Hearing God

Today in  chapel, we were thinking about the Holy Spirit. The person leading our morning prayers said that we should all know the Holy Spirit ‘better’ than either Jesus or God, because ‘he’ is closer (physically, I assume) to us than either Jesus or God. What do you think about this?

He also said that the Holy Spirit is always talking to us, so if we can’t hear ‘him’ then we are not listening. Although I believe that God does talk through the Holy Spirit to us, I don’t know whether it makes sense to say that God is always talking to us. That is not to say that we can’t experience God through many things, in many different ways, throughout our daily routines, but I don’t know if that is the same as saying that God is speaking to us 24 hours a day. In addition, I think that there are alot of people that struggle to hear God speaking to them. We struggle to feel close to God at all times, or to feel that the Holy Spirit is so intimately present with us always. We struggle to always ‘hear’ the voice of God, or sometimes even to recognise what that voice sounds like. I think that it is therefore really unhelpful when people just make statements like “God is always speaking to you, so if you can’t hear him, you are not listening to him.” Imagine how many people that affects? Is there anyone who fully believes that they hear God 100% of the time? Why can’t leaders instead offer grace, and mercy in their words? Why don’t they say instead, that we all struggle with hearing God’s voice, but we believe that ‘he’ does speak, and therefore, we need to try to listen for ‘his’ voice in our lives. Why don’t they offer spiritual resources, guidance and comfort for many people who feel like they are failures, or bad Christians because God doesn’t speak to them 5ooo times before breakfast?! I pray, and I wish, and I hope, for leaders with enough courage, honesty and integrity, to say that they struggle too, that they don’t have all the answers, and that instead of being the authority on all things godly, they will walk the road with people who struggle, and who wrestle with problems in their Christian lives. I pray also that I will be a leader like that, for that is the only kind of leader that can truly touch people, walk with people and be part of people’s lives.

Photos of the lovely snow…

The main buildings of IBTS, with their beautiful snowy blanket! This was taken on the first day of the snow, so it really looks gorgeous…

This is the main road going up around campus to the students accomodation. Unfortunately, the snow has not yet melted completely, and we have had more over the weekend, so I’m really sick of snow now! Its looking pretty manky… all brown and nasty and all. Hopefully it will melt soon, cause the snowy/icey mulsh is getting a little old now!

Snow!

It snowed yesterday in Prague, and everything looks absolutely beautiful! I love snow! I have taken some photos, which I will post hopefully later on this evening…

I’m in the library, working on my second paper… I have around 2000 words of a 5000 word essay. Its for Wednesday. I guess it will be OK, I hope… But I’m also leading church on Sunday, which needs some preparation etc. At least I’ve done it once before and I know what to expect now, and hopefully I’ll not feel as nervous… (although I doubt that very much!)

 

Diet is going OK, not bad, not really fabulous or anything… but OK. Why do I have to love peanut butter SO much?! Its just so so good, I honestly think that I could eat a whole jar in one sitting (with some ice cold milk to accompany it!)…. hmm. I’ve not had dinner and I’m starting to salivate just at the thought. Oh, temptation is around every corner!

(Its all about the crunch by the way… no creamy rubbish for me!)

hello…

Its been nearly a week since I last blogged, and I do feel that I should apologise… I just haven’t really been that inspired recently! Studying is going OK, my essay on Julian of Norwich and Hildegard of Bingen, two medieval mystics, is slowly progressing.

Tonight Phil and I had the fun job of sorting out what we are going to do with the Sunday School kids tomorrow. Phil is in charge of the older ones and I am in charge of the younger ones (coincidently Phil is with the boys and I am with the girls!)… There are workbooks for both our groups, but they are amazingly tedious and a little patronizing. Phil has managed to organise a lesson with his set topic, but I just decided that it was impossible and so Christian Aid’s ‘learn zone‘ came to the rescue. So, tomorrow morning, the girls of Sarka Valley Community Church will be learning about health issues for kids the same age as them, who live in different parts of the world, and thinking about how we can support them and pray for them.

