24 hours

Well, I did the fast thing for 24 whole hours.

I know its not very long, but I do feel like I've achieved something. I can say I'm proud of myself and of all the people who took part. It was interesting to see how I felt after 24 hours of not eating, but to tell you the truth, I was just tired.

The computers at Uni aren't working right now. The mail system is down and the internet is being really rubbish. I can't get to my emails, very annoying.

I can get to Hotmail though, I got these this morning...


Its great to hear from you, J. Thanks very much.

I also realised how 24 hours can change everything. In that last 24 hours I have been called by God, helped a friend and prayed alot. So much has happened that it is very hard to get my head around the things that make my life so different.

I've also been asked to produce some ideas on what it means to be a Christian women in the 21st century. Interesting. I will really have to think about this one.

Giggle

Just agreed to do the Word section in cell in two weeks time.

Its all about not worrying... had to laugh. God has a great way of pointing out stuff, doesn't he??

I won't be your winter

Its been snowing for the last 5 hours at least. And its wet snow, so kind of settling but turning into slush. I'd much rather be warm.

This is what I woke up to this morning

Looks peaceful doesn't it?

Cell was fun last night. We were talking about the Holy Spirit being with us constantly. It was greatly encouraging, when I got to bed (eventually) I had a really good prayer time. It was amazing.

Jana left this morning. She's all the way back in Canada. See you mate! Have a great time at home and we'll see you soon. Love you.

Oh well, all the snow is slowly melting and I need some lunch.

Interesting Insight

Yesterday was great. After I left the IT Suite (pretty sharpish due to a random bloke trying to chat me up) I went to Christine's for dinner with Jana. Her first time on public transport (that isn't a train or coach - what other types are there?). Suddenly felt like the authority on buses, when its the only bit of public transport I'm scared of!

During dinner Christine got a phone call from Charlie asking if we could supervise cell at Infinity (4 leaders had dropped out an hour before it started). It's been 18 months since I was at Infinity, I got very excited.

We actually were a little late, but said hi to every one before going to pray. Then Steve led worship. It was very amazing. Some stuff realy hit home with me, the sad thing is it took at least another 30 minutes to even dawn on the girls who were in the cell group.

Insight in to the current Infinity. I asked, 'how often do you talk to God?' and got a resounding silence. We prayed. The sad thing about living in an instant society is as soon as I said they could go they all disappeared quickly.

If I had felt in a rude mood, I would have made then answer all the questions again once they were engaged in the material, but I didn't. I just made them sit in silence for a minute, thinking about what they are bound by. Is it possible to be bound by dis-respect?

Trusting Times

Yes, I'm learning to trust all the time...

I think that is all I can really say with out letting on as to what its about. I think I really really have to trust Jesus with everything right now.

Next year is looking promising, all applications are in, the email told me so. I'm really looking forward to going to interviews, very scary. I can't believe I get to go and talk about doing what I love and involving Jesus.

So thats all ok. I can handle being in the process of that because I've been there for a few months.

I've written 500 words of my dissertation. 500 very dis-jointed words of an introduction. But its there to be refined and added to. I'm on my way. Inviting God in to my brain everytime I sit down to do some work, itd the only way I'll keep awake!

I think the only thing I'm really having problems with is the idea that I will be leaving Luton. I will be leaving this...

Sad, very sad, hard to trust that I'll be happy else where.

On a lighter note, Eleanor and Richard got engaged on Saturday. Congrats to them! (may get to come back to Luton within the year for that one)

Learning to say NO

As Christians this is something we definitely have to learn. I know I'm a victim of 'yes' escaping my mouth too often. Saying no is a learned expression.

I experienced this twice yesterday. There was definitely one person who shouldn't have been at cell yesterday, she turned up at mine, told me she was ill and I had my first instance of sending some one home successfully. I know that she really wanted to be at cell, but even Jesus wanted a rest some times.

I believe showing compassion to others is about knowing their needs. Jesus went to a solitary place in Matt 14:13 then showed compassion on the crowd (v14). He catered first for his needs, then the crowds needs.

We need to learn the line between looking after ourselves and being selfish. This involves missing events and staying in bed to get better.

The other incident I will mention is the way Christians tend to run to the aid of people who shout loudly. I'm not saying that we shouldn't try to help people in need, but when the cry is one of attention we need to learn to sit down for a second and reflect on why we are being called.

