Carolyn's Big Adventure

3 posts in 1

Mon, 03 Sep 2007 19:02:16 GMT

From One Week Ago:
Another fabulous and really hot week has gone by.
Once again I started the week tired and thinking that the kids were not as fun or as cool as the previous week and that it would be a much quieter week and not as exciting...and once again I was wrong - I don't know why I have not learnt by now that this is always the case!

It was another general kids camp, with kids ranging from 6-15 though, so quite a big age spread. We managed to play a whole lot of volleyball, and I even decided this week that I quite like playing football!

Every night Andrew and I were requested to sing 'One Way, Jesus' and a Romanian song called 'Eu am un tata bun'.....and I was elected as a karaoke judge for the week.

One absolutely amazing thing happened that is quite hard to explain...but before I left England someone from my church shared a vision with me about a boy who I would meet, with a lot of specifics about the situation, and every week that went by I never met this boy, but last week I did, and so it was amazing to see the outworking of what God said was going to happen....and it is even more exciting cause part of the prophecy said that even in a difficult situation with this boy, that I would have peace because I would know that God was calling this boy to be really unstrumental in building the church in Romania and that he would call many people to Christ! I can't really explain it very well on here, but yeah, it was some amazing stuff!

On Wednesday Andrew and I and our friend Relia are going to Uricane to visit the kids in the orphanage there!!!!

Then Saturday evening our last camp here ends, and we have one week before we fly back to England...so I think we shall go to Hunedoara and stay in a centre there that does a lot of amazing social work in a really poor community, and then go to Teliuc again to visit the crew out there.

One of our friends from the teen camp posted some pics from that week, so I think that if you look under the 'photos of me' bit on here then you can see some of them at least!

Yesterday had a really strange experience of being around a table with me and Andrew, 2 Romanians and 2 french...I can't understand any french anymore, the french couldn't understand any Romanian and only a little English, one of the Romanians spoke great french, and the other great English, and then I spoke some Romanian....it was strange having a converstation going in 3 languages all at the same time.

I must run off again and get to dinner quite shortly!

God Bless
Carolyn

but first, prayer points -
- for this week, a family camp with families from Hunedoara
- direction for the future
-for Benny one of the boys from camp last week (the one who the vision was about)
- that we would figure out how to actually GET to Uricane...using train and bus

And from Today:
Our last week at camp was a family camp with families involved at the centre in Hunedoara which Beni (who runs the camp)'s brother Corneliu runs.

There were some kids and teens who we knew from previous weeks who were here again, and it was quite a relaxed week since the parents of most of the kids were there.

On Wednesday morning we had the amazing experience of riding on a Romanian 'Personal Train' - which sounds very nice eh? definitely....it was the slowest moving train I have ever experienced - it took us 4 hours to travel 98km! But we eventually made it to Uricane and it was brilliant to see the kids from the orphanage there! They were all super excited to see us as well and we just hung out for the day and wandered around their town and watched a football match and things. I had the chance to talk to Aurora quite a lot and she was doing pretty well and settling in ok, but still struggling with it. On the Thursday she was going with her brothers to see her birth mum and stay there for a week, so she was not really sure how she felt about that.

Also got to experience a new form of transport....the maxi-taxi - which I think is amazing! it would cost us like 50cents to travel for 20minutes in a little minivan sort of thing. They travel between the villages and into the cities and we never had to wait more than 5minutes for one to come, even at like 10pm.

We got back to camp on the Friday morning, and that day at lunch Benny, the little boy from camp last week phoned and we got to chat to him!
It made me realize that all of the kids who I have been thinking and praying about lots over the summer, I have gotten to see again - Milena, Alexandru (little boy from the first week...who we ran into randomly at a bank in Deva), Aurora, and Benny!

Friday afternoon I hiked up the mountain with Benny (different one than mentioned above) and Natty (who were back for the week again), Daniella and some others, and we went up and over to where there is a cave - that was really cool!
That night we play Mafia - on the suggestion of the Romanians, not me! They play it a bit differently but it was really good fun, even if all the accusations and defensives and everything were in Romanian

Everyone left on Saturday afternoon, and I mean literally everyone. Usually each week when one group leaves, the other arrives straight away (they come in the bus that will take the others away). Andrew and I were the only ones left in all of the camp - and it was strange and eerie and I didn't like it. I didn't know what to do...Andrew and I chatted a bit and then he slept and I cleaned, and then I started to pack and read a bit....eventually Beni got back and we had a BBQ and then went to bed!

Sunday morning we went to church in Simeria and then got a lift into Hunedoara where we are staying for the week now until we leave. We're staying at the centre here that Corneliu runs.....more details on the centre later.....we have a nice little room with internet access so this week I can be in touch lots!
Yesterday we went to Corneliu's church in the evening and got to see lots of folk we know...tis a very big church with a choir with like 8 violins and cello and flute as well.....Andrew and I sang a couple of songs (everywhere we go we get asked to sing some songs....this summer has involved us leading worship quite a lot) and so we sang one in Romanian, and then on the request of some of the young people sang 'One Way, Jesus', which is quite a lively and rock-y kind of song....and so I'm not sure that some of the older members of the congregation were too happy with it....that sort of music isn't typically played in their church. Later we went out for pizza, which was really good, but took like 1.5hrs before we got to eat....and then came home here and went to bed.
Today we have been helping clean and sort at the centre and tonight we are having a meeting with some of the youth who came to the teen camp.
Stay tuned for another note quite soon that will be much more interesting and have some bigger news.

AND MORE IMPORTANTLY FROM TODAY:
So.
I feel like I should write this to people individually, or perhaps wait till I get to England to tell people in person, but if I do that people will probably find out in other ways and I don't want that to happen cause then some people will get offended that I did not tell them, so I will tell everyone all at the same time (well, aside from my family who I told earlier today...)

So, as most of you know I have been trying to figure out stuff about the future and if I want to stay in Romania or in England or go back to Canada, and what God's plan is in all of it....
I knew that I would be quite happy to stay in Romania, but really wasn't sure what I would do or how it could actually work practically...so I was praying and have been asking lots o folk to pray for me that if God wanted me to stay in Romania then he needed to provide something specific for me to do, PLUS somewhere to live and a way to live/eat etc.....

Last week while we were at the Family Camp, Corneliu, who was heading up the camp that week, took me aside and asked me if I would come and work at their centre for a year or 2 or however long I wanted to stay...he said they couldn't pay me, but that I could live at the centre and eat there and so I wouldn't need to worry about anything like that! Twas a great and exact response to my prayers...and so I said yes.

I AM still coming back to England in September, and will stay for like a month and a bit, and then my plan is to go to Canada for a month before going to Romania in mid-late November (just in time to experience a Romanian winter!).

So what is the 'centre' I have been refering to?
Centrul Crestin Betleem is in the middle of the city of Hunedoara, in the middle of a lot of pretty run-down blocks of flats.
The Centre is doing a lot of amazing work with the kids, you and families from the area.....
Free Meals
After school clubs
Homework clubs
Sports groups
English lessons
Sewing lessons
Computer lessons
a Clean life project (kids from some of the really poor families can come and get showers and get their clothes cleaned)
Family support visits
Bible clubs
Youth groups
Women's groups

So I'm going to be living and working here...working with the kids and youth, doing English lessons, helping with the sports and after school clubs, potentially even the computer stuff cause they have no one to help in that area (not that computers are my strong point...), and helping doing some fundraising bids and organizing for missions teams to come out during the summer and organizing some of their summer events and camps....

There isn't a huge team working here at the moment, and a lot of us will be new...There is Daniella who has been at camp with me for the last 3 weeks and is amazing...there's Dan and Lidia who have just come from Bucharest and are social workers, there's a lady who does the sewing stuff, and a cook, and some guys who do a lot of the building work, and Corneliu and Deanna who head it all up....and probably other people involved in different little things...

But yeah, I'm well excited, especially being here this week and seeing the place and being in the community here and everything!

Umm yeah, I don't really know what else to write about it at the moment....and there's lots of you who I probably need to talk to more individually about it....but that will wait till I get back to England.

I'll probably have a Romanian Night when I get back to England at some point, and then one in Canada....with Romanian food and songs and games and photos and things, to try and raise a bit o money for the centre....but will talk about that later!

Thanks for all your prayers...and please keep praying!!