 

In other news, I have decided to stop being a bit fat fatty and regain my youthful figure (erm…). Phil is no help as he can eat whatever he wants (plus some) and still stay lean, in fact, I think that his Northern Irish family honestly question whether I feed him or not..! (Obviously, that would be the only way that he would be able to stay alive… if I fed him!) So, with that fact in mind, I have joined Tesco’s online eDiets… its pretty cool and a fair bit cheaper than Weight Watchers online equivalent. I will also endeavour to go for those so called ‘runs’ when I can too… although, it is more likely to be a brisk walk. The IBTS campus is set in a beautiful forest, which is also a National Park, so really, the idea of going for a lovely walk or run should be hugely inticing, but the truth is, is that I am a major wimp. I don’t mind walking around in Prague city on my own, because even if I get lost there are always people around, but if its just me, my iPod and the trees, I think I’ll get a wee bit jumpy..! I’ll just have to get over it though… or starve myself… which doesn’t sound so great. So, here’s goes!

Some thoughts on chocolate…

How much chocolate do you eat in a week? One form of trafficking is the use of children to harvest the cocoa beans on farms in Cote D’Ivoire. These children are likely to be working to make your chocolate. STOP THE TRAFFIK “Traffik Free Guarantee” Where did all the chocolate come from? Nearly half the world’s chocolate is made from cocoa grown in the Cote D’Ivoire, in Africa. 12,000 children have been trafficked into cocoa farms in Cote D’Ivoire. When we buy chocolate we are being forced to be oppressors ourselves as we have no guarantee that the chocolate we eat is “traffik free”. “Traffik Free Guarantee”. We want all chocolate companies to be able to stamp onto their chocolate wrappers a guarantee that the cocoa beans have not been harvested by trafficked labour. We can then choose to eat chocolate with a Traffik Free Guarantee. Case study Diabate and Traoré had left their village in Mali to go to Ivory Coast looking for enough money to afford a bicycle, but they were sold to a man who had paid 50,000 West African Francs (about £50) for the two boys and he wanted the money back – in labour. The boys from Sirkasso met about twenty others in the same predicament and learned that no one was ever paid. They slept in a rectangle-shaped mud hut that initially had windows but when some boys found they could escape during the night, the windows were sealed shut.  Diabate and Traoré remember eating mostly bananas, though they would gobble up the cocoa beans, as others did, whenever they got the chance. Many months passed, and the boys forgot what the purpose had once been for this adventure. Life became a struggle to exist, then hardened to despair. They gave up thinking of escape. They were under constant threat of beatings if they were caught trying to flee – and they had seen several boys treated savagely – they were actually spooked by a belief that they were under a spell. Read more in Carol Off’s book  “Bitter Chocolate” STOP THE TRAFFIK is calling for people everywhere of all ages to force the chocolate companies to give a guarantee that their chocolate is Traffik Free. Will they commit to print a  “Traffik Free Guarantee” on chocolate bars so we can choose to buy chocolate that is not made through trafficked labour. By March 25th “Freedom Day” we want the cocoa industry to have heard loud and clear from people everywhere that it is our right to eat “Traffik Free Guarantee” chocolate. What can you do to get the Traffik Free Guarantee? We want everyone to enjoy eating chocolate! An easy way to start: You can choose to only eat chocolate that is guaranteed to be “Traffik Free” which includes Divine, Green & Black Maya Gold and those listed on The STOP THE TRAFFIK Good Chocolate Guide. The only way chocolate companies will take action is if they see their expected branded chocolate sales drop. The only way that we can stop the trafficking of children in the production of our chocolate bars is to change which ones we eat. And here’s what to do next: 1Take a poll amongst your friends in your work/school/community group by asking: “Do you know that trafficked children are used in the production of chocolate?”  “Do you want to have a choice to buy Traffik Free chocolate?” “Would you change your chocolate buying to make a difference?” 2Add to STOP THE TRAFFIK “Traffik Free Guarantee” myspace – blog, pictures, videos – anything you are doing to inspire others. 3Collect fair trade wrappers and make chains out of the wrappers of fair traded and ethically sourced chocolate and put them round a major building or landmark in your area. Let a local newspaper know you are doing it. Video what you are doing and put the video on YouTube and link it to our STOP THE TRAFFIK myspace. 4Ask your supermarket and corner shop to stock fair trade/ethically sourced chocolate.  Give them The STOP THE TRAFFIK Good Chocolate Guide. Use the draft letter we have put on the web site to shop managers and either send it as written or compose your own.  Download the logo of the handprint and print it off on an A4 label (available from high street stationary shops), cut into stickers so shops could use them to highlight products that have a ‘Traffik Free Guarantee’.  Or download the poster and see if your local shops that sell chocolate will be willing to join us and to put the poster up in their window. 5Ask your supermarket to put the chocolate with a “Traffik Free Guarantee” next to the check-outs, so we stop impulse buying of chocolate that has beenproduced from trafficked labour. 6Talk to hospital staff asking for Traffik Free Guaranteed chocolate in your vending machines/shops.  Video the meeting and post it on YouTube with a link to STOP THE TRAFFIK’s myspace. 7Send an SMS message to your friends telling them to only eat chocolate with the “Traffik Free Guarantee”.  8Put a display on in your school, church, community group, showing the truth about cocoa slavery.  Look at the E book ‘Chaga And The Chocolate Factory’ and ideas from the ‘Where’s does all our chocolate come from?  Fight for the Traffik Free Guarantee’ lesson plan. 9Start a sign up list of your friends and neighbours who will pledge to only eat Traffik Free chocolate in the run up to Easter. Tell us the results on myspace. 10Video yourself protesting next to a chocolate vending machine, handing out samples of Traffik Free chocolate or pictures or stickers etc. 11Design and make your own t-shirts.  Maybe you can make it a local competition and get everyone to fight for “Traffik Free Guarantee chocolate” and change their chocolate eating habits. 12Talk to businesses in your area – ask them to change their choice of chocolate in their vending machine.  Download the poster for them to put in their office/shop window and stock it with Traffik Free chocolate. 13Ask your local MP whether he or she condemns the use of trafficked children on cocoa farms in Ivory Coast. Video the answer and post it on YouTube, linked to our myspace. Fight for a Traffik Free Guarantee on chocolate Fight for the freedom of those trafficked to cocoa farms 12,000 children may have a fighting chance of a different future if we choose to change what we eat. www.stopthetraffik.org sign the global declaration card buy a STOP THE TRAFFIK key STOP THE TRAFFIK Coordinating Team Enquiries: info@stopthetraffik.org 1A Kennington Road, London SE1 7QP +44 (0)20 7261 4650