Next time you are tired, ill or just feeling horrid, think for a second, would you do better sitting at home for a few hours relaxing, or out about doing yourself inevitably more damage?

Next time you are called on, stop, think. You probably know the person who is calling you... Would it be helpful for you to stay where you are, or do you really need to go?

Learn to say no, and remember that compassion isn't just shown in what we can do physically.

Cake and Boys

Before

After

He he! We had lots of cake last night and we talked about lots of boys. Funny how we had questions posed to go round the table and I managed to always be picked on for being pretty silent!

Sill questions like: who is your favourite celeb? Where would you go on the perfect date? Etc etc...

Of course we talked about the boys we know and laughed too. It was great fun to eat really bad food and giggle about how red different types of people go when mentioning certain boys!

We ended the night by wathching Wimbledon and drinking too much hot chocolate. Ewww... the walk home was slow.

This was my hand after saturday night. We crowd-surfed Jude as part of her commissioning! It was great fun. God spoke to me a lot last weekend and I'm still really excited about what I can do for Him. Bring on next year!

Running Late

I've finally caught up with God. After all this time I have got the message about what God would like me to feel, what he has done for me and how I can cope.

The passage that has been my theme this year is Psalm 145v8:

'The LORD is gracious and compassionate; slow to anger and rich in love'

It came up twice yesterday. I can't imagine how I'd be feeling if I'd missed yesterday. I thinkI'd probably be in a deeper hole.

As it turns out I'm rather happy knowing that I can't do anything to earn God's grace I have it and I don't deserve it. I don't deserve to be here with a great bunch of friends. I don't deserve to have a family which I talk to and asks me if they can buy me concert tickets. I don't deserve to have Valentine's day with all the girls.

I can't explain the joy that I found yesterday. Knowing all these things, all I could do was praise the famous One.

Valentines and all that...

If I told you who I was buying cards for it would give it away...

But don't worry about me sending unwanted cards, I wouldn't want to risk being accused of sexual harrassment (yes I know, mental or what?).

Prayer breakfast this morning was a good laugh. We giggled through most of it.Just the girls. (out come the joke that will stay with me forever 'God does have a sense of humour, he made Karen' - Thanks miriam)

Washing up fairy still hasn't been... wonder if she's so busy that it'll be there all weekend.

At the moment I'm part taking in a psych test. The effects of caffine on working memory, whilst looking at personality. It sure was intersting this morning trying to not fall asleep whilst praying.

The question has been, why don't you give up caffine for lent? The answer is, are you having a laugh? It would wreck my insides.

Have a good weekend, and a great Valentines day, whatever you are doing. Consumerism at its strongest!

Early starts and late nights

All good for the immune system, honest!

Woke up this morning with 3 hours of sleep under my belt. I was fighting with Microsoft Word. As always the 'Print 2 pages per A4' option ceased to come into fruition, so I resorted to working with columns, screen capture and picture editing. At the end of the day/early in the morning it looked really good, and serves its purpose.

I woke up long before anyone in the house to print it this morning. For some reson I'm really enjoying the walk down in the mornings, and actually being up for practically the whole day is great. Although not being at home has its downsides. The washing up fairy hasn't been round yet. It quite strange considering the boys have nothing to do.

Yesterday we woke up to this...

Thats Howard! Yeay for good publicity. There are various other photos from the day on this site.

Started lectures today. I have 4 hours on a Thursday and 2 on Friday. If any one uses easy to describe my week, I'd agree, then my dissertation hits me and I'll cry!

(Trying to be nice and not complaining for Lent too, as I spent a large amount of time analysing and evaluating me yesterday. It could just go out the window with in seconds!)

Off to buy Valentines Day cards....

Mid week prayer

We had a rather long meeting this morning. It did actually last the whole hour. I was so impressed.

Now I get to sit around until the prayer meeting I'm running at 2. I was going to go home, but I might do some more praying.

Here's te space we are in:

One of the many creative things that Miriam, my amazing housemate has produced...

She's so brilliant. Its a bit of a shame that the president of the CU has yet to see the space.

You can view more pictures here. They are under the tag prayerweek.

We flick through the papers each day and found that its creative week this week. This is my little addition to it...

Jelly fish? Nope. Fibre optic thing, yes! Sorry, I know I'm slightly obsessed. But it is really cool!! (eventually I will stop talking)

But I'm not giving it up for lent. I am giving up sitting in front of the telly for no reason. Not cutting out TV altogether, just not going to spend hours in front of it. Have also decided to learn some verses in German. This should be interesting.

