International City

It's hard to explain that feeling, when you're in a new environment and you're trying to find your feet after having moving locations. Being such an avid reader, and to some extents, a writer, it's easiest to explain it like this, it's like that feeling I get when I'm a few paragraphs into a new chapter in a book. Since we moved from Dartmouth Road I've been back a few times and I can't tell you how weird it is going back there, knowing that I'm not staying there anymore. The house on Station Road is so different from the house on Dartmouth Road... Yet at that whole feeling of begin a part of something greater is still very strong for me. Station Road end just as international as Dartmouth Road, something that is really highlighted by the World Cup (yes, I know I'm using the World Cup as an example again), as it's normal for there have people coming from the countries that are usually playing each other. Chile vs. Brazil on Saturday is one example, as one of the staff is Brazilian and three of the DTS (Discipleship Training School) students are Chilean. For those of you who are watching at least some of the matches, I should advise you to keep an eye on Argentina, who have strong support over here.

That sense of being in an international setting is something I feel very strongly here, not just because I'm sharing a house with people from so many different countries, but also when I walk the streets of London city. I was walking down Oxford Street today and there was such a mix of languages and accents that I couldn't help but marvel. I chatted with a German girl, briefly as I waited to use the toilet in Starbucks, and I was offered a free book by Hindu man. London's one of the major metropolitans that so many people dream of going to. There's such potential to reach the world just from this ancient and beautiful city. What are we really doing? Where are the Christians? Hiding behind our shopping bags and coffee cups, but what were we called to do?

Lightbulb

The LMD (School of Leadership and Ministry Developement) outreach started two days ago. We moved from the house at Dartmouth Road to the house at Station Road where the DTS (Discipleship Training School) live. We're with the DTS until mid-July when they go to Germany with one of us three LMD's who moved, whilst the two of us left will head to Glasgow, Scotland with one of the staff for the King's Kids Wildfire outreach. Since we've moved, I've already been thrown out of my comfort zone, doing things that I'd normally prefer someone else to do. One thing in particular is leading a outreach preparation group on my own. The first evening here (Wednesday) we had outreach preparation, which was the DTS being spilt into three groups that were led by the three LMD students, which meant that I was leading a small preparation group. It was big and very scary. I've spoken in front of people but have always preferred someone else to step up and take charge when it comes to leading a group. Thankfully we were preparing in an area that I've had some experience in. So I wasn't thrown totally into the deep end, as it were.. I was in charge of brainstorming with two of the DTS girls to put a schedule together for a children program. I'm so grateful that we've had King's Kids because I used what we usually end up doing with the KKI (King's Kids International) preparation. We had a lot of fun thinking up some songs and bible stories as well as games to do with kids. This preparation isn't only for Germany but also for our time in Islington. We're leaving in just over a week's time (Friday 4 July). It's all very exciting. Over the last few years, I've been on two missions trips (my DTS outreach and with the Operation Mobelisation's Africa Trek team). I loved those times and I love being able to go and reach out to people with other Christians. It's incredible.

Among other things, yesterday was a day of light bulb moments. I had one during the community meeting yesterday evening, which was at Dartmouth Road (it was supper weird going back and knowing I wasn't staying the night there). One of these lightbulb moments was a revelation from God, you could say. I grew up in a small African country and I've seen what hunger and poverty do to people. I hadn't really thought about it until I read an article in the July 2014 issue of National Geographic. The article was about farming in Africa, I ended up praying about the whole small scale farming in Africa. Africa could so easily become the breadbasket of the world. Yet so much food gets shipped to Africa from the Western world. Africa has so much potential, yet sending equipment that they don't know how to use, isn't gonna help (growing up I rarely saw tractors that actually worked, they were either in the showrooms or sitting in a field, broken and rusting), they need methods that they can put into practice. So I was praying about that last night.

Keep posted for more information!

Let's Go!!

On Wednesday, the outreach starts. Its hard to believe how fast the last few months have gone by. Its hard to belive that it's already almost July. With the outreach starting I should at least say what the next few weeks will be looking like. We're going to be spending about two weeks with the DTS at Station Road and go through the outreach preparation together before they leave for Germany. One of the LMD's is going with them on outreach, those of us who aren't going with the DTS are either going to Scotland with the Wildfire (King's Kids) team, or are envolved with other things. I'm really looking forwards to going to Scotland, for a number of reasons. I have Scots blood running through my blood, which comes from both sides of my parents (mum's Murray and papa's Mackenzie), and I'm also looking forwards to working with the kids who will be coming. We're going to be doing evangelism during the event. Out of the six LMD students, only me and one of the others will be in Scotland, as the others will be involved in different things here in London or abroad. We'll be going to Glasgow with one of the staff who's been actively involved with King's Kids, here in London.

