When I grow up I want to be a prostitute

The charger on my lap top is broken which means I can't use it at the moment.

The brake lights on the back of my car all stopped working which meant it has been in the garage until this morning.

Minor problems that are easy to work around. I see many more extreme examples of brokeness. The brokeness that people experience.

These last few weeks I have been reminded of brokeness amidst beauty. All the people we meet and work with in one way or another are beautiful, yet they are broken.

We all have areas of brokeness, what do we choose to focus on? The brokeness or the beauty?

These young prostitutes we have befriended are broken but beautiful. They are mothers, they are sisters, they are someones daughter. They love to sing, they love to laugh. Yet they sell sex, and I am pretty sure some of them robb people. But what do we do? Do we focus on the brokeness or the beauty?

Last week we had 10 of these ladies at our Sunday service a few weeks ago 15 of them turned up. As they have got to know the songs they sing louder, as they have got to know us they now pop into the centre not just for condoms, but to hang out and use facebook! One even comes along to sing and practice songs with one of our workers.

At the moment we feel like we are on a stumbling journey with these ladies, but I see beauty in their brokeness.

I have said this before when they were children not one of these girls ever thought "When I grow up I want to be a prostitute"

Lateness

Back from hols out on the streets tonight with team 5, which was loads of fun. It's been very quiet this week but we like that as it means we have many more opportunities to pray with people and talk with people.

We met a girl who was waiting for a guy but he stood her up or maybe he was just late.

Listen if your man and you're meeting a girl there are only two things you can be, early or on time. Late doesn't work.

There is no such thing as fashionably late, you're late, it's rude, end of story.


Lateness is a bug bear of mine, if you are unavoidably late you need to send a text or make a quick phone call to let someone know.

When someone is late without explanation it feels like they are saying "my time is worth more than your time"

There are two different types of meta programmes that people run. One is "through time" this means you are always thinking about what is next, planning ahead and don't really feel at ease until you have a plan and a schedule, the other type is "in time" you get caught in the moment, you are very present, you don't think about what is next. Both are ok and contribute nicely to each other. But neither should allow for lateness, especially the second one. Although it is normally in time people who are late!

Don't be late it's not good.

You should read this....

Read this on John Alderdice's blog he's leading one of our 24-7 prayer two week teams in Ibiza, you should read his amazing stories

One of his team member read this out in a team time, it's from Bill Hybels book “Holy Discontent”. I think his words really summed up my feelings:

“If you expose yourself to all that´s broken in our world but neglect to view the brokenness from heaven´s perspective (which promises that everything is in the process of being restored), then you´ll get into an impossible, downward spiral of aggravation and anger….. Once that frustation and anger is understood as being your holy discontent, though – your spiritual connection to the God who´s working to fix everything – it´s as if an enourmous wave of positive energy gets released inside you…. this energy causes you to act on the dissatisfaction that´s been brewing deep within your soul and compels you to say yes to joining forces with God so that the darkness and depravity around you gets pushed back…. your perspective shifts from that which your eyes can see to that which God tells you is true. And it is in this reality that what is enslaved can still be set free, what is broken can still be mended, what is diseased can still be restored, what is hated can still be loved, what is dirty can still be made clean, and what is wrong can still be made right.”

I'm really looking forward to getting home tomorrow

Chilling in Ireland

Having a lazy morning on holiday here in Ireland, it's been great, very refreshing.

I have had time to hang out with my great sons



See some beautiful scenery



Chill with my beautiful wife




and do some memory lane stuff with two of my brothers