Viennetta!

I love Viennetta! I would just like to make that confession. Its so good! Chocolate and ice-cream, what else do you need? Unfortunately, this picture is of the new strawberry flavour, which I think sounds fairly horrible, but still… you get the point.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Its really autumn…

Here are some photos I took from around the IBTS campus, which is looking beautiful in all its autumnal glory!

Most of the apples have been picked from the apple tree below and are in storage in various students’ kitchens on campus! When I first got to IBTS, I couldn’t believe that you could actually pick the apples straight from the tree and eat them (maybe after a quick rinse) straight away! It made me consider the fact that we no longer see the connection between the food that we eat and where it comes from. Although we obviously know that apples grow on trees, when was the last time that you saw an apple tree? Or when did you last pick vegetables from the ground or pluck the chicken before you prepared it for cooking? I truly believe that it is important for us to re-discover this connection, and also the intimate relationship that we have with God’s creation all around us.

I’m really enjoying seeing the seasons change, even though I can find winter a hard season to get through! God is an amazingly creative and imaginative Father, and this is so gloriously expressed through nature. Its simply stunning to look around us, and see the beautiful world that we have the responsibility and priviledge to look after. Enjoy your day and look around you… God’s handiwork is there for us all to relish and delight in!

The potato of love…

It was just an ordinary bag of potatoes, bought from Delvita (our lovely Czech supermarket). But within its plasticy confines lay the most beautiful potato ever created… the potato of love.

 

Isn’t it the greatest potato you’ve ever seen?! I can’t believe that the farmer who grew this potato (they still do that, right?) didn’t keep it and give it to his wife (obviously he has a wife… who else would wash his clothes or cook his hearty evening meal for him?). It is love in a potato.

 I think that it should be adopted by the Irish Potato Lovers Foundation as their symbol.

Malaria vaccine trials and Bill Gates

The BBC reported today that Bill Gates is funding malaria vaccine trials in six countries in Africa. Isn’t it fantastic to hear some good news being reported from Africa?! Nearly 1 million people die in sub-Saharan Africa from malaria each year, the vast majority being children.  The other countries where trials will be carried out will be Kenya, Sierra Leone, Gabon, Tanzania and Senegal. If the trials are deemed successful, then the vaccine will be used throughout affected areas in 2011.

 I know that there are alot of very wealthy people that contribute to charities and campaigning work, so I am not singling out Mr Gates, but I think that it is a great thing for someone to give so generously while he is still alive, to work that desperately needs funds instead of founding some-or-other new ‘foundation’ when he’s on his death bed. So well done Mr Gates, you’re alright.

 Hope that you all have a great weekend. Relax, enjoy being with friends and/or family and spend time appreciating the beautiful people and places that God has given us.

Wrestling with God

Do you ever wrestle with God? Or rather, how do you struggle in your heart or mind with issues that are difficult for you? This question has been on my mind this evening as I have been reading about things such as international women’s issues, ‘mission’ (as being the true church) in post-Christian British society, and how God calls us (as women and men in all our diversity). All these different thoughts and emotions collide and crash inside of me. Fighting for answers, and resolution.

But its not as simple as that. Some things can’t be answered, and most things need to be worked at, searched out, to be answered fully. Even so, that does not satisfy me. What I am to do in the face of terrible oppression and persecution in countries like Myanmar (Burma) and Zimbabwe? Or what about the thousands of girls and young women sold or tricked into prostitution? Or millions of people dying of AIDS all over the world? These issues are too huge for me to begin to fully comprehend. What can I really do? Should I just try to do what I can, (even though it feels like it can only ever be a drop in the ocean?) or should I be satisfied with an uncomplicated life and leave those difficult things to the ‘professionals’? And how do I really use what I have? How do I use my voice, my gifts, my time, my love, my brain, and anything else that God has given me..?

These thoughts, frustrations and struggles I carry with me. As I know you carry your struggles with you. May we help each other to walk more confidently together.

Grey clouds and transformative theology…

 

Another grey, cloudy day. (sigh) I should really be used to this sort of weather due to 9 years in the UK, but it gets to this time of year and I really start feeling a bit down. I hate it when the clocks go back too, that’s really a bad day in my year. I feel like painting rainbows, blue sky and a big sun on our living room wall..! It will look like a nursery school! Actually, that might make it more depressing… I would feel pressured to be happy all the time. Anyway, I will try to be more cheerful. (I am wearing a very bright stripey jumper to try and help my subdued mood… I will have to look in the mirror alot today!)

For one of my courses, Church in Contemporary Society, I am researching issues that affect the church in its interaction with society. I would really like to know what your views are. What are the problems that you think that church has within its walls, and in its relations (or lack of) with the community/society around it, that it is set within. What do you struggle with, with relation to the church? If you do not want to post a reply on the blog, please feel free to email me. If you do reply, in whatever form, please say what kind of church you attend, so that I can get an idea of denominational differences. If you are really very interested in expressing your views, I may email you with some more formal (but short, don’t worry!) questions which would then be included in my essay. I will then let you read it before I hand it in, to make sure that you are happy with how I have expressed your views!

I feel passionately that the purpose of theology is to serve the church, and I want my research to contribute in whatever way it can to this purpose. Theology that is merely for the sake of doing theological study is pointless and useless. It is like scientists making discoveries but not telling anyone about them. I think that the church needs to be willing to engage much more theologically with the issues and struggles of our postmodern world, or else it will become increasingly irrelevant and surplus to need.

With this challenge and calling in mind, I should really get back to studying..! I would really appreciate any of your thoughts, musings or observations!