This last weekend I've been on work duties. It's forced me to look at my packing and the sorting out of my things, which is something I really don't like doing. I'm borrowing a hikers backpack from one of my roommates (she's doing the art internship) and I spent some time yesterday focusing on packing that, and now I don't have an awful lot left to do before we leave for Station Road.

As this page turns, I look back over the last few months. It's incredible actually being in London. The novelty hasn't begun to wear off, yet, and I'm still enjoying being in such a vibrant, international city. It's so different from the little town of Hoedspruit, South Africa. I don't thing you can find such a huge difference between two places. I'm really glad I had the few weeks between leaving Hoedspruit and coming to London. It softened the culture shock considerably. I've also learnt a lot from living in such an international community. With people from so many different countries and cultures it's really insightful learning so much from these incredible people.

Until next time!

Thoughts And Plans

I think that life is a journey towards a door we all must walk through. No matter who we are we all must walk through a door called death. On the other side of that door is a place that we chosen to go to when we were alive. It's either heaven or hell. If we chose to have a relationship with God during our lives, then heaven will be our eternal home. If we didn't choose that relationship... There's only one place that we'll end up. It's not a pleasant thought. I know that there are others who don't agree with me on this, but I guess we all are free to choose our own paths through life and make our own decisions. That's what the next two months are going to be about. We're going to go out and we're going to tell people about that relationship they can have, we defiantly don't want to be forcing the choice down their throats. We have the free will to choose what we want to do with our lives. I chose to follow The Lord when he called me to London, and I'm so glad I've been able to come here. He opened the doors that only He can open.

When I last posted, we still weren't sure about the outreach locations, and what was happening there. I can tell you that everything's sorted out. We're going to be working along side the DTS and then one of our staff, together with me and one of the other students are heading up to Glasgow, Scotland, for the Commonwealth Games, to be a part of the Wildfire Team (that's the English King's Kids team). Then we'll heading back down to London to work with the Arts House, we'll also be working in Islington. I'm not sure exactly how things will take shape at that point in the outreach, but at some point over the weekend, three of us will be heading over to Station Road to join the DTS. I'm ever so excited to see what's going to happen. We graduate on the 28th of August.

A Note On Living With Dyslexia

It's Monday, a day off, to rest and prepare ourselves for another week. At some point this next week we have have an oral and a written exam for a book we've been reading. I'm not totally sure when it's gonna be but I'm personally not looking forwards to it, I think it's because of the challenge that this sort of thing presents me, which leads me into something that makes me who I am.

I'm dyslexic (moderate to severe), which has caused a few problems for me in the past. I'm not accusing anyone here, but over the years I've come accross people who have thought (and still do think) that you can choose to be dyslexic or not. I think that they think that I've chosen to be dyslexic to get the benefits that come with having the right paperwork. This is not the case. Being a dyslexic is just as much a choice as being able to choose the skin tone, eye colour and hair texture you're born with. I cannot suppress it, or deny it, like I would with a given emotion, because I have no idea what dyslexia is supposed to 'feel like'. It's just as much a part of me as any of the other strengths and weaknesses that make me who I am.

Dyslexia "is characterized by difficulty with learning to read fluently and with accurate comprehension despite normal or above-average intelligence. This includes difficulty with phonological awareness "(to do with sound structure of words)," phonological decoding "(to do with the systematic organization of sounds in languages)," processing speed, orthographic coding "(to do with the writing of a language)," auditory short-term memory "(or working memory)," language skills and verbal comprehension, and/or rapid naming "(to do with how fast someone can name aloud certain objects, colors etc)". In early childhood, early symptoms that correlate with a later diagnosis of dyslexia include delays in speech, letter reversal or mirror writing, difficulty knowing left from right and directions, and being easily distracted by background noise."* So because of this, you might be shocked that I'm so good at writing and that I love poetry and reading so much. The sole contributors to this love of liturature are my parents (who had me tested between when I was six and when I was eight), homeschooled me and thus allowed me to learn at my own pace. They never pushed me to start reading, but instead would read to my sister and me. I didn't start reading till I was about eight and half.

Dyslexia is widely misunderstood and more often than not, those with dyslexia are bullied in school, because their classmates don't understand why they can't keep up with the various learning stages, like learning to read and write. Over the years, I've learnt to accept having dyslexia, that it's not a weakness or a hindrance but a gift. Dyslexics are usually extremely gifted in some areas, like the arts, music and sports. Some of the greatest people in history, like Einstein, Bell and Da Vinci, were dyslexic. A lot of dyslexics never finished school, like me. Yes, I passed all the seven IGCSEs (Internation GCSEs) that I sat. The same story went with my three AS levels (year 12 exams). I chose not to finish my A levels.

The next time you hear that someone had dyslexia please don't look at them any differently. Put yourself in their shoes and think how you'd like to be treated if you were different to everyone else around you.

