It's all about the chase

So. Haven't written for a while so I guess I should write a cheeky update quickly. Where was I then? An Audience with God almost a couple of weeks ago now was an evening where everyone was supposed to bring a talent to offer before God - you could dance, sing, write a poem or something. Everyone was watching but it was done for God. I wasn't exactly delighted when the news reached me that this is what we were doing - my talents are unfortunately rather limited; I can't sing, dance or draw so overall, it's not gone well. I did decide however, that I could write a poem so this is what I did - it rhymed and all was all rather lovely, but then I prayed and felt God saying he actually would rather I sang for him. No, please no, Lord?! That can't be right - have you even heard me sing God?! I just felt that the poem was alright but at the end of the day I cared more about whether it rhymed or not rather than what I was saying. I felt God wanted to strip me bare and just be honest with him. So that's what I did. I sat in front of everyone, guitar in my hand, and just sung "Jesus, Son of God, I believe in you..." strumming at seemingly random intervals. It was awful, really shockingly bad - I had my eyes shut so I couldn't see what my hand was doing on the fret-board (you have to feel sorry for all those present) but at the same time it was awesome. Ensured I really was just doing it for God and no one in the room. I don't think God minds too much that I can't sing or play guitar, so that's cool.

Baptism of fire - yes please. So on Friday I went into morning lectures in the fowlest mood - was just not feeling great to be hons - and we were having a 'Holy Spirit Party' - wasn't entirely sure what it was but sounded like the last thing I was up for! Two hours later though my story couldn't have been different - we were all invited up to front to be prayed for impartation of the Spirit and like a month ago I was just nwaysayed by the Holy Thing. It was crazy - my legs went weak so I ended up on the floor again and my hands were shaking and my breathing went all deep again. Really cool stuff - I just lay on the floor soaking it all up and feeling much more at peace with everything! Sweet. Then we were prayed for for various Spiritual gifts so I was prayed over for prophecy and healing. People started speaking in tongues for the first time - awesome. Then when it all came to an end our speaker for the week said he was going to take us all to the beach so that anyone who wanted to could be baptised. Hmmm, baptism is something I've thought about a little bit since I've been here - Jesus did say, "Whoever believes and is baptised will be saved..." so who am I to argue with that?! I know I was baptised as a baby but I wanted to make that decision for myself and so I went forward for it - to display my beliefs and make a public declaration that I'm dying to myself and being raised to new life in Christ. So that was awesome - five of us waded knee-deep into the Indian Ocean, dodging the waves that were crashing around us, and made our commitments in front of the rest of the team. Sweet times.

Hmmmm, what else has happened since I last wrote? Last Sunday at church Jess suggested that we go bungee jumping and at first it was a complete joke but just an hour of so later Sandrine, Jess and I bundled in the car, headed for the tallest bungee-bridge in the world! Was insane - I thought it would be cool but nothing can really prepare you for the feeling you get when you just leap off that platform 216m up and plunge head-first into a rocky ravene. Crazy times. You free-fall for five seconds (seems more like five minutes) before hanging upside for ten minutes longer than is ideally preferable, still 60m above the ground below. Am not going to lie - I wasn't exactly keeping my cool. Just for the record - never ask a woman their weight but if you really want to know then just bungee with them - their weight will be scrawled on the back of their hand in big black marker pen and most likely shouted around by various members of staff, just in case you didn't manage to steal a glimpse at their hand. Poor girls - you could tell none of them were best pleased!

Hmmm, so this Tuesday we had a night of giving - everyone prayed and chose one thing that they wanted to give away to someone else. I wasn't really excited about it but it actually turned out to be an awesome night. People were blessing others with money, clothes, Ipods, phones, cameras - it was crazy! Money was given to people who then felt led to pass it onto someone else who in turn continued passing it! Unforts no money made it's way my way (clearly I'm the rich white boy) - shame, would have kept it fo' sho'. Powerful evening in the end - there was a far greater blessing in giving than receiving - felt like New-Testament times!

During work-duties the other day, instead of just cleaning up around the base, I went with a couple of others to help construct a lady's new house - she lives in the most awful community - tin houses just a couple of metres square. That was quite a shock but at least we were doing something to help - we were constructing a new, slightly larger but still single-roomed, wooden house. We soon gathered a small crowd who appreciated my building expertise - we were lacking a cement-mixer so we just chucked a load of water, stones, sand and cement mix on the floor and churned it up that way. Was actually remarkably successful - why do these westerners always have to complicate matters with unneccessary equipment?! There was a few kids running around the place which was all well and good until it led to Gershom (lad from Netherlands) having to swerve with an unsettlingly little amount of warning after one of the little boys whacked his lad out and started urinating right in his desired path. Ha, was hilairs - poor Gershom's feet very almost received a little sprinking (or as the Scot's would say, 'a wee sprinkling'. Ba-dum) Barely anyone even twitched at it either - apparently it's perfectly normal to take a slash in the front yard during a family gathering. Sweet. Anyhows, that was interesting.

Okay. Enough for now. It's getting late (bed-times at 10 remember) and I've still got things to do. Y'all better be keeping it real. Peace.

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