Fight Club

Tyler Durden:

"Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived.

I see all this potential, and I see squandering.

God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy s**t we don't need.

We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives.

We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very p**sed off."

The week

Been another great but intense week on the streets. Surprisingly Monday was very messy, we took home some girls who were getting harassed by some italian guy who had got his penis out and was waving it around. We didn't actually see it although if I had I would have been inclined to give it a good hard slap. These girls were only 18, one of them was in a complete mess.

We then took 3 other girls home, this was messier and the drunk girl had completely lost all sense of decency!! The sights we see. There was vomit everywhere on Monday, one of our team took a hit straight to the face when a girl she was trying to revive projectile vomited all over her. Not nice!!

We have given all our full versions of the bible away to the prostitutes and thankfully are awaiting some others that have been kindly donated. Hopefully they will get here this week.

The team from Southern Ireland have been great, we don't normally have teams with so many boys but this team has had 5 which is so cool.

What's been really great about this week is that apart from Monday we have not had to use the van much therefore giving us more time out connecting with people, chatting, praying, listening and giving away bibles. This has thrown up some really good opportunities for us to talk about our faith and tell people why we do what we do. We've sat with some people for over an hour just listening to their woes and stresses often resulting in prayer and always received with gratitude. Thankfully we don't get in to many intense debates or arguments people trust us.

It's been very hot and sticky this week which makes the work harder, I would enjoy lying around in this for two weeks, but working in it is another level.

We continue to breath in and breath out, which is good, it suggests life.

Llorando (Crying)

I love this song, actually think it's better than the Roy Orbison original, although I don't like the cheesy graphics.

The Fat Church (edited!!!)

I am sorry if the tone and phraseology of my blog was flippant and hurtful please forgive me. I guess I was just trying to say that we have these christian hot potatoes and we almost seem to ignore other issues. My intention was never to imply judgement, shaming or ridicule I tried to be humorous and it didn't work, I guess I am not as funny as i think I am. Enid Blyton used to always talk about the naughty children in her books as the type of people who would laugh at their own jokes!! Thats me, sorry.

I have seen harsh things said from the pulpit about all kinds of sin and weakness but never this issue, I guess I was just trying to highlight what I perceive to be the hypocrisy of it all. As a cigar smoker (who by the way hasn't smoked for 3 weeks!!) I have often felt judged because what I do is visual and you can smell it on me, when there is a whole lot of other hidden stuff that people can just get away with.

I am not trying to make exscuses just letting you know the thinking behind my comments.

You're in a church service and someone says "there are people here struggling with there sexuality", no one bats an eye lid, or "there are people here struggling with addictions", no one bats an eye lid. It's like these are acceptable sins, we expect people to be struggling with them and we want people to deal with them.

Heres another scenario, what if you stood up and said "I can see there are a lot of over weight people in the room can you all please come forward for ministry" this would be horrific and humiliating. I remember a guy doing it to me once when I was not walking strong in my faith, something like "there are people here who need to get straight with God" he then called out our names and made us stand up, if I had have been older I would have walked but I just stood!! and needless to say didn't go back to church for a few years.

You see we have acceptable and then we have unacceptable things, every stone you are overweight is like smoking a few cigarettes a day. 30% of the USA and 23% of the UK are obese!!! No one challenges it.

In proverbs it says:"Like a city whose walls are broken down is a man who lacks self-control." when is someone going to get up and preach that?

When we going to hear a bit more about gluttony? Who is going to preach the "Say No to one more donut" sermon?

What I am getting at is there is a lot of same old, same old stuff out there, everyone knows what we think on certain issues, but other issues that are really LARGE amongst the church, get skipped. It's almost like we can focus on all the things that don't really affect us.

The thing is as well with obesity you can see if people aren't dealing with it, it's hard one to hide and kid people that you have got it under control. The church should be out raising awareness to this issue. People need to find healthy ways of coping and dealing with life, rather than using food as a comfort. Obese people can't hide their pain as well as those struggling with alcohol or drugs. They literally wear it on their bodies. Obese people are treated horribly by the "world".

I guess we have to find a way of sensitively dealing with these issues. People, no matter what their issue (addictions such as drugs, alcohol, over-eating / or dealing with issues about their sexuality) deserve to be treated with DIGNITY AND RESPECT. Sorry if this post didn't quite reach that level, forgive me.

There is an obesity epidemic spreading throughout Europe and America, what's the church doing about it? I know!! lets provide donuts on a Sunday morning to make everyone feel welcome.....