(*sighted from Wikipedia)

Week Nine

I don't know where to being. The last few days have been interesting, to say the least. One big piece of news is that last Friday, one of the LMD students started the arts internship. Also of the staff also started the internship last week. It's weird not having the two of them coming with us as we're going about our daily things. This leads me on to the second big piece of news. We're back in Harlesden for lectures with the DTS this week, which means the schedule's been turned upside down. Every day, this week, we're out the door about an hour or so before the lecture's start at 10:15. On Monday, after the morning lectures were finished, we went rushing back to Dartmouth Road to do our work duties, before heading back to Harlesden to be a part of Salvation Army. They've been rotating the different tasks the LMD and DTS students are involved in, so last night I was involved with the prayer room, along with Melissa (the LMD from Ecuador) and another lady. We prayed together for those who were coming past and whoever came into the room.

Sometimes we have to learn to trust God that He will do something in His timing. From time to time, I've been thinking about my future, from when the LMD finishes in September. One thing that God showed me last night was that He'll light up the  step just before I need to take it. Its a journey of trust because I'm one of those people who like knowing what's gonna happen ages in advance and over the last few years being able to trust God about the future has gotten easier. At the end of my DTS outreach I was ever so worried about what was going to happen after the DTS finished and I struggled trusting God... But it did come together. The LMD doesn't finish for another two months and I know that God will reveal it to me when the time is right and thus I can relax in the fact that God holds my future safely in His hands. He'll show me. I have peace about my future and when things come together, and are more certain than I am now, then and only then, I'll post with what the next step is going to be.

But before I can talk about the what's happening after the LMD is done, there's other things that are closer to hand that you are probably wondering about. This is namely, what's happening with the outreach locations. The outreach locations will probably be announced at some point next week. Don't worry I haven't forgotten to tell you about that.

The frirst two photos I took from the second floor of the Harlesden Salvation Army building where we're having our lectures this week.

Memories

The last few days have had memories made and when memories of events of years past have been undusted.

First things first. On Friday, we took part in an evangelism event in Wembley, outside the football stadium. Some of you may know that the band, One Direction, are currently on tour and were in London on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. We've finished the films (click here to see them) we were working on for our media project and had made business cards with the web address on the back. We were handing these out to young One Direction fans. I think the biggest story of the evening was how God answered my prayers. I'd been praying that God would make a way for us to put these business cards into the hands of the band. I was in a team with two of the students from the LMD, Melissa and Ezequial. I'd told Melissa what I'd been praying and within twenty minutes of me telling her, we saw two do the band walking towards the stadium, surrounded by police and screaming fans. For me, it didn't register who they were, but Melissa did. She flew after them with Ezequel on her heels. I realized I was alone and went to the edge of the parkway. I was praying and decided to make my way towards the stadium. At one point I turned around and saw Melissa running towards me. Something was going on. So I ran to meet her. "I gave them the cards!!" (Or something like that) Melissa told me. I was shocked. This is roughly what happened: Melissa had been able to give the business cards to two of the 1D band. One had been interested when Melissa said she had something for them. So the other had taken the cards from Melissa, because he was closest to her. He asked what they were and she pointed to the web address. They'd been forced to go on at this point. When Melissa told me we danced on the street, jumping and praised God. So be careful what you pray for!

Then on Saturday evening, after having a rather exhausting, but fun, morning with King's Kids (the first photo's of where we usually have King's Kids), Mary and I decided to go to the One Direction concert. It was a first for me. I've never been to a concert before and I've never been inside a stadium before. It was incredible. I really enjoyed and I must say that there must be quite a few fans who won't be able to talk properly for weeks and also quite a few people who will be a bit deaf from all the screaming from the fans next to them.

Yesterday morning, I went off to Heathrow Airport to collect one of my DTS friends from North Ireland, Amy. It took me two hours getting to the airport from the moment I walked out the door due to works on the Jubilee line (the Underground line we use to get into London) so I resorted to use the bus and then a long route on the Tube to get to Terminal 1. Amy was waiting for me. Thus began an incredible weekend of reminiscing about DTS and some of the crazy memories from the six months we were in YWAM together. Amy went to Central Europe on outreach whilst I went to Brazil. At one point yesterday afternoon, we went through my outreach photos. It was a lot of fun, because we both knew everyone in my team and some of the pictures got a good laugh out of both of us.

Worldview And The Movies

It's approaching the end of another incredible week. This last week has been really busy and with quite a few changes to the normal schedule, but I've really enjoyed the lecture content.

We've one of the staff from YWAM Kona teaching us this week. This man runs the film production school over there and knows a lot about production and behind the scenes stuff. We've spent quite a lot of lesson time going through different video camera types, as well as the different types of angles to give different perspectives to a film. We've also been watching a few short clips, when the speaker will point out which type of angle is being used. I love watching movies, however we're really busy during the day, and usually I'm too tired to watch anything beyond part of a BBC documentary before crashing.

