Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. Psalm 37v4.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
LUWERO Uganda...
Well i haven't really talked about this properly on here yet...
But in July... the first 2 full weeks, I'm traveling to Uganda with a group of senior Girls Brigade and Boys Brigade young people... I've been pondering the possibility of this since about September/October when the BB captain at my church asked me if I would consider going along as he had wanted to see if any of the girls from the GB were wanting to go along this time.
Jimmy (BB Captain) took a group of 4 senior BB boys 2 years ago
but, he had wanted to give the opportunity for some girls to get to go too, which is always exciting... I had kinda hoped that I would get the opportunity to go to Uganda some time, because Gabriel is doing amazing things out there...
I first met Gabriel when I was in my first year at ICC back in 2003/2004. He was just starting off with the project back then... and if memory serves he was back in the UK trying to raise funds to buy the plot of land where the project was going to be based.
I feel i should probably explain what the project is... Basically Luwero Community Ministries consists of a 5-fold vision. Firstly a church, then a farm, a Primary school (which currently has around 300 pupils, there are hopes for a secondary school also), a health clinic (which will hopefully be up and going by the time we're they're in July) and an Orphanage. See here for more info... http://luwerocommunityministries.com/
But the mission has all started now for me... today i sit here with two rather sore arms thanks to the first lot of injections yesterday. heh. More next week....
but i guess I should get on... I'm sure i'll tell you all more about this as time goes on =)
Yeh... so this past weekend has been the most crazy weekend in a while. I haven't feel this exhausted and achy... (although i'm feeling a lot better than i was by the end of Saturday and yesterday i'm still feeling it today)...
So Saturday saw me bag packing for going to LUWERO the whole at the Tesco in St Rollox... It was long, but gd. Time actually passed surprisingly quickly if i'm honest... but at the same time, my legs were dead by the end of it. For some reason these days standing still for long periods of time exhausts me, which is ridiculous considering I used to have to stand for 4-6 hours at a time (easy, sometimes more) when I worked at Alldays.
but anyway... the silver lining here? We raised £864 :-O nice one eh?!
but anyway then had to make pudding for the meeting i was going to at 7pm heh... it was an ok meeting but i think i can safely safe that folks were tired, so it probably wasn't as productive as it should have been. Then I had to come home and finish off something for the Bible Class the next morning... i gave up on that rather quickly though and just went to bed completely exhausted.
Then Sunday... woke up, got to church for 9:30am and got things set up for Bible Class... had folk tell me i looked exhausted (thanks! i thought) finished there, came home and took abbie a walk (i love my pooch but that walk hurt, a lot) and came back to lunch and finishing off prep for the service in the evening, which annoyingly ended up taking up pretty much all of the afternoon, which meant no break ARGH! So was back to the church by 4:30pm to make sure things were sorted before yp started arriving the back of 5pm... only they didn't. the deal was, we were there, set up and ready to play for 5:15pm... we didn't even start practicing until nearer 5:50pm... can u sense my frustration?!
But we got there... the service went really well - twas nice.
afterwards tho a couple of things happened which just blew me away...
I dunno if i've explained this on here, but bottom line is that I'm hoping to go to LUWERO in Uganda with the young people... only the church have declined to pay anything towards it, which unfortunately put doubt into whether i was going to get to go.. I can't afford to save for something as huge as that, so it was kinda a big deal...
but my mum reminded me that if i was meant to be there, then i would be and that I should just pay my deposit (which i already had from my CHristmas money, so thanks everyone who gave me money for Christmas) and that the rest would come... So that night I stepped out in faith and paid the deposit hoping that the rest would come... which is kinda funny coz i'd spent the whole of the Deep Impact weekend 'n beyond praying for more faith...
but yeh... last night... a very gd friend of mine came up to me after the service with a n envelope which i thought was odd, and she gave it to me with a huge grin on her face... i asked if i was meant to open it there and then, and got the vibe that i should lol, only to find a wee card in it (which was very sweet) at which point she said 'there's something else in there too' and i found a cheque for quite a substantial amount of money... i was quite in shock... 'a little something to get you started on your walk of faith' said the card.... its overwhelming thinking of it even now....