Teliuc and the Teen Camp

Mon, 20 Aug 2007 13:57:03 GMT

I am so tired! Last night I managed 1.5hrs of sleep, and the night before was about 3hrs. We just finished our teen camp week [see more below], and it involved lots of late nights both with the teens and with the other leaders....and so now I need some sleep catch up, but don't know when I will manage that!

I didn't realize I had not been in touch with anyone in 2 weeks - sorry mum! But, it has been a really busy couple of weeks.

After our week with the kids from Uricane, we had another week for people with disabilities, though this week was much more young adults aged. There were once again some amazing and inspiring people who really challenged me! There was one guy named Catalin who was in his mid-twenties, and he no legs really below his knees and so was in a wheel chair, he also could not really speak, not in a language understood by many anyway, BUT he had his own language that some people had learnt to understand and so he LOVED to talk and to pray, he was one of the most passionate and friendly and happy people I have ever met. And he said that he was happy to live without legs and the way that he was, because he had God. The attitude of all the people with quite severe physical disabilities who come to that camps always amaze me - they talk so much about how good God is, and how he provides for all they need, and how he blesses them so much!

I left camp one day early that week and on the Saturday ventured over to Teliuc (about 45min drive away) to go and stay with our friends from one of the first camps here (Ghita, Alex, Anuta, Anna etc). Teliuc is a smaller village, about the same size as Agassiz really, but in a really nice location with lots of trees. There is also a really nice lake and some forests with little mini waterfalls in walking distance, BUT that weekend decided to rain and rain and rain and flood and flood and flood, so we didn't really get to enjoy the outdoor things... But it was a really nice time away none-the-less getting to chill with them all again - they are a really amazing group of people! I was staying with Anuta who was the main leader of the camp they all came to, and she speaks no English...so once again I got to work on my Romanian, and managed quite well =) I went to their church on the Sunday morning and then on the Sunday evening, and spoke a bit at both of them....and at the service in the evening they asked me to speak in Romanian, so I did for about half of what I said, and then got Ghita to translate for me at the more important part of the story I was telling! I got to see little rabbits and a baby cow, and have the most amazing 'pizza' I've ever eaten that Ghita's mum made, and yeah, got to experience more what regular Romanian family life outside of the city is like!

On the Monday Ghita and Alex and I all ventured back up to Varmaga here for the teen camp, cause they were both coming along to help out as leaders again. Most of the weeks take a day or two to really get into with the kids and the leaders, but maybe cause we already knew some folk this week, it was much really good right from the start. It was a very busy week with lots of football and volleyball competitions, and hiking and discussions and all sorts...we were in teams and my team WON (as in after all the competitions throughout that week we had the most points.....by quite a large margin)! It was a very interesting week culturally listening to discussions on things like music and drugs and alcohol and relationships and seeing the differences between Romania and England...I found it quite challenging and interesting to think about. We also got to watch some films during the 'rest' time in the afternoon....one was Dangerous Minds, which I had not seen in ages! And another was called 'Facing the Giants' which was an American Christian film about a high school football team - I actually quite liked it and it made me cry =)
This week once again I was really challenged and inspired by the faith and knowledge of people years younger than I am...as well as being encouraged by all the young people and their attitude toward what it means to be brothers and sisters and to be a family of Christians.
I had a good few people tell me this week that they think I will end up living in Romania....and that is a prayer request for y'all....cause I really have no idea where I should be....I'm feeling quite drawn to Romania at the moment, but I don't know if that is just cause I'm here and having a great time, or what....so please pray for God's guidance - and if you have any thoughts then please do let me know! [either way, I will still be coming back to England in September for a good few months at least....I would need to save up some money if I was going to move out here!!].
What else did we do this week? Played chess for the first time in ages...Beat Alex in the first one, and then lost to him in the second one....
OH YEAH!!!! yesterday morning we were sitting eating our breakfast and suddenly I looked up and saw Milena's mum (Milena was the little girl from our first week here who could not walk and who I asked you to pray for) - I was so excited I got up and ran and gave her a hug, and then she pointed to the door and there were Milena and her dad!!!! They only stayed for about an hour but it was an amazing surprise! Milena has had 2 operations on her legs now and is getting stronger in them, though still can not walk, but she is starting gymnastics next week, and they are hoping that within a year she will be able to walk!
We now only have 2 actual camp weeks left....this week with kids/young teens, and then next week with families from Hunedoara. Then we have 5 days before our flight from Budapest and I think I will venture back out to Teliuc to enjoy village life for a bit longer =)

As far as prayer requests -
- For Milena still
- For guidance for the future about if I should come to Romania to live (and if so for financial provsion to allow that to happen!)
- Thank God for his grace in helping me learn the language, and for that to continue
- For rest and energy!
- Keep praying for Aurora and her brothers
- For a girl named Estera from this last week who is living in a really tough situation at home
- For these last two weeks!

the news in Romania

Sun, 05 Aug 2007 17:51:45 GMT

I posted this last week on face book:
Andrew and I are in a town called Simeria where we are staying for a week with an amazing Romanian family who speak no English, so it has been good practice for my Romanian!
We are running a holiday club/VBS for the kids in the town here....doing english stuff as well as bible stories and songs and crafts and games. It has been going really well! We are also doing an english bible study in the evening for the teenagers. It is so different being here than in the camp!!!
Our family here has been feeding us really well.....so much food.....i am always completely full, no matter what time of day it is!
Yesterday between clubs we went and met up with some of the leaders from the camp last week and wandered around Hunedoara city and went to the castle there. Emma left yesterday morning and so should be back with 'y'all' now so she can fill in the Leeds folk on all our happenings anyway!
We got back to the camp on Sunday and then begins our next week, this time with kids from Uricane orphanage, then another week for people with disabilities.
Thanks for all your prayers and notes etc!

And now for today's writing:
Well another week (and a half) has gone by. The rest of our time in Simeria went well.....even had the chance on the Saturday evening to go back into Hunedoara and meet up with some of our friends and go to a Christian concert there. It was amazing and I felt so overwhelemed with the passion and everything in the place. I really love that city there.
We came back to the camp at Varmaga on Sunday evening, and Monday morning the new group of kids from Uricane orphanage arrived. Some of the kids (probably about half) I had met 3 years earlier when I was here last summer, but they have grown up so much! The other half were kids new to the orphanage. It has been a really good week but also really hard emotionally. So many of the kids have such sad stories and being in an environment like this though it is lots of fun and a great escape for them, at times can also bring out a lot of big issues to be dealt with. Leaving was also really hard obviously cause we all build up some good relationships with them, and some of the english team who were here this week helping out come every year and so the kids consider some of them to be like parents..some of the kids still have families and the orphanage is more like a big foster home for them, whereas others don't have any family. I spent a lot of time with a girl called Aurora who is 13....she had 3 brothers at the camp as well....all 4 of them have been living with the same foster mum for 7 years now, but she is having to leave to go to the states and so they are all just now going to live at the orphange. Aurora was often quite upset and thinking lots about things....she found it really upsetting leaving today as it is now the start of a new family for her...it is a good orphanage and a good big 'family' for them to be a part of, but obviously really hard - so please be praying for them! It is sad though cause you do just want to invite them all to be a part of your own family!
One of the days we got the chance to go for an hour long drive to some old Roman 'baths' that have obviously been re-done and is just a big outdoor pool thing that is overcrowded and has really dirty water....but it was great fun with the kids...and after being beat so badly in football and ping-pong, it is great to be better than the kids at a sport as most can't swim very well! Driving there and back was an experience though, as in our mini bus with 16 seats, we had about 28 people....health and safety and risk assesments all go out the window here!
I also had an amazing experience one day with something really simple....some guys from a nearby village came up to challenge some of our guys in a football match, and so we were all sitting on the sides cheering loudly (we won by a lot in the end!)....and one point i put some ear phones on and so the music drown out most of the sound and I just looked around and it was like something from a film....the guys were laughing and jumping and just loving playing their football game and looked like they were having the time of their lives, and across the field some of the girls and some leaders were playing some dancing game...and everything just looked so perfect and joyful...no problems, no worries....just happiness everywhere....it really felt like God was fully present in the middle of it all!

Tommorrow we start another camp with people with disabilities.....so something different again!

As for prayer requests:
-Aurora and her brothers...especially as the settle into their new home
-All the kids from Uricane that they would feel loved and a part of the family
-This next week
-For Beni and Mia who run the camp here....for times of REST for them
-For direction for me for the future (Sept onwards)
-Financial provision for the camps and projects here
-and all those in the last note as well!!!

