Ibiza wedding

Well again I havent blogged for ages. I have loads of news.

My boyfriends sister had a little girl called Jorja-Marie weighing in at 6lb 13oz and she is now 6wks old and gorgeous!!

Went to Newquay for my birthday as planned which was a nice weekend away, we went on a treasure trail thing and walked for 4hours and then couldnt work out the last clue to solve the mistery.

My boyfriend then asked me to marry him on 30th June and I said yes obviously so he is now my fiance. We plan to get married in Ibiza next June, we are just waiting for the church to confirm the date so that we can then start to arrange things. So I am off to ibiza in Sept this year to have a look at venues etc to decide where to have the reception. Lots of stuff to sort out but plans are already in the making

news

well I met up with this guy who has the right sort of connections to get this idea off the ground about going out into Coventry and praying for people. It went well and he is going to now go and talk to the other people so wait and see what that brings.

I did my first training course on my own on Wednesday, it went really well and I scored 9 and 10's in evaluations from candidates so pleased with that.

got my friends over for a nice fondue dinner party on Saturday, I know its a bit old fashioned but it's really nice as you can spend all night sharing food and talking. I use oil in mine instead of cheese and then lots of raw meat selection and veg. yummy!!!

My boyfriend is taking me to Newquay for my birthday weekend, how nice of him! he can be thoughtful sometimes! ~(joke)

And now I am off to the hospital as my sister in law (to be) has just gone into labour

Whats Happening Lately

Well I haven't blogged again for a while, I am having that hole thing where I feel if I log on I'll have nothing to say which is quite strange cos if you know me well you'll know I normally have plenty to say and I never used to have this trouble, I used to blog every day.

Anyway, today we are running our first official course 'delivering excellence in customer service' quite excited for it as this will be our first course in a class room environment format so that makes it more scary. Any training I have done up til now has been one to one. I feel pretty confident as I made sure I practise the sections I'm doing last night and obviously I've prayed about it too so I have an inner peace right now that reassures me it will be ok. (Lets see if I still have that in a couple of hours!)

The job is going good though, really enjoying it all and I've just be told that the company will fund me to do CITP which is a certificate in training practise. It's sort of between A Level and Degree so I'm chuffed at that.

Outside of that I phoned the guy who could help me organise Coventry's own version of 24/7 Ibiza out on the streets. He was really interested and we have a meeting on 4th June to discuss ideas and how would could move forward with this idea. So that all looks hopeful. I was quite aware though that he works with a younger age group and suggested using signs like 'a bag of chips' I cant see this working myself with the age group that go clubbing, well unless we stand there will a bag of coke or lager on tap ( which we obviously wouldn't, before anyone misunderstands my humour!) but I will talk more about this with him when I see him. I do understand what he was suggesting though, have something that helps us blend in I think is what he meant. That's not a problem though I could blend it quite easily seeing as its my age group, my kinda music etc.
I do think there is a real gap in church for my age group ( I keep saying that but I'm 26 in June so I suppose there not anymore, I'm beginning to join the 30's age range in church) anyway, there is loads of stuff done for young kids like youth club, then older kids get youth leaders walking round the streets etc. What happens to the 18-25's? The church in Coventry do seem to do work at the Uni but what happens if you aren't a student does that mean you miss out? As a reflection on this specifically at my church there are only a small handful of people in this age range. Luckily I'm in a relationship, I would hate to be a single christian looking for a christian relationship as there appears to be a small number in Coventry so theres not much choice. Even when I go to Large Coventry Church events theres not many there so theres obviously something we're not doing in Coventry.
Thinking of making a Coventry Prayer video to send round the church's to get more people involved in this idea, maybe then I can gauge how many 18-25yrs Christians we have in Coventry.

busy busy busy

well I have spent the last week in Bristol rolling out this new computer system at work, I'm well tired and the diethas gone right out the window with a week in Egypt and then a week in a hotel.
Need to some how get back on track but not motivated at the mo to go the gym every other night like a used to.

still trying to get this idea off the ground with the help from some people around Coventry to introduce prayer to people out an about in the town at night, not sure how well it will work in Coventry.