anyway - so then we had Anathallo... which was great. their video project is REALLY coming on, am lovin' it... and I love how some of them come out with the most profound ideas and don't even realise it... its just soooo COOL! After that we spent some time looking at Prayer and that was really cool too... another example of me trying to push the boat out a bit... I don't want these kids to be too comfy, if we don't have challenge then we don't grow....
but anyway afterwards I was clearing up and I was about to put my laptop (which was sitting on the stage) into my bag and when i picked it up i found an envelop and on it was my name... inside was an A4 piece of paper with a large image of the Ugandan flag and a heap of cash. I don't know who it was from... I could try and guess but they didn't leave a message or a note so i can only assume that they want to remain anonymous...
I love it tho. it was such a hard weekend, emotionally, mentally and physically, but spiritually? i was built up hugely, right at the end =) LOVE it! =)
I've been exceptionally busy already today... although having said that i'm actually still in my pjs LOL - am about to go 'n have a shower 'n take abbie out a walk tho... But yeh... admin admin admin.... that has been the way of it so far today. Its gd not having to do that baking that we managed to get done last night tho... coz ultimately I have other things to get on with today... like admin. LOL.
*some times passes*
anyway... had my shower... so time to take Abbie a walk in the snow =)
oh yeh did i not say we had snow. I woke up to white stuff falling this morning. has stopped now... but its still kinda pretty =)
And so it has been... woke up this morning and did some stuff for work... took abbie a walk only to bump into a gd friend that i hadn't seen for a while 'n got to chat for a wee bit which was nice... took abbie home, when down to the station to catch a train into town. Had a really gd meeting with my line-manager, then came back 'n picked up Pammie on my way back to the flat... did yet another wonderful bible study on Nehemiah with her... had some tea, headed to band... Band was gd... then back to the house 'n got stuff baked for the GB tomorrow night... this time we're raising funds for those going to LUWERO... so yeh, tbh it's all gd.
I'm currently uploading a couple of videos of me 'n Pammie baking for the LUWERO stuff... i'll post them once they're up =)
Ok... so i've been back from Glenshee for almost 2 weeks now... i think i'm still recovering to be honest. I'm still knackered - but it was great... It was a lot harder than previous years - just coz moving 50 people about is surprisingly harder than 39 - you wouldn't think that an extra 10 people or so would make a difference, but it really did. heh.
We had a new activity this year - the centre had had a new zipwire installed since we were last their last February - ok so it wasn't completely my cup of tea (don't really like heights all that much) - but the young folks loved it and i even thought it was... well interesting. lol.
But yeh - the weekend teaching was based on changing the world... we had studies from the old testament and the new testament... and we even had Evan Almighty in to help us... lol. Challenging for us all.
One of my favourite things of the weekend though (well perhaps the aftermath of it) is that young folks who never usually go to church or anything are enthusiastic about God, and singing 'God songs' and trying to live for Him! One of the Fave songs over the weekend was 'Prince of Peace' which is the second song on the video below... the yp just love it - and they got to teach it to the church too who i have to say did a FAB attempt at it last sunday morning! So yes... another successfull weekend... but have a look at the video and see what you think for yourself?
That aside... Mum, Fi and Hollie are down for the weekend =) Mum 'n I just took the dogs out for a walk and I have to say that they are both out for the count - so i think mum and I are going to cut our losses and walk up the road to one of the local coffee shops for lunch and cake *grins* I have a meeting tonight though =( -sad times- but they're dog sitting so its all kl =) Hopefully i won't be tooooo late =)
So... right... at work I'm currently going along to the 'Christianity Explored' course - obviously not because i don't know who Jesus is *heh* but just coz we're hoping to create a group for my age roughly out of it... it's been good. Working our way through the Gospel of Mark - and there are some folk who are actually there's to explore the Christian faith - so it makes the discussions really interesting.
