kinda wierd - i thought we'd be posting more now we're on holidays...

anyway, things are going well, albeit a bit hectic. we went shopping for a widescreen tv today but the one we wanted that had sold out of annoyingly, so we didnt get one after all. beas currently looking for pheasants (for new years eve). i'm off to see lord of the rings again, with hodgson and cathers tonight. and hopefully getting another homebrew going tomorrow morning if we have time, and then off to the deep dark peaks with hodge and barnaby for a trip to some pub in the middle of know where for a few pints of strong ale, before returning home to cook tea. mmmm....

there are lots of photos taken, but i've not got round to putting them up yet.

and bea has just returned home with 6 partridges....

well - hello toyou all and congratulations for surviving the Christmas onslaught of food, fun and quite probably stress! we had a really lovely Christmas with all our close family on my side (we are seeing andy's over the next few weeks) and everyone wason great form. we'll be putting up photos on our online photo album in the next few days so keep your eyes peeled (as my dad is known to say!).

sadly we found out on boxing day evening that my poppy (mum's dad) had died. we had only said goodbye to him that lunchtime so it was a terrible shock and obviously really upsetting. he suffered from heart failure as he was getting ready for bed and granny was in the next room, although she heard him fall and was able to go through and see him before he actually died. poppy was an amazing man and i'll say more about him in a few days time when i can put a photo up.

please pray for andy and me and my family and especially for granny who is 80 and now on her own. the service of thanksgiving is on thursday 2nd january which i expect will be packed full of people - that's the kind of person poppy was!

so, i hope you all have fab new years celebrations - be good, or just don't get caught!

i guessi'm not that convincxed by the email, but would agree that its something definitely worth praying for.

bea and i have just spent the past 24 hours with some friends of ours, the kitcheners and as always had an excellent time. there are even some photos but due to a lack of a usb cable they cant go up - a little annoying but nevermind. i spent quite a bit of time also playing zoo tycoon with one of their sons - got to build lion, giraffe, sea lion, rhino, black panther, alligator, grizzly bear etc exhibits, and then remove all the fences and let them loose on the public.

bea and i also got to see a good film the otherday - sweet home alabama which i guess in some ways was a pretty standard rom-com, but did also remind me of being in texas again which was great.

ands now we're off now to see lucy bruen (one of beas bridesmaids) and a few others for a drink and then on to (a highly amusing) midnight mass, but anyway, hope you all have a good day tomorrow and seeya'll soon.

hello and a HAPPY CHRISTMAS to all of you!

so, i received an email which i do not know to be true or not but i don't see any harm in people praying for the war situation. so, here for you to practise your skills of discernment is the email:

URGENT PRAYER RE IRAQ
Dec 16, 2002

We have received a very important and strategic communication from Pastor
Ted Haggard of the World Prayer Center, Colorado Springs. Let the
intercessors of Europe join in with this urgent prayer request!

From Pastor Ted Haggard:

Last week the spirit of the Lord woke me in the middle of the night and
powerfully spoke to me. He told me that if we could mobilize 1,000,000
intercessors to pray for Saddam Hussein, that he would leave Iraq, thus
avoiding the need for a war. After He spoke to me, I saw a series of visions
of people suffering because of the horrors of war. Then I realized that God
had a plan that He was going to fulfill one way or another, but that His
greatest desire would be to remove Saddam without the suffering of so many.

I have shared this with Peter Wagner, Chuck Pierce, the International
Coalition of Apostles, and briefly on Daystar network, and felt prompted
this morning while praying at the World Prayer Center to write to you about
it. My heart is burning within me about this, because we have the ability to
simply have Saddam leave Iraq like so many other dictators have left their
countries thus opening the door for freedom without a war. I think, though,
that we only have until the end of December to rally the troops to pray.

Please join us in praying, and alert as many intercessors as you can, so
that we can play our part in raising these 1,000,000 intercessors to cry out
to God for war to be averted.

