Saga of the passport - part 2

My replacement birth certificate arrived this morning...praise the Lord....except....my Dad has now lost my application for for my passport which has been countersigned, has a covering letter from me, the police and a cheque for £51 in it....So tonight is to be spent filling in another form.

Am I meant to go on holiday?!?!?!?!?

I feel a bit like this tree today....rooted in God but a bundle of I don't know what on top

It's amazing how memories can wash over you in an instant.

I went to my Dads for lunch in the hope that I'd be able to search out my Birth Certificate. Dad (as i'm sure every parent has) has some metal boxes at the bottom of his wardrobe with all important documentation in....(you'd have thought I'd have had the brains to leave my passport and certificate there!).... There were 3 boxes all together and the wealth of memories, and intimacy in those boxes overwhelmed me.

There were 3 bibles that had been given to my mum; one from the 1950's given to her on the 150th anniversary of the church she went to, there was another given to her by a friend in 1962 and another given on her wedding day by the minister that married her and Dad. There were love letters mum and dad had written to one another in the early days of their courtship as Dad had worked as a lorry driver and was away from home a lot. There were school reports for both myself and my brother, a letter I'd written home from brownie camp that was written to "Mr John Hugh Jones, Mrs Eirwen Valerie Jones and Mister Robert Gareth Jones" saying I was having "a bit of a goodtime" but that I'd asked if mum and dad could come and pick me up as I'd "cryed all the first night". There were condolence cards and letters written after mum had died and a box full of her jewellery.

Her engagement and eternity rings were there along with a pearl necklace that dad bought her for their 25th wedding anniversary but that she'd never got the chance to wear. Her nurses watch was also there from when she was a nurse over 14 years ago that still keeps great time. There were all of my brothers adoption papers there.You could almost feel all the memories rising fom the boxes as I opened them; I'd loved to have had an afternoon to go through everything.

I decided to take some of mums jewelery so that I could wear it; I'd left the rings there thinking I'd use them for when I'd get married but have decided now that when i do I would like new rings. I also took a necklace that had been hers, a yellow gold one with a crucifix on it....I can clearly remember her wearing it now. It was amazing looking at the rings...I can remember trying them on as a child, sitting next to my mum and holding onto her hand with the wedding ring on it.....sitting on the bed as she'd be getting ready for a night out and watching her put her make-up and jewelery on....so many memories that had been tucked away.....I missed her so much as they washed over me....wondered what she'd make of me now.....would she agree with my faith or be wary of it like my dad. My housemate asked me whether I felt like this daily; a dull ache of missing her...but I don't daily. That my sound harsh but I think it's the only way that I can get through life. I'm aware that there is a huge part of my life missing on it but I wonder whether I'd get up every day if I had this dull ache within me....I think thats why it comes as a shock and knocks me for 6 when incidents like this do happen and I miss her so much.

Don't really know what these thoughts mean, just wanted to put them down somewhere and what better place than here......I'm beginning to wonder whether anyone but me reads this page ;-)

OK...my week; not going well......

Not only have a lost my passport (and been a lazy bum as I've known this for months and am only just sorting it out now!) but I also seem to have mislaid my birth certificate. Of course now they need my birth certificate to issue me a new passport.....yet I think the birth certificate is whereever my old passport is......plus, the Post Office who do a check and send service on passports is now insisting that I have a police incident number from when I reported my passport lost (which I never did!!)...of course the police are saying that this is silly and that it doesn't need to be reported......and I travel to America in 11 weeks time.

If I get a passport by this time, it'll be a miracle!!

Sunset this evening; beautiful!

 

Well, I'm now nice and clean and back in the land of the living. It was such a great week; the weather wasn't too bad, the youth were well behaved and such a blessing and there were a number of giggles along the way also. Sadly there are few photos that I'm able to post as the youth are in most of them and you have to have had their parents permission to post them.

Anyway here are a couple of the big tent that we had the main services in.

Before everyone came into the big tent. I have a video clip of people rushing in to get to the front 40 minutes before it even started....madness but so cool!

Anyway it was a fab week, saldy am still shattered and not feeling the best...the weather here is more like October than August!

When I can't fit into my jeans any more, I will know that the reason is I drank one of these "chocolate mountain" drinks every night which were hot chocolate, cream and marchmallow.

The weather was bonkers. We never really had it hot, but one minute it'd be just a little cloudy with the sun coming through then it would literally change into storm weather with the clouds just brusting. They'd forecast showers but this was so much more than that!! It just poured down the roof of the big top tent, inside and out sometimes!!

I'm tired,

I smell,

I need a meal not cooked outdoors,

I need my bed.....

But it was an awesome week at Soul Survivor...I'm just glad to be back in civilisation!!

Off to the shower now!!