Not really much to say so I will leave it there.

progress of Hope08 in Clubs

well I have taken the first step and contacted the local nightclub company to see what they think about letting some people into there clubs and offering prayer to people. I am just waiting for a reply and I have people prayer for a positive response. I am also going to speak to someone my friend suggested as he has a lot of contacts with the police and CV one ( a security company in the city) and he also has alot of involvement with Talking Space the project in town that offer teas and coffees to clubbers. I am going to have a chat with him as I think it would e good to get these people on board. I have also asked to get a copy of the rota for talking space so I can get more involved again. So I made the first step

Egypt

Well I have returned today from my holiday in Egypt. It was a nice break but there was some bad sides as well. The hotel was nice and clean and the staff were very friendly but the food was quite poor for a 4 star property. Don't get me wrong we had stuff to eat but it was very repetitive and quite often you could tell they had used leftovers from the previous meal. My boyfriend also got a dicky tummy on the 2nd day and had the sh*ts all holiday so he didn't enjoy it alot. The weather was really hot obviously! got a nice tan too. We did get harassed a lot by the local people wanting us to go in their shops, one guy even told us to 'come and have a look at my rubbish' and then people asking for tips all the time. The room cleaner came and knocked on the door in the afternoon and asked if we were happy with the room and then was expecting a tip, a man at the airport lift my suitcase on to a conveyor belt and then put his hand out. I man pressed the button in the lift for me and wanted a tip. Don't get me wrong I'm not tight, I will happily give people a tip for a good service but not for things like this. If I had good service in a restaurant or something like this then I would happily tip.

While I was there I was sat on the beach and thinking more about this thought I have had in the past about bringing a kind of 24/7 prayer concept to Coventry clubbers. Since Hope08 was introduced I have thought it would be more feasible seeing as a lot of the churches are working together more. I feel I have been encouraged to come home and get it sorted. God was planting thoughts in my head about how amazing it would be, what kind of reaction would we get, how many people could we pray for? So I am going to get stuck in.

we also went quad biking in Egypt, once I get my camera wire sorted I will add a photo. Me on a quad with a massive authentic head scarf on!

Work & Holidays

Well I have been up and down the country over the last few weeks training out a new system that will go live in 2 weeks. As I said before I am getting to meet lots of new people and often get talking about God. Well again it happened, I was in Manchester and a colleague of mine came and dinner with me at the hotel. We got talking about the fact that I was a Christian and she was absolutely shocked, she even went as far as to say that if she had known that first she didn't think she would have made the effort to get to know me. I know that sounds quite shallow of her but I think alot of people are quite apprehensive of Christians if they don't know any. They tend to get this image in their head based on what they see on TV of people fallen over after being touched by the holy spirit (yeah right! not that I don't think this could happen,but when its on TV I think its often staged and gives people the wrong impression) Anyway she was very opinionated about the fact that she didn't believe it all and thought it was all crap but by the end of the conversation she was asking questions but it was almost like she was asking herself the question rather then trying to question me. She also said she was contemplating praying!! how good is that. So if anyone feels able to please pray for this person that she opens up to God and gets to know him.

After the chaos at work of trying to get everyone trained for this new system, I am off on holiday to Egypt on Friday to have a well deserved break. I am there for 1 week with my boyfriend and his parents. It will be really nice just to relax by the pool and do nothing. Not really the best timing at work as I will be away for the last week before we go live. Then as soon as I came back I have to go into work at the weekend to get stuff sorted.

I wont be able to blog therefore for a few days, not that I have been blogging everyday lately. when I first created my blog I made a point of doing it everyday. I will try harder to do it more regularly. I don't even know how many people actually read my blog to be honest.

MESSAGE TO PEN DRIVE - you left me a comment, I can not look at your blog because blogspot says it does not exist?? but glad you like my blog.

God Talks

So I didn't go to spring harvest but I managed to go to the meeting at work to discuss with my CEO where we were going to go with these 'religious' talks that he was planning. It ended up just being 3 of us who turned up all of which are already Christians so we didn't really do a proper talk, we just basically looked at where we could take this. We are looking at just becoming a small group who regularly meet after work to pray for people at work and then do a bible study. We are going to look at some of the courses out there that explore Christianity and look to offer one after work to any one who is interested. Obviously these people are also welcome to our small group in the mean time but I feel most people may find this sort of study a bit overwhelming if they are still try decide what they believe.