I might give up posting on here soon and just use facebook notes cause it is easier than posting on three places......if you have a problem with that then speak now or forever hold your peace

Thu, 19 Jul 2007 12:42:41 GMT

We are here!

And it is very hot! A couple of days ago it got to almost 48 degrees. That's hot. Fortunately we have a nice siesta tradition in the middle of the afternoon from about 2-4pm which makes up (almost) for the extra tiredness caused by the heat.

In brief (cause I don't have too much time really...)

Jounrey - fine fine fine....nothing hugely eventful or noteworthy really that pops into my head at the moment

Week 1 - this was a week for children with disabilities and their families, or for kids who had disabled parents. It was a really nice week and a good one to start on cause it was quite relaxed and chilled....we led some bible story sketches and lessons and crafts and activities in the morning and then the afternoon was a lot of just hanging out and chatting with the families and the kids...and a lot of playing Uno and snakes and ladders! The people we met were amazing and this has actually been my favourite week so far. I got on really well with some of the families...even with our random communication methods of half Romanian/quarter English/quarter hand gestures.

Met one little girl called Milena who is 5 and wonderfully cute and really smart and sweet, but has problems with her legs and so she can not walk. We have all been praying for her a lot though and last week got a call to the camp saying she had an operation and the doctors are amazed at how well she is doing and she is getting a lot of strength back into her legs...so please keep her in your prayers!

Week 2 - another week for people with disabilies and their families, though this one had a lot of older folk with disabilities as well, so not as many kids....it also had a lot more of a Christian focus and so we had lots of worship times together and lots of bible studies and things....made good friends with some of the folk and spent a lot of time with two mums who had girls with autism. Everyone there seemed to think I was an expert on autism for some reason....and there was a lady who came along who worked for one of the nearby city radio stations who interviewed me for on eof their shows talking about working with people with special needs....

That week we also had a team from Scotland here working with us.....which was good in a lot of ways, but made it harder to focus on learning Romanian!

Week 3 (this week) - our first week with just a whole bunch of kids...60 of them in total....from the nearby inner city. Some of the Romanian leaders I worked with a few years back, and I also know some of the kids from before too. The kids are so different to kids in England though....even though the leaders here think some of them are really badly behaved, they are little angels really! We could never get any of the kids in Armley to sit for 2 hours in straight lines in a crowded and hot room listening to bible lessons and singing songs and such....

Next week will again be completely different. Andrew and I are going to stay in Simeria, a town about 30minutes away to run our own enlglish summer club....we won't have anyone else with us and won't have anyone to translate and they have asked us to come and teach english and teach bible stories and such...in the morning to kids and in the afternoon to teenagers.....so that should be interesting and challenging!

Andrew and Emma both seem to be settling in well and enjoying themselves! Andrew is every-popular as always, and he is also doing really well with learning the language! Emma leaves next Tuesday night already!

That gives you the general gist anyway....since we are staying in the town next week I will hopefully get the change to write more then!

PS - thanks to those who have sent me mail!!!!!!!! (Jenny, mum, Naomi and the 18-30's crew, and Nina) - you guys are swell

Prayer Requests -

For Milena

For the parents of the two girls with autism

For ease in grasping the langauge more and more each day

For safe travel for Emma next week

For health for everyone at the camp, especially in the heat

Financially for the camp here to be able to carry on doing their work

once more with feeling

Sun, 01 Jul 2007 18:23:39 GMT

In 24 hours time we will be arriving into Budapest!
I am presently at my aunt and uncle's house, and my little brother is cutting the sleeves off yet another t-shirt.
I thought that while I still had easy access to the internet I would update on here =)

Have had a busy few days...

Friday I did end up getting my packing done and brought to Naomi's cellar...and even had time to cook dinner for folk who came round....lasagne, kraft dinner, moon peas and carrot stars, and vegetables
We all spent ages waiting for a bus, and then like a bunch of giddy tourists on our first ever trip to the big city, cheered at its arrival and upon our arrival into Bradford. Got to spend the bus ride there chatting politics with Samuel (the brother of Esther who I do AVB Therapy with...who has just returned from a year in the States)....has been quite refreshing having someone to argue with who doesn't take it personally and get offended...and who doesn't get offended at my sarcasm =)
Ice skating was fab - though busy and actually had some quite good skaters there! At one point they kicked all of us with 'rented skates' off the ice so the good people with their own skates could play British Bull dog.
The trip home was filled with a lot of singing...started by Vicki and I singing 'When you're gone' by Mr Bryan Adams and Mel C...that song soon became the theme song of the weekend and will probably always remind me of skating and wedding from now on.
Got back and went up to Sal's house as Emma and Amie who did Oasis last year at the church were there...had random interesting conversations and got to eat ice cream!
Emma stopped at my house and seemed to think it strange that I would eat macaroni and cheese for breakfast..

Saturday morning we went to decorate the reception hall, and then had to get to the church to practice the music. The songs Mark and Leanne chose were not your typical wedding songs (included such things as Shine Jesus Shine and Our God is a great big God)....but we did get to sing 'Because you loved me' during the register....
Headed down to the Armley Liberal Club for the afternoon reception....quite laid-back and chilled but lots of fun. We had about 4 hours before the evening reception but didn't want to leave and come back, so sat around and played Mafia, Poker, Cheat and Asshole....and at one point took a trip in our dressy outfits over to the local pet shop...this involved a lot more singing of Bryan Adams.

The evening do was great fun and involved lots of dancing....even when the majority of people left and it was really only me, Emma, Sam, Richard and Vicki left, we took over the dance floor and enjoyed ourselves =) We kept requesting 'When you're gone' but the DJ never played it =( By the time they played the macarena there were only 4 of us left on the floor...but we danced away none the less! We left there at about 11:30pm as they got told to stop the music...and so Sam, Emma and I walked back to mine and had a drink and then Emma and I chatted about ROMANIA!
One other highlight of the evening....getting told I was really good at salsa or tango...can't remember which is was....but Matt taught me in like 2min and some lady came up to me after and said I was a really good dancer =) and then had the guy with her say, yes, but she's even better at singing =) hehe....those aren't complements I get all that often so that was cool!

Today got up and cleaned out my room and then went to church and returned lots of random things to random people....talked a bit about Romania during the service - and wished everyone a happy Canada Day (I patriotically wore a Canada flag sticker on my jeans). Said lots of goodbyes after and then went to Neil and Beril's for lunch along with Matt and Matt and Jenny and Ric....then my unce stu came and picked me and my baggage up and that is why i am at their house now!
My allergies today have been awful....first day I have given in and taken some drugs for it....though they have not worked super well....so pray for that please!

la revedere si dumnezeu sa te binecuvinteze!

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 10:40:54 GMT

Well I leave in 3 days. And fortunately my little brother does as well.
Yesterday I woke up to a phone message from my mum saying that Andrew had lost his passport (and the kind of 'lost' where you don't find it again)! He was meant to be flying out to England on Thursday (it was Wed night their time).
I text everyone I knew asking them to pray cause I knew there wasn't really anything else I could do from my side...
Got a call from my mum a few hours later saying they were going to try and rush around and get pictures signed and drive to the passport office and see if they could do ought...but she did not sound too hopefuly.
Then I got a call off my little sister Lisa at 11pm last night saying Andrew was on his way! I guess the passport people thought it was wonderful that Andrew was off to do voluntary work in Romania and so rushed his application through and got him a passport! Amazing! God is good! (as are the Canadian passport people!)

So we leave on Monday....we being me, Andrew, and Emma who is joining us for the first 3 weeks.

Today is my day for emptying my house and getting money from the bank and getting a battery for my camera and all the random little odd jobs (though not been too successful in getting them done yet...).

we fly into Budapest and then have to get to the train station and hop on the *correct* train to Deva overnight and arrive at 6:30am, where the guy who runs the camp will meet us and drive us along the scary bumpy dirt track roads up to the camp!

before any of that happens though we have a fun-filled weekend ahead...
skating this evening
wedding tommorrow that will cover the whole day and involve karaoke - score!
church on Sunday, then a lovely Sunday lunch, then out to my aunt and uncle's

and in yet another shame-less ploy to get mail....here is my address in Romania
Carolyn Putt
Casa Harului
337190 Varmaga nr 143
of p Deva 2
jud Hunedoara

please write to me!!!! I will write back I promise!

have a good summer!

and a few prayer points for those of you who do that sort of thing...:
- Thank God for making sure Andrew could still come!
- Pray for safe travel...especially the airport-train station/getting the train side of things!
- Pray for the camps that are happening now and those that we will be working on over the summer
- Pray for Beny and Maria who run the camps
- Pray for all the Romanian leaders and helpers and the amazing work they do
- Pray for a quick learning of Romanian!

