First team

We have a team out at the moment they came yesterday and we are all working on the farm today.

We start in the westend next Monday night!!!!

Very busy today.

This is a first I am blogging whilst on the toilet..........

More later

The Simple way

The church I used to be the leader of in Diss has a really great project that uses their building, it's called Kadesh, it's an inclusion project for children who have difficullties adjusting to school.

They have just got a little farm and i am very envious of their live stock initiatives, they have pigs, goats and chickens. Check out their blog and see how it's all going at Kadesh Community Farm I really do love how there are a lot of projects out there that are engaging with the land.

Andrew Jones has recently visited a farm project with his family in Portugal, these guys look hard core and look a lot more like hippies than us check out Shanti Pilgrim they do things with dirt and growing stuff.

Maybe this is the way forward, during this financial crisis people will look at ways of becoming much more self sustainable. In the UK allotments are on the increase, these are small pieces of public land given over to members of the public for a small fee where by they can grow some vegetables. In 2008 The Guardian reported that 330 000 people held an allotment, whilst 100,000 were on waiting lists.

I also love the work of Shane Claiborne and the guys at the Simple Way I love the fact that they are choosing to engage with the world in a different way.

Within our movement 24-7 prayer I think we will see a lot more boiler rooms start to get productive with growing their own food and developing models of sustainable living.

I'm not a hippy, but I love the challenges of a simple life. Our potatoes and onions are coming along brilliantly, as well as our lettuce, spinach and carrots. We have lost a few other crops but it's all part of learning. We'll probably get some livestock after the summer as our lives will get extremely busy from next week!!!

I am also very inspired by the Kadesh guys who are using simple techniques of looking after animals to help young people become more gentle and engage with the world in a better way.

Pilgrims

When I was young a copy of this painting hung on our living room wall, it's of the pilgrim fathers boarding the mayflower to begin their journey to a new land. Painted by Bernard Gribble

Blessed are those who have set their hearts on pilgrimage. Psalm 84

When I think of pilgrims the image above jumps to mind an image of people who travel toward a specific destination, tired weary travellers getting on a boat for some distant destination, braving the elements, enduring hardship but enduring in order to reach the promised land.

Although to be a pilgrim does not always require a physical location.

I am also very impressed by the Peregrinari Pro Christ, (Pilgrims for Christ), or "white martyrs," these where predominantly Irish pilgrims who where around in the time of early celtic christianity, they where pilgrims whose specific intent was to wander, to be blown as it where by the wind of the Spirit.

These guys left home, or orders for an unknown destination, they did so in complete faith that God would lead and provide for them. According to wikipedia there "travels often resulted in the founding of new abbeys and spreading Christianity among the pagan population in Britain as well as on continental Europe."

According to the Oxford dictionary "Peregrine" (from the Latin peregrinus) is a given (first or Christian) name which means "wanderer". These guys where wanderers.

I don't get the impression it was aimless wandering, but I am sure there must have been days when it felt like that. Really it was to wander with Christ as well as wandering for Christ.

There is something simple and pleasing about this kind of spirit led life, following and wandering, eventually ending up somewhere. It was probably also frustrating, not knowing the end from the beginning! I feel like that at times.

I feel like a pilgrim, not in some sanctimonious or self righteous way, but as a wanderer. I don't even feel it has to always be physical wandering, we are all on a journey. I'm sure some of us have an idea of our final destination yet for many it feels like we are just walking through life hoping we get it right.....

It's good to remind ourselves that we are all pilgrims, we have all set out from somewhere and will all end up somewhere.

Enjoy the pilgrimage

Facebook

Now following on from yesterdays post, I have been having some thoughts with regards Facebook.

I know I have mentioned this before but it kind of bugs me! Of recent months I have seen all sorts of unhealthy stuff on facebook it really has become ridiculous. People using facebook to have a pop at each other people is one of the most immature uses of the internet I have ever seen. Also the whole aspect of displaying their emotions for the world to see!! I don't know, is it any different from a blog in that aspect? I often post my emotional turmoils on here. Still I don't feel comfortable with it, but I could be being hypocritical.

