The Runner's Frustrations

I've been wanting to write this post for a while now, but haven't known how to word it exactly. It's been something that's been bothering me and I just wanted to share the issue with you, my esteemed audience. However, before I begin, I want to ask that you read this post with an open mind, and in an attempt to understand my reasoning behind writing this. Its not to get attention in the sense that I want your praise about me running (which I'm not after), rather I want to draw your attention to how most runners would prefer to be treated, when they're out exercising. So, as you start reading this post I want to ask you to put yourself in my shoes, how would you want to be treated if you went running on the streets?

So to start with and to give you some background, I've been running for more than years now (intermittently). When I first began, in Uganda, I'd walk down to the nearby expat gym, get changed into my running kit, and go for a run on one of the treadmills there. To this day I still prefer running on a treadmill. There are a number of reasons for my preference:

1. The weather doesn't effect my running. I love the rain (the smell, the sound, the feel) but I hate running when it's raining. Simply because I don't want to get wet and risk getting a cold (which entails I'll be coughing for weeks).
2. Everyone that generally goes to the gym is there for the same reason, to get fit… or to loose weight (as is my case).
3. You don't have to run with a water bottle in your hand or strapped to your waist. It sits nicely next to the machine, in easy access.

Since I left Uganda I've not had access to a gym, simply because I can't afford the high European gym membership fees, not to add, my schedules usually haven't allowed me to get my money's worth of gym visits even if I did have money to join. This has left me with only one option. The dreaded outdoor runs.

I really dislike running outdoors; to the point that my dislike borders on hatred. I only run outdoors because running, for me, is not a choice; it's a necessity. The reason for my dislike for running outdoors isn't the scenery (which is beautiful) but mainly down to people's reactions to me running. I'm not insecure about who I am. I love me for me and I honestly don't care what people think about me trying to get a bit fitter. I just strongly dislike the stares, the greetings, the encouragements, and worst of all, the occasional lewd comments.

When I run I don't want any interaction from anyone, be it people I know or total strangers. It infuriates me when I'm running on a bike path and I hear someone ringing their bell, so I move onto the verge or I pause to let them past. Yet, when they keep ringing their bell. It's only until they bike past that I realise they know me though I don't understand what they're trying to say with their noise. 

Personally I find it rude and insulting, like the comments and encouragement. People think they're being nice when they tell me I can do it or asking if I'm okay when I stop to catch my breath. I know that people mean well, but I don't appreciate it.

So next time you see someone running (no matter who they are or how fit or unfit they are), just ignore them. Don't look at them, don't talk to them and just give them the space to run past without slowing down because simply, they're brave enough to face the outside world in a running kit. And as I sign off, I want to ask you this question: are you brave enough to go running outdoors? Do you suffer from the comments as I do? Or do you enjoy it?

The Final Weeks Before The GOFest

A pond a few hundred metres from Herdershof

The GOFest starts in a little over two weeks. I can't believe how fast the last six months have flown past. I think this post is mostly going to be about the wedding of Bas and Maartje that took place last Friday (I didn't get any photos, but I'll get to the reasons why later on in the post) and the graduation of the Bible For Life that took place on Saturday evening. I'll try to write some more about the upcoming weeks as well.

The Wedding
I've known Bas since my Discipleship Training School DTS, and when I arrived here to do the School of Intercessory Prayer SOIP last September he was in a relationship with Maartje and had been for a few months. Maartje had just arrived on the base as staff. They were engaged over the Christmas holidays, when I was in Paris with my sister. They started planning their wedding almost straight away and had chosen to be married Friday, the 24th of June. I'd offered to help out on the big day so that's what I did. During the main service I was at the back of the room, helping with making the tea and the coffee, as well as whatever else needed doing. So I wasn't able to get any photos of the happy couple, I then went home for a few hours (and went into Epe to get something) before heading off to Heidebeek to help with the clean up. I had thought that cleaning up after the dinner would take a few hours and that we wouldn't be done until about 21:30 (9:30pm). However I was nicely surprised on arrival to find a lot had already be done. It only took about half an hour to clean everything up as the previous group had done a lot of cleaning already and I was home by about 20:30 (8:30pm).