Wed, 13 Jun 2007 11:56:59 GMT

hmm I only just realized how long I've had this blog for now - cause I created it when I was first going to Romania 3 years ago so that I could keep people updated on my travels since I knew I wouldn't get to check and send emails very often....

So Andrew is coming to Romania with me for sure now too! I booked his flights and we're all set to go...well, not really, but we've got flights and that's the big thing really. I need to clue myself into the fact that i go in less than 3 weeks and need to pack up my whole house and store it somewhere!

we've had some really sunny and 'hot' weather here which has been great for trips to the park and a lot of basketball...i need to get used to really hot weather again though cause Romania is crazy.

What else have I been up to?
on the weekend we had our variety show shows - it went off better than I was expecting, though the first night the audience probably had an average age of 65, and no one I knew came =) but Matt had invited everyone along to the Sunday night, so they came and actually enjoyed themselves! I enjoyed myself too, except that someone stole my necklace that my mum got me at grad. bah. i hate thieves. and the worse part is it was someone who was in the show. bah. i still hate thieves.

OOOOOO and also on Saturday, got a random knock on my door 15min before having to leave for my show and guess who it was? JUSTIN!!! this is the friend of mine who fell off a cliff onto rocks in the ocean back in April...and he is now back living in Armley (he was at his parent's when he got out of hospital at first). He was looking great and is doing really well! After breaking over 30 bones, he now only has one arm in a sling and that's cause they did an operation on his shoulder last week. But yeah, so that made me week seeing him again!

Monday was my friend Naomi's 25th brithday, and we had a whole big surprise thing planned that included stealing her shoes and her having to find them and find people on a treasure hunt around Armley, and then a surprise party at her house with lots of shoe-related activities...but her plane back from Paris was delayed and then she couldn't get a train and it all got ruined =( so instead we just had a party at hers...with all of us being there for 3 hours before she was!

Wed, 06 Jun 2007 12:21:13 GMT

It's booked. July 2nd-Sept7th. I'm well excited! And it sounds quite like my little brother is going to come to Romania with me, and then stay the year in England!

I put my notice in to my jobs and to my landlord. Felt really good! But this is really just once again proving that I'm not really in the real world of working and settling into one thing yet.

Rachel was visiting and left this morning...well I think she did anyway, I left at 8am for work, and like a good host left her to find her way to the train station all by her lonesome =)I'll leave it to her to say anything about her time in Leeds....though we did have a 'bbq' in the park, and made gingerbread men, and meandered on the canal, and played some good ol hearty basketball in the park (and Rachel don't worry, you were by FAR not the worst player on the court!)

Had my cousins wedding last weekend. Was very posh but very nice. Spent most of it chilling with my nephews and watching them be all cute in their little suits (well, they looked big on them, but were obviously relatively very small suits).

My mum and Andrew and Jordan left yesterday and Lisa and Jaymes fly out on Friday =(

a busy month

Wed, 30 May 2007 12:34:17 GMT

So I haven't written in over a month...but like I said, i was very busy with work and all that jazz.
I think I shall break this into parts:
1) Youth Development Job - well, we got our research report completed and done up all nice and fancy in time for the launch events on May 19th. The events also went well - BBQ and family fun day in the morning/afternoon and then a big youth celebration in the evening. They were good fun but shattering and I was exhausted on Sunday...but was preaching in the morning...and Monday and Tuesday, but eventually caught up on my sleep. This job has calmed down a bit now and is onto more of a fundraising and project development stage

2) Social Services job - I'm feeling like it's time to move on from this one. Not finding it particularily challenging and not seeing that it is doing much good to the families we are working with. I did a really interesting training course on alcohol awareness last week though which was really cool and I learnt a whole lot!

3) Church Youth stuff - we had our youth weekend away at the start of May which was good fun...only a bit of bickering...and a lot of rain...but it was still really quite nice! Plus my little bro was out for it so he came along and kept us entertained and led us in lots of singing!

4) Family - my mum and Andrew and Lisa and my two nephews are out visiting!! Andrew arrived earlier, and then the rest turned up on the 19th and so came to our evening event....it was amazing seeing both Jordan and Jaymes walking (and dancing) now! They've changed so much since I last saw them!!! All of us ventured over to Ireland on the 24th till the 28th. Stayed with my friend Matt and his family....and had a great time! We went out to Bray which is on the coast...and Andrew and I hiked up Bray's Head which had a beautiful view...and we toured Dublin city and went to the Guinness Brewery (where I was refused my free guiness cause I didn't have any idea....Andrew and Matt didn't get ID'd....psh. But I just got someone else to go get it for me anyway), and to Phoenix Park where we rolled down a giant steep hill - what an amazing and exhillarating feeling of total controllessness!
The boys have been learning sign language and so we were always chatting away with them, or singing lots of actions songs....I'm sure people on the buses were sick of listening to us sing!
Matt's family were once again marvelous hosts and they even introduced us to a pop idol style tv show that was searching for the next guy to play Joseph on the West End =)
This weekend is my cousin's wedding so there will be tons o family around for that.

5) New and random developments - I've been feeling settled and unsettled at the same time. Im quite contect where I'm at, but I need a change. I was going to move house to go live with my friend Naomi (and that is still hopefully going to happen, just after a bit of a delay)...but I just decided yesterday, quite out of the blue, but really seems like a great thing to do....that I want to go back to Romania for the summer.
The more I think about it the more excited I get.
So I will call the people who own the camp I worked at a few year ago...and if it's good with them, then I will quit my jobs, put my notice in to my landlord, book a flight, find somewhere to stow my stuff, and then be on a plane out there the 2nd of July, probably to return early September.
The timing was all quite amazing really....when we were in Ireland Matt's sister Esther was talking about when they went to Ireland, and it was making me think lots back to Romania and how I'd love to go back at some point...then the next day I got a text off my friend Blessing saying that Beni and Maria who run the camp in Romania were in England and were going to be in Leeds on Tuesday....so I got to meet up with them and chat about Romania, and yeah, I left there feeling like I really wanted to go back. Plus, I don't feel attatched to my social services job....and was planning on moving house anyway so that worked out well....and the youth development job will prob be quieter over the summer till we secure project funding, and then will pick up again in September so I might even be able to keep that job....but yeah, now I just have to see if Beni and Maria are up for me coming back!!!

How to eat a pear

Wed, 25 Apr 2007 12:24:16 GMT

I learnt how to eat a pear last week. Did you know that you can just rip off the stem and eat downward? I have always eaten pears like apples, thinking there was a core the whole way down the middle - there's not! it's crazy!

You know what else is crazy? these last few weeks and the few more coming. Crazy in the busy way. Along with other work things and whatever else I keep busy with, I've got this big event to be organizing and hosting on the 19th of May...a BBQ and family fun day (with football tourney and kids activities and crafts and a marketplace of stalls and different workshops) in the afternoon and then a big youth event (music, games, drama, dance etc) in the evening. I'm quite excited about it, but it's over-running everything I do! Especially because, my wonderful line manager realized that that date is the FA Cup football finals,and so said we had to change the time of the afternoon event - which might sound easy enough, but when it means contacting everyone and getting new posters and flyers out and also then looking unprofessional for changing the time....it is a lot of extra work - argh! I was quite frustrated and annoyed with him on Sunday night and Monday morning...but am doing much better now =)

The weekend before that one we're taking our youth on a weekend away...so I also have to be preparing some sessions for that....going with the theme of 'sex, drugs and rock 'n roll' (their choice, not mine...)

After May 19th things should be much calmer - and I get to go to Ireland again! Me and my mum and my little bro are going at the end of May!