<\b>
enjoy the festive season - i hope it is stress-free, or at least full of HIS peace to get you through it! that's what i'm relying on anyway!!

i have found mr clifford on the internet! ha ha - the dragon gets everywhere... etcha sketch for hours! enter and scroll down until you find 'clifford the drag'.

what's yourlord of the rings personality?

so, van the interpreter i work with alot has just finished for the day and now for the next 5 weeks. i still have to wait until 2.20 to find out if my next student is going to be in. considering it's the last day of term (yipee) this is an unlikely occurence!

well, what can i tell you that andy hasn't already spilt the beans about? i can share the vision for our community with ya'll. God reminded me of what it was all about last night when i was praying and seeking him on why i felt so down. he led me back to acts 2 which is the basis for the vision "to live church as a 24hr lifestyle"

They joined with the other believers and devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, sharing in the Lord's Supper and in prayer. A deep sense of awe came over them all, and the apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders. And all the believers met together constantly and shared everything they had. They sold their possessions and shared the proceeds with those in need. They worshiped together at the Temple each day, met in homes for the Lord's Supper, and shared their meals with great joy and generosity-- all the while praising God and enjoying the goodwill of all the people. And each day the Lord added to their group those who were being saved.

so my plan is to meditate on this word over christmas. i shared about it last night when we met together and i am so grateful for god training me over the last year about his command to love others as you love yourselves, but only after you have loved god with all your heart, soul, and mind. the thing is, that we can only love others as we love ourselves when we are coming out of a place of being totally saturated in his love. this is the love that jesus was speaking about when he said "they will know that you are my disciples by the way you love one another" because this love is not human love, it is divine, supernatural, Godly love.

lord of the rings this evening. aarrhhhhh!!! i'm soooo excited!!

and if that wasn't enough, its the last day of term today, which means, no work for a month or so!

it seems as if nathan has been having one of those great days where the sun shines off everyone too... and he's been on the monk thing. theres something in the air. god, methinks...

anyway, rob's going home today and so can't come to lotr tonight which is a shame, but its been cool getting to know him - i've finally found someone who'll have some of my jose cuervo tequila with me. mmmm....

he he - i just had a look at andrew jones' blog and theres loads of family pics down the side - the 5th one down with debbie in it, he looks sooo like jonathan davies, the singer from the band korn , but then, theres a photo of him a little further down with samuel in it and he looks like bono!

i hope andrew doesnt take offence at either suggestion....

life can be sooo cool at times!

we had a brilliant evening with abigail and rob, eating yummy foods, drinking red wine, staropramen, home brew and stella and staying up till 2.30ish talking and drinking. then got up the following morning and cooked mexican breakfast (as taught to me by kristen rudd in dallas) with some amazing homemade salsa - we had made some last night to go with the falafel, using some of a sachet of herbs and spices given to me by shannon for my birthday over the summer, cooked up with some chopped up tomatos, then used the rest this morning with some chopped fresh coriander and banana (works really well together!) - mmmmm....

then came into town to meet people (albeit a little late) in coffee revolution for a drink, then popped over for a couple of lectures (which don't tend to happen, being the last week of term), and then gonna go back home, and have some more yummy food.

and then tomorrow, dan and i are bottling the homebrew and then going to watch the two towers (which i've heard is amazing) in the evening. its gonna be yet another good set of days.

life so good when you're not cynical anymore. i can hardly believe it myself! lots and lots of lovely lovely people. everywhere. yay!!!!

something i thought of recently - while bea and i were in ugc cinema on monday, we saw posters for the good girl which we saw while we were in texas - it was defintely the best film we saw out there - jennifer aniston really was superb in it. highly recommended

well - i'm just about to go to my BSL (british sign language) christmas party where i get the delight of signing 'rudolf the red nosed reindeer' to my boss of all people! at least i really enjoy bsl and i'm looking forward to practising it over christmas with my friend nick. the weekend is close and even closer now that i have a day off tomorrow (thurs) - hooray! i shall be spending it as a lady of leisure - lunching out and dropping round to friends for coffee.

rob and abigail are coming round for tea tonight and andy and i have created some culinary delights for them! mmmmmmmmm...

so the rest of the photos have gone up (only a few more) but they're there.

arent you all just itching to see what bea and i get for christmas?!!!? just wait and there might be a few photos going up over the hols...

or maybe there wont - kinda depends on available computer software etc i guess.

anyway, it feels like the weekend is here. i'm just a bit gutted i dont get to see the two towers today, unlike some others who read this blog!

this is too funny! i pinched it off andrew jones' blog so don't give me the credit!