You're probably wondering what worldview has got to do with watching and making films. This topic is something we've been looking at this last week. Have you ever watched a film and found that there's something about it that's forced you not to finish the film? The reason for this is simple, you were raised to believe that certain things are right and other things are wrong. Sometimes the film makers produce a film that has an amazing message but will use different aspects (like violence) to portray the film's message in a deeper way. If they made the film without using those aspects then the film's message doesn't have the same impact on the viewers. There has also been a long history, in the church, when certain aspects of the arts (poetry, journalism, novels, media, etc) have been shunned because of the views of different people in the church. It doesn't mean that every aspect of the arts is wrong because of the contents. I love reading novels, many of them aren't written by Christians, but that doesn't make these novels necessarily bad. I write a lot of poetry as a form of expressing myself. Not all of them look like anything you'd find in the biblical books of Psalms and Proverbs. In saying this, I don't want to offend anyone else's opinions, nor am I saying that what you believe is wrong. I also want to ask that you don't take offense by what I've written. We're allowed to believe what we choose.

Then in the afternoons we've been doing practical workshops. Two days ago we had to practice taking photos of each other. One of the other girls and I kind of misunderstood, so we were taking close up photos of a lot of objects. I love taking photos, so all the photos from the last two days are posted here.

Since we got back from The King's Lodge, a number of staff have come back from Argentina where the previous BLS and the arts team had gone to, on outreach. So how the work duties work has changed as well. My work duty, currently, is cleaning the after dinner dishes, and putting the cereals and the spoons out for breakfast (and putting them away afterwards). I'm not sure when they're gonna rotate the work duties, as they usually do that every two weeks or so.

Tonight we're watching a film together before going to Notting Hill for the introduction of the art interns. One of the three YWAM London houses is the Arts House. Twice a year they run art internships. One of the LMD students is leaving to do an internship and one of our stuff members is also going to do it. It's really sad that we're loosing them. Later on in the school one of the girls will be staffing the counseling school so won't be going on outreach with us. It's gonna take some getting used to.

Tomorrow we've got lectures, work duties and then in the evening we've got evangelism in Wembley. Saturday's following the normal schedule of King's Kids and, I think, we've got evangelism in the afternoon. Sunday morning is when I'm really looking forwards to because one of the girls from my DTS is coming to visit. She's arriving in the morning and staying Sunday night. She's leaving Monday evening. I'm really looking forwards to seeing her as I've not seen her in over a year.

Tell next time!

Film Seminar

Its the beginning of another week. We only got back from Nuneaton yesterday evening. I really enjoyed my time there but it's great being back in London.

To give a quick update of what we were doing over the weekend (and since my last post), Friday afternoon we took shifts directing the cars that were coming into the base. The majority of the YWAMers were in tents over the weekend so we directed them where to drop their camping stuff off and then where to park their cars when they came back. Then we had an awesome worship session together as a YWAM family. There were people from YWAM bases all across England and Wales. There were so many stories going around about God's goodness is so many different ways and how God was able to open doors and provide what each base needed.

One of the highlights of the weekend, for me, was that I was able to meet one of the staff who'd been working at Holmstead Manor at the time my parents were there. It was great being able to talk to him about different things and about what my parents are doing in Uganda and South Africa.

Another thing I was involved in over the weekend was the kids. I was one of the LMD students working with the three and four year olds during the morning meetings on Saturday and Sunday. It was a lot of fun for me because I love working with young kids. There were loads of kids that first morning but the number of kids dwindled on Sunday. We had a lot of tears as the kids had all been in tents and as many of you know, the tent material is really thin so the light kept many of them awake until late and woke them up early. So we were giving a lot of hugs and stuff. In a few cases someone had to run for one of the parents because the child was so desperate for their "mummy" or "daddy."

In the afternoons we were involved with the inflatables again, though we were on shorter shifts. I found it quite fun walking about and running for drinks for the Argintine guys who were manning the barbecue.

Looking to the coming week, we have a film seminar running at the moment. It started this morning and is running until Friday. I've been able to unpack from the week away and am really looking forwards to what we're going to be doing this next week. It's gonna be very exciting. We also got new work duties this afternoon. I'm on evening dinner clean up. So in the evenings after dinner I'm cleaning up the kitchen and the pans that were used to cook the food and putting the breakfast stuff out.

Talking about films, the long awaited video that we've done for the media project is finally on YouTube. Click here to see it!

The photographs: the first one is of my beloved Rogue hat that I bought in South Africa about a year ago. It's gotten wet three times now and is still in good shape. I'm probably gonna have it for a very long time. The nice thing with this type of hat is that it can be flattened and will still retain it's shape when you push it into place. And the second photo is the entrance to The King's Lodge. I'll post more photos later on this week.