Wow… It’s been over a year since my last post. Things have changed so much and time has flown on by.

so much to write about…

So here I am at the beginning of a possible 6 week stint of being utterly helpless. I dont know what to do. All I seem to be able to do is sit back, wait and watch… hoping for that gleam of sunlight. hoping for that small ray that shows at the end of a long narrow tunnel. Sometimes I hate the way my head is wired. Sometimes I wish I could just get a friend who is good at soldering to actually open up my head and re-wire the gooey noodley brain that resides inside. I wish I could just turn off certain aspects of my personality and put them on the shelf while they aren’t needed or more so aren’t being being fed and filled up.

Here I am… waiting… watching… hoping…

So Sunday Morning the 13th of January 2008 Bernard (last name unknown) passed away at the age of 14. The Cebu Crew was fortunate enough to have met him while over in Cebu with the Cebu Missionary Foundation. He had been with the CMF for about a year and had a terminal illness. He basically had the lungs of an 80 year old smoker and had to have Oxygen each night.

His joy for life has taught me and others on the team how to rejoice in everything. Bernard knew his time was coming to an end but he still made the most of his life. He was in love with God and served the CMF where ever he could.

RIP Bernard.

So Here I am… having returned from Cebu in the Philippines a few weeks ago after a life changing experience reaching out to the people of Cebu.

The flight over saw us overnighting in Singapore which was a cool experience! The accommodation there was a little old school, but it was still good to be able to get a good nights sleep after our 7 hr flight.

Saturday Afternoon saw us flying into Cebu Airport and jumping in a van and being driven across the city to our accommodation for the first week. This was a cozy house that was part of a compound that was rented out by the Cebu Missionary Foundation. Then once we were sorted at the compound we jumped back into the van and headed back to the airport… or just next to it to be guests at a Christmas party that a big hotel threw for about 75 children from one of the dump sites that the CMF works in. It was a great night for the kids. Being given a full 3 course meal and small presents from “santa”… also being able to see the lighting of the MASSIVE Christmas Tree that the hotel had standing in their foyer. It was a great night for them and it was a huge blessing to be able to witness this first hand.

The next day was Church. It was a huge difference to see a church of about 40 people just praising God with all that they had. Even though I was hot, sweaty and tired from our previous days travel I couldnt help but be drawn into worship… even though I was the one worship leading. After church we did a tour of the dump sites that CMF work in… It was a big eye opener to see the kids from the previous night at the hotel in such poverty stricken conditions. in tattered clothes and some even in none. Also to see the school houses that the CMF helped to build and run a few days a week.One more Church service at night at a different site saw the day through and even saw us riding in the back of a Jeepney, which is the main/normal transport around Cebu.

The week to follow saw us undertaking many a challenging and growing task, from teaching at their schools of excellence to running bible studies for the womens group and even visiting the Cebu Womens prison. We wrapped presents for the Christmas party and also did more mass feedings at the various sites.

On the Friday night we did a mega feeding program. We started at the Cemetery where we did some skits as well, then we went to Pier 4 to dish up more lougow (loo-gow), then we did a crazy drive through feeding through the worst streets of Cebu handing out lougow, bread and mangoes. It was such a great experience to serve the people and seeing the expressions on their faces as we gave them meals was cool!!

on the middle Saturday we had a day off from the mission stuff and went island hopping. Due to the day being so darn cheap we decided to take a bunch of the local youth from the cemetery with us. These guys were the ones who actually help the CMF with a lot of their feeding programs and stuff. Such a great bunch of guys. Although they cant speak heaps of english they still have a great sense of humor. one of the guys taught me how to do back flips into the water… it was great!! though I havent had an opportunity to try again since being back in Australia.

Aside from feeding programs the week ahead mainly had organisation for the Christmas party scheduled.  we played a few games of Basketball with the boys and got our butts handed to us… lost us 50c in a wager…

on the last Wednesday we had the Christmas party. It was HUGE!!!! From all over Cebu came youth to enjoy the party that the CMF had worked sooo hard to organise.

Thursday was a chilled day of recovery! we also had a surprise thankyou party thrown for us by the CMF… it was a cool night of food and fun!

Friday  we went home… but not before spending 4 hours walking around singapore airport.

All in all it was an amazing trip. God taught all of us sooo much and threw us sooo far out of our comfort zones it wasnt funny. we managed to hold our emotions together pretty well and watched our tempers after such a lack of sleep.

If I can be bothered I might write more later…

So 2 sleeps until I and 9 others go to Cebu in the Philippines!!

WOOT!!

for those that read this pray for safety, good health and strength for the 2 weeks we are away!!

updates to come after!!!

skuba

Isn`t it funny how soooo quickly we jump to our own conclusions! how we find ourselves in a situation and instantly think we know the truth or the answer etc. Or in a situtation that we think we are soooo right about or our emotions are justified.

I`ve been  pondering this very idea the whole judging self righteously and found that we are sooo out of line. Who are we to make such judgment? God didn’t put us on this planet to judge people… let alone HIS people! God has a time and a place where HE’LL judge everyone!! and everyone will get their rewards… whether that be good rewards or bad rewards!! For God is just and fair and gracious!!

