rebel against the box

hey everybody...it´s been five days since i was last near a computer and it´s been totally crazy.
i have been to three parties, preached on intimacy and song of songs, was massaged with oranges by the youth, and have managed to win the hearts of the people here.
it´s totally insane.
i miss you all very much and my one question is why have my housemates not emailed me???????
anyway, i have to run but thought i would mention that i´m very much alive, god is speaking to me a lot, and i´m off tonight on a 9 hour bus ride through chile to the south. i´m off to see the mountains and volcanoes and hot springs. to say i´m excited is an understatement.
chao!

hey guys,
here i am in chile... still can´t believe it. guess i should get over that, eh? where to start...umm...flights here were good. although it took me 11 hours longer than anticipated cause i got stranded in dallas. after a 10 hour flight from london to dallas i was actaully kinda grateful for a free night and meal in the sheraton overnight while they fixed my airplane for the next morning. was actaully kinda giddy...never been in the sherton before. met this crazy french couple..he ended up being this professional artist guy who took a shine to me. he thought i look like an angel...i didn´t complain. his partner didn´t seem to bothered so all was ok. :) his work turned out to be pretty amazing. they were on their way to peru to do an exibition. he showed me some of his work...incredible.
so after another 9 and a half hours i arrived in chile. flew over the mountains...amazing sunset. very impressed.

claudia´s cousin(prima) (a little spanish for ya) picked me up and knew about 5 words of english...so coffee was very quiet. but she was really sweet. caludia was speaking at another church that night so i didn´t actaully see her until a few hours later. her english was a lot better than i had remebered it...she´d been practicing i think. noone else speaks english here so i found the first few days really hard...and really lonely. but yesterday and today i have had a lot of fun withthe youth. we are doing 24-7 prayer here at the moment, finish on friday when i have to praeach. really nervous but god has been speaking to me a lot about what i´m goingt o say and so i´m actually kinda looking forward to it...but still more nervous tan anything else. i hate speaking. anyway...the youth here are relaly aninspiration to me cause they are there every night all night praying in sifts and sleeping . real community. they love me too, and so weve been trying to teach each other words in english and spanish. i broke the ice with talking about music...mentioned coldplay and u2 and that was it...we were all friends. they now have me writing out the words to english songs and then we spend the next few hours looking through my little spanish -english dictionary trying to translate. this is how i imagine the old school bible translaters used to feel. you´re not quite sure if the message is getting there but you have a lot of fun in the meantime. im´beginning to discover that a few of the teenagers know more englishthan they had previously let on. i´m really loving them all and it will be hard to leave them
they think i´m totally gorgeous as well which helps. ha ha my blonde hair(well compared to theirs they call it blonde...whatever) and blue eyes are a hit. funny.
the culture is relaly different here obviously...but the first few days were really hard. i´m a lot better now, mainly cause i´ve built relationaships with people here. it´s hard work cause of the language barrrior but it´s still so possible. if i didn´t have those little phrase books and dictionalries tho i would have been totally lost. they love the fact that i can rool my r´s when i talk. they get me to repeat words to them all the time and i know they are probably making me say really stupid things but i don´t care...it´s all a joke. chileans do ahave a sense of humour. thanks the lord. it´s my saving grace.
i was up all night last night in the prayer room with 17 teenagers. crazy stuff. actually havent prayed that long in forever, but ti was cool. very tired tho. claudia reminds me of me so much its crazy. we lead similar lived totally but just in completely different cultures. weird to see. i even managed to get dragged a long to a chilean leaders lunch in santiago city centre yesterday. and watched her shmooze around afterwards like i used to have to do with all the church leaders, networking and making coffee apoointments. really funny.. i ca´t seem to escape that stuff. aahhh. anyway,
gotta run but just thought i´d let youall know that overall i´m great...although its their winter here and so i´m freezing!!!!! totally didn´t pack right, so i´mborrowing stuff...and had to buy SOCKS the other day! i hate socks. i find that hilarious. so there will be no tan for me.
after 24-7 finishes on friday then i will be totally freee to go exploring with claudia some more of hte country. i´m going to pay for both her and i(things are very cheap) to go on a road trip..to the beach, the hot springs, the mountains and the south of the country whereit´s the most beautiful part of the nation apparently. really excited about that.
love you all who are reading this, and miss ya loads guys.
oz (that nickname has even managed to catch on here...crazy!)