Outside of this though I keep finding that everywhere I go with work I am coming across people who want to talk about it, I had a colleague who wanted to go to church but didn't feel worthy. So I basically told her to stop listening to those thoughts and just go. She informs me that last Sunday after our talk she got as far as the church door but then didn't go in. I told her that least she has made the first step, maybe next week she can go in!
I then meant a women in a hotel I stayed at and we got talking about it, she seemed to have a lot of unanswered questions so I suggested a course such as Alpha would be really informative. She told me that one of her colleagues had already told her about Alpha but she hadn't been interested. By the end of the conversation she said she was going to think strongly about going to the next course and she would discuss it further with her colleague.
Each time its not me that brings up the subject, its them and then when I tell them I'm a Christian they want to know more. It great how God uses us in all different situations, even work!

My friends said they had a great time at Spring Harvest, apparently that met a guy who was there only because a women that worked for him had 'converted 75% of his staff in to Christians' he felt he need to see what it was all about so that he could basically go back and say it was a load of rubbish. Whilst there he was talking to my friends about their beliefs and was very apposed to their views as Christians. One of my friends is very prophetic and told him that his faith would be confirmed to him when he came in to contact with someone with green fingernails ( what a very strange prophetic word to have?? ) Later in the week they were in the big top (an arena like area at Spring Harvest) by this stage he was umming and arring about his faith, but was struggle because of things that had gone on in his life. It all got to much for him so he ran out of the arena and a women went up to him and said she wanted to pray for him (no one my friends knew, just some random women) and she had green finger nails........this guy later that night went back to my friends place on site and basically gave his life to God. How Amazing!!!

So I continue on my travels around the UK with work sorting out our new computer system, which is quite stressful at the minute but happy in the knowledge that God is with me all the way and is using me to talk to people I wouldnt normally meet about him. The only bit I dont like is you dont always get to see the finished product, do they or dont they find Jesus?

Easter

I have over the last 2 weeks found my way again, took a bit of a diversion but feel that over easter weekend I have been grounded again as my faith feel strong again. I watched the passion on BBC one over easter and the realisation of what Jesus did for me just hit me. ( I was disappointed with some of the story thouh the BBC didnt quite get all the facts right)

I am not going to Spring Harvest as I mentioned but it all works out good because I can go to work this week. Then next weekend my Vicar retires and its also my friends birthday so if I'd have gone I would have missed this. Also the next talk from my CEO is this Thursday which I would have missed if I'd have been away but now I can go so thats all good.

I have had a lovely weekend, going on our church's 'walk of witness' and singing to the shoppers at Asda, spending time with my mum, going to my friends for her birthday, spending time with my boyfriends mum and then later today I think we are going for a nice walk and then I am going a nice leg of lamb for dinner. NICE!!

Church at work

Well I went to the Religious talk at work on Thursday, quite enjoyed it. My CEO had alot of really good arguements for being a Christian, loads I hadnt heard before. Quite often as a christian you hear christians using the same examples when trying to talk about their faith to non christians. But this guy used new ones:
Think about DNA and how complex it is and how scientist are still trying to recreate it and have only really managed basic stuff. Is it too hard to think that a GOD my have done this and not science?
Then he talked about the stars and how earth is only possible due to the right mix of larger and smaller stars in the universe. If this wasnt exatly right then we wouldnt exist, if we tried to recreate the propbability of this happening then you would have to stack 2p on top of one another from all the different contenants to the moon and mark one with a red dot and ask someone to find it. Is it too hard to believe that this could of just happened with odd like that or could it be GOD?
Finally with the fact that alot of these scientific explainations to how earth started still havent yet been proven, people who choose to believe this scientific ideas are putting their faith in these explainations. FAITH!! just the same as a christian person puts there faith in the fact that God exsists and that the Bible is true.
You could see it really made the people who had attend were really thinking about what he had said and could see what he said made sense, whether in time any of them will believe it, we'll see.
But that started me thinking how great it would be if we started a church at work!! far thinking but could happen, maybe?