A book

So I am writing a little book got a working title, chapter outlines and have written the intro and chapter one. I'll see if it flies, have toyed with the idea for a few years now but only feel a liberty to do it now.

It will generally relate to the life we lead out here, stories from the west end, little analogies and lessons learnt. The first thing you ask yourself is, "have I got anything to say?" the second is "will anybody read it?" once you get over those two thoughts and start to see that perhaps you have then you should be ok. We came up with 13 or 14 really good chapter outlines, just got to fill in the blanks.

I'm also finding the blog helpful for interesting stories to use and a great way of jogging my memory.

Alongside that, I seriously want to pursue the idea of getting "God Bless Ibiza" Message New Testaments printed for next summer. We really think it will work. The idea would be I get 5000 printed, thats a minimum print run and then sell half of them to fund giving the other half away. Believe me we will get rid of them.

Anyway I have books on my mind right now, which is all good.

Prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury,pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.


O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen
.

Kindness

Kindness is not merely the domain of christians, but I guess you knew that anyway.

We see so many beautiful acts of kindness, random strangers who will help us lift a girl into the van, bar workers who will always give us water, people who will phone us because they are concerned about wrecked people, friends who stick with their drunken mates even though it ruins their evening. I've seen guys give up a really expensive ticket and a great night out to go back to their hotel and watch over their drunken friend.

Tonight Jude and Alex where dealing with a guy who had cut his arm it wasn't deep just needed cleaning and bandaging, two prostitutes helped them, they held his arm and pointed out all the bits Jude had missed.

People will occasionally get it all wrong we have so many well meaning drunks who stop to try and help us, they are normally a bit of a nuisance, they try to sit people up instead of putting them in the recovery position, they offer to buy food to help or generally just keep chipping in about what you should do next, but we remind ourselves that behind it lies a kind heart they are trying to help.

The other night an old guy and his wife watched us deal with a drunken girl he came over and gave us a 5 euro donation, it was kind.

I love seeing kindness at work.

Does it matter

Been thinking a lot about what we buy and what we use. Just keep wondering if it really makes a difference.

My thinking got started on this when for the first time in over 12 months we took our children to McDonalds, the trays that had food on them had a nutritional guide map printed on them. I kept thinking about the film "supersize me" maybe it had something to do with McDonalds greater transparency.

Then you look at clothing, like Gap, Nike, Guess, Forever 21, Levi Strauss and you see their use of sweatshops and child labour. Should we stop buying clothes from these people? Do we care? Does it matter? Of course none of us like the idea of child labour but what happens when the factories get shut down?

Found this quote in an interesting article here with regards to a book called "Where am I wearing" by Kelsey Timmerman "It's important to take a realistic look at the situation. What do we really imagine will happen to these children if they stop working in factories? That they'll suddenly be given opportunities for education? As Timmerman points out, the alternative is more likely begging, brick-breaking or sex work. None of which is to say child labor is acceptable; just that our knowledge and concern — and activism — needs to go beyond easy shades of black and white."

What about coffee, has anyone seen the movie Black Gold looking at the global coffee industry. Where does it all end?

Then there are the supermarkets discount retailers like Aldi, Lidl, Tesco, Carrefour, and Walmart try to lure consumers into their shops with low, low prices. A man’s suit for £25 at Tesco, a woman’s dress for $9 at Walmart, or jeans for €8 at Carrefour. How do they do it? Check out the Better Bargain Campaign

What do we end up doing? Do we seriously have the time and the money to insure that our expenditure is pure and that all the companies we deal with are ethically sound?

My friend Pete Kernohagn is holding an event in Green Island N.Ireland, called All Work and No play, from the 3rd - 7th August with an auction on the 8th, to raise awareness about sweatshops in Cambodia. You should go, join up via facebook HERE

Can't think of a title

Been a while

In all honesty I am pretty drained from being ill. You know that kind of tired mental state that you get in after you have been properly unwell, thats how I have felt this weekend and even today.

Our work is relentless and its almost like it drags you along with it, you don't get much time to catch your breath. One team left on Friday night and then a new team from Dublin arrived on Sunday, we have just had a great night out with them but it's very quiet on Mondays. Tiesto plays at privilege which is a huge club that can take over 10,000 people so a lot of people go there which kind of empties the west end. It's good for a teams first night to be quiet, it helps them settle in.

Anyway my brain is fired, for the first time in a long time I'm finding it hard to cope with the summer rhythm, but this only because of illness. Tracy has been a bit under the weather and both are sons have also got chicken pox!!! So we all will need a holiday soon.