PRAISE GOD FOR LEE COLLIER! he has rescued me from micah with his reasonable and true comment. please jesus, may micah never know the truth about that until we meet in heaven and can laugh about it.

it's FREEZING today! oh and i got caught out on ursux site by someone called micah who has little better to do with her/his time than to find out where people are accessing from. i thought about commenting that i access from a university and there is no reason why a trillion of us couldn't access from here but then that would be lying to a certain extent. weird how satan used it to fill me with fear, well at least i know where i was created and by who and the best bit of all is that i share the same inheritance with jesus.

all these little lessons that i keep learning. last night we had our church/cluster/community christmas party. it was ace. i love these people and it is wonderful to be exploring and joining with them on the journey.

sorry for another post! some friends of ours are going on a ski trip and to try and keep costs low are wanting to borrow gear. if anyone has a snowboard or skis which would fit a bloke (5'8") then could you ring us. the trip is january and i would trust these people with my stuff, if i had any.thank you!

just for jen...

ever wondered what google's top searches were? well, you can find out here.

well, i'm sure ant will be proud of me - the photos from the party(s) that went on over the weekend are now up and live on our photo album - starting at the fatcat pub, then on to liz lovells birthday party (where we somehow managed to not actually get a pic of liz herself!!), and then on to barnaby's leaving party. there are still a few missing, and none of the witty captions have been added yet, but they'll follow soon enough... (each pic going to the corresponding parties)

and i hear neill's spell checker still isnt quite up to scratch yet!!

got an email from my friend pants who has kindly informed me that we are all going to die! having read the article he is referring to, it almost makes sense, if at least only so that we don't have to have anything more to do with our government and that of george w bush as well.

please don't harass me about this statement unless you have read and understood the article.

i've tried to put a statistics counter on the site to keep track of all you munchkins!

it's just up there in the top right corner

awwww - nathan, our austin correspondent (shannon travels far too much - more of a texan correspondant) has been writing lovely things about us on his blog, although looking at our template, i'm not sure if he really wants to aspire to our html skills. i mean when we want to start a new paragraph, we have to put "p" in those diagonal brackets everytime caused we messed it up so much. one day it will get a make over, (with a little help from ant hopefully)

anyway, we've already had our hobbit and elvish names, and so nathan moves us on to our stage/ pornstar names. and here they are:

(andy:) hamish davies

(bea:) tousel blight

see - not as cool as nathans - "Caddy Wampus Gibbs", although how his dog/ baby manages to have one i'm not sure...

y'anyway...

if you were following my job situation last week, i can confirm that of the 22 hours i was paid (handsomely) for, i only wrote for about 2 of them. which kinda works out as £110 an hour. nice work if you can get it...

...

bloody hell, i hate christmas songs - i can just about cope with carols, but the stuff that gets played in every shop, every christmas! and you know it'll be the same ones again next year and forever more. please Jesus - come back soon!!

errrr....

other news: the photos are not quite there yet, although, i should be able to get them sorted and resized tonight, and so should be going up tomorrow morning. and there are some very good photos too...

for the meantime, i've updated other parts of the photo album and added (not overly amusing) captions to all the photos.

but yes the weekend was an excellent one, i guess as good as the previous one... and we have the two towers to look forward to this week - yay!

i wonder if there are any MISS-spelled words in this blog... sorry neill ;)

Good Morning Bloggers!

Hooray for a fabulous weekend, finished off roundly with a great episode of Poirot. Unfortunately Cathers is too smart for her own good and told us all how it was going to end before we had even got through the first half!

No doubt Andy will be directing you to some more photos to illustrate the weekend which was awesome. I slept a lot, although I had the worst night of my life on Saturday (a long story which has been sorted out now anyway PTL). Sheffield was party central this weekend, even the amazing Viv was going to parties galore on Friday night - she says that Internationals party a lot better than us Brits.

If you want to pass some time have a go at coin tossing.

Courtesy of Barnaby Collier, he found a site, huggyjesus.com whereby they are selling a soft, cuddly and hypoallergenic doll of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

And heres a picture of a little girl praying to the idol (as is warned against in the Good Book):

And out of reverence for Mr Collier, I have used correct punctuation etc. for this special message.

(andy) i think its the sun....

anyway, good news: the photos from the communes christmas party last friday are now up on our photogallery.

as always a little taster of the photos on the site, click on a pic to go there:

anyway, beas sister charlotte/ charlie/ mogul is arriving this evening and staying for a few days, visiting sheffield uni....

and in true notetakers style, i didnt write a word today and got £30. yesterday, i wrote a staggering 6 sides of notes, but did get paid £60 and on monday i wrote 1 side of notes for a days total of £50. tomorrow i'll be getting at least £40 free.

its a tough job, and i hate it!!

is this a tomato?

