh wind. It makes me feel so alive! Last weekend in fact we went to Westonbirt arboretum and checked out some of the amazing maple and acer trees there. It was like walking in a green world with bglazing red torched to light the way every so often.

The cafe is going very well still. My feet have stopped hurting so much and i'm really liking the people. I got to pray with one of the gusy there a couple of weeks ago when he was sick. Fun to see God come and him to be touched!!!

I've been doing a lot of sorting through myself and have felt God begin to open up some doors which have been shut for a very long time in my inner house, so to speak. It's so good to have him sweep through, although a little painful having to feel the thigns you've hidden in there because they hurt too much to feel. It's such a good palce to be when you're simply vulnerable and wholly you before God and other people. With that and the leaves i am feeling simply alive and good at the moment.

Hooray!

so i have now succecssfully left working for Bristol Vineyard (although i'm not sure how you could unsuccessfully leave!) and have got myself a great job at a cafe just round the corner from where i live. I work four days a week with a bunch of really fun friendsly people, running around serving and making coffee. i'm loving being around people who aren't into God and of having the opportunity to be able to start being Jesus to them. It's amaxing how, if you ask teh right questions, people will totally open up to you, maybe moreso than others who i have met in the church who you would normally expect, inour christian culture of 'sharing' to be very au fait with it. In essence i love being 'in the world'. it's so much fun to have oppoprtunities all the time to try to be Jesus and theyr eally are there all the time wherever you look for them!

on friday morning i decided that we were going to go camping. this isn't because i am a tyrannical wife, simply more that we're both rubbish at making decisions and someone needed to take a step forward. So we packed up the car and headed over to Wales to the Gower area.

We stayed at a little campsite next to Oxwich Bay, which was really full and quite slopey but nice still. having set up our tent we managed to eat some nicey campstove-cooked food, then slept. Or tried to sleep - the man next door snored like a trooper, a large slope which meant we kept sliding down to the bottom of the tent and there were screaming, sacred-ofthe-dark kids everywhere.

The next day was rainy and so we went to watch teh Tri-nations rugby in Swansea, which was good and i got excited enough to shout at the TVs once or twice, (which was midly not great as i was the only girl in a pub of men). lookeda round Swansea when the rain stopped and then headed off to beaches for a windswept exploartion of some great rock pools. Slept a bit better (figured out to not slip so much) then on Sunday took a long walk along Rhossilli bay which was gorgeous. Then, after paying an extortionate fee to park at a beach we weren't going to stay at very long, we ate chips, drank tea and tried to be bravely warm during a couldy sky we came home. All in all we had a lovely time. Good for me as i love to be outside and felt so alive all weekend. i think it was ok for Tom - he got to eat 2 fry-ups anyway!

I also found 2 nice shells : )

goodness me, what a long time i've been away. It's been an interesting 4 months of total exhaustion necessitating lying down for endless hours, thinking and then having to not think as i was thinking too much, praying, letting go of control, a slow return to work, a trip to America and France and now looking to the end of my role here at Bristol Vineyard in 8 working days' time. It's all a bit too much to go in to, but needless to say it's been an interesting journey. I am currently thinking about a few things:
1. what i am going to do next with my life - what kind of job i shall do, full time, part time, training, intense, light and easy etc etc
2. what Tom and I are going to do next in our lives - tom is finishing his work in law and is taking over my role in the church running Form
3. how much i need God
4. how much i don't need my ways of doing things
5. how much i wish i got it right more of the time so i could avoid the last 4 months!

i guess over all it's a weird time of being happy to finish one thing as it feels as if God has released me to do something new, yet at the same time not really knowing what he's released me to do. I don't feel overly anxious about it all - i think i have lots of things to think about, new times coming to worry, which is good. i guess i just want to move into what's going to be most profitable for the Kingdom.

on a slightly more mundane, earthly note, i just need to say how happy i am to have lovely friends here. Cheers you lot!

