! JUMP He is waiting to catch you !

  I like  this picture and I feel like the child jumping off the boat.  Even though this is the beginning of the fourth year that I am here, it still feels like a huge leap, like I am yet again jumping into the unknown, unable to say what is really going to happen this year or how it is going to happen or where I am going to go and with what!!

   So,  I have now been here for a week and a half.  It's been quite hard really getting re-adapted and just not having my family and friends close by again.  I also have had really bad jet lag and maybe the heat makes me a bit dopey too, so I have had difficulty being awake!!!   But things have been happening anyway!!  At the moment I am quite uncomfortable sleeping on my friends concrete floor but  I will be moving into my own place mid-week!!!!!!!! I'm really excited for it, it's worked out really well and it's a bit better than my last animal infested and insect infested place!!  Phew!!  
   Also, I am scheduled to speak at the Ladies Meeting at Church again in October, and also to speak for an hour at kids evangelism outreach event quite close by in very poor area in a couple of weeks, it's being organized by some other people so it should be nice just to participate and not have to organize the thing just yet and it's a good wayto make some contacts!!  
 I can't say that I have been looking for things to do yet as I am just settling in, but I know that these are God given opportunities just being handed to me on a plate and I will make the most of them!!



   As I said, I have found a place to live!! IIn order to rent a place here, you have to hand over a deposit amounting to a years worth of rent!!  It is a huge amount.  I came here with a bit of money and one anonymous monthly financial supporter, but it wasn't going to be enough for the years rent and the visa that I have to get to be able to stay here.  This house is occupied at the moment by some good friends of mine and they wanted to move out, and I showed an interest in it which accelerated the process and they are moving mid-week, I wouldn't have been able to pay the whole year, but because they didn't finish the tenancy I am just going to take it over, meaning that the price I have to pay is reduced so that I can pay for it all!  I can't say that I wasn't a bit worried about how it would all work financially I prayed, and God made a way!  My money literally got to £0 this week!!  I prayed and was really expecting and needing a miracle!! I had to get one and...!

 I got it!!

 I have not asked for a penny in all the years I have been here and I was wondering whether I was supposed to go from that place and actually maybe ask in this situation for help.. but it would be the end of the testimony of how God has provided for me over all these years since I jumped out of the boat and was relying on Him to catch me... so I waited a bit and then it came, just in time.  This is just a post really to thank God for not leaving me and providing at the right time whenever I need it.  He is so faithful!! I can't say that sometimes I do get a little stressed about it, not knowing when the next money will come in, but He has never let me down!

For me, each time this happens is a miracle and God reminding me that He is there, watching and making sure everything will be ok!!!

Picture by Jodhie Panggalih

Arrival!!

Well, I am finally here!

It took hours and  I had difficulty in India, but I am here!! I got out of the airport and got hit with the heat.  It was so hot and humid, it didn't take long for the drops of sweat to start dripping down my back and everywhere!!! My taxi was an hour late...so I was drenched by the time he came!!!  On the way to the house the taxi ran out of petrol, and we rolled quite a way at a crazy slow speed on the crazy road until he stopped and went to get some!!

As I was waiting in the heat, last person waiting for something or someone to pick them up, people starring at me, men shouting at me from scaffolding (nicely mind), a cleaning lady sweeping around me a billion times and finally just standing by me feeling sorry for me and finding it funny that I was there so long!! It felt like the first time I ever got to Sri Lanka, it even smelt the same, and the same thoughts...how and why on earth did I land here of all places and  it had better be worth it and also...I hope that I don't faint in the heat!!!!!!!!!
It's always quite a shock!!! haha..and not so haha sometimes!!!!

 Then I got to the house where my friend assured me after I had told her I was going to go in the hotel somewhere so that I could have peace and quiet and be able to read and pray and sleep so that I could get used to here again and get more vision for the coming months and get organised ect..she said that she had just the place. So...thinking that that was great I agreed even though I had found a few places possible.  Turns out it was a one roomed house with a lady and her 2 year old son who cries and screams if the nursery rhymes are turned off the tv , where the bathroom door doesn't close, where it's a bucket bath and where there is only one bed...yes...for the three of us!!!  Quite a dunking back into Sri Lanka!!! Anyway, she was a lovely lady, but it was important for me to get this peace, just for the first few days so I have a room now, with just one bed all for me!!!! But where I can just gradually get back into the culture here!