What else have I been up to? oh yeah! Saturday was a fun and random evening - went round at about 9pm knocking on our friend's doors to see who was in...and then ended up playing Hide and Seek around the whole of Armley. This involved - 2 people in a car, and 6 of us as a group running off and hiding somewhere (as a group...gotta be safe these days.. in the last week there've been a number of muggings and random beatings and a shooting and a dead body found in the graveyard in good ol Armley) - then sending the car folk clues as to our where-abouts so they can drive around and find us. The most fun bit was when we went 'in-transit' to hide in a new location, and of course had to be careful that those in the car were not going to drive by, so this meant lots of running and hiding behind things, which I'm sure looked very suspicious. At one point one of our guys got caught in the middle of Armley Town Street, but managed to escape by yelling 'let me go' and onlookers thinking he was in a druken brawl or something of the sort. Anyway, after a lot of running and hiding, we came upon a very drunk old man trying to stumble home. He was really not in a good condition and had been lying in the middle of the road...so a few of us went to walk him home. This guy was absolutely stunned and amazed and kept saying how he thought that no one cared and more and that we must have been dropped from heaven and all sorts....he talked about all sorts about his family and things and kept asking us who we were with and where we were from and why we were doing this. It was awesome being able to chat and shre with this guy,and show him that there are still folk in Armley who do care =) Obviously he was quite drunk, and probably won't remember much of what was said...but him and one of our guys exchanged numbers and so James was going to ring to check up on him.
Think we shall be playing hide and seek again sometime soon =)

Sunday after church we had another massive basketball match in the park - wrote to the council yesterday to tell them to fix up the court - it is in awful condition.
Then in the evening I was preaching....on Isaiah 59-62....looking at Armley and all that's been going on here recently....bad and good.

Umm yeah, so things have been busy but good (that seems to be the usual though really!)

oh and this week I've been having to be at work at 6:30am 3 mornings...which meant that working with Esther this morning and only having to be here at 8am was like a great sleep-in! I have the same rota for next week too.....6:30 is really early to get somewhere for!

a long one

Mon, 16 Apr 2007 10:22:28 GMT

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!!

Wed, 28 Mar 2007 12:00:33 GMT

I'm still shattered. From what? From a bad decision on my part. I agreed to help take some of the youth from our 1-14's youth project on a weekend away.
We were to go up to the Lakes District, to an outdoor pursuit centre on the edge of the largest Lake in England - sounds nice right? It would have been if not for the kids....
Goodness I don't know how the parents of these kids can put up with them for more than one night! Don't get me wrong, I love the kids we work with, but they are so frustrating and exhausting and all sorts of other things that I can't really put into words.
The weekend actually made me question why it is I do youth work with kids like that? Deep down I know why I do....but it's also stupid to voluntarily put yourself in situations where you open yourself up to so much abuse off people. I guess it's easier when it's in small doses...whereas taking them on a residential means hours and hours of not being able to get away!

I've got myself a "personal trainer"....not really, but it seems like it. One of the guys from Meeting Point whose kids also come along to one of our youth groups said he wanted me to teach him basketball....so we've started (only on Monday) a little routine of going for a run, him teaching me some football (he played for the Zimbabwe national team and for the Czech Republic), and then some basketball.

The weather here the last 4 days has been AMAZING! as in, not even needing a jacket weather!!

I find out next week if I get the funding off Children in Need to set up my project or not!!ahhhh!!!

And next week on Wednesday I head down South to Minehead to go help out at this Spring Harvest conference...working with the 15+ group with those with special needs.

Ireland

Wed, 21 Mar 2007 13:14:16 GMT

I had a realization yesterday, and now I can't remember what it was? oh yeah! I finally came to realize why Brits have so many car washes and why it is that people are willing to pay £5 to go get their car washed at these 'hand car wash' places - it's cause most people wouldn't be able to wash their cars themselves...cause they live in terraced houses with no driveways and no outdoor taps - obvious I know, but I only just made the connection =)

Yesterday I went on my first proper professional conference. And it was great! So much really nice and posh free food and all sorts...and lots of networking! At first I felt out of place being probably the youngest person there and thinking I was no enough of a professional to be there,, but as I started talking to people I realized that I did fit in with them all and had a lot to add and offer people and ended up making quite a few good networks for my youth development work and projects =) And, the speakers were good too...lots of new ideas and possibilities. And the banoffee pie. Yum!

IRELAND

Figure I better talk about it a bit eh?

I think my main realization over the Ireland weekend was that if you plan to go travelling, you should go with only a few people, and that they should be like-minded in having the motivation to actually get up and go. Our group was about half and half in having/lacking motivation and so there was a lot of indecisiveness and just chilling....which is good at times and was nice to do, but I didn't get to see any Irish countryside or seaside so I was just a bit bitter.....
Aside from that all was really good!
Flew out there Thursday morning (me, Amie, Sarah, James, Sam, and Matt - the Irish one).
We stayed with Matt's family who live just outside of Dublin and are the most amazing family and most amazing hosts you could ever imagine! They fed us all sorts of good food, and provided us all with beds and good conversations and stories about Matt...and even change for the bus when they couldn't drive us!
Thursday night we went out clubbing. Twas a nice place and a great layout, but not really my type of music.
Friday was the day we were supposed to go to the beach, but somehow even though everyone was 'awake' by 10:30am, we didn't leave the house till 2pm....so we just went into Dublin city and did the sites.....saw the Book of Kells at Trinity college...went out to Steven's Green which is a beautiful park! Here was made up our own version of 'Where's Waldo (or Wally for british folk)?' which involved everyone hiding amongst crowds or at random places in the park and someone taking a panoramic shot on the digital camera...hard to explain but it was very entertaining!
That night we watched 'Comic Relief' which is one of the UK's big fundraisers
Saturday was St Paddy's Day so we went in for the parade. There were about 600,000 people watching the parade! I was expecting a parade with big floats and all that jazz as people had really built it up....but it had none =( it had lots of good marching bands and people in really fancy costumes and was cool, but no floats =( Then came one of my highlights...going and watching the rugby finals in a really crowded pub with a lot of excited Irishmen=) It was brilliant!
Went to another pub and had som guinness and watched more rugby...and then went home. OH YEAH, and that morning we had an Irish breakfast complete with white pudding (much nicer than black pudding)
Sunday got up and went to church with Matt's parents and then they took us to Kilmainham Jail which is where a lot of the leaders of the Easter Rising were executed back in 1916. I learnt a LOT about Irish history over the weekend which was great cause I didn't really know anything! Now can understand much better why the Irish don't really like the English....
While at the jail I spotted a man wearing a Team Canada shirt and so to the embarrasment of Matt and James, took a photo of him (he didn't notice so it was ok!).....
That night we did some good ol Karaoke on the play station and watched Hear no Evil, See no Evil.....good ol 80's comedy!
Left on Monday morning at 7am....and got back to Armley in time for a meeting at noon!

It was really good fun and nice and relaxing...and now have a place to stay if I ever want to go back and actually see the seaside or countryside =)

Writing Wednesday

Wed, 07 Mar 2007 13:11:03 GMT

Well it is Wednesday afternoon again, which means it is my weekly chance to go on the internet while Esther has her nap! I do have other random spurts on the internet throughout the week, but this is my tried and true one when I can usually update journals or emails or whatever else.

On Monday night I spent the evening with about 12 friends playing a ton of silly childish games...like fluffy bunny and the chocolate game and various balloon games and chair games....and my fave, sardines - we play this in the pitch black giant church. One person goes and hides and then everyone else tries to find them. If you find them you hide with them, until all but one have found the person. It's always a laugh....and no matter how often we play it, its always ridiculously hard to find people!

Over the weekend I had started off having nothing really planned, but by 6pm on Friday had all my time booked up...Friday night had dinner with Rachel and Andy (friends who just got back from South America) and then watched Little Miss Sunshine which was brilliant and had me crying tears of laughter at the end....then Saturday I babysat in the morning (baked some yummy cookies), then went wedding dress shopping with Rachel...eek...first time doing that...., then ended up having to do some 'crisis cover' with social services, then had a night of prayer at church. Sunday morning was church where I led the youth group, then had church lunch which was super yummy, then washed up, then had the neighbour kids round to bake, then went to do more crisis cover work, then went with Jenny to St George's church in the evening...

Thursday I spent the day bussing around the city to meet with various church leaders and try to develop a bit more some of the plans we want to put in place with my youth development job. The meetings all went really well actually and so I'm quite encouraged as projects seem to be falling into place!

Other things happening really soon:
-Preaching on Sunday....just realized that today....
-Going to Ireland next week!!!! hip hip hooray!!! 5 days in Dublin - including St Patrick's Day and the Rugby 6 nations finals
-Taking a bunch of rather challenging youth on a weekend away to an outdoor adventure place....should be nice and safe....=)
-Find out in just under a month if we get the funding for the asylum seeker project!

Also, I have finished watching all of the scubs episodes that have been released in England =(
I've been told season 6 is now showing over in North america...but not here till the summer...not that i have a tv anyway.....