We're going to N.Ireland for 2 weeks in August on hols, which should be excellent, it's hardly like we need a sunny destination we like the idea of a little cloud cover and hopefully we will get it in Ireland.

Got to get over this drained feeling and get through these next 3 weeks, actually I won't get through them I'll enjoy them as always, I've just been ill.

Watched Braveheart in bed last week, still love it as a movie

I am William Wallace. And my enemies
do not go away. I saw our good nobles
hanged. My wife... I am William
Wallace. And I see a whole army of
my countrymen, here in defiance of
tyranny. You have come to fight as
free men. And free men you are! What
will you do without freedom? Will you
fight?

**VETERAN**
Two thousand, against ten? We will
run -- and live!

**WALLACE**
Yes. Fight and you may die. Run and
you will live, at least awhile. And
dying in your bed many years from
now, would you be willing to trade
all the days from this day to that,
for one chance to come back here as
young men, and tell our enemies that
they make take our lives, but they
will never take our freedom!!!

Walking Home

We had a really simple thing happen to us this evening, I was in the prayer room with some of the guys when we got a phone call from a worker who just wanted us to walk her home. She normally waits and walks home with her friends but tonight she wanted to go early, so she phoned us.

Thats exactly what we did; two of us went and met her and then walked her home. She wasn't drunk or messed up just a normal girl trying something different for the summer working hard and having fun in the sun, we had a lovely little small talk chat and left her off safe and sound. I felt like more of a dad on the street tonight than I have ever done. Just walking someone's daughter home and making sure she got in okay.

It's lovely that people feel safe with us.

I have been in bed for two days now with a fever.

Hot and cold sweats, delirious etc...

Police action

It's been a really busy time over the last few days, we have a team of 9 people out helping us which is superb.

Thursday we had a young lady up to the centre who needed a meal, a shower and a lift to the airport we were able to help her. The previous night James and Laura walked a guy home to his hotel and on his way he confessed to being a christian but a bit on the run from God eventually he knelt down with them at a bench and rededicated his life to God.

We have seen an increase in the amount of people who want bibles so we continue to give away the "jesus Loves Pornstars" bibles. In fact last week we gave on to guy who spoke to us the next day and said he had read Matthew and basically felt that jesus message was about trusting him! We then had two of his friends turn up at the centre not to use the computers or anything like that but to ask for bibles!!!

Next year I want to get our own "God Bless Ibiza" bibles printed.

Our boys are in England so on Sunday night Tracy and I had the opportunity to go on call together, we took one girl home then came and collected another girl, whilst tracy was waiting with her in the street she pulled her pants down and urinated everywhere!!! It was very sad, we walked her home.


Some of the team have prayed with sick guys who have said the next day that they have felt better.We have taken so many vulnerable people home but also seen an increase in conversations and prayers with people. We have washed clothes for people and helped others with practical stuff.

We met a guy who said he had been clean of drugs for 17 days since we prayed for him, we went back and checked his prayer request on the prayer room wall and sure enough it was written 17 days ago!!!!

We have had worker friends up for meals and the centre is buzzing, we have literally just opened the doors and 9 people have just walked in.

We also met a girl on the street whose mum had just become a christian back in the UK needless to say she had loads of questions. All in all the last few days have been fantastic loads of great stuff plenty of stuff i can't talk about but it's all good.

In the midst of this crazy fantastic week, we dropped a guy of at 5 this morning and I then got stopped by the police and accused of being an illegal taxi!!! It was a bit strange the guy we dropped off was so drunk and covered in vomit the police asked him if he had taken payment and he said yes, he probably didn't want to get in trouble but it caused me a load of problems, you get a 3000 euro fine and car confiscated for a few minutes i thought i was going to get properly arrested especially when he phoned for back up., anyway, as if i would run an illegal taxi with a logo on the side and 3 girls in it with a bucket and be able to hand the guy a business card and all the rest.....It took a bit of their time and my time but I think they believed me in the end. They let me go said they would talk to their superiors but told me I could keep doing what i was doing...

On top of that I have a chest infection and am running a temperature so feel physically dreadful, I topped this off last night by squeezing some pears and trying to make a juice with the ones that were going off, of course I ended up with the runs!!! So I am literally drained...

Porn in prayer rooms

Had to ask a couple of ladies to leave the centre because they where using it to upload some amateur porn movies and develop there online customers. They didn't like it and tried to convince me that it was all innocent one even challenged me and the other said "what is uploading", they obviously thought I was born yesterday. I had been listening in to their conversation and it was along the lines of what can we film whilst having an orgasm. It was at this point I stepped in and told them I didn't really care what they did but they had to go and this wasn't going to happen in our place. They left in a huff!!

