£230

so this is my blog and this is about what goes on in my world. Well money is often thought here and i am currently thinking about the giving i do. so many good causes, so many needs. feed the hungry, help the oppressed, support friends who are giving up their income to help others. Help friends in ministries such as urban dance projects, 24/7 ibiza. Provide water, shelter, clothing, emotional support, medical care. Hope. as i thought about these things, i came up with the sum £230, £130 was the sum of a pair of trainers i was going to buy... i thought twice and decided i could give the money away instead. £100 was 10% of my income this month. So £230 to spend on others, where should it go? i watched a challenging documentary on India and the Dalits. They are a group numbering 250'000000 in India. They are outcastes, nobodies, untouchables. Many clean feces everyday of their lives. They are considered by others to be sub human, without souls. Therefore worthless. For £230 it said , you can help a family escape the debt of thier masters and find freedom to live as they wish. They will never be able to get out of slavery unless this happens. On the same day i was looking at the 'xxxchurch' in USA. They are a bunch of christians who go to Porn conventions and hand out 'Jesus Loves Porn Stars' bibles. They also run support groups for those addicted to Pornography, gambling and other life inhibiting habits. In Ibiza we handed out these to people who wanted them. So i found out how much it would be to ship 50 over. £230.

i love coincidences, they give me a buzz of interested hope... maybe they are just nothing...

saturday night i went street walking for my work. Myself and Joe walked the streets and introduced ourselves to door staff. I don't know many people in Bournemouth yet, but as we spoke to two fairly unfriendly door staff. a girl came out of the bar. I had met her and her friend 3 weeks earlier at a salsa class. In that conversation she had asked me what i did for a living. Her friend was excited by my response, as she was a christian and we had a conversation about what i did. They then both came to our Church for the night event... check out... www.churchforthenight.com... there i had mentioned to her that we wanted to get a donkey for the next event as it was Christmas!!! To my suprise she said she knew someone with a Donkey!!.. unfortunatley she had lost my number and had not been in touch.. so back to the club door sitution and i was surprised and happy to see her. I got her number and she went back in. No sooner had she gone in then another girl came out.. i did a double take... it was a friend of a friend i had met in Ibiza, she was visiting Bournemouth for the weekend and i think was just as suprised to see me...she asked if i would join them going to another bar to find our mutual friend but i had to carry on my street walking... now again you could say coincidence or perfect timing?? It made me feel positive about going out that night as the door staff had not filled me with positive vibes. These happenings have occured 'everytime' i have been out so far including last week two guys coming up to me and showing me video images on their mobile phone of myself dancing on a boat in ibiza.

will keep you udated on future happenings..

hey all.. just got sent this from Brian Heasley in Ibiza from our summer work .. really great work out there.. support it if you can.. just click or copy and paste...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzQXrNPJvAY

lots of words today, sorry, next time will be pictures :)

This week seems to have brought new unexpected thoughts and challenges. I can be the sort of person who drifts along comfortably thinking I have it together, then along comes a piece of information that radically shifts my thinking. Well this week that is happening.

For about 4 months now I have been extremely comfortable in my faith and direction then all of a sudden this week many questions have been emerging seeming to be all a bit much.

Saturday was the first of these days where is struggled to find motivation to do anything. In the end I battled through and decided to go street walking alone to introduce my self to all the door staff and police in town. This was a very conducive evening where I met loads of people and got really good feedback, not to mention bumping into friend Nicole and dancing with her and her cousin in a bar. The night ended at 6 am after a few people came back to mine for a cupper, all talking about religion poverty and the like…worth the struggle.