Tomorrow I have my friends wedding so that will be fun and I will be seeing everyone so that will be another dunking, but more gentle :)

It is so hot here, I came to the pool today because it was just so hot for me! Luckily it's been quite overcast so that was nice...and I was the only one in the pool... so quite quiet!!!

A week ago my friend who is getting married tomorrow offered me a room in her house until I can find a place of my own.  It is a great blessing!! So I am a bit more at liberty to wait till I can find a place that I really like with two rooms for all the people coming over this year :)

And other good news for me...though not so much for Sri Lanka I guess...but I can buy more rupees to the pound now!!!

I'm looking forward to my quiet times in the next few days to get inspiration and more vision for what to do and how to go about it and get it all going again :) It's quite exciting, it's like I have a bare canvas and  it's ready and set up for me to start painting on it this year. So that should be great... and quite colourful I hope :)

Oh my word!!! the internet just cut out as I finished this...but phew...blogger saves itself so you still get to read this and I go back to a calm state!!!

A brief summary of my year in the UK

Hello!!!

As usual, not so good with the blogging!!   The year is over now in the UK, and I am back to Sri Lanka a week on Tuesday, and pretty excited to be going back!!

This past year has not been the year that I was expecting.  It’s been quite hard and lonely, one of my most difficult years in fact, yet during it God has remained faithful to me and there have been some fun times too!

Financially, God has provided for all my living expenses even though the living expenses in the UK are huge, especially where I lived compared to Sri Lanka!  I was on housing benefits, but still needed quite a lot to tie me over every month with the bills and food and things, yet I never ran out of money.  I was on jobseekers to begin with, but only after a couple of weeks I felt like I had to rely on God, and so I stopped with them once the course started and every month something turned up, a job, or  someone gave some money which each time for me was a miracle.  I never was able to get a job,  but I did a bit of tutoring to begin with but that faded away quite quickly!! 

It’s been a year where I have learnt that giving is important.  Giving to God but also people, even when they are not in need.  Giving money away, when there is not much of it is difficult especially if we are giving it to someone who has some!  But it is something that is important to do when we feel God is prodding us to do so. Simply to bless.  Bless and be blessed. Not just throwing it away, but knowing when God is asking us to do so and doing it with a cheerful and open heart.  I feel like this lesson was one that helped me through the year financially and also just to remember to share!!!

But this year I have also been very blessed by people and their generosity more than I could ever have imagined!!!  I have received money, things, food, a ticket to Sri Lanka... the list goes on :)

The highlight of the course for me this year was the mission trip to Uganda in May. It was really nice to go back to Africa.  We went round a few places including Wellsprings near Kampala,  teaching them and just sharing testimonies and so on with them.  They were so open  and hungry to learn new things about God and to put them into practice. It was so easy to just love them and encourage them and just enjoy their smiles and their generosity.  We taught them about Treasure Hunting and finding the Gold in people, how God really sees them and it was wonderful. They are such a welcoming people. 

I was also working with the Youth Group in Englefield Green which was great fun and possibly the thing I loved doing the most as the team was so wonderful and the kids were lovely and a great challenge and I enjoyed having fun with them even if just for the short year.  

It’s been great to be able keep things simple and speak just one language for a whole year! I don't think that that has happened since I was 11 !!! I have had the pleasure of meeting some really nice people on the course and in church and making friends with them and basically just having  a nice normal sort of social life, meeting up with them, going to the pub for a pint, just enjoying the time with them J

For once I am all organised with going back, and I actually have been offered to live rent free in my friend Shantana’s house a short bike ride away from where I used to live.  I will have my own room too!!  So that is nice.  I get back just a day before her wedding as well, so all is fitting into place really nicely!! J  That gives me time to seek out a place of my own with no rush J  She cooks the best curry ;)

As usual, it will be sad to leave my friends and my new made friends in the UK, but I think that I am going to have a few volunteers coming over this coming year, so that is something to look forward too.  I am so excited to be seeing my friends over there again a lot!!  I am excited about all the things that are going to happen in Sri Lanka this year : the expansion of the Fundays, creating new teams to go out and share Jesus,  miracles in the village where I have been working and just seeing the Sri Lanka around me change with God’s love and presence and all His promises for this new year that will come to pass.

Thank you for reading my blog and all your different ways of supporting me that keep me going J