Oh yeah! On Friday I had a brilliant little bit of a day...I ended up chatting with these ladies at my bus stop...then got on the bus and passed by a lot of kids I know...and then was going down Armley Town Street and looking round at people and just realized how much I love this community here, and how much I feel a part of it....even if most people would label Armley as not a nice area, and not somewhere with much of a sense of community...but I do really think they're wrong....it's definitely being built up! I love Armley.

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 12:48:24 GMT

Last night was the first night in like 15 years that I had to have a bucket beside my bed (probably not something you wanted to know, but too bad). I don't know why, but I was a bit sick throughout the night and my tummy did not feel good. Anyway, it reminded me of how when I was younger I used to always sleep with a plastic bucket in one corner of my bed....not a stuffed animal like most kids...cause I was scared about getting sick. From what I remember I thought of it like a good luck charm (as in if I didn't have it there then I would be sick).

Had a fabulous weekend this past one. Went away with some friends who I did my gap year with when I first came to England....we went up to this retreat centre in the middle of lots of hills...stayed in what was like a luxury appartment with amazing views....and ate lots of food and reminisced and caught up from the last few years and prayed with each other and played hide and seek and watched the Royal Tenenbaums, and hiked in the hills...it was great!

Weekend before I got to attend an 18th birthday party for my friend Sarah...over here they make a big deal of the 18th and people tend to have really big parties held in local rugby clubs or working men's clubs...the theme was 'masks' so I went as Michealangela from the ninja turtles cause that was a rather easy mask to make!

Hmmm am drawing a blank for much of what else has been going on....oh I got great news last week one evening when someone phoned to say that my visit to the 'mean lady' was cancelled! Score! that was like the highlight of my week!

Otherwise maybe it has just been work and such...and folk coming round in the evenings to roast marshmallows over candles and watch scrubs

Stuff with the neighbours has been quite challenging and worrying...but I'm hoping by the end of this week there will have been some decisions made.....

Also have a potentially volatile situation that could cause a bit of an explosion in the streets of Armley.....for once I wouldn't be the centre of it, well hopefully not....but yeah, prayer that things don't explode would be grand!

my mind is a bit tired and so i can't remember much of the last week or two, so i'll have to leave it at that

Happy Birthday Aunty Trish

Fri, 16 Feb 2007 11:22:29 GMT

So you know how I wrote about the mean lady who made me cry when I went to go visit her for work? Turns out I have to go see her next week again still! That sucks. Supposedly I'm not going by myself...but still...it's clear we aren't much help to her, and in particular, if I go it isn't going to be the least awkward of circumstances! Bah. I haven't said anything to my boss about how much I do NOT want to go, cause it will make me sound quite unprofessional...but ARGH this sucks.

On Sunday I led the service at church...and shared my list of 'little blessings' that made me smile throughout the week...and the big thing I noticed as I kept my list is that I have some strange affinity toward things that match. Half my list was filled with seeing people wearing matching or very similar looking clothes...But anyway, people seemed to like what I said because it ended up spurring on a lot of conversations after the service...

Monday night we had a rather late Christmas dinner with one of the projects I volunteer with. We went to the most amazing and posh Indian buffet place...it was so good! They even had a big pond in the middle of the restaurant with giant aqarium type fish =)

Tuesday we took the little uns from our youth project to Eureka...a children's museum that I remember going to when I was 8...though the main thing I remembered and was looking forward to (a giant robot made of metal and had all these crazy contraptions that moved little balls around his body) was not there. We had 12 kids and 6 leaders, but it felt like there were many more kids. We had to take the public train to get there and that was definitely the most challenging bit...especially when some random 30yr old man on the train started provoking the kids to misbehave.
We didn't get back till 6:30pm and I was having people round for dinner at 7...so was a bit rushed....but it worked in the end. Ali, who used to live with us in the summer came round...I hadn't seen him since he moved out so it was AMAZING to see him again and hear how he's doing!

Wed was my friend Sarah's birthday so in the evening we had a bit of a chocolate picnic in Naomi's living room which was very nice but involved eating far too much. We watched the new version of 'The Producers' though and I thought it was fantastic! I love musicals =)

Last weekend I ended up talking about 'generations' with some of the younger folk we hang out with...so I was trying to explain the concept of people being of different generations, and the whole Gen X and Gen Y stuff and the Baby boomers and things like that...they said it must be just a North American thing, so I ended up looking a bunch of stuff up online about the different generations and it was really quite interesting to read! Our age (those of you who are my age) is very much a bit of a lost/no generation...cause we're right between Gen X and Gen Y...we don't fully fit into either....we tend to be more the end of Gen X, though often known as the MTV Generation....but if you're ever bored, look up Generation X or Generation Y on Wikipedia

Mean people at work make me cry

Sat, 10 Feb 2007 22:44:49 GMT

So I've lost 2 more families....
1 in a good way - we've decided their situation has improved to the point where they don't need our services anymore
The other in a not so good way.....but in a way that I'm very glad to not be working with the lady anymore:
On Friday I went at 12noon to go work with this lady on de-cluttering her house, and motivating her to get it to a standard acceptable for her 4 year old son to be living in....I had been last week and it was alright....but this week i had to inform her i wouldn't be there next week due to staff sicknesses and holidays....she started getting quite agitated and eventually stopped what she was doing and said 'this is not working!'....'this is not what i was promised and this isn't the kind of help i want....blah blah blah...and you're making things worse for me....and now i'm never going to get everything done i need to etc etc'....
I think she was expecting us to come in and clean her house for her....anyway, she kept escalating and getting more and more verbally aggressive and since she has in the past been known to chase people down the street and have quite harsh mood swings, i started feeling a bit uncomfortable....i tried to calm the situation and said i would speak to my manager and we would call her social worker and explain the situation etc etc....and told her i thought it best if i leave....so i did...and then burst into tears....i was quite proud that i managed to wait until i left the house! but then i proceeded to keep crying my whole walk back to the office, where I got back my composure before entering the building and trying not to seem like an overly sensitive idiot to my coworkers (managed that alright as well!). But so that was that and so we're not working with her anymore.

In other events,
last weekend on Saturday i visited relatives, bought a basketball and some socks, and then can't remember what we did in the evening...Sunday after church we went to my house mate Chris' gig and then i had dinner with my friend Johnny and we went to a random church service in Horsforth....
Monday was work, then Meeting Point, then bowling and pizza hut
Tuesday was work, then youth projects, then youth cell group
--> oh yeah, and at this point in the week the beautiful weather dissappeared and it started to get absolutely FREEZING and we got snow on Thursday and then a whole lot last night
Wednesday was work, then other work, the a meeting, then hanging out with Naomi and Matt
Thursday was other job and then had Kirsty and Johnny over for dinner...then hung out and chatted with Kirsty...then new girl (Rachel) moved in...she's only 17 so quite a different dynamic in the house...then we went to another of Chris' gigs.....they've been scouted by the record label who found Coldplay and they've just set up a gig for them down in London in a few weeks time....they're all quite excited!
Friday was work....and then band practice and then went to Matt's house to chill (litterally...it was freezing)
Today I didn't get dressed till 4pm. I read (a very little bit...it made me tired and so i went back to bed), then met new house mate Rachel's mum...made some muffins...wrote some more of a story i'm writing...then got a shower....had some dinner...went to Matt's...got a call asking if I could babysit tonight...and so here i am!

My little bro went and auditioned for Canadian Idol last weekend...he made it through on the first day and got called back...and then made it through again and got called back to go before the tv judges on Monday and so the family went in with him...and he got ushered quite quickly and didn't get the chance to tune his guitar and so got in there, played the first chord, and got told to leave....so he didn't even get to sing....which is rubbish, cause he so would've made it through if he did!! Ahh well, next year

Anyway, i shall leave you in peace for another week or so!

Fri, 02 Feb 2007 16:31:21 GMT

I lost one of my families today. Literally.
I went to visit them on Monday and no one was home, and today was the same. Got a call off their social worker saying they had to leave to go into 'safe housing'. So that means I won't be working with them anymore, and won't hear anymore about how their doing. That's rubbish. But it's not the first time...one of the families I work with on our youth project just suddenly stopped coming...the kids at school said they just left one day and no one knew where they went, but they had to go live in a hostel...BUT this one had a good ending, cause last week (after like 2 months) the kids turned back up!
I'm sad about the family who we just lost though, cause we were actually making progress - last Thursday when I got there they were all awake and dressed and fed AND the mum was already cleaning out the son's room! I was so impressed!!! And she had gotten the hoover fixed and picked up a broom =) And this was the family I had no clue what I could do to help...and I didn't really do anything....so thanks for the prayers on that one!