faith seems to be a key word in my life...and i have a feeling like it's not just a phase or a season. it's not something that i'm working on only for the moment. i have this scary but exciting feeling that my life is meant to be one big faith walk. thats why chile is panning out. it's so much more than just a trip to chile...it's a test. i really feel like this is going to change my life. that i'm going to be asked to do things that will have implications on the rest of my life. that it's going to be an example of how god wants me to live my life. and that it's going to be about god...entirely. i have 590 pounds raised(mostly all from friends who don't have any money either). thats a miracle to me already. i don't have flights yet and every time i think i may have found a lead they turn out to be too expensive or the wrong dates. but i have come to the end of myself and i have to trust. this is what it's all about. i know i'll get there cause i believe god's said that it will happen. i have to totally follow his lead on this now. go on the dates he wants me to go, and believe him for the money that it will cost. it kinda feels like the elijah story in the old testament tho. where he tells his servant dude to go and look for clouds (even tho the sky was clear) and he had to send him back 7 times until he actually saw them. but this time i'm having to keep looking for flights when the money isn't there. but tme is near.

i think i'll be in chile this time next week. c'mon!!

this weekend was amazin'!! on saturday night a bunch of us girlies from the community got together to chill out, pray and figure out a bit more this journey that we're on with God...together. wasn't sure what would happen really but knew that it would be good...which is a change for me cause my attitude towards prayer and God-stuff in the last several months has been the opposite to say the least. but me and God are making progress together and what i'm loving is the fact that it's turning into something really real, and it's going to go really deep. this i'm confident of. so saturday night was extra amazing cause it was a time for the chicks to really learn how to be open and honest and vulnerable with eah other in a community setting. learning how to be church/community, learning how to fight spiritual battles corporately, learning how to run after God together, learning how to intercede together, and learning how to love Him together. learning how everything about our lives affects the Body/Church. whether we think it does or not it does....so in many ways we haev a duty to each other and to the Church to be vulnerable. to share our lives. the good and the bad. its something that none of us seem to natually be good at. its probably our society that doesn't encourage it, but its so important. it was so cool to see everyone share and pray and give opinions and not rely on one person to lead. we were all in it together.

then last night was another intense time of prayer. this time a prayer school in the city. i almost didn't go cause i'm so 'out of shape' that i didn't know if i could do another night of intense God stuff. but matt, cate and anna convinced me otherwise and i went. it was intense but it was cool. the whole thing about learning to pray by praying was the theme of the night. there was no teacher but the holy spirit himself. and i think it's fair to say that we all learnt something. there was definately something of god there that wasn't there before. the city seems to be moving towards him. personally i felt like there was some closure on the last two years of what i've been doing in terms of prayer in the city. that God was saying thanks. and that now a new season was breaking out. whew! anyway it was fun just to enjoy his presence, put on the armor and make a little differnce in the heavens....or something like that.

feeling like i'm going somewhere with god... like the old has gone and the new has come. everyday i feel something else. everyday i feel like i'm moving closer to him. mainly little steps but they are very real ones. and it's quality not quantity that i hope to apply to every part of my life...especially my relationship with god. after christmas when i think it's fair to say that i entered into a wilderness that was going to last for quite some time i remember saying that when i come out the other side of this i want things to be eternally different...and i know now that that is possible.

"God is the original initiator of love. Before you ever began seeking Him, He was pursuing you." - S.J.Hill

things for my trip to chile are progressing. i've managed to raise 430 pounds so far. over half way there. most of this has come from friends here. they are teaching me everyday what it means to live in community and how to support one another and carry one another in our dreams and giftings. it's amazing. it's church. two of my friends came around my house today unexpectidly just as i was finishing my cleaning rampage in the house. they had been praying and chatting about me going to chile and felt like there were some things that they needed to pray through with me. so we went down to the prayer room in the cellar. what came out of it i'm still trying to process but here's a little bit of what i did understand. i had dissappointments that were himdering the flow of receiving that was needed to get me to chile. this trip is about so much more than just a trip to chile...it's about faith, about trusting god for the things he's said and taking risks despite it seeming completely impossibe. but i was so afraid to trust god for this cause over the past 9 months little dissappointments and unanswered prayers and dreams began to weaken and damage my faith. i was too afraid to trust. we prayed through this today and i feel a peace that god's doing something.... maybe strengthening me and my faith. here's hoping!