So why still the struggle. maybe was that i was coming down with the flu i now have maybe tiredness but I think finding a happy balance in life is important but without the swings this does not happen, I think I am in a swinging moment. The mystery of God is something that is really intriguing me right now. The idea that maybe I don’t know very much at all is again creeping in.

i have been giving a lot of thought lately to the ideas about depression why we get down about things. there are often overwhelming senses of hopelessness in society. whether by large scale issues or personal griefs and un-fulfillment. There is sometimes a void between what we are concerned about and what we can actually do about it. This helplessness is not only stressful but also brings us down. Not understanding the issues or seeing a way forward amplifies this.

my faith was a little rocked the other day by a programme i saw. i obviously don't want to be be someone blown by the wind (by everything that comes my way), but there was some quite compelling evidence about the christian faith that made me sit back and think!! i was encouraged today by some words in a book i read.

'attitudes have a kind of inertia. once set in they will keep going, even in the face of evidence. To change an attitude requires a considerable amount of work and suffering. The process must either begin in an effortfully maintained posture of self doubt and criticism, or in a painful acknowledgment that what we thought was right all along may not be right after all. Then it proceeds into a state of confusion. This state is quite uncomfortable and we no longer seem to know what is right or wrong or indeed which way to go. But it is a state of openess and therefore of growing and learning. It is only from the quicksand of confusion that we are able to leap into the new and better vision.' M Scott Peck. 'People of the Lie'.

whether dealing with personal pain or moments of anguish and uncertainty in our attitudes or direction, it is comforting to know that through our suffering, uncertainty and trial can come new vision, perspective and maturity. If we suppress this suffering or ignore the thoughts or compelling evidence we will probably remain unchanged, immature and depressed.

i want to be someone who looks at what i can do and doesn't focus on what can't be done. i am allowed to be depressed, because there is evil in the world that needs changing. but if i allow this depression to render me ineffective, i will slowly disintegrate. I choose to make the difference i can.
i will not be blown around by these things but give it to God in prayer, do some thinking and study and come out enlightened.

"When I pray coincidences happen and when I don't they don't!” - Archbishop William Temple

okay so i am sorry this has taken so long and i guess with moving into a new place i have had to let things settle a little... have now been in Bournemouth for 1 month and have not stopped much yet. I have been in london djing, at friends wedding and more and just feel like starting to think about this being my new home. It feels like i could be here a long time and that i have given up much to invest in this place even though i don't know it or many of it's people yet, but i feel drawn here and have a strong sense of purpose here.

i have had many thought over previous weeks and last week was on a conference about Community Transformation. this is a subject very close to my heart. It is really what i have been working toward my whole adult life and even childhood too. But the idea of the little difference i make or how big the worlds problems are are often so overwhelming i think.."whats the point`.

This conference was lead by Tearfund (Christian poverty charity) and Livability ( provider of care for adults). Firstly the conference modelled what it spoke of. i have never been in a bunch of people with so little pretence and so much openess. seemed like everyone, young or old, whatever background were on the same page.
The key speaker named Dave Andrews was a humble Australian guy with a larger than life personality. He basically said that we can change no one but ourselves.

He focused on the pain and depression people go through and said that our common problem is that we often look at the things we can not change rather than what we can. If we always look beyond our area of influence and concentrate on the areas for concern, we will always be depressed.
I think this is why i get so frustrated by the News a lot of the time. It just shows all the things that go wrong and very little of what people are actually doing about it.It makes me feel powerless. There are many things that people (not just Christians) all around the world are doing to help alleviate pain and suffering, but only a tiny amount is ever reported ... no wonder we/ i feel hopeless at times.

i am trying hard to start to focus on the moment (where God is with me, with us in hopelessness) and findout what I CAN do. Fortunatley there are bunch of people (did you know a bunch of banana's is 300 or so... i mean the bunch like 5-10) here who are really committed to the same thing. I think doing things together is much better. and if what Dave Andrews says is true and i can only change myself... If we as a group change ourselves then others will see that change and who knows maybe decide to change themselves...

so this is a bit of where i am at right now... grappling with questions and not having the answers... i am still thankful and loking forward to the challenges ahead.

write again very soon!!!!


'The submission of individual independence to a higher force than our own, is the only way of ridding the world of evil. ' ANON