Anyway - I was in the city centre today and the Tron Church which is right in the centre on Buchanan Street is getting renovated at the moment.. and while i was walking down the road I was turning the corner and saw that they had some sort of huge advert on the scaffolding on the back of the church... all i saw to start with was '...surance' and wondered to myself 'that's odd a church advertising a secular insurance company' but when i saw the advert in full view it made me smile loads... I thought i was rather clever!!! hehehe... surely folks walking around that Church aren't missing THAT advert!!! C'mon for indirect evangelism!!!! *grins*
Anyway - i'm slowly getting myself sorted for Glenshee this weekend - tomorrow is gonna be my day for finalising my talk for Saturday evening etc though... so it's all good =)
Things are rather hectic here in Glasvegas at the moment if truth be told... time seems to be disappears sooo fast!!! I'm feeling a bit more calm today though as i've actually managed to have a productive afternoon relatively free of interruption... I have 3 meetings tonight tho - all running into one kind of big meeting. Crazy biscuits. and afterwards we're meant to be going for Curry.
... I'd quite like to sleep actually. that would be nice.
Anyway - so trying really hard to get everything on track for Glenshee this weekend... Kids are hyper, always a good sign. I've managed to get a lot of the little things sorted today, which is good. Got the minor *cough* matter of sorting out 2 of the sessions one of which i'm speaking at... i know what's happening pretty much - but really need to sort the details. ooo and i need to get a guitar strap. I keep forgetting. Someone remind me before the weekend please? ooo and DV tapes for the camera... hmm i wonder where the camera is...
I have a distinct feeling that i'm going to get there this weekend and have forgotten something 'important'. heh.
this morning i'm sitting relaxing having had a nice long lie. =) Its absolutely pouring outside at the moment. I'm kinda hoping that it'll calm down a bit soon coz I'm meeting up with a couple of my older young people in order to collect in the Christian Aid envelopes that i put out earlier in the week. It took me an hour to put them out in the first place, so i'm kinda hoping that with a couple of extra bodies to collect them back in we won't end up taking like 2 hours to do it. In all honesty I think it unlikely that a lot of people will be in in order for us to get a response anyway which is a shame. But I've just not had an evening free to collect them in this week which has been a tad annoying. We have little tickets that we can put through the door to tell people to drop them through the letter box at the church if we want though... and they also have the option to send them straight to Christian Aid themselves... But yeh. we'll see. It's actually a long street. 86 doors. *heh* Then I have quite a bit of prep to finish for church tomorrow morning.. but i plan to do this while relaxing in front of some good ol' saturday night tv. I'm meant to be doing the Children's address tomorrow morning. I know roughly what i'm doing. But the practicalities are still a bit foggy. So i need to think about that too. I wish i had been able to think about it properly earlier on in the week so that I could have been more creative, but oh well. Children's addresses aren't really my thing anyways. No, wait that's not true. I can do children's addresses, i have to do the children's work with the wee ones all summer, every summer, but i don't like doing them on a Sunday morning in front of the whole church coz there are folks who prefer Iain to do it. Which is fair, coz he's really good at it and it always fits in really well with the main sermon. But yeh, I should not stall on it any longer and just sort out what i need to do. That aside we have our second last Bible Class of the academic year before the summer tomorrow, and we've finished our main program so i have to sort out a wee quiz thing for tomorrow. Which i shall do. I've done a lot of prep work for it already, but i just need to sort out how its gonna work etc. Fine-tuning so to speak.
right well... ah i must remember and get some milk today *heh*.
well that's it... my holiday is over... *heh* was nice today... headed up to Peterhead again and saw the Smiths too which was nice =) 'n then mum 'n grandma took me into Aberdeen to catch the train... wasn't a bad journey... was very sunny the whole way down, so very pretty. Have decided that i'm not going to allow myself to get stuck into work stuff again until tomorrow... but we'll see... lots of stuff going through my mind... so unfortunately my head is already back in work.. ah well. lists to do *lol* Just as well I enjoy my job *wink*.
Name: TLT Home: Glasgow, United Kingdom About Me: I'm a youthworker with a church in the North of Glasgow... I enjoy watching films 'n surfing the net 'n hanging out with friends... See my complete profile