Not going Spring Harvest now. Well not for the whole thing, I have come up with a solution. Someone has stepped in and took my place which means I dont have to miss work. I have also found out that my friends are still gonna be there on Sat and Sun, so I am thinking that I could go at the weekend and stay in my mums caravan for free and just pay my entry fee. This suits all situations, means I dont miss work, can still go to Spring Harvest and dont have to spend money I havent got on a week of being there. God works good!

Spring Harvest VS Work

Well I'm due to go to Spring Harvest on Easter Monday til Friday and I'm not sure now whether I want to go. I have as you know just started a new job and there is really alot going on at the mo and I am really part of it all. I feel at the minute that I should not go spring harvest and stay at work that week as there will be alot that I wont understand when I get back as I will have missed a week at work. The problem I have is that theres no one to take my place and I cant afford to loose £165 its cost me to go. My friends I'm going with have been before and feel that I should still go as they tell me its life changing but I really feel I would now prefer to stay at work that week. I have prayed about it and will continue to do so, I know I should go but why go if you cant be arsed to go and you would prefer to go to work, will it be so life changing if I dont really want to be there?

Church

Well I had a meeting with my works CEO and we discussed these talks that he has planned. The first one is on 13th March so thats next week, it would be great if there was a big turn out, so if anyone feels like praying then please pray that we get people turn up that we may start up an on going small group which is where I think I may be involved.

I went to the ladies lunch today that we run at church every quarter. I have been going to my church for about 4 or 5 years now and I have never managed to get to one of the lunches, so I was determined to go this time. I took my mum as well so it was nice to go together, I think we'll go to the next one in june too.

New Job

As I have said I have recently started a new job and today and tomorrow I am on a 'train a trainer' course. Today was really interesting as we looked at MBTI this is a psychomatric test to assess what type of person you are. Basically you have to answer about 80 odd questions and then it put you into a specific tyoe. I actually guessed accurately what type I was before we did it which shows I know myself quite well and that I accept what I am. So I am ESFJ and if you know me well and take the time to read the hypolink then you will see its very accurate.
Its really good cos now I can see why I react in a certain ways to different. Wht dont you check out yourselves, you'll be surprised at how accurate it is.

Also on another note I have found out that our CEO (chief Executive Officier) at work is a christian and he is currently sorting out having discussions at work about faith and has invited staff to come to a talk. I emailed him as I had an interest in this and I am having a meeting with him next week to look at getting involbed in this. I have just realised again how amazing God works. I have as you know quit Alpha at church as I felt I didnt want to be involved in it again at church for now and also that tied in with me getting a new job means I can not always guarentee I will be around every week to lead it as I may be away with work. So whats happened??? God's arranged something else for me to get involved in which will fit in to my new working load as it is a work thing.

about me

I went to church again on Sunday this week and had a much better reaction this week. I went for prayer after the service and felt much better about where I am with God at the mo. I do think its down to me to draw closer to God for him to draw closer to me.

I had a lunch meeting with my new boss and then the director of our department the other day, it was quite interesting as we got on to talking about me being a Christian and that was the discusion then for the whole lunch. Its nice to talk to work collegues about my faith I think becuase its not often something that happens. I dont make a point of shouting it off the rooftops to all who want to listen so not all my collegues know but at the same time I dont hide it either. I just tend to go with the flow and if it seems right to discuss it then I will. Neither of my collegues are christians from what we discussed but it was interesting to hear their views an opinions even if we disagreed on a few things. One of them had even been on an Alpha course! But I dont find these situation can sometimes be difficult as I dont want to rubbish someone elses views as I wouldnt expect anyone to do that to me but at the same time it is difficult to not want to try and make people see the benefits of my faith. I do often find as well that I end up getting in a situation where people will ask me questions to perhaps understand me and why I believe what I do but then I dont have the answer. I figure then that they find flaws in my faith as I used to try and do with my christian friends before I became a christian.

New job is going well though, I am in a situation at the mo though where because we're a new department theres not a lot I can be getting on with until other people have done stuff. This is not me at all, I think some people would love this, get paid for an easy job but I'm not like that I like to be kept busy and get stuff done. Things will pick up though in the next week or so, I'll just have to sit tight. Like my new boss as well so thats always a good start to a new job.