Today i felt a bit sad. I went out to Joe's - the great bread shop round the corner - to pick up some bread to make sandwiches and on the way i walked past a really big snail, fully outstretched, slowly making its way across the path towards a garden. I thought to myself that i shuld maybe pick him up and move him in case someone stepped on him, but then reasoned that no-one would be so cruel to step on such a big snail. Sadly, then on my way back to work again i walked past the same spot and found him freshly crushed... People are quite mean sometimes.

I had last week off work which was a godsend. I was so tired both physically, emotionally and spiritually that i was really to collapse! It led me to a lot of soul searching and a lot of asking God what was going on on, why i was so tired, etc etc. I was reminded of two totally key life verses that i had temporarily misplaced in my brain:
Isaiah 30 v5: "In repentance and rest is your salvation; in quietness and rest is your strength"
and
Isaiah 40 v28-31 "28 Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. 29 He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. 30 Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; 31 but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint. "

I spent a lot of time thinking about what it really means to be quiet and to rest before God and a lot about waiting on God. Waiting on God is really linked in the bible to having hope in Him, who he is, the expectation that he can do something. I don't know if it's really the passive thing that i usually think of. Quite often it should also mean that i act out of a place of knowning who God is and what he does and will do.

I don't know if i came up with many conclusions apart from needing to find time to rest, both physically and spiritually in ways that really do refresh me. Working from a place of rest seems to be the key phrase around church at the moment.

It also led me to begin asking God again what i am really for. I don't want to be doing the things that exhaust me when there are things that i could be doing, which are just as much what God has in store for me, which would give me life. I think it's ok to want to be satisfied in life, but i'm not sure if that satisfaction comes from what you do, simply for what it is, or if it comes from knowing that you're doing what God wants you to do. Probably the latter, which then facilitates the former. I think i'm asking God again what i'm made for. Interesting!

Tom and i spent some lovely time with Matt & Anita, a couple over from New Zealand, on Saturday. They have come from a cafe-church background and it was really interesting to hear their experiences of coming to 'regular' church. it was good to hang out with people who are so chilled and yet so passionate about God. Fun fun fun : )

man it's been ages since i put anything up here. I have been thinking about things, just writing it in my journal instead. Once it's poured out of my head i find it hard to then regurgitate it anywhere else.
Today it's snowing wonderfuly outside. i love snow. it's not settling yet but i am praying that it will. It does make me a bit nostalgic of mountain times though. i miss being in the middle of surroundings so huge that it reminds me of how small and insignificant i am, of how we think we rule the world and yet a loud noise can make a ton of snow fall and squash a village. weird hey.
At the moment Tom and I are looking after Andrew and Ros' children for a few days while they're away at a conference. It's quite good fun, doing ponytails and plaits in hair, putting on coats, making dinner. Not quite sure i'm ready for it properly yet but it's fun at the moment. It makes me realise what an amazing dad Tom will make one day. He's brilliant with children. Hopefully we might be able to have some of our own one day. Fun!!
I am thinking about God quite a lot today too, which is always good. I have been challenged recently by the passage in Luke 9 ( i think) where Jesus' disciples try to cast out a demon and can't and then Jesus does and tells them it can only be done through prayer. I've always been a bit intruiged by that one and heard a cool explanation of it the other day - that having a deepening relationship with God, talking with God, ie praying, is the means by which we find out who we are in God and therefore begin to grow in spiritual authority, thus being able to kick out demons and see people healed more. I know that God uses everyone and anyone as he likes, but it's a clear example of people not being able to do something. I find myself frustrated so often that nothing happens when i pray and yet when others do, who i know to have a very deep relationship with God, stuff DOES happen. I feel challenged ot go for broke with God, but have no real idea of what that looks like. I guess i can only start where i am and see what happens. If nothing happens, then i've tried, will have grown closer to God etc so how can i possibly lose?!