my housemates have created a prayer room in the cellar of our house. it's an old cellar with uneven brick walls, cement floor, and the smell of having been very lived in. i find it funny how the outworkings of the heart and soul are so strong that they can't be hindered or stifled. sometimes our actions don't quite make sense or there seems to be no rhyme or reason to them but we find ourselves doing them anyway. i think thats the case with this prayer room... there is something within us that can't be helped but be drawn to god. the pull doesn't make sense but it doesn't go away. even when our anger, dissillusionment, frustration or fear holds us back from fullness...there is still this pull towards the one who loved us first. this desire to be intimate with him and know him and to truely be called a friend of god drives us to keep chasing after him. in this case it was creating a space. despite the damp and the cold we come to him, kneel, stand, cry, laugh...whatever it is....as long as it's with him.

i'm in this weird state of anxiety at the moment. it's like the feeling you get when you're on a rollar-coaster and you've just gone over the drop. i wish this feeling was as care-free as that one but it's not. it comes from wanting to believe god for what he's said...to have his word be enough, and to have the faith to believe it without question....but yet within me there is this fear that he won't follow through. that i'll have got it wrong. that my faith will be shattered even more. and that god's credit will diminish.

i really believe that chile is right. that i'm meant to go. and yet i have 5 days until i thought i would be leaving and i still have 500 pounds to raise and plane tickets to purchase. it really will take a miracle. my faith is really being put to the test...and yet somehow that was part of the reason for me going to chile in the first place. hmmmm....

The titanium string of hope....

"Out of the shadows a ladder was let down: it was made of rope, silver-grey and glimmering in the dark, and though it looked slender it proved strong enough to bear many men." - The Lord of the Rings

i'm staying in manchester...well at least past september. i don't know why it was so hard to make that decision but it was. even with knowing that it's a god thing, i'm still really hesitant to say the words. maybe because if next year is anything even remotely like this past year has been i won't survive. but i'm clinging to this titanium string of hope that things will be different. the string should have broke a long time ago but it hasn't. (i'm beginning to see why god created me as stubborn and determined as he did!)

i was sitting in a cafe the other day cause i needed to chat with god...seem to find him quickly in places like this. needed to know whether to stay here and if so what that would mean, etc. a real heart to heart. deep calls to deep thing i suppose. well...he reminded me of something that happened to me 8 years ago. thats never happened before, where he brings something up from the past to answer something in the present. it was the summer of '95 and i was in belize on missions...diggin' away, pouring concrete, laying foundations for a sunday school room in the local village. the only problem was that we never got even close to finishing what we went out there to do. even with one of the largest teams of the summer we only managed to begin building up the walls about a week before we left for home. the task was just too large for what we had anticipated. in many ways i feel like these last two years have been digging and digging and pouring foundations and wrestling with the land...and that september will bring a new, fresh season where the building up will begin. the boiler room as we know it has died and gone into the ground...the new will sprong up out of that. that had to happen. and i really want to be a part of this process and i feel like its okay to be a part of that process.

i 'm asking myself why i want to be. why not just leave and travel and get a job somewhere in a country that will let me work. cause it would be a lot easier to leave and not be a part of it all. but for some reason i can't. it must be a god thing. a bigger purpose and strategy that i can't quite understand yet. cause the frustration that i feel every day with the church in manchester, the city, even this culture sometimes... (i could go on but i'm tired of being negative)...it's enough to drive me off the deep end.

but... i do believe that god has something in store. that change is near, that those promises he said meant something. that his words haven't fallen to the ground. that things WILL be different. that answers will come, and that intimacy and adventure IS possible.

oh yeah...i think i;m going to chile in a week. really need the time away to test some things god's been chattin to me about, build my faith and help out a friend. need money tho...there's a shock!