Below is an e-mail that I received this morning from one of my work colleaugues. This is for everyone that works in an office environment and receives these silly e-mails everyday or even if you just get them on your private e-mails. I've never been one for forwarding these e-mails but I have seen how it can have a hold on people and they truly believe that if they don't forward it something bad will happen to them

**To ALL of U: Thanks for the E:MAILS...**

I must send my thanks to whoever sent me the one about rat poop in the glue on envelopes because I now have to use a wet towel with every envelope that needs sealing.

Also, now I have to scrub the top of every can I open for the same reason.

I no longer have any savings because I gave it to a sick girl (Penny Brown) who is about to die in the hospital for the 1,387,258th time.

I no longer have any money at all, but that will change once I receive the $15,000 that Bill Gates/Microsoft and AOL are sending me for participating in their special e-mail program.

I no longer worry about my soul because I have 363,214 angels looking out for me, and St. Theresa's novena has granted my every wish.

I no longer eat KFC because their chickens are actually horrible mutant freaks with no eyes or feathers.

I no longer use cancer-causing deodorants even though I smell like a water buffalo on a hot day.

Thanks to you, I have learned that my prayers only get answered if I forward an email to seven of my friends and make a wish within five minutes.

Because of your concern I no longer drink Coca Cola because it can remove toilet stains.

I no longer can buy gasoline without taking a man along to watch the car so a serial killer won't crawl in my back seat when I'm pumping gas.

I no longer use cling film in the microwave because it causes cancer.

And thanks for letting me know I can't boil a cup water in the microwave anymore because it will blow up in my face...disfiguring me for life.

I no longer receive packages from UPS or FedEx since they are actually Al Qaeda in disguise.

I no longer answer the phone because someone will ask me to dial a number for which I will get a phone bill with calls to Jamaica,// //Uganda, Singapore, and Uzbekistan.

Thanks to you, I can't use anyone's toilet but mine because a big brown African spider is lurking under the seat to cause me instant death when it bites my butt.

And thanks to your great advice, I can't ever pick up �5.00 I dropped in the parking lot because it probably was placed there by a sex molester waiting underneath my car to grab my leg.Oh, and don't forget this one either!

I can no longer drive my car because I can't buy gas from certain gas companies!

If you don't send this e-mail to at least 144,000 people in the next 70 minutes, a large dove with diarrhea will land on your head at 5:00 PM this afternoon and the fleas from 12 camels will infest your back, causing you to grow a hairy hump. I know this will occur because it actually happened to a friend of my next door neighbor's ex-mother-in-law's second husband's cousin's beautician...

Have a wonderful day....

One thing that really winds me up is people who have an opinion yet it is so completely uninformed and unsubstantive that it borders on ignorance. What winds me up even more is when this opinion is given with passion and vigour as if that is going to make the argument any more true or correct.

Sadly there are some people that I have met this morning (I won't say in what context in case by some major fluke they read this!) that are exactly like this. This morning I was listening to the news on the radio with shivers going down my spine as they described how Heathrow is currently closed to check-ins due to the stringent demands on checking in overwhelming thier lack of staff and the fact all other airports in the UK have banned all hand luggage except documentation and small wallet/purse....no MP3 players, books, extra set of clothes, glasses case etc. Later I listened from afar to a conversation as one person said that the stringent checks and banning of hand luggage were "pathetic" and all the blame should go on "Mr Blair and Mr Bush".

Firstly do you really think that the victims of 9/11 in New York or 7/7 in London would have thought these precautions were "pathetic" if they knew it was going to halt the terrorsits as much as is humanly possible. Though I would sigh and be disappointed that the trolly load of hand luggage I normally take on such as books, games, music etc would have to go in the hold, I would be thankful that these rules were in place to protect me. Aaahhh, what is wrong with people! I am thankful that I don't know the full story, otherwise I may never go anywhere again!

Secondly, what a narrow minded view that it's all Mr Bush and Mr Blairs fault. Now I am no major patriot. I am proud to be British but know that the sun does not shine out of our PrimeMinisters bum and have become slightly exasperated with his antics of late (a conversation where it was obvious he has no backbone in conversing with Mr Bush, no denounciation of Israel's bloody attacks, rocketing house prices, ailing health and education system) but I know that there is so much more to what these terrorists hate than just 2 individuals in the spotlight. It's an attack on our democracy, and on our freedom. A statement, by killing hundreds of people, saying 'remember us, you can't bully us like you think'. I know that some of the choices that our governments have made have not been the best (eg Afghanistan, where has that got us. The Taliban is still active, we don't know when our soldiers will come home, there are still casualities and deaths there and as we take over from the American troops in the South there is more of a risk of attacks and deaths) and we've antagonised other countries but when misinformed people spout there opinion to everyone else these other people take it on as their own and the truth gets diluted a little bit more again. I mean these 20 people that have been arrested over night (apparently it was 10 flights they were targetting) were British!! Surely this says something about our country, not just the past 10 years that Blair has been in power!