(andy) it turns out you can find out your elf and hobbit names on the web:

i am: Podo Hamwich of Buckleberry Fern (as a hobbit) and Eärendur Elensar (as an elf)

bea is: Bramblerose Hamwich of Buckleberry Fern (as a hobbit) and Eámanë Elensar (as an elf)

click here to find out yours!

one last thing before i bore you all to death! i have been perusing some pictures on nathan's homepage and thought he may be interested in this dog 'wedding dress' i found on the web.

i keep forgetting to let you know that a freind of ours in america is blogging. he's called kerry.

hi folks

how is everyone. WE HAVE A LOUNGE!! yipee, it is amazing. in stead of just cleaning it we actually decided to strip all the walls and take up the carpet. we discovered that we have really lovely floorboards underneath so this was a wonderful surprise. the look is very mexican/french farmhouse.

as andy has told you, we had a great weekend - on friday we went to the most absorbent christmas party ever at the commune which rocked. i got tired quickly - why break the habit of a lifetime - but andy stayed on and took some great photos which he's trying to sort out for all of you lovely people to see.

God has been talking to me a lot about repentance and unforgiveness these last couple of days - building on the lessons about reaping what you sow. ha ha - he used mike breen on sunday to make me realise that often 'issues' or 'struggles' with individuals are just unforgiveness... and then he started putting me in situations where i had to put it into practise! there is real freedom in forgiving, particularly when you never realised that your unforgiveness was actually being a major block to loads of stuff in your life.

nathan was asking about some quirky facts that i put up on the blog some time ago. here is another little taster of these weird goings on for you to be amazed by!

Absolutely the Least Substantial Reason for a Knife Fight: Police in Mansfield Township and Hackettstown, N.J., charged Emmanuel Nieves, 23, with aggravated assault on Nov. 13 after he allegedly slashed the face of his friend Erik Saporito, 21, as the two men fought after arguing over which one has more hair on his buttocks.

(andy) have just spent quite some time working out how this template html works.... getting the hang of it.

well, that was one good weekend!!

more photos to follow (when i get the time to size em up and upload them), but the party on friday night was absolutely brilliant (steves coffee bowl being something of a highlight!). then on saturday a load of us (thankyou, cathers, abigail, chris, beth, ben...) helped us completely sort out our front room (so we now have one - and very nice it is too - so much more than the one in our previous house!).

then laul, beth, dan, rach and pinks came round in the evening for roast pork and potatos etc (mmmmm), then on sunday, abigail and cathers came round for thai green chicken curry - very spicy (sorry abigail!), then bea and i watched "the man who wasnt there" which we both loved, and then went to 2nd sunday (which was very encouraging to hear)

a few thoughts on that:

the part about "believing that you have already recieved the things you ask for in prayer, and God will give them to you" to me completely speaks of thankfullness - thanking God for providing todays meal is knowing that he'll provide tomorrows.

it often feels as if the battle for me is more in my head than against an external force - seeing that the mountain is still just a mountain, and not being afraid of its size but believing in God's power. i guess its both.

so i still need to do more "theological editing" in understanding how prayer fits into it all (i was talking to matt parkins about it last night)

anyway, like i said, more photos to follow

ps: and no html links - use the names at the side!

a little song for neil lambert who appears to be one of our most faithful followers in terms of blogging.

neil lambert is so cool

sometimes he acts like he should be in school

he's very funny and doesn't worship money

and his soup is the best

'cos it's bigger than the rest

neil loves God in a beautiful way

he inspires and delights

but noone thinks he's gay

he lives in cambridge

with his crazy family

and i know his roots go deep

by the way my faith leaps

when i'm around him

man, i've just been looking around other blogs and matt p has some cool pics of his scottish safari park - hodgson would love em. my favorite being the massive wooly cattle with these huge horns.

and linux - i get it (i think... its an o/s right? or is there extra subtlty i missed...)

hooray - it's the weekend! last night i made a chocolate bread and butter pudding which looks yummy. it needs to sit in the fridge for a couple of days before being cooked and whenever my mum makes it everyone is happy!

if anyone reading this has forgotton, or didn't know, we are needing help tomorrow (sat) to get our house in order! we are focusing on the lounge so starting at 10am. your help would be greatly appreciated.

have a fabulous weekend!

well its friday once again, and the weekend is shaping up very nicely...