We as humans are designed to LOVE. Not condemn. We are called to love and do it unconditionally. That mens we don’t judge others! we don’t jump to our own conclusions! God ahsit all sorted. It’s not worth worry about!!

peace

Skuba

Throughout life we see our personalities come to the surface. We may or may not realize it but our triumphs and failures can often be directed back to the way our personality ticks.

Recently I`ve found that my new beastie, the pulsar, has a certain oil leak. Although it is still covered under its warranty I procrastinated calling the dealer for sooo long for 2 reasons that I only realized yesterday. 1 – I hate conflict… I hate putting my foot down to get what I want. 2 – I just don`t seem to think about the urgency of getting it fixed… I have the mind set of “she`ll be right mate…”

When thinking about it I realized that the two things I mentioned  above went hand in hand in my personality… being mostly phlegmatic I would have procrastinated getting into a conflict because it wasn`t important for me to be in that situation.

I find however in other life situations that I`m turning into more of a sanguine. In a course that I`m going through with a few other peeps from Clovie we were looking at peronalities. After going through this most helpful sheet that gives an idea of all the aspects of each personality (phleg, chol, melan, sang) and how to relate, how to be a leader of each etc etc… I realized that the sanguine personality sums me up more than the phlegmatic does… It might just be time to re-sit the personality test… I may have changed from Phleg sang to sang phleg.

dude… I hate tests.

Skuba

congrats to ya mate!! you`ll probably never read this… but hey.. congrats on ya wedding day… Wishing you all the best for the future that God holds in store for ya!!

Peace

Skuba

I`ve been told before that a male who is in love (or thinks he is) has the same chemical reactions going on in his head as if he had just induced cocaine. Now I`m no drug expert… but I know that doing drugs such as cocaine (or any others for that matter) have a BAD effect on your brain. How can someone say that a “natural” chemical reaction within our brain is like a “damaging” chemical reaction??I`m totally confused by that.

I reckon that having a crush on someone is one of the worst experiences EVER… lol… Like seriously, you think about it. You Like a person (in my case a girl… thank goodness I`m a heterosexual) but you`re not sure if they like you… How freaking scary is that?? not to mention frustrating if they do like you!! If any of you are like me you aren`t all that careless with your heart, you don`t just trust anyone with it… And then someone comes along and you don`t even know if you can offer it to them. Coz you don`t know if they want to take it. AAAaaarrrrgggggghhhhhh…

Like i know I`ve written in previous blogs before about how the guy should show the girl she`s worth the risk etc… but dang its annoying!! I didn`t realize just how hard it would be.

The other side of the coin is, what if they aren`t interested? Quite often i`ve been interested in someone and thought to myself “oh yeh. they must be interested in me too…” and been completely wrong. I know guys have a tendency to flirt… badly… and chicks can often do the same. But then you come across a guy thats really subtle or a chick that doesn`t drop a single hint other than the fact that she talks to you. “do they?” “Don`t they?” its all too hard sometimes… I wish people just had a perfect partner with a matching birth mark or something, but then were would the love come into it? Where would the desire and attraction play apart in the relationship? If we`re all just paired off like a lot of countries do (no offense to you), how can there be that cocaine chemical reaction??

I say LOVE, in all its forms is beautiful. The feeling of appreciation, or affection, or even just acceptance is something worth fighting for. Worth taking risks for… In Jesus’ case, worth dying on the cross for.

I hope for you dear reader that you find this “cocaine”* in your life. By “cocaine” I mean love, affection, acceptance, appreciation, belonging, amor!!

peace

So… after 3 weeks and $200 of wood and screw later… I have a bunk bed!!! oh my goodness its awesome!! Probably one of the first major projects I`ve been involved in creating. I now have a slight understanding of how God felt after creating stuff!! its such a good feeling to stand back after hours of toil and hard yakka and just realize how darn good it looks finished!!

Although I spent a few minutes upon it I am yet to sleep an entire night on it… tonight I will either fall to my demise… (well serious injury at least) or wake to the refreshing feeling of knowing I have to climb DOWN from my bed instead of just rolling out onto the floor hoping my feet hit first to be able to catch the rest of my body!!

It blows my mind sometimes just thinking about Gods creating power!! like I built this bunk bed from wood I bought at the hardware store… designed it all… cut the wood myself (2 cuts dad did… “on ya dad”) and screwed it all together myself!! and dang… its well made!! like sure there are a few discrepancies that I know about… but all in all its a cool, sturdy ( I hope) design!! and then I think about what God built… and think DANG… how good is he at it!! like dude… he created the trees that my bunk is made of! he created the metal that the screws are made of and also all the plastics etc that all my tools are made of!! like our God is AWESOME!!! plus he created me with a creative spark!! and an ability to create works such as my bunk! like dude thats seriously cool! we often forget about the small things that God created. So many times I`ve thought to myself I just made this or i`ve built that… but it`s only been recently that I`ve been realizing that although I fashioned the bits n pieces to be together that way, God created the resources, the abilities, and even the time to be able to do it.

God is the creator of ALL things!! FULL STOP!! like if you`ve made something… He created the stuff you mixed, cut, fastened, welded, stitched, etc etc… to make what you made!! and even then its technically Gods idea anyway… coz he blessed you with the ability to be creative!!

Praise be to God for his AWESOMENESS!!!!

peace

Skuba