It does worry me the world we live in today. The other segment on the news was about highly enriched urnanium that was removed from a research lab in Warsaw by American, Russian and Polish officials and taken to Russia to be made safe. This was so that it wouldn't fall into the hands of terrorists who could make a nuclear missile out of it.

They say that we have been put on high alert for a terrorist attack; surely we are on a state of high alert constantly now with the world that we live in.

I took this picture last week at Tryweryn. The history is that water was needed for the city of Liverpool so a compulsory purchase was passed in Parliament, much to the disagreement of Welsh members, that the valley of Tryweryn and the village of Capel Celyn would be bought and flooded to create a reservoir for the people of Liverpool. There was much protest but sadly the purchase and creation of the reservoir went ahead. When it's been a particularly hot summer you can walk down into the shallow end of the reservoir and around the footings of the Chapel and of the Post Office. You can also still see the graffiti on the stones telling the English to leave Welsh land alone. There is an air of sadness and remorse in the area. I find it a sad reflection of the relationship between the English and the Welsh...the perception that the English subdue the Welsh and that the Welsh are nationalists who despise the English. This is the the doorway of the new chapel that has been built on the side of the reservoir. Sadly the water wasn't low enough that you would see the buildings but I got this great photo from inside the chapel looking out over the water. It spoke to me of so much....darkness and light...a path to follow...hope for a better future....

I pray the people of Wales find that hope in God and God alone...that the bitterness, the burden of self deprication they carry would be cast off...that life and fullness of life would come to this beautiful countryside again.

My week

It's been such a great week and God has blessed me in so many ways.

Last Thursday I managed to catch up with a friend that I haven't seen for a couple of months, Catherine. We went round to Sharons house and had an evening of nibbles and chat. Catherine got there around 8:30 and I thought 'Well I've got work in the morning, I'll leave about 10:30 and that'll have given us a good 2 hours to talk'. Those of you that know me know I can talk the hind legs off a donkey...couple this with 2 wonderful friends who can also do this and before we knew it it was midnight....I dragged myself home and 5 and 1/2 hours after climbing into bed I got up for work!!

Friday was also great. Anne who cooks dinner for me every Thursday came to me for dinner as I'd been unable to go the evening before. She brought me flowers, which was very touching and then helped me weed the backyard!! How awesome is she!! It reminded me how we work together, in fellowship with God and one another. What ever our age, background etc, He calls us to work together for His kingdom.

The photo above I took on Saturday. I went over to Liverpool to spend the day with Rachael and we went to Lyme Park in Stockport for the day. It was lovely, Rachael had never been there before and as she is a fellow Pride and Prejudice fan she wanted to see where they'd filmed part of the series. Rachael loves ducks and I'd been puzzling over what to buy her for the house. Anyway there's a company called d.c.u.k that do wooden carved ducks and in the giftshop there was one there called Lewis, Rachaels surname. I knew I couldn't pass this up and now Lewis lives in her living room!!

Sunday I had a Eleri and Mirraelle over to lunch. Eleri has only been coming to our church a few months and I haven't had an oppurtunity to have a good chat to her, so this was a really good oppurtunity for a chat without having to rush off anywhere.

Monday was the bowling trip as I'd put about below....am still shocked by my score, thats a miracle for me!!

Tuesday Rachael and Helen came over for a Chinese. I am so envious of the summers they have planned. Helen is off to Belarus with Samaritans purse to work with young children in a camp and Rachael is off to Peru with Oak Hall/Scripture Union to help build an orphanage and see some of the country....hmmm would love to be doing something like that next summer.

Then last night I went to the cinema to see Pirates of the Caribbean with Kathy and Mike. They treated me as I'd helped Kathy out with some stuff last week. All this and I still somehow worked my 40 hours in the office!!

God has truly blessed me, all these people in my life and the great times and laughs that we have together. One friend has said that I'm not allowed to make her laaugh anymore as she laughs so much she ends up wheezing with her asthma!!

Don't know if you guys wanted to know all that (probably not ;-P) but I was aware that the enemy was beginning to wheedle his way back in with his lies about who I am and what people think of me. I suppose I needed to document my week to truly see how great God is and how much he blesses me. Also how He calls me to be a blessing to others.

A group of us went bowling last night and had such fun!

For the first time ever I got over 100, a score of111! I was so chuffed and managed to get 4 spares and 1 strike. Such fun.....I was still beaten by someone else but I'm not bitter!! What was lovely was there was a whole array of people there, different backgrounds, families, ages....We went onto Old Orleans afterwards to have fajita's for dinner which were deliciously spicey. A lady who came, is 8 & 1/2 months pregnant and there were a few concerns that the spicyness of the food would bring on labour but she was OK :-)

I miss the heat. I winged about it being to hot but now that the clouds, rain and coolness of a normal British summer are here I miss the sunshine.....hopefully it'll be back soon.