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
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