Friends that are acquaintances, people you meet in conferences, other people you don't even know! all that sort of thing, is it good? I know you can say No to friend requests but then that becomes a whole challenge to the ego!!!! Maybe they should limit it to 200 friends or maybe I should limit myself to 200 friends......

The one aspect I have really enjoyed is that a lot of my old school friends have got in touch and also loads of the workers from Ibiza have been in touch, so I can see the benefits.

I guess the photographs are also good, it's nice to see what people are up to.

The apps also bug me, so I just say no to them.

Are we becoming internet stalkers, is our time being drained by watching each other pass our lives away on facebook or blogs? Have we become almost like cyber tourists in a world of images and mundane reflections, do we just watch other peoples lives pass by without actually being involved in them?

I'm conflicted! I enjoy watching and I enjoy having an internet presence but I want to be near people, to talk face to face, to drink with them, to hug them (well not all the time) to be physically present in sharing life rather than just an observer.....

American Baseball Player Jackie Robinson said "Life is not a spectator sport. If you're going to spend your whole life in the grandstand just watching what goes on, in my opinion you're wasting your life."

Computer dependent

I am old enough to remember the days before PC's, I actually remember my friend getting a ZX spectrum. You uploaded programs using a tape recorder. I still remember the noise it made. I was also one of these people who thought mobile phones were poncy and that I would never own one.... oh how wrong I was.

I love my Mac, not in an over zealous I hate PC's kind of way. I have just been amazed by it's durability and longevity it is over 3 years old and only in the last month has it really started to slow down, but i wish it had rubbery keys like the Spectrum.

I am wondering if I should just clean it up and try to make it faster, or maybe buy a spectrum.

The battery life has also gone down to about 10 minutes, the hinges are slightly damaged but other than that it is the apple of my eye.

The only problem will be replacing it, they just aren't as cheap as PC's..... I may have to go back across the Jordan and get a PC.

Although I am wondering about Ebay or finding a refurb one or bargain basement one online.

We've moved from a time of no home computers to an age where the computer keeps us connected, I am wondering if I could start letter writing as this is a forgotten art form, it would probably hurt my wrist.


Read this by Kimberly S Young

1. Do you feel preoccupied with the Internet (think about previous on-line activity or anticipate next on-line session)?
2. Do you feel the need to use the Internet with increasing amounts of time in order to achieve satisfaction?
3. Have you repeatedly made unsuccessful efforts to control, cut back, or stop Internet use?
4. Do you feel restless, moody, depressed, or irritable when attempting to cut down or stop Internet use?
5. Do you stay on-line longer than originally intended?
6. Have you jeopardized or risked the loss of significant relationship, job, educational or career opportunity because of the Internet?
7. Have you lied to family members, therapist, or others to conceal the extent of involvement with the Internet?
8. Do you use the Internet as a way of escaping from problems or of relieving a dysphoric mood (e.g., feelings of helplessness, guilt, anxiety, depression)?

If you answer yes to 5 of these questions you could be computer dependent, I don't think I am although I would seriously miss my Mac!!!!!

Telefonica in Ibiza

We moved onto the farm at the beginning of January at which point we had the people from telefonica come and tell us they couldn't install a standard phone line but they would install a radio phone. Of course they never followed up, for the last 3 months it has always been "15 days", my mobile is weary....

So this morning they came to do the phone, as the man trundled up the hill in his little van my heart skipped a beat, but of course they once again disappointed, the man had come to install a normal phone and said "you need a radio phone", tell me something I don't know..... you plum.

This has to be the most incompetent company I have ever come across, with a customer service policy that is either non existent or written on a beer mat by two employees after a long wine fueled lunch. To deal with telefonica you need a psychiatrist, a counsellor, seven anger management courses, a large glass of wine, and some valium, plus a tape recording of the words "I am sorry I don't quite think you understood that". Not only have they cocked up the radio phone, which they now assure me they will install on 6th May, but when we moved from our old house we had the phone disconnected but they have charged us for February, March and April, even though we weren't living there!!!!! this isn't even a case of bad spanish they have english speaking people on the phones, although apparently you only need the English skills of a 5 year old to get the job..... To top it all off because we haven't paid the bill they have cut our phone and ADSL (broadband) off at the centre in town, one week before we open, without even telling us.