Pancake heaven

Isn't this so pretty? Its a fibre optic tree thing that changes colour... I've actually gone a little trigger happy with the camera. As yet I haven't caught a sun rise (those of you who were up know that it was quite misty this morning), but there are 4 prayer breakfasts left, so you never know. Yes, annonymous, the sun does rise. "What comes up must go down"

Worked out that you have to really listen to the radio for any weather information in the morning, the darkness doesn't give any hint to the days weather. But so far I've managed to walk around with out a coat. Nice and sunny.

We have discovered as a house that it is actually more dangerous between 7 and 8 to walk into town. People aren't awake enough, so we've started using crossings and traffic lights. I think I might pick a job where travelling in rush hour is an option!

We had pancakes for breakfast, lunch and probably dinner!

Pancake day is great fun. Unfortunately we came 3rd in the first heat of the pancake race and didn't get to race again. Miriam, however, told TV and radio that her Mrs Incredible trousers kept falling down. So we're looking out for the university team on the news and radio! Pictures to come, promise! Watch this space for links.

Well, off to find the dissertation supervisior. Have lots to be doing (that I probably should have done already)...

Monday Morning

I've been up since 6.30am. Thats still in the dark at this time of year. Which means I've actually lost count of how many days I've been up before 10. Great fun.

The only problem with getting up so early is the fact that you feel hungry by 10. But I've promised myself that I will snack on healthy things (due to the amount of coffee in take).

I did see the sun rise this morning, but due to having brain unplugged (and being late) I didn't thik to get my camera out and take a picture... maybe tommorow.

Gotta shut the prayer room tonight (pictures to come) and cook pancakes for breakfast tommorow. So far, so good. Although not feeling the support form the other committee memebers. Unfortunately I've come to accept it, but Miriams more than a little annoyed. She has a lot to learn...

Open day or glorified mess?

This is the question we should all consider. Today Luton had an open day (or a Preview Day, but none of the Student Ambassadors had been told the change of name). It was a bit of a shambles. As always Lal underestimated the amount of people we would get. Turns out we had close to 1200 (about 400 prospective students). It would have been fine, but the Academics decided to take organisatio into their own hands - albeit a week too late.

We lost people and had people standing around for ages. But i did make a change to talk to people who actually liked being there. I'm no longer embarrassed by my red jumper, enough people have seen it, and at least on normal days I actually have fashion sense! I'll post it up, don't worry.

St Mary's bells were ringing all this morning and Bei Bei and Robbie got married at the Baptist Church. I've missed so much coming into work. Its ok, I'm sure there will be pictures up.

Christine is in Scotland now, having fun. Hopefully she'll chill out big time. It will be good for her to leave Luton. Now I have to find a get away date.

I'm gonna now go and set up for the prayer-a-thon for next week. I have to also work out my timetable.

I remembered...

Well here it is, the picture I forgot. And what I've been doing the last few days.

Looks fun doesn't it? I've had so much joy filling in forms and being able to talk about my self and how I became a Christian. Its gotta be the hardest question on any form. One also has fun questions about what I believe. Talk about faith testing!

But its ok because I've had this lovely Fimble to keep me company and let me know that I'm doing ok. Yes I have gone slightly crazy and I do keep forgetting things (my phone is currently not in my possession because I forgot to pick it up).

We had our first cell socail last night. We went bowling with a large percentage of the cell turning up. Christine and Liz were missing, but everyone else had a great time. Of course they complained about the shoes. Which in hindsight makes me laugh much. A bunch of 20-somethings complained more about the shoes than the teens do!

Well, I'd better go and get my phone back. I shall let you know about where I will be heading when I graduate.

I'm so stupid!

I admit it! I'm incredibly slow and silly...

Well I was gonna post a couple of pictures and tell you some stuff about what I hope to be doing next year, but I went and left it all on my USB stick at home! Silly.

But hey on the upside I got a recorded delivery this morning, £100 worth of travel vouchers! It did arrive at 9.30 this moring, so I stayed in bed til 11.30 to make up for it! Now the question is when and where do I go, any suggestions welcome. Failing that I'll go on the STA website and see if I can buy a holiday for Liz and I.

Well, when I bring my USB stick down the hill you will hear about last weekend!