Ok, so I’ve had a few days in Oman with tom and his parents, which was amazing. We went to the top section, which is actually separated from the rest of Oman by a bit of the UAE and went to a hotel in the mountains. We went on a day’s trip on a Dow, a fishing/transporting people boat around a local type of fjord. We saw dolphins, swam in nice water (apart form the tiny weenie little jellyfish which prickled you a bit) and saw these ridiculously small villages (10 houses and sometimes a population on 25, in the capital of that area!) which you can’t get to apart form by boat. Crazy people. Anyway, it was very restful and let me see what a wonderfully creative God we have. I think some would find the landscape of grey and brown mountains slightly boring and there was no lush forest to walk through or paths to stroll up, but the majesty and strength you could see in the was phenomenal. I love this sort of landscape. It seems so old for some reason!
I had a longer think about what I wrote previously and tom and I chatted about it some more. We discussed how fundamentally although you say that you hold other denominations as equal, when they say something which makes you bristle, it is usually because you think they’re wrong. This must therefore mean that you think they are wrong and you are right, therefore making them unequal at a deep fundamental basic level of your consciousness. We then talked about the notion of needing to be right about things – an interesting human characteristic. It made me think about how different theologies might be right for different times and different places? Liberation theology works a bit like this I think. It makes me feel quite humbled in my views of Christianity around the world and challenges me about the in-built presumptions, beliefs, prejudices and biases I have. Can it be as equally right for me to believe one thing about Christianity as being the most important, non-negotiable and for someone across the other side of the world to believe something totally different, yet still believe in the same God. It makes me wonder what we can learn from other parts of the Christian faith that we ignore – we are all in the same stew after all.
We have a new digital camera – a fuji 440, which is brilliant. Once we manage to get some software on a computer somewhere we can download them and you can see some of where we were.
Ps Jacqui – the fish stank, there was no way you were going to get it anywhere near my mouth!

i really like coming to to Dubai to see Tom's parents. It's always a refreshing change to be in such a different, non-western environment and always challenging to see how Christianity works itself out differently in different cultures. It reminds me of something someone said recently, having spent some time at All Nations college where there were over 50 nations represented at once and noting how each would see something different of Christianity as being the most important and yet when they came otgether to worship they were all in one family.
I think in the Vineyard we talk often about being the turnip in the stew and that there are lots of other 'vegetables' which make up the whole. I do wonder though how much validity we give the other vegetables. I was so challenged today by Tom's mum telling us a story of the different ways in which different denominaitons of churches have embraced the tsunami tragedy - the church of england church is very much grace to all, explaning children dying in the waves as a natura;l tragedy due to the fallenness of our world and sending aid to everyone; and the churches of other origins, from Sri Lankia and Indonesia see the whole thing as God's judgement on the immoral behaviour of the muslims in the country. they are therfore sending the aid mainly to the christian churches, claiming that aid is being denied to them by the authorities. Her statement of 'how can a church of england minister know what really goes on in the countries and who doesn't hear the stories of fishermen forcing children to desecrate churches and stamp on cruycifixes as he doesn't spend time with these people, know what God thinks?' made me think. Her pastor has just gone out to the andaman islands for two weeks to a church he has links with to see what longterm aid they can offer.
There have been a few things in the ways in which prophecy and interpretation of scripture have been done in churches here recently which have bristled all of my natural instincts too, seemingly so wrongly translated and read. yet we see nothing but growth and God doing amazing things in those churches and through the people in them. It makes me wonder if we in the west take our theology, meaning the interpretation of scripture, too narrow-mindedly. I'm sure this will cause many to disagree, but it's just a thought. We get so caught up in dismissing things because they wouldn't stand the rigourous testing that we place scripture under and yet i wonder if maybe in doing that we are throwing out lots of God stuff. I know that the other denominations aren't perfect and they too have many disagreements about scriptural things (currently over whether or not Jesus turned water into wine or grape jiuce in one church here appreantly), i guess i mean as an overall whole i could be less anal in over-analysing things? Probably very badly put... i'll have a longer think and try to rephrase it.
On another notes of the tsunami side of things, it's been very good to get involved in the actual hands-on side of sending things out to the countries affected. Last night we were packing boxes of salted fish, and then loading them onto a truck ready to be collected to be put in the container, today counting money collected and this evening labelling bags of rice. I appreciate so much the aid organisations' efforts in western countries and being able to move so fast in delivering what is needed, but it feels good to actually not just give money, but also to help put the money to use in a practical visible fashion.
that's all for now. i will think longer on what i have said and reajust things accordingly...