We have had one rep hang up on us and countless others promising things they fail to deliver on. I swear that when they get off the phone they just have a coffee and cigarette, forgetting you ever called. I bet they don't even have computer screens or note pads in front of them, just ashtrays, small coffee cups and a bowl of olives.

Anyway my prayer today is for a hostile takeover of telefonica and that they outsource all their call centres to bolivia and india. That they totally retrain their rude incompetent staff and change their antiquated third world method of dealing with things. Sorry thats not meant to be an insult to the third world. i swear sometimes things are easier to get done in Kenya than Spain.

Telefonica you suck....


Yes I am angry, and it's OK to be angry, I am going to get my gun and take my anger out on a rabbit......

300 of anything

It's that time of year again, in two weeks time our centre will open and we will start our work in the West End, just wondering if it will be as busy this year, due to the credit crunch!!!

Anyway the reason I write is that we always give out welcome bags to everyone who visits our centre, we fill these bags with all sorts of goodies to make people feel welcome, bring a smile to their face and also just to exhibit kindness.

If you have 300 of anything that we could put in a bag i would love to hear from you. Obviously I don't think we could fit any spartans in the bag, although I am sure if we did we would make some young ladies very happy.....

We always give away lighters, condoms and bibles, in previous years people have donated, sweets, perfume, lollies, CD's, tea bags etc...we'd love to do the same again so if you have 300 of anything we'd love to get our hands on them and give them away.

Speak to me, if anyone has a brain wave for something ultra groovy I'd love to know.

If there is anyone who lives near Costco or has a cash and carry card and would like to go shopping for me, I would love to hear from you, I have a list........

Preacher

Had a weird weekend. Do you ever have one of those moments where you get caught on the hop in a conversation? I had someone talk to me about my faith which I wasn't really prepared for. Just sitting chilling with some friends and then I get put on the spot by an evangelistic atheist who was trying to convert me to adopt his humanistic world view!!!

It always seems ok for people to have a pop at the christians, in all honesty I felt like telling him to shut up and leave me alone. Especially when I wasn't even preaching at him.

You start to get asked your views, on this and that! but no one else around the table gets asked!!!! I know faith sometimes provokes a response but it is worse when the other person is the aggressor!!!

It made me think, here I am sitting around a table and some guy I have never met before is telling me to change a belief system that I have spent the last 20 years incorporating into my life, it wasn't going to happen.

Christians are not the only evangelists, there are all sorts of people out there trying to get us to believe and adopt their philosophy!!!

Intimacy and involvement

Intimacy and involvement is a much used phrase within 24-7 prayer, it's the phrase to me that gives real life to our crazy movement. I believe this is a really exciting time. God is looking for a people who are both intimate with him and involved with the world. Which excites me as the summer approaches, not that I don't live this way all the time but it is heightened during the busy summer months.

There is a call upon each one of our lives to be an intimate prayerful people, who touch the Father’s heart and experience the transforming power of his presence. There is also a call upon each of our lives to be an involved people, who prayerfully take the Fathers heart to the world and introduce others to Jesus and allow them to experience the transforming power of His presence in their lives. Thats what I love.

We must be careful that we don’t try to spread the gospel without the back up of prayer, the power of the Holy Spirit and the transforming power of having been in His presence. Likewise we must be very careful that we don’t pray, experience the Holy Spirit and become transformed by His presence without ever being compelled to fulfil the biblical mandate of spreading the gospel.

We need to be a people who do both, it would be completely wrong to say “I pray, others reach out” or “I reach out, others pray” a Christians life needs both intimacy and involvement.