The weirdest thing is one of them was well into her 50's, she had had a lot of work done.

I then checked our computers history and sure enough it was porn. Oh well you offer something for free and people will occasionally take advantage, thats life.

They won't be back or maybe they will.

pears

We harvested about 300 pears today and about 200 onions. The next question is what am I going to do with them? We'll give as many pears away as possible, but I am wondering how easy it would be to make pear brandy???

The onions will be easier, we can freeze, pickle and store them.

We have our 3rd team of 9 people with us and tonight is their first night out on the street, hope it goes well for them.

I was out last night with Christine, we got a call at about 2am, ended up getting back at about 5am. This isn't a great story but on one level I have to tell you our failures, well maybe not even failures, just tough ones. We met this guy he had fallen asleep in a bar and the owners had phoned us to come and help him home, they where really helpful giving him water etc.. but he wouldn't go, he just kept telling us to "f**k off" but we couldn't because his wallet kept falling out of his pocket and he was going to get robbed. We kept tucking it back in and eventually made it secure but we then saw another guy who had been punched in the face in a bar and the shock of it had caused him to vomit. We left the f**k off guy sitting by a wall and went to help this young lad. he could only have been 17 and his mate was completely sober. We got them home to their hotel ok, just gets to me sometimes when these guys are only about 4 years older than my son. What a great night out a fat lip and shirt covered in puke!!! We went back to find the other guy but he had gone......

The farm is such a lovely respite from the madness and we are so blessed to be here. The evening breezes are a life saver.

Dirty Dancing

Just watching "Dirty Dancing" with Tracy and the rest of the team. It's scary how a film ages although all the girls still like it, I'm not a big fan of chick flicks, any way how did baby change from shy girl to hot little temptress over night.

I still like the "I've had the time of my life song", you can tell I'm bored I'm blogging whilst everyone else is watching. There's a great car in the film. Baby is quite attractive but her hair is to fizzy.

The most disturbing thing about this little viewing is Bruce knows all the words.. there are aspects of his character I am starting to question

Chick flicks that I hate:

1. Dirty Dancing (frizzy hair and tight high riding trousers)
2. Mama mia (Abba)
3. 50 first dates (Repetitive)
4. Maid in Manhattan (Jennifer Lopez)
5. When Harry met Sally (Meg Ryan)
6. Footloose (early american coca cola advert)
7. Sleepless in seattle (Meg Ryan)
8. Bride wars (wedding movies)
9. Legally Blonde (to pink)
10. Pretty Woman (Richard Gere he was better in American Gigilo)
11. Titanic (The boat sinks)

I'm sure there are more help me please????

How to motivate chickens

U2 were good, just good, obviously their back catalogue is fantastic so almost anything they play has instant resonation therefore causing you to get into it, but to me they looked a little bit rusty and it almost felt like a rehearsal. The revolving drum kit was the only way Larry could stay in touch with the whole crowd but occasionally this meant he was out of touch with Bono and this lead to one or two moments where the band seemed disconnected. I wonder whether they work better with an English speaking audience?

We where very close to the front and the atmosphere was fantastic the nou camp was full, Snow Patrol were brilliant, tight, energetic and a great opening band, for Tracy and I it felt like a double header.

I am also now the proud owner of a lovely Freelander, getting up our hill has never been easier. The car is fantastic. I had no problems meeting Jude and Owen in Barcelona, we had a lovely evening meal together and then on the Thursday I spent the entire day on the Barcelona Ibiza ferry, a little boring, but worth it just to get the car over.

Thank you to everyone who contributed to getting the car over and also to all you lovely people who offered to drive over for me.

Got a busy week ahead, need to harvest all our potatoes and onions, plus the pear tree needs de-pearing. We will give the pears out in centre this week. Our grapes are looking good but they are not ready yet, got to get more water on them. It's a definite farm week this week. On top of the harvesting got to make a gate, sort out a way of killing the rats in the hay barn and stopping the sparrows from getting in to the chicken coup to steal all the food. I am thinking about shooting them, but ricochets around a barn could be deadly. We are also trying to work out a way to discover which chickens aren't laying when we discover who the slackers are, they are going in the pot!

In all honesty I think killing one would incentivize the rest to get back up to speed, there is nothing like the death of a team mate for laziness to motivate you to work that little bit harder.