Valentines day coming up next week and I have booked a cottage for the weekend in the cotwolds for me and my boyfriend. Really looking forward to going on nice country walks and coming back to a log fire! makes me sound really old but I think its just things like that that can make you really content.

Then I think we may be going away with my boyfriends parents to Egypt in April so I have nice things to look forward to.

My sister in Law (well would be if my boyfriend asked me to marry him, hint hint!) is pregnant at the moment and she sent me a photo of her scan today, it was nice to see and the baby was sucking its thumb. I call it 'IT' because they dont know what it is and dont want to find out so that its a suprise when it arrives. I think thats a nice thing to do!

Me

I went to church on Sunday, It's strange that each Sunday I havent been over the last few weeks I still wake up at 9.15am which is the time I would normally get up to go to church. The past few weeks when I wake up though I just roll over and go back to sleep, but this sunday I just thought I will go.

It was strange, didn't feel the same as it usually does. I felt a bit empty and normally really get into it especially during worship.

In other news, I have finally started my new job and I am travelling around the country. this is my first week and I have been to Luton and Milton Keynes. Next week is in Norwich and then at the weekend I am going to Peterborough to see one of my work mates and go on a night out with some of the girls that went to Ibiza with me.

I was possibly going out this weekend back home but I am now going to stay in with my boyfriend as I will be away next week and I wont be seeing him next weekend.

Going home tonight and going to enjoy a bottle of wine with him too so that will be nice. Supposed to be on a diet but not trying very hard!!!

Catch Up

Well my blogs have been very lacking over the last for weeks and the holiday period but I haven't really been in the mood to write a blog.

Well Christmas was good we spent Christmas morning with my family and then went on to spend Christmas lunch with my boyfriends family. It was really nice as my boyfriend went off up the pub with his dad and I remained at home with his mum helping to prepare the lunch and I really enjoyed just spending time with her enjoying each others company with a glass of wine whilst preparing the veg.

We then spent an evening with my mum and we had a Sunday dinner before Christmas with my dad so we managed to share ourselves around with everyone.

Then for new year we went to Dublin. It was a really nice break, we did the sites and went to the cathedral for a service on the Sunday ( I even managed to drag my boyfriend which was nice) we hopped on a sight seeing bus one day and went to the Guiness factory another. That day we ended up staying out all day, after the first pint of Guiness at the factory I realised that I quite like Guiness. We enjoyed some traditional Irish food and then went to a pub and stayed out the rest of the day/night on the Guniess. My boyfriend felt a bit worse for wear the following day though!

Coming back to work, I have found out that I got the training job that I applied for so I'm really excited for that, I am just waiting for my start date to be confirmed on that so I will keep you updated when I know for def myself.

At the mo on the God front I'm on and off, lately I haven't been making the effort to go to church and not really making a really point of praying or reading the bible. I know God doesn't want me to be doing these things for the sake of it, but why don't I want to at the minute? I am not doubting my faith, I just cant motivate myself at the moment to make the effort which is really poor on my part. I have stepped down from Alpha this year as I feel I have been involved for 4 years and would like to concentrate my efforts in to Hope08 instead. I felt a bit guilty to start with like I was letting the rest of the team down but this turned out to be a good thing. My new job will mean that I will be travelling around alot more and will not be able to confirm from one week to the next whether I will be home on Wednesdays to be available to lead one of the Alpha groups. So God was working in that situation I believe.

I also saw the lady again recently who quit the last course ( I mention this in previous blogs, that I felt to blame for her quitting) she was really pleased to see me and gave me big hugs and even said she was disappointed that I wasn't going to lead next Alpha as she felt I had lead well and really made an impact on her. That was nice.

Hope08 has got off to a bad start. We've only had one planning meeting in December and nothing since. We are supposed to have kicked it all off in January but seeing as no meeting has taken place, nothing is planned and therefore nothing is happening. Very annoying and disappointing. So just waiting to see what happens about this. My friend says they have the same problem at their church so its not just my church. It seems a shame that alot of churches have got behind this campaign but no not yet done anything.