bea and i and a few others are going out for a drink on focus sales (so its free), followed by the commune christmas party where we all get to reminiss (sp?) about the good old days of parties, the absence of the hudds (the sheffielders who got away) and general drunkeness, with a few mentions of the "W" party at new year 98/99, and hopefully have a good time anyway.

then on saturday, we are getting our front room back (with help from some of you - any more help appreciated!), and then a few people are coming round for another of beas legendary roasts (pork).

and then on sunday is second sunday where the breen is talking on "is God in control" to which the answer will be "no", and stuff about being at war (in a spiritual sense) etc - should be very interesting...

anyway, last night, bea and i took our old neighbour viv down to upperthorpe to see the legendary lights near safeways. so you get an idea of what they look like, i took pics of it - the first one hopefully gives you an idea of the garishness of the house:

the second you need to turn the brightness on the monitor up to see the 10 foot high santa pointing at the people responible:

enjoy.

for directions to the spectacle, take the road downfrom commonside, the one opposite the petrol station (at the bottom of springvale road), not the one that goes down the side of the punchbowl, the one to the left of it, that leads all the way down and round towards safeways. just on the bend, prepare to be dazzled!

see (nearly) all of you tonight. well some of you...

just a follow on from the past healing, bea prayed for someone yesterday and the same happened. i'll let her explain though.

keep talking to the mountain

anyway, work is over for us two, and i've been on a little treasure hunt at howden house finding out about the future of walkley. mmmm....

matt parkins has brought my attention to a very cool site which appears to be an english site and so therefore even easier to order from.

ant has got a funky new haircut. his antcam isn't up to date yet but keep checking in anyway!

we just had andy's dad to stay which we really enjoyed. he took us out to thyme and as usual i was overwhelmed by his generosity - a starter, main, pudding, coffee, wine and bundles of sparkling water later we walked out and came back home to listen to andy playing his guitar (not something that happens very often!).

i'm trying to find train times at cheap prices to cheltenham but on the internet i'm not having much luck.

(andy)
"stop trying to hit me and hit me"

which was when morpeus was saying to neo (in the matrix ) in their fight scene.

stop trying to convince God to heal someone - you know he wants to, so let him. he's wants to give it to you as a gift for you to receive, so receive it. Jesus never asked God if he would heal someone or not, so why do we? why the need to pray for 5-10 mins telling God whats the matter with them, and asking him as if he might or might not heal them?

22 Jesus answered, "Have faith in God. 23 I tell you the truth, you can say to this mountain, 'Go, fall into the sea.' And if you have no doubts in your mind and believe that what you say will happen, God will do it for you. 24 So I tell you to believe that you have received the things you ask for in prayer, and God will give them to you. 25 When you are praying, if you are angry with someone, forgive him so that your Father in heaven will also forgive your sins." Mark 11:22-25 (CEV)

when you ask for somethink believe you already have it - know that God wants to give it to you before you even ask for it and you hardly even have to ask for it!

and all this applies to other things too - God is not only your saviour and healer. hes also your provider. so let him provide for you. (this is the one that i think Gods pressing me on right now)

and the rest.

last week bea and i were walking to work and she said her knee was hurting quite a bit. without thinking i said "your knee does not hurt, it is healed" i then thought to qualify that for bea saying that it was more of a prayer than having a go at her. by the time i had said that, her knee didnt hurt anymore.

talk to the mountain.

its the same faith that will fix a knee that will move a mountain, its just our head doesnt think of it that way. we see the size of the mountain (which is big), not the size of our God (who's a lot bigger).

when morpheus says, "i'm just trying to free your mind" when showing neo what he could be. and then when neo decides to take on agent smith in the tube station, whilst everyone else says to neo to run, morpheus says, "hes starting to believe".

and by the end, neo doesnt even need to need to dodge the bullets

like i've said before, "write your theology in pencil" (well actually matt parkins said that). this will no doubt be editted and amended before long, but this is what i believe Gods saying to me right now.

more later...

the weekend has gone already! i had a muddled time really, making arrangements that i couldn't keep and my punctuality wasn't great! nevermind.

today andy's dad is coming to visit which is something i've been really looking forward to. he is staying the night and taking us out to dinner - parents are wonderful things!

well, i've practically done all my Christmas shopping now and i had hoped to make some journals but time has slipped through my fingers and i've not got round to doing it. i have however started organising a team to help us sort out our lounge on saturday which is going to be amazing. bye for now!