a long one
Tis been a few weeks and lots has been going on.
It has been marvelously sunny weather! This past weekend has actually been hot - full on t-shirt and short weather...possibly hotter than I even like on Saturday. I'm hoping we don't suddenly fall back into the cold and wet weather now, cause everyone is into the summer routine. We've gotten into a good habit of basketball in the park, and seem to be meeting a lot of Polish people down there whenever we go!

So, went down to 'Spring Harvest' over the Easter holidays - tis a Christian conference thingy that happens in 2 locations and over 3 different weeks. I was down south in Minehead, which has a lovely beach front and was perfect with all the sunny-ness! I was once again coordinating special needs in the older youth (15-25) venue, and had a grand ol time! The team I was working with were brilliant - really fun and down to earth...and the kids taught me a LOT. There were about 800 young people in our venue, and I was primarily working with 3 guys who had aspergers/autism to varying degrees. It was absolutely amazing seeing each of them in their own time go from being completely withdrawn and not interacting or engaging with the program at all, to really getting in there...going up and talking to random people, dancing to the music, or openning up about things. It's hard to explain in writing, but if you'd been there you would understand. I think all of us leaders were just amazed and really encouraged by these guys. One of the three, a 15 year old lad, became so well-known by everyone, and the brilliant thing was, this kid who always struggled to be accepted and was not great at interacting with people or talking to people, and wasn't great at understanding other people's feelings and body language, would audibly hear from God. He was so completely honest and open, and there were a good few times when he directly spoke into people's lives things that God was wanting to say to them, and things that were just spot on what was happening in their lives.
anyway, there were a good few stories from that week, but I won't relay them all don't worry.

The other big thing that's been going on for the last few weeks, is that one of my friends was down in North Wales and doing some rock climbing and he fell 20ft onto a bunch of rocks below. When we all heard it was one of those things where you're quite in shock cause there's no way it could actually be real! He was in really rough condition...had broken like 25 bones, including nearly all his ribs, and a bunch of vertabre in his neck and back...and they were really worried about internal bleeding into his lungs. This guy though is one of those people who everybody seems to know somehow or another...he's absolutely amazing and has had a huge impact on the entire city here...which means that he has had almost literally the entire Christian community in Leeds praying for him. He got moved up to the hospital in Leeds after about 5 days, and has been improving at what the Doc's have said is 'miracle speed.' He's not paralysed and as of a couple days ago they were going to be starting physio with him and trying to get him out of bed and walking. He seems to have moved past the most critical stage of worrying about infection, though obviously that risk is still there....and amazingly he is in quite good spirits and still has his sense of humour, despite being in huge amounts of pain.

Also, found out that we didn't get the funding from Children in Need to set up the project at Hillside....one of my housemates rung me while I was down in Minehead and said I had gotten a letter....strangely though, i didn't really feel dissappointed by it...I had been thinking that if I didn't get funding then maybe that was my openning for going back to Canada...but since getting that news a couple weeks ago, I have felt more content and happy about being in England than I have done in a good long while! That could partially be due to the weather increasing my mood....who knows....but yeah, it's nice to have peace about things! And we're also hoping to start up some work more specifically with unaccompanied asylum seeking minors...

I've started doing some 1-1 support work through my social services job...though it's actually classed as a completely different job than my family aide work. So last Thursday I started doing 'anger management' stuff with a 9 year old boy. I'm working with him for 8 weeks - one week we'll do some work looking at anger in various ways, and then if it goes well, the next week we get to go out and do something fun - this week we are off bowling =)

Oh yeah, and yesterday I joined a new 'amature dramatists/theatre' group. Saw a poster for it in one of the community centres and roped a couple mates into coming along with me last night. They'd already been meeting for about a month and have been planning a variety show style event for the middle of June...luckily last night was their last evening for finalising everything...it's a 'Thank you for the Music' type of thing with people doing songs from the 50's,60's,70's....so we ended up getting pulled into it all - so I'm going to be singing 'That'll be the Day' and 'Waterloo' with my housemate Rachel, and 'Something Stupid' with my friend Matt! I'm was a bit dissappointed at the lack of putting on an actual play, but I think that with this being their first project, they wanted to go a bit simpler, and then after June they'll do something more large scale. Anyway, I'm quite excited to be involved in something like this!

It's my brother in law Jeff's birthday today - so Happy Birthday Jeff (I doubt he reads this, but the rest o my family seem to, so you guys can pass on the birthday wishes cause I am only posting his card today)

Goodness this year is going by fast - it's already the middle of April!! my little bro comes out in 3 weeks, and my mum and Lisa and the boys come out in a month!!