It is almost 4am and I am bored out of my mind so I thought I would use this insomnia moment to write and try and at east summarize the last few months as best I can.

Mozambique changed my life and God blew me away this summer, He really did. I miss the tents and the cameon, my family, worship and Him being the center of conversation. I miss so much of it and yet it is slipping so quickly from my grasp. Like oiled hands clinging to a slick pole. I have to trust that anything that doesn’t stick at the point is better off gone anyway as I don’t want to be a superficial Christian and yet…I would not be honest if I said I never craved to be back where is was easier, simpler and natural. I miss he poor so badly, I miss preaching, I miss a different language, I miss simplicity. God IS the same here as He is there, but everything else isn’t; that is what is so excruciatingly hard.

I have barely spoken about HG. To be honest, very few really want to know. I don’t blame them, there is no reason why they should care that much. They all have different reasons but I know in their shoes I probably wouldn’t care that much either. Either way, Holy Given came and it went and my life was turned on its head completely and thoroughly. I re-read my journals and I can barely make sense of them, the whirlwind in which I live. God did so much and said so much and yet barely any of it makes anything other than abstract sense right now. So much of what He showed me and did I am sure pertains to my future and my calling. For now, however, I am left in the melee that is this place, a place that I do not fully know what to do with, how to act or who to be. Holy Given was a place where the walls were taken down, I was stripped back by the gentle Holy Spirit until all that was left was me and Jesus, things in the open, life as honest as it gets. I loved it there. The school was hard and the environment challenging, the best things didn’t even happen there, they happened in Nampula on our outreach extension. But either way, God showed up…no, I showed up, and it was clear and I could see and I understood and Colossians three was more than just possible.

The outreach extension was the most nuts trip of my life, I loved it so incredibly much and was gutted when I was so motion sick I had to leave after the tenth day and not stay will the 14^th. However, it was the right decision and I stick by it! We had the most beautiful team that bonded better than any other they have known. We travelled between 3 and 10 hours a day packed like squashed sardines in a cameon with all our stuff and the sound equipment and everything. There were days when it was an awesome adventure and we would pack in eagerly to get on the road with the wind in our hair, swinging from the poles that covered the truck and kept us in as Amis, our driver, would career down roads at 70mph flying clean over potholes and breaks in the road! We sang and laughed and joked and slept and were tight family. There were of course days when it was too much, when we were crushed and running out of water, needing to pee and desperate to rest. But it was part of it. In the days we would travel and pitch tent, our most favorite place being the chicken farm…oh sweet chicken farm…and then of an evening we would lead at least one if not more evangelistic outreaches in the local villages. I went to some but not others, as the spirit led. My best morning was the crazy village which we prayed over all night because of the horrible spirit we felt in the place. It was there I was asked to preach! With very little notice I sought the Lord for what He wanted me to say and with the new boldness He had given me when He set me on fire during the school, I preached from Jesus’ own sermon about our father giving us good gifts. They not only understood what He was saying but they reacted to it! I truly got my first understanding of what it would have truly been like when Jesus was preaching about sowing seeds, giving bread not snakes, fishing and harvesting. It is the language of the poor! These guys understood! In the west we live with so much and not having to do stuff for ourselves that when we read what Jesus says, we have to read it in abstraction, it makes no sense to us in the everyday because it is not our everyday. Instead, it can only ever be a metaphorical abstraction or illustration of a point. The beauty of telling His stories to these beautiful incredibly physically poor Africans, was that they got it. No interpretation needed. If that’s what He said, then that is what He meant. Most of the village came forward for the altar call that morning. It was mind blowing. If that is all I remember, if that is all I take with me….it will be enough. That morning changed my life.

However, we can never stay in those precious altar moments. Life, time and the Spirit continues to move and we must move with it or face being left behind, stuck in memories, missing and the things that have been.

Before I went to Mozambique, I gave up everything; my job, my possessions…most all of it. I am left with about 2 suitcases, 6 boxes and a car. Whilst still in Pemba, I became on staff for the next school before the current school had even come to a close! As a result, I was working 18 hours a day everyday which I loved but was intense. God gave me such an incredible grace to achieve such a job but as a result, time to be able to process the summer went out the window. My re-entry process was going from a plastic to a comfy chair continuing where I left off online straight off the plane! (although Jesus did bump me to first class!)

Back in England, I was thrust into a plethora of weddings, travelling up and down the country, visiting people and of course, a lot of admin. England is full of some of the most beautiful people to me and it was a wonderful time J

Following this….the autumn season brought with it a fair share of unexpected surprises and, as I write, I'm sitting in the redwood forests of Northern California trying to catch my breath!

This October, the Holy Given School of International Mission number 7 commenced in Pemba Mozambique. I continued to be a part of the administrative team for this school until it began on October 15th which was an extremely fulltime job! A few thousand emails and 108 accepted students later, however, it was well worth it! We are hearing report after report back from the school of Gods' abundant outpouring of love, healings and miracles with students lives being turned on their heads forever by the awesomeness of God.

Also in October, God miraculously provided the finance for me to travel to America for two months for the purposes of rest and retreat, with plenty of time to create some more paintings. I also planned to spend time training and preparing with my administrative director in Tennessee for the first Holy Given School of Mission to be held in England in 2008.