Over the weekend I was sickly and so that made my mind run all over the place, but since Monday I have been in an amazing mood....even on days when all I've done is worked...I've been notiving all sorts of little blessings that make me smile...little things that usually go unnoticed, but when suddenly you let yourself look and pay attention, instead of being caught up with all the 'big/bad/crazy' stuff in life, you think...wow, that's cool, or that makes me smile! I am leading the service at church next Sunday, so decided I would start writing down all the things that make me smile over the course of this week, so I will post it on here as well =)

The weather here has been awesome the last couple of days! It is like summer! on Wed night I went out with no jacket on....and today is so bright and sunny - I'm lovin it! One point to global warming.

I was once again reminded of my detestation of spending time alone over the weekend. I need to shift my mind from it being something I try to avoid to being something I look forward to and use productively....cause right now I hate being alone...it makes me bored, tired and depressed...BUT I know that is clearly not a good thing....and so many people love time alone and find it so rejuvinating and relaxing....I need to find some such people and learn from them a bit I think

I shall end with a taster of one of the 'little things' that made me smile today:
I saw two women, one after the other, come out of a building dressed in blank pants and red jackets....for some reason that made me smile - and then I smiled again when right away after I saw a red and black car drive by =) I don't know why those things made me smile, but they did - so there!

it snowed on Tuesday

Sat, 27 Jan 2007 12:54:55 GMT

Well, had the interview on Monday (1hr over the phone) and it seemed to go very well! Now the lady who interviewed me has to write up an independent report and present it to the regional governing body who decide if I get the funding....but I won't hear till the first week of April!

In other news:
People here keep telling me about all these murders going on in Vancouver, and I was confused till I realized it was all about the pig farm thing which has somehow become a big thing in the international news over here

Went to go see 'The Last King of Scotland' on Wed night and it made me feel physically ill watching it

Had to do a presentation to a bunch of 'high anglicans' about the youth development work I'm doing...that was strange cause most of them aren't particularily bothered about youth and children's work...but we were trying to enthuse them and get them on board none the less

Last night I played RISK for the first time since Uni...man I love that game! (By the way, some of you should be proud...I was playing to win, not to get second) We did mission risk and i was about to win my mission on my next turn when alas, Justin killed off all of Matt's red armies and declared himself victorious =( so I did actually end up getting second anyway... Next time....Next time I will take over the world...

On Tuesday I had training through social services on Child Protection issues and referals...and I started crying. I'm such a baby, I know....it was just frustrating me so much thinking about the neighbours though! So Tuesday was a bit of a crap day, cause then during youth project and things I still kept getting upset....BUT on Thursday night, Phil (the dad) got sent to prison for up to 4 months....for some sort of driving offences...i think this time with him out of the house will be quite a blessing for the kids, and they seem quite pleased with it as well.

I'm so excited!!!!

Wed, 17 Jan 2007 13:15:08 GMT

Guess what Guess what Guess what Guess what!!!

BBC Children In Need (one of the big charity funders over here) rang yesterday in the middle of our youth project group (so as we were trying to calm down 20 little 'angels' to sit and eat their tea) and said that they are interested in my application for funding (this is for the project working with asylum seekers kids and youth out at Hillside Reception Centre in Bramley!!!!!! That does not mean they are now giving me the £50,000 I asked for, BUT next Monday at 2pm I have an hour long phone interview to talk more about the project I am wanting to establish and how their money would be spent etc....and then the decision carries on from there.....I was so excited on the phone, I felt like someone had called to tell me I had won the lottery =) I was also then excited off the phone for the rest of the night, and still am now every time I think about it! Though now I really need to find some time this week to go over my project and application notes to see how I can explain it more to them....
It's absolutely amazing...even the timing is such an answer to prayer! I haven't heard ought from them since November and then on Friday night I was praying that I would hear something positive from them this week...and I did! Score!

This week in the Armley Soap Opera

Fri, 12 Jan 2007 11:56:32 GMT

I actually wrote this on Wed but it wouldn't let me post it then....so hopefully it works this time!

Wow, not even a week and you get another update from me!

I didn't do much exciting over the weekend - had a work meeting for the 'South of the River' development project...had some folk round...and i read the book my mum sent me for xmas (The Christmas Shoes) and cried throughout virtually half of it _ I cry at films all the time>>>but never at books>>>>but it was really touching and sad =(

Oh no wait, that was Sunday....Saturday night was when we went to babysit for Naomi's sister...or was that Friday? I'm all messed up....what did we do Sunday then? i don't know....

Monday was a bit of an intense day in many respects -

went to visit this new family and if you're a praying person then pray for them cause it is not a good situation at all...the mum is really young and got quite severe depression and the kids are both really unstimulated and unresponsive...and mum has to go to court tommorrow and we don't know what is going to happen there!

we then had a training session with our Meeting Point project and we were looking at the asylum process and the changes happening to the system...and so that's always a bit depressing

then it got to evening time at my house when we were about to have our cell group/bible study thing....and i heard the little neighbout boys out in the street yelling and crying so i went to check on them and they said their dad was choking Danny (the eldest boy...he's 14)...so i went into their house and Luke (8) followed me...and their was their dad on top of Danny choking him and they were both yelling and fighting and trying to danny was trying to push his dad off...so i tried to get their dad to calm down and told Luke to go get my housemate Chris and eventually we got between them and convinced Danny to get out of the house and he went off....and then Luke and Jon Paul were crying and upset and so were trying to calm them down...and then the police came and suddenly the boys were more upset at the police and trying to defend their dad and say nothing had happened....but they took him down to the station still and so me and Chris and Kirsty held the boys back from jumping into the police car and then tried to distract them with biscuits and the opportunity to come do some baking and play games....and so they were at ours for the next 3 hours (Danny came back as well and joined us) till their mum came back from bingo...and the police showed up again wanting to get statements...but then i felt all guilty cause the boys didn't want me to say ought to the police...but i still did cause stuff like that just can't keep happening! The police pass stuff on to social services so hopefully they'll get more involved....but yeah, it was a bit of a crazy night and really quite upsetting for all of us...especially seeing the boys (who always act so tough) be so distraught

Yesterday I was at work really early again...but had major bus issues getting there and so was late....but finished early anyway so went to visit my friend Mira and then we had youth project leaders' training and then had the youth cell group which all went well....then came home and watched some of Scrubs season 2 cause I got it in the post that morning - thanks Dad!

My cold is better than before and seems to be on its way out...though Monday night and yesterday I had a randomly sore jaw/left side of my face...but it's alright now....

i still haven't remembered what I did Sunday after church....hmm....went to Naomi's for lunch....saw Pav and Kellie's baby.....then.....shall remain a mystery i guess......oh no wait! I started to continue writing a story that I started like 2 years ago! that was it =) and then i had an early night =)

Fri, 05 Jan 2007 14:06:47 GMT

I have a cold =( Have done since New Years Day =( And this morning i had to be AT work for 6:45am...yeuch.

Aside from those little tid bits, i have had a great week or so =)

On Saturday i did my second annual post-xmas trip south....meaning i once again hopped on the national express to Portsmouth. This involves 4.5 hours travel time to London, going to the nearby tesco to get some rolls and humous, and then 2.5 hours more on the bus! I left at 9am and arrived and was picked up by Jon at 4:30pm...and hereby follows what was gotten up to:

Saturday: "Family" dinner at Jon's brother and sister in law's place...along with Jon's dad and grandparents....last time i was down south i intruded on one of these as well....good timing i guess =) but it twas very nice.

Sunday: Church in the morning...fortunately everyone there was extremely friendly and chatty! The church itself reminded me a LOT of Mountainview in Agassiz...went back 'home' and Jon's dad had done us up an amazing roast lamb dinner (another big plus of visiting portsmouth...i always get fed really well!)...went to the driving range (i haven't been in years)...watched Garden State...played scrabble (i may have lost at golf, but made up for it in scrabble hehe)...made and ate plum crumble....went to a New Years Party at Jon's auntie's house - numerous aunts and uncles and cousins to keep track of....was good fun though - danced with Jon's grandpa who is over 80 and still a better dance than i am....linked arms and sang auld lang syne in the middle of the street....