My faith is two pronged and I don’t think we can choose to go for just one prong! Read Matthew 22: 37 -40 we are called to do both, "love the Lord your God with all your heart and Love your neighbours as yourself." The Christian organisation YWAM sums it up beautifully in their mission statement “To know God and make God known”.

We can’t just be presence seekers; we also need to be presence bringers. We need to be striving to do both together at all times.

I heard a guy called Bill Wilson speak once he talked from Exodus 16: 42 – 50. in which a deadly plague is spreading throughout the children of Israel, they are literally dropping like flies in front of Moses and Aaron, Aaron runs to the Altar, the place that represents the presence of God, he gets some incense and fire from the Altar and runs into the middle of the people and stands with the incense and the plague stops. It says that he took the fire and “stood between the living and the dead”.
We must be a people who get fire from the presence of God and then stand in the middle of a dying world and bring life. We are called to stand between the living and the dead but we can only do this if we have got the fire from His presence.Aaron carried something that he had got from the presence of God into the middle of a very dark and desperate situation and the plague stopped. One man ran into the presence and then ran into the dying world around him and made a difference. The fact that he ran suggests urgency, lives depended on his speed, on his commitment and his awareness of how dreadful the situation was.

My prayer is that I become like Aaron, that I am filled with a desire to run to the presence of God and that I am also filled with enough compassion for the lost and dying to run with His presence into the world.

Intimacy and involvement. Prayer and action. Faith and deeds. They kind of all go together.

Psalm 141: 2 May my prayer be set before you like incense; may the lifting up of my hands be like the evening sacrifice.

There is responsibility that is invested in us from heaven itself to be a people who pray and keep praying in order that we can be a people who witness and keep witnessing.

Silent prayer

I've been struck by the silence that we get up here on the hill, it's very remote and apart from the sounds of nature can be so still and quiet. Having recently been at Stanstead airport and witnessed the opposite of silence it is something I really appreciate. Believe it or not there are occassions when I enjoy solitude.

Mother Teresa said: “We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature - trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence... We need silence to be able to touch souls.”

I'm struck also by a few bible verses

Psalm 37: 7 “Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him”

Psalm 46: 10 “Be still and know that I am God”

Ecclesiastes 3: 7 “A time to be silent and a time to speak”

I'm sometimes not very still and I try to be God! I speak when i should hold my tongue, I am impatient when I should be peaceful.

“Sacred silence! Thou that art
Floodgate of the deeper heart,
Offspring of a heavenly kind;
Frost o’ the mouth, and thaw o’ the mind” Richard Flecknoe

An invocation to silence.

I live in a world of noise, Silence does not always come in the natural world. There can be noise all around me but I have to find a silent, still place inside myself

Time alone and in silence can produce great things. I'm thinking about having a day of silence, a speak fast!

“In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth.” Mahatma Ghandi

Cathartic

Ok, so yesterdays post was cathartic thanks for all the kind messages and comments, you're all very kind to me. I couldn't find an image for cathartic so found this lovely selection of suction catheters instead......

It was a low day but I will not stay low for long, I guess it's been on and off like this for a few months but the lower days are getting further apart which is good. A lot of adjustment to life can only in the end be good for us. I love what it says in

Romans 5: 2 -5
And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.

I guess as a Christian I am always wanting to grow, but I probably don't like the idea of that growth being through emotionally tough situations. I am sure I am being changed by this process but somewhere along the line in my life here I have become comfortable. Even with the desperate situations that we deal with in the west end, to tell you the truth you get used to it, it doesn't seem extraordinary it's just life and I have grown to be comfortable with it. On one level this is necessary but on another level I don't think we were ever called to be comfortable. I have become a victim of my own teaching, I have often said that I feel God wants to move us out of the comfort zone and have believed that I was out of it, but I wasn't!!!!

So here's to life on the edge, I have to embrace it, flow with it, learn to let new challenges shape me and make me. My prayer is one I heard a Jamaican preacher pray in 1990 and it's one I use a lot. "God make me the man you want me to be, not the man I want to be" got to keep praying this and expect that sometimes in His shaping of me I won't always like it.

