packing and parties

Been packing up more of my room today, it doesn't feel very real today that I'm leaving Peckham on Sunday and heading to Sydney, it feels a bit like a story which i have told a whole bunch of times but which I don't really believe.
Soon Sydney is going to be my real life and then I'll have to believe it.
Who knows what will happen here in the three months I'll be away, if it's anything like the last three months there is no way I'd ever be able to predict in advance!

Next week I'm having an Australian themed birthday party which I'm currently compiling a playlist for, consisting of only Australian or Australian related artists, so far i've got;

Kylie Minogue
Cabbage Garden
Jason Donavon
The Vines
Natalie Imbruglia
Jet
Inxs
Moulin Rouge Soundtrack
Powderfinger
Architecture in Helsinki
The Avalanches

Any more i should add?

Thinking about leadership

To be honest my head is pretty clouded by the recent news about Michael Guglielmucci the author of the worship song 'healer' who admitted yesterday that he has been faking cancer for the past two years.
(www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/
0,25197,24216087-5006787,00.html)

Last week it was announced that Todd Bentley who has been leading the Florida outpouring has separated from his wife due to him forming an inappropriate emotional connection with another woman (http://www.freshfire.ca/). Both Mike and Todd have stepped down from ministry.

It's a big deal and my head is swimming by all sorts of feelings and emotions. Mainly it has made me realise that I really have made the right choice in stepping down from full time church work for the time being. Not that I have any massive secrets that need to be dealt with but that I can see the danger in it. If i did mess up i dont know how well i would deal with it. This year I saw how easy it would be to leave things unsaid and in secret and in turn how damaging that would be. For example if i were to have a one night stand while in leadership in the church I would lose not only my position of leadership but my job and my home as well. That is a scary thing. Not that i was ever tempted to have a one night stand! All I am saying is that if it were to happen i know i would be tempted not to say anything and let it build up and build up for the sake of not losing everything. My pride is huge.

I dont ever want to be that person and being in full time leadership is a massive responsibilty that i dont know that I am ready for or even will ever be ready for.

Decision made

Yesterday i bought a return flight to Sydney, I'm off on 11th September for three months. Now that i have made the decision it seems so obvious that it was the right one all along, i faffed around for far too long trying to make my mind up. I am so unbelievablely excited about my Australian adventure. I know I'm not going for long but it's a start, a bit like dipping my toe in to see what's next.
The what next is also exciting but I'm focusing on the now because I don't think I have ever been this excited in my entire life. Let me tell you that's VERY excited! I have a million expectations and none all at the same time.
moving to Peckham two years ago was one of the scariest things i have ever done. The Saturday i moved in it was sos strange walking down Rye lane knowing i couldn't possibly bump into anyone i knew because i hadn't met them yet! I lent on God like never before because he was all that I knew. Going to Sydney is going to be like that but even more crazy because everyone I know and love wont be a train ride away - they will be on the other side of the world! I cant wait! Not that i want to get away from everyone but that I am so ready for adventure and learning more of god, people and church.

Listening to Noah and the Whale - 5 years time which i have decided is a very happy nice summer tune

Indecision...

At the moment I am having to make a lot of choices and decisions about my life and the way i would like it to take and the way in which i want to spend the next few months especially. There appears to be no right or wrong answer at the moment and i am just being left with decisions which will have no ethical consequence and ultimately wont even necessarily effect my life hugely in the long run (well who knows where they will lead actually). Just might make the next year or so be unbelievable or suck in lots of different ways.

Man they are the hardest kind of choices to make, not knowing which way it could turn. At every other cross road in my life God has pointed out my way so clearly. i have been longing for him to do the same this time but He doesn't appear to be doing so. i get the feeling that he is simply telling me i can make a choice, its up to me. Its getting quite late now and my options will be seriously limited if i don't start making some decisions. I'm feeling like Frankel - this must be how he lives his entire life!

I'm 95% sure of what i'm going to do and the next few days will make it actually happen or not so prayers for God to show up if it's not right would be good. Its time to take a deep breath and to go for it absolutely blind trusting with every inch of me that He is good what ever happens and where ever I end up.

its so scary but in an extreme sports kind of way.
x x x

Photos like the small selection above are helping me with some serious withdrawal symptoms from everything macedonian. They are either helping or making everything a million times worse - i'm not quite sure which. Another nice thing is that facebook is helping me not to let go at all especially now it has chat, which is a lovely thing. It's only been a week but i'm still not coping well.

Glasnost...

I've been back from Macedonia for 5 days and i am still missing everyone like crazy. I had an amazing week despite the fact that for most of it it was raining, but it wasn't the weather i went for. I went because of my friendship with Glasnost, a group of amazing macedonians from Skopje who inspire me in ways they don't even imagine.
Last week i learnt so much about what it is to be part of a community who love each other like family, who really love each other. I'm not saying that my friends and church dont love each other but Glasnost have something so deep and real with one another, i cant explain but i want it so much. There was a couple of guys with them who had only recently become christians. it was so refreshing to be around new believers, i realised that i haven't been for a good couple of years, not in a friendship setting anyway and it makes me so sad and utterly determined to change my life as a result of it.
Faith seems so real to glasnost they have actively chosen Christ and stepped out from a life without him in the culture into one with him right at the centre. Its inspiring to me because, me and many of my friends have been brought up within the church (whether we believed it for ourselves or not) and that effects our faith today in a huge way, i believe it dulls it down and makes it part of the furniture. What i love is that they are discovering church and creating it for themselves rather than being told what to do all the time or not changing because they have always done it that way generation after generation. maybe iIm not making sense.

I guess what i'm saying is that they really are the new thing that Isaiah talks about. They are totally new yet are reclaiming the old for themselves and for Christ within their generation. They are rebuilding the ancient ruins and cities long devastated in Macedonia and yet at the same time it is a totally fresh, new and real amazing move of God.

I am desperate for some of that, i'll settle for friendship with them for now.