Happy birthday to me! Happy birthday to me!

Well, for yesterday! Oh yes, my birthday was yesterday… I am now a quarter of a century! Oh my goodness, that seems very old indeed, but its really not.

Anyway, I had a great day… community coffee and cake with the IBTS gang, then opening of lovely presents from Phil and my Mom and Dad, as well as from my student friends… Then more cake in the evening (a surprise organised by Phil… a Lion King chocolate cake!) The day finished perfectly with a visit to our local jub (the Jeneralka) with friends… I definitely didn’t think this time last year that I would be drinking Czech beer in Prague on my birthday in a year’s time.

Apart from that, we had a great time in Edinburgh (despite both being ill) staying with the Costleys and hanging out with many of our friends. We flew back to Prague from Glasgow, which was a surprisingly easy and inexpensive way of doing the journey… just in case anyone was thinking of coming to visit us!

Phil is back at work and I am back in the library trying not to fall asleep… my current essay is on Spiritual Formation… which is a really interesting and fantastic subject. Anyone vaguely curious should read Richard Foster’s Celebration of Discipline or Streams of Living Water. Thinking about and studying spirituality has completely changed my whole relationship with God, and I would also say my life… so, give it a go!

Happy New Year! (sniff)

Happy New Year to all! May 2007 be a wonderful year of fun, adventure, love and blessings!

We ushered in 2007 with the Costleys et al and enjoyed a fantastic view of the various fireworks displays going on around Edinburgh… I think that we had the best view in Edinburgh, and it was much better than being out in the howling wind and rain!

However, Phil and I both have colds and I am feeling particularly rubbish. I don’t cope well with being ill, especially not when we’re both ill and Phil’s breathing at night makes it sound like there’s a bear snoring next to me. Watering eyes, blocked nose, splitting headache… its not a great start to 2007! At least it can only improve I guess. I’m also trying to work on my essay (yes, still!) but I’m afraid that I may be writing absolute nonsense, as my food intake has consisted mostly of paracetamol, Echinacea and Lockets. Lovely.

Its times like these that I just want my mommy to come and look after me..!