My dad posted a very encouraging blog today which also helped me a lotRead it here

So, yes today I am refreshed by the challenge, up for it and willing to do what it takes to make it happen.

We're weird aren't we? Emotionally inconsistent beings, one day we are up for the challenge the next day we are down, one day we are happy the next we are sad! At times I wish I was a robot, but most of the time I enjoy being complex just like everybody else!

I also hope I never have to wear a catheter........

Life on a mountain

I have tossed and turned as to whether to write this blog especially with the eclectic bunch of readers that read this, but anyway “it’s better out than in!”

“Language... has created the word "loneliness" to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word "solitude" to express the glory of being alone.” Paul Tillich

There have been moments in the last 3 months where I have flitted between a sense of loneliness and solitude, this has not always been real just a feeling that creeps up on me which in reality I know isn’t true but due to a few problems we are having with communications has given me a feeling of isolation.

In isolation your mind plays tricks on you, when you can’t talk to people freely or just get hold of them easily you end up getting low because the people who you normally bounce things off and talk to are distant.

You want to talk but you don’t want to burden people, you’re sitting in a marvelous farm on the top of a mountain getting to live out your dream yet you feel unsettled and not yet comfortable. Why should I be seen to be complaining when we are very definitely living in a place that is a gift from God. I have an overwhelming undercurrent of insecurity and inadequacy threatening my emotional stability that I am suppressing with the hope it will eventually dissolve, however it only increases within me whilst my capacity to hold it at bay appears to be rapidly diminishing.

When we first left for Ibiza we played this song by U2 in the car as we drove away from our home to start a new life here, it was poignant then and is feeling equally poignant today.

I'm 'round the corner from anything that's real
I'm across the road from hope
I'm under a bridge in a rip tide
That's taken everything I call my own

One step closer to knowing
One step closer to knowing
One step closer to knowing
Knowing, knowing

I'm on an island at a busy intersection
I can't go forward, I can't turn back
Can't see the future
It's getting away from me
I just watch the tail lights glowing

Please don’t mis read this as me wanting to give up or come home, after all I don’t know where home is anymore! I’m not even uber depressed I just have this underlying current of unease about being here and the future.

Give me a year when I can see it all working, the centre and the farm harmonizing in effectiveness to extend the kingdom, but right now it is just a massive adjustment.

This verse is sustaining me at this present time:

Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage.

Psalm 84: 5

Fake cats

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Decorate your cabin or home with these collectable figurines.

Available at all good craft stores or Made-in-china.com

Our Garden

I'm missing the farm, this photo was taken from our land, we where right on the edge and thats the farm in the middle.

Hopefully it gives you an idea of scale that we are dealing with!!!

Public Toilets

On my travels over the last few days I have become more aware of the things that make me grumpy:

People who have not yet grasped how to use a toilet brush, I hate going to skiddy toilets, listen if it sticks to the side use the brush and sort it out, there is no excuse. People who don't flush at all!!!! This makes me gag. People who don't lift the seat and just urinate all over it, worse if you don't notice and sit down on it!.

Lateness, I don't like being late and don't like people being late. In all honesty lateness says to me "my time is worth more than yours"

British police who question you when you get of the plane from Belfast to Doncaster, last time I looked we were all part of the same nation. Funny I didn't see any police questioning people getting of the train from London in Sheffield station! They are also rude, if I hadn't have been in a hurry I would have been obstinate and not bothered answering them.

The price of beer and whiskies in hotels, how can they get away with this?

People who glare at noisy children, my children aren't noisy but it angers me when other people tut at noisy children, children are children let them be.

People who don't open doors for people, a little kindness goes a long way, and some doors are heavy, help them for Petes sake.

Likewise when some is struggling to get a bag off a train give them a hand.

People who moan about immigration, there's a lot of that about in the UK, didn't Jesus once say : "I was a stranger and you welcomed me in"

Beer with a slice of lime pushed into the top, ok if you live in Mexico but it doesn't work in Sheffield.

Fake cats, these seem to be all the rage, my question is why?????