Geeta, Peter, Martine, Edna, McKenzie, Joke, Daniel and Sijtje

The Graduation

The other event, the graduation, took place on Saturday night. This is the first Bible for Life ever run. Its a three month school for people who want to understand the bible on a deeper level. It looks at the story of the entire bible, in historical order. The students will read through the entire bible, out loud, in about ten or eleven weeks. Then during the lectures they'll have lessons on different books of the bible. I've written in a number of my previous blogs about McKenzie, who was one of the students (forth from the right in the picture). She invited me to go and I really enjoyed being able to attend. McKenzie's become a good friend of mine and I'm really happy for her. She's off traveling the world now and I'm really excited for the adventures she's going to have. Though I am going to really miss our conversations during the coffee breaks and lunch breaks (I'd always save her a seat in case class got out late) and the times we've spent watching Outlander (and our talks about the various episodes and what we think might end up happening over the course of the second season). We're very much alike in a number of different areas.

The Forest I Live On the Edge Of

The GOFest and The GOTeams Outreach

The flights for three of the four teams, have all been booked, well, the only team that doesn't have booked tickets is the Faith Experience. They won't know where they're going until the weekend of the GOFest. The Faith Experience will pray together as a team, asking God to showing them where He wants them to go and then they'll book the tickets and fly out. I'm really curious to see where they'll be going. I'm looking forwards to being able to volunteer with what's happening during the GOFest.

The teams will be on the mission field for about two and a half weeks, then will return during the second week of August, for a five day debrief... when the debrief week is done everyone will return to their homes, with many memories and stories of God's goodness. So over the last few weeks I've been working on completing the informational handbook, writing a devotional for the entire outreach and designing a team t-shirt that can be worn in all of the outreach locations without causing problems for the teams (some countries forbid people wearing Christian symbology as jewellery or on clothing, like crosses). We've had some drama with some documents disappearing (before I arrived). So I've had to design the informational handbook for the GOTeams Outreach from scratch, which has been quite a feat. We're also going to be supplying notebooks to the participants to document their journeys and their devotionals, Carl had the idea to stamp the team logo onto the book so I'm in charge of stamping about sixty six notebooks over the next week (a number have already been done). I've also written a devotional for the GOTeams outreach which I've done and has been translated.

I'll write more about some other stuff before the end of June. So until then, take care!

A Weekend in Rotterdam

I'm sitting at my desk trying very hard to concentrate on my work, but as you can see I'm doing a pretty good job of failing to that because I'm writing here. Part of the reason I'm writing now is because I thought I'd give you a heads up about my upcoming trip. I'm doing this to save a repeat of what happened back in February when the world thought I was flying off to New Zealand, do to a misinterpreted post on my Facebook timeline (I still think people are too quick to believe what's posted on social media).

This afternoon I'm heading off to the great city of Rotterdam. Rotterdam is where my father was born and spent the early years of his childhood... its also the city where two of my closest friends live and I'm going to be visiting them for a few days (I'll be back at Youth With A Mission YWAM Heidebeek next week). I'm really looking forwards to this trip, because it usually involves late nights, board games and fun. Sometimes it really helps getting away from the normal surroundings to be able to have a proper break from the normal day to day things. Even on weekends there's certain things that need.

Whilst I'm writing about what's going to be happening this weekend, I might as well bring you up to speed about what's been happening since I posted my last blog entry. Where possible we've been booking tickets to the various locations, Rwanda, India and Brazil (the Faith Experience will have their tickets booked during the GOFest when they know where they're going). We've also been finalising different things. One of the things we've also been looking into is the process of the visa applications, again for the locations that need to have visas before the applicants board the planes to their final locations. Its been quite a busy few days... and its probably not going to change just yet. Next week's going to be busy as well, since Bas, one of my colleagues, is getting married next week (I'll write about this once his wedding has come and gone).

I'm going to wrap this up now, so until next time!