I arrived in Roswell in New Mexico, home of my best friend Joy, to begin my much anticipated Stay in America. During the first week of my trip, I was really looking forward to trekking on horseback in the mountains. As I'm sure many of you already know, my trek ended in a riding accident. My horse spooked and I was thrown off. I was knocked unconscious, fracturing my left shoulder and my right elbow. I praise God for His protection and faithfulness to me. I could so easily have sustained far more serious injuries. As it was I was covered in bruises with a concussion. I ended up in a splint on one arm and a sling on the other! However, the medical care I received was exceptional and my travel insurance covered all the bills. With both arms in slings I have been unable to do anything for myself, relying totally on my best friend Joy, who has taken care of me selflessly, helping me with everything every day and night for weeks! Praise God for friends who love us! With the splints off, the doctor gave me the all clear to travel so Joy and I are have travelled to California so we can both have some time out, seek the Lord and recuperate fully.

On the same weekend as my accident, the Holy Given England school was cancelled for this year. With that cancellation all that I was anticipating for 2008 has dissipated. As from January I do not know what is in store for me.

As a result this has been an interesting season for me. I am learning how to embrace God's timing and plans and continue to place mine on the altar. Learning to be still in enforced rest has been hard, especially whilst wondering what next year holds. But His ways are higher than mine. All I know is that I have given up all to follow Him and serve Him whatever it looks like tomorrow, I am His little jar of clay who just continues to say "Here I am Lord, send me!"

Joy and I fly to England together on December 19th to spend Christmas with my family. We are both seeking the Lord as to His perfect will for this next season and exactly where He would like us to be. I would appreciate your prayers during this time. It is sometimes easier to run full pelt busily pursuing ministry rather than sitting at Jesus feet and waiting for as long as it takes until He Himself says 'go' and opens the right door. The first is how I am wired in the natural but the second is the place of peace, of survival, of love and of joy. I therefore embrace this season of waiting eagerly anticipating all there is to come with a a deep gratitude to my Lord for taking the time to be with me and establish my foundations instead of just giving me another job to do.

And now?

Now…….you find me in Eureka, California on the eve (well the morning of) Thanksgiving! So much has happened here and I give glory to God for the breakthrough, grace and life lessons that He has taught us here, what a privilege to be children of God, not just given tasks but loved enough to be disciplined, taught and loved even in the midst of difficulty and crazy nuts circumstances!

We have been here for about two weeks and the time has flown by! It has been such a gift of a time, especially in the light of both of us recovering fully from the trauma that was my accident. I don’t even know what to blog at this point except that it is 3am (again), I can’t get on the internet cos the connection is being retarded, I went to sleep at 10am this morning and woke at 4am and am now very screwed up body clock-wise! I won an awesome game of Settlers of Catan this evening and hung out with Joy, Jen and John who are beautiful people of God oh my gosh I love them so much! Jennifer prayed with me and talked for hours upon hours last Sunday whilst Joy was with a friend of hers, and it was such an anointed and freeing time. Sometimes all we need is for someone else to look us in the eye and tell us that it is in fact just fine to feel as we do and to not be handling things as well as we think we should or, more to the point, as well as we feel other people expect us to be handling them.

I find it so frustrating that I do not often write less cryptically than this and just tell you what we have been doing so I will try…. We went to Ferndale where they shot the movie 'the Majestic' which is the most beautiful mountain town, had pizza and walked around there and the cemetery which was so beautiful. We have hung out around Eureka, me and Joy got coffee, we went on Tuesday night to Nexus which is this group of beautiful young adults who just love Jesus and His presence. We went to Arcata Assembly for church on Sunday where Nexus was held and then Joy hug with and friend of hers and had the most beautiful day and God time and I went home and bawled and prayed and talked and laughed with Jennifer and didn't get much done! We went to another church when we first got here (after being in San Diego where the fires were for a week with Jens mum Lou and Don) where the woman preached a sermon and said something accidentally about cereal being a stumbling block to our faith which cracked me and Joy up sooooo bad. Talking of which, a few weeks back we went to a Shane and Shane and Bebo Norman concert which was so anointed and needed and we both just wept but we also managed to clear an entire row of people from there! hahaha oops! We are so naughty :) Umm....I think that is the main news of this whole trip :) Obviously there is grumpy cat, day to day stuff, staying up all night reading journals and talking and being girls, going to sleep at 7am, hanging out, pumpkin cheesecake, two seasons of 'Heroes'...you get the point :)

Either way, what a gracious and loving God that He HAS met us here, He has come and brought a breakthrough that at many points has looked impossible. Yay Jesus!! I still have no idea what faces me after today, after tomorrow, after Christmas or new year. I know that Joy comes back to England with me which thrills my heart, that is for sure. However, I have been so consumed with helping her sort out her next year, I have almost deliberately not let it hit me yet that at least half of my next year won't be working with her. That is something that I need to look at but every time I try...*sigh* I just trust Jesus that He has something incredible for me to do. I have a roof and a bed at different houses and can pack up in an instant. Working without Joy will be weird and..well , many things, but God is so awesomely sovereign, its all good!!

I love that this blog sounds like it is heading towards a beautiful answer or conclusion and its painfully going to be left void of any such succinct tying up. The conclusion is merely that there isn't one, almost to the point of being as open ended as my life has ever been and looked. There are many many ways of looking at it, but in short, as long as God is on the throne, life is worth living, peace is for the keeping, joy is our strength, there is a strategy and this life is but a breath in the perspective of beautiful, glorious, wonderful eternity.

I say none of that lightly, trust me, these past few weeks and months have been incredibly hard and have pushed me so close to the edge, but God is victorious, whether we appear to be or feel like we are, or not! surely that truth alone is enough to be thankful for, for the rest of forever! So that is what I am going to do, whilst the rest of America is thankful for their independence and for their country, I choose to be thankful that God is on the throne, always has been and always will be. That truth is not determined, nor changed, by whether or not we believe or acknowledge it. And that God is God is God is God. Period. H-A-L-L-E-L-U-J-A-H. seriously.