Monday: Woke up to a roast chicken dinner! Went to visit James and his family and got another roast dinner (beef this time....covering all the meat basis)....played random board games...introduced the boys to 'Whose Line is it Anyway' and they introduced me to 'Red Dwarf'....played on a nintendo cube thing...ventured off at about midnight...

Tuesday: Road Tripped it up to London to visit Chris and go to Krispy Kremes (shared a down between the 3 of us)...went to the park and fed ducks...played 'pen-ultimate frisbee' which i have now introduced to the Brits...Chris is the British champion....to my knowledge my Jim still holds the Canadian record...played poker....had a nice private concert cause Jon and Chris both play guitar...

Then had the lovely adventure of driving 10miles in 90minutes finding our way from Chris' to Abby;s house....took us longer to do that than to drive the 70 miles from Jon's to Chris'! Anyway, chilled at Abby's house and then Jon left and we had a nice little chat and went to bed!

Wednesday: Ventured into the big city (I really don't like London...) and attempted to find our way to an exibit at the British Museum...got there and found out it was not on, but that was good cause we didn't have time to look anyway...met up with other folk we did our Oasis gap year with (oh yeah, I know Jon, James, Chris and Abby from my gap year a couple years ago)...Tom, Katherine, Chris and Dave....spent ages in Pret a Manger pretending to drink our empty tea cups...wandered around....went to Nando's for dinner and reminised....then Abby and I went back to hers and had a nice chat and a pray before bed....oh...and an amazing dessert of warm chocolate cake with gooey icing and ice cream and squirty cream and sprinkles!

Thursday: Went home =( At least twas a shorter bus ride cause only had to do the London-Leeds portion....got in at 3:40pm and had to be at work at 4:30pm.....and so didn't get home till after 10pm and was shattered....

Friday: Worked at 6:45am this morning so am even more tired now and am about to go have a nap!

BUT I got my work schedule for next week and i have a new case that is all my own!!! hooray!!

This is probably a bit long eh? I haven't even thought about New Years Resolutions or any of that yet....

Next big thing I'm looking forward to is last weekend in Feb when we are having an 'Oasis Frontline' Reunion with the guys we did our gap year with.....i love that group and everytime i see them it makes me miss em even more!

Tis the season

Thu, 21 Dec 2006 11:43:51 GMT

Happy Birthday to Me!
I have suddenly jumped to having 33 hours of proper PAID work. tis rather strange. That means I have to pay taxes - yuch. My first pay cheque they took over 40% off in tax...think i need to get that sorted.

Anyway, life has been busy and i have had little computer access so have been a bit rubbish at keeping in touch - sorry!

We have had many Christmas parties and outings lately for all the different projects and places i work....

Took our younger and older youth project kids (together....BAD idea) to see a pantomime of Aladdin...spent a lot of the time trying to break up fights between two of the kids - one of whom can be SO sweet and lovely, but when he gets angry it's really scary...he growls and seems to fully cut off from reality and though he's half my size he frightens me!

Had Christmas disco's with the projects on Tuesday...dancing is tiring!

Sprained my ankle in Basketball last week and so was really frustrated the day after cause i couldn't walk around and do the million things i had to do

Had the most lovely day last Saturday cause didn't go out with everyone...i just stayed at home and baked and then sat in drinking wine and chatting with Tom during the evening

Sunday we had our open house and got to meet some neighbours we had never met before =)
Made whipped shortbread and Nanaimo bars..people here don't know what they are and so were all very impressed!

Have a proper real xmas tree (quite rare here)- with no proper real decorations, so has been decorated with newspaper and napkins, pens, scissors, biscuits, a sock and a plant pot

Work is work. the social services job is still a bit boring...and the youth development/research job was really frustrating me last week, trying to compile all the information and files that have been left to me by the person who was heading up the project before...

Tonight is our youth project leaders' xmas part-ay
Tommorrow night we're doing a murder mystery thingy for my birthday
Saturday i'm off to visit relatives
xmas eve my neighbours are coming over
xmas day i am spending with Naomi and her family
boxing day is going to be a crap day
work for a couple days
dec 30th i head down to Portsmouth to visit James and Jon
Jan 2nd-4th i'm in London with Abby and whoever else is around
Jan 5th i start back into the regular swing of things

In case i don't get back on here before...Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all!

Sat, 02 Dec 2006 23:05:54 GMT

Yesterday I got paid to meet Ramsey for lunch and find stuff to make Christmas cards with....(speaking of which, Leeds City Centre is busy enough during any other time of year....and now it's 10x worse. I don't like the centre of the city. makes me feel stressed out and claustrophobic). Why did i get paid to do that? cause we had to do a 'Welcome to the Department' training day and it finished 2 hours early....the most useful thing i learnt the whole course long, was the phone number for the payroll office so i can sort out my taxes.

We have a new housemate....did i mention that in my last post? he's been in a week and a half and is wonderful! His name is Tom and he's 28 and from Leeds but been off travelling and now back and working with Alcoholics doing 1-1 counseling stuff. Had lots of good chats over the last few nights and it seems he shall be a wonderful addition to our little house! We've already arranged to have a Christmas open house with mince pies (i've grown to like them) and mulled wine (not so nice) to invite our street to.

This morning the little uns (neighbourhood kids) came round to do some baking and they were like little angels! I love those kids. They even sat and played monopoly every so nicely while we waited for the cake to bake.

Last night our whole crew went along to an event in town that was all about uniting Christians from around the city...there were all sorts of cool things going round, and also just a great time to meet new people, and bump into people from ages ago (ran into a guy i met on a train 1.5years ago when going up to the Make Poverty History march in Edinburough)...and it also gave me a change to share with a lot of people my dream/vision/passion for the asylum seeker project i want to set up in Hillside! Then went out for a drink with new housemate Tom, and guy from the train (Dave)....only nice quiet place we could find was a place called Brown's and for 2 glasses o wine and a lemonade it cost £14! was a bit posh....

Housemate Chris and good friend Kirsty (who heads up our youth project) got engaged last weekend!!! wa-hey! i was so excited on Monday when I found out...i couldn't stop smiling...i think i was giddier than Chris was when I was talking to him =)

Strange things i've realized about having a real-life job (aside from, but semi-related to the slackness and lack of work).....1) i can take off sick days - and you get paid for them! and 2) i have to book off holiday days - but you get paid to take them! it's madness i tell you.

Tommorrow is our first baksetball game that i'm going to be coaching for! eek! we have 3 games in the next week and a half...

is this the real world?

Fri, 24 Nov 2006 11:28:08 GMT

So I've become part of the real world in a way. The working world. And I'm not sure if I like it. People don't actually seem to work very much. There is lots of sitting around and chatting and eating toast and drinking tea....things i like (well, not too much tea)...but don't think i should be getting paid for.
I've started my job with social services as a family aide worker. It's great going and visiting the families and what not (though won't get my own cases till after Christmas), but then we come back to the centre to do our 'notes and recording', which takes all of 5 minutes, but you're scheduled to be there for like an hour or more! it's such a waste of time!

Have also just got another job. 10 hrs a week doing youth development work. It's working on the 'South of the River Project' (just set up in September) to research past and present children's and youth provision...see where the needs/wants/gaps are....and come up with an action plan for the next few years. My amazing friend Amie is also working on the project and has been since it started, so it'll be good fun getting to work alongside her!

That now puts me up to 33 hours of PAID work! that's craziness!

I also just put my 'Children in Need' funding application (for starting the project with asylum seekers out at Hillside Reception Centre) in the mail today, requesting £51,585 off them (for three years).

Have a bit o a sprained thumb and a huge bruise on my leg today. Had some issues diving for the basketball yesterday during our scrimage. Can't remember if I said already, but now I'm the main coach =) one of the other girls, Sam (who's really good fun) is going to be my co-coach. Twill make it hard during games to still play, but I think Sam and I will alternate quarters...

Had a super busy weekend last weekend doing various stuff with the youth and preparing meals for the church congregation and setting up and leading worship at different services...but was good fun, AND my old Oasis teammate for a couple years ago, Chris, came up too!

I keep stopping and staring at my thumb, and comparing it with my other thumb.

I got a letter this morning off one of our older youth who's in prison. It wa really nice to receive but sad at the same time....

We had to call the police in to our 11-14's project on Tuesday night...and then on Wednesday night with the 14+ group we had to tell the kids it was cancelled next week cause they were doing lots o bad stuff....

anyway, i am off into the rain.
ciao!