Somewhere Called Home

For the last four years I've traveled from country to country, following God from place to place. I've been to more countries in my life up until now than most people will in their lives (current total stands at twenty five). Its been an incredible adventure, and a rather difficult journey. When I left Uganda to do my Discipleship Training School DTS here at Youth With A Mission YWAM Heidebeek, my mum moved with my brother and sister to South Africa due to my brother's education. My dad moved down to join them a few months later and another family moved into our house in Kampala... I'm not going to go through the journey I've been on, but over the years I've learnt that my home isn't a house, or where certain people (like my family), its where God is, where God wants me to be. I know this is a bit of a cheesy thing to say, because God is everywhere... it just means that my home is wherever he puts me. It can very difficult sometimes as I do want to have my own place to settle down for a longer period of time... without the lingering thought at the back of my mind "Don't get too comfortable. You're not staying here long." Even when I've been with a given base for a while, there's always the chance I'll get asked to move from one room to another, or from one bed to another, which is just as unsettling as having to move house every few months. I think the biggest thing I've learned over the last few years is that God always opens a door for me to walk through. Even though it's usually at the last possible minute, I know he won't leave me to figure things out on my own. Right now, I'm waiting for an answer for the next step. I've got six weeks to have a solid decision to give to the base here and I'd appreciate that you'd stand with me in prayer, that God will make it clear where he wants me to go.

Outlander, A Wedding and A Visit to South Africa

One of the horses I see almost daily

The Drama of My Life

There's been some drama over the since my last post, like my bike dying on me last Thursday and the marriage of my Rwandan friend, Bebe, on Friday.

I'd biked into Epe on Thursday to get a wedding card for Bebe and on the way there something broke in the back wheel so that the whole wheel would wiggle violently if I tried to bike. It happened on the journey to Epe so I ended up taking the bike to Licht in Duuster LID and leaving there so I could go into Epe and get what I needed without having to push my bike from place to place. When I was finished in Epe I went back to LID to get my bike, then I pushed it back to Herdershof. It took me about an hour getting home with all my stuff. I am now renting a bike from the base for the next few months...

Friday's Wedding

Then on Friday, my Rwandan friend, Bebe, got married. When we started the School of Intercessory Prayer SOIP she was in a relationship with a Rwandan man whom she'd met at an international church a few years ago. Then over the Christmas holiday, when I was in Paris with Hannah, Bebe's boyfriend, Wilson, proposed and Bebe said yes. Back at the end of March Bebe and Wilson went to the Town Hall to legally get married. Then on Friday they were married in church. I got a lift to and from the church with Bas and his fiancée, Maartje. It was a nice ceremony. I didn't stay long at the reception due to uncertainty and not having transport home, as I didn't want to walk home in the dark (I didn't get any good quality photos of the bride and groom).

I love poppies; so much symbolism behind these flowers

Outlander

Over the weekend, I had to walk into Epe to get some shopping done. I seriously got my exercise done. I also had a friend over. One of the girls, McKenzie, who is doing the Bible For Life B4L school came over to join me in watching a few episodes of Outlander, Season 2. She can't watch it at LID so has been coming over to join me watching them. Outlander is a series that starts in the years after World War Two and is about a young woman, Claire, who walks into a circle of standing stones outside Inverness, Scotland and falls back in history, to the years before the Battle of Culloden. Culloden is a marsh in Scotland where the Jacobites fought the British, and lost. This battle was the last of the uprisings and brought an end to the Scottish way of life. Wearing kilts and speaking Gaelic was banned. Outlander follows Claire's journey as she tries to bring stop the Battle of Culloden from happening. Outlander has been beautifully filmed and almost completely spot on historically. I'm not going to give any spoilers away for those of you who haven't watched right up to the latest episode of season 2; I will say that this series are well worth watching. Though I must warn you that there is some very heavy, relatively graphic scenes. I was just telling McKenzie that for me being part British, and knowing that its likely that what happened in Outlander likely took place in reality, its hard to know that almost three hundred years ago these crimes were committed at the hands of the British soldiers stationed in Scotland. I've read into what the the British have done over the years, but I don't really want to look into that right now.

One of the flowers at Herdershof

South Africa!

I'm also looking forwards to the next few months, we've got the GOFest coming up in about five weeks time. Soon after that, I'm going to be spending some time in South Africa with my parents and brother. My parents booked my ticket to and from Johannesburg with British Airways last night. I'm really looking forwards to spending some time down there. I've not been back to South Africa since I left a little over two years ago. There's a number of people at Youth With A Mission YWAM Heidebeek who have worked in South Africa, which has led me to come to the following decision, due to my baggage limits, as set by British Airways; I'm not planning to be take currier or messenger girl, for anyone by taking or bringing anything in my luggage. I'm going to write more about this upcoming trip in a later post, so stay tuned for more information  about my trip and about the GOTeams outreach that's also happening. Whilst I'm in South Africa I'll be using my British sim card whilst I'm over there, so you can let me know get hold of me through that. If you don't have it and want it, do ask me for it).

SaveSave