my world is how i filter it!

Posted by Teen Bean

wow so tell me how i could get so worked up over one day of teaching!! ha ha this lady named lucy came down for our teaching day today. The topic of conversation Difference: Generalizations and Dualism! I really actually didn't think much of the title but then she started talking i just fell head over heals into this topic. It was very much founded in psychology and the workings of why people do what they do and think they way they do.... which i find absolutely fascinating. 


we spent the first time talking about generalizations and how we from them, how that makes us view the world and what kind of impact that has in what we do. It was so interesting to realize how negative i think of the world and situations. we had to write this list of generalizations down and all mine were grounded in negative thinking... so that was interesting. we also talked a bit about how we came to these generalizations and what would make us "change our minds" on them. I realized how until i really lived through something or tried it for myself i just don't take peoples word for it. Which i thought was so interesting, because where did the original generalizations i get come from? and why do i so readily accept them as the truth and force the opposing side to be actually experience before i were make a judgement? hmmm? it made me realize how stubborn i am and how my stubbornness might not be grounded in as firm of a foundation as i thought!

then we talked about dualism which just completely blew my mind. we did this activity where we had to ask each other to name three songs or movies. then we had to break those three songs into two categories, then we had so explain why we chose to break them into the categories as such, then we had to choose which group we were feeling was more important at the time and why, and then from that we could pick out a certain form of dualism we have accepted. when i did mine i started out naming a pink song, a beyonce song, and a kate nash song and by the end of answering all those question i had made the dualism of independence vs not trusting people!! ha ha it was crazy! but then we talked about how our culture likes to take dualism and make one good and one bad (which in and of itself is a dualism!) but that just isn't the case... so its not necessarily that i think Independence is better over trusting people it was just a thought process i went through!

but the most mind bending statement of the day was when lucy said that "humans can come up with any amount of evidence to make a perception that they want to see true" I was like "WHAT!?!?!" i quickly let my mind try and wrap around it and then realized how true it was. which really made me worry loads about ever perception i have. i started questioning ever relationship i had, ever life situation, ever life decision. I was in over my head. I spent the rest of the day just being completely wow'd by my mind and way afraid to even try and work out what i was feeling! ha ha 

in the end a trip to the prayer house later that evening and a good plain chat with God was so what i needed. I know i talk loads about giving my whole life to God and that being a daily decision. but i just realized that daily i totally do not offer my life over to God as a living sacrifice. In fact i often feel bad when i start to feel all lured back to old thoughts or feelings or world views... when in reality i think its mostly just because i didn't take the time to present myself before christ. I can't tell you how good it felt to pray out my desire to be a living sacrifice. It also so helped to know that i can count on God to be my standard... that even tho my brain can be crazy (and boy can it be crazy) that God isn't! that he knows what he is doing and he doesn't distort or manipulate reality... but he fulfills it! so that was good!

Today i also officially submitted my application to Basildon Hospital to work as a Biomedical Scientist in there Microbiology lab! i am quite excited to see what happens and am thinking on taking a little trip over to see if i can eye out the Lab (i am so interested to see it!). This evening we went and watched the European Football Match between Barcelona and Manchester United! it was so much fun (they say that it quite like the equivalent of the super bowl!) this lovely couple named Andy and Anne had us over to their house and they had loads of yumo food and puddings to eat! Plus i supported Barcelona so in the end i came out on top (much to everyone else's dismay!) 

cheers!

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Pink Flamingo!

Posted by Teen Bean

so thursday i spent the day in woodbridge helping a church there, St. Johns, set up a prayer space for this conference they are having there. its the first time they have adventured into the idea of exploring prayer in different ways, so it was really exciting to go there and help them dream into all the different ways God wants to build relationships with us! We had decided on doing this one prayer space as a big cut out of a tree (3D). we asked our good friend simeon (the local tools man here!) to help us cut out this funky tree that slots together. We then painted it white! (it looked freaking cool and reminded me loads of something Kate Nash would spend a whole song singing about... well as long she fell madly in love with her soul mate near it!! ha ha). so when we rocked up to this church, we are all getting ready to set up our tree, and we discover the logo of this church is the spitting image of the tree we just made! We all were so wowed and really realized that God so wanted us to be involved in setting up this prayer space. For me it really pushed me to give my all to the work that God called me to do.. and Thursday it was this prayer space! it was good!


we stayed the night in woodbridge at this amazing little bed and breakfast (talk about being spoiled!) then rolled home by the afternoon. I then spent the entire afternoon trying to convert these random video files and got so frustrated by my stupidity... it was ridiculous. the only thing that kept my chin up was the fact that that night one of the girls here hannah, was having her 16th birthday party. It was fancy dress (so costumes were a must!) i spent about 45 min getting ready as a pink flamingo! it was hilarious. I found this random pink outfit at one of the charity shots then bought pink hair dye and body paint and just went to town pinkafying myself!! it was great... it looked like a had jumped into a giant tub of pepto bismal! it was priceless! we had loads of fun at the party dancing and laughing and singing out lungs out! 

i have a fairly normal chillaxing day and leave tonight for a weekend camping at this church conference called "The Big Church Day Out". i am so excited to go camping because lets be honest... camping is like my fav! so hannah and i will have quite a fun time driving down there... eee as long as we can find it... which i am sure we will! eeee! 

later 

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They call me Buddha!

Posted by Teen Bean

So last week we (the Stanford boiler house community) had the pleasure of hosting the 24-7 Prayer interns (aka the Wild Geese). Two wonderful girls named Catie and Mandy came for 4 glorious days. Helping host them was an amazing time of just organize and planning and taking care of business (which i absolutely loved getting behind). We had amazing times of just being able to hang out and share stories about God with each other and one day we were able to spend a serious amount of time praying about our futures... which by the way now seems as good of time as any to share a smidge of my future plans. 


So my year out officially ends on July 3rd and I have decided to run with the idea of coming back and living (for real this time) in this prayer community. Being a transit student has been absolutely amazing and hard and horrible and so rewarding. I have enjoyed digging into the nitty gritty of life here, but the fact is that what i have been living has been some weird-sub-mutated form of living. It has been so cool to just live with the whole idea and drive of 24-7 Prayer ministry... but i know that full time ministry (in that way) is only for a season. So i toyed around with the idea of coming back, prayed about it, talked to some of the leaders here and decided that it would be worth a go. 

It actually will be quite challenging getting a visa to get back into the country. there is a large likelihood that i will go through loads of work and then be denied access to the country... which would be fine because even though i would be crushed, from past experiences with God, those moments of being completely thrown off balance have really paid off into getting me where he wants me! so tho there is a small amount of fear in thinking that i have no idea really for sure if i will be back in sept. the one thing i know for sure God wants me to do is to come back and spend the summer in America!!! 

I am well excited to touch American soil again and so excited to be able to spend the 4th of july in the good ol' U.S .of A! I have missed my family loads and feel totally honored and blessed that God would allow me the opportunity to see them.  i also am looking forward to spending time with First Baptist Church and sharing with them the experience and learning that i have been through! God is awesome! Plus we all know this summer is going to rock and roll having the opportunity to hang out with my old crew (damn girls have i missed you all!!! PARTY!!!! oh yes we will! wink wink!) 

This weekend i went through loads of emotions as i was working through actually listening to God... (thanks to good friends who were willing to listen to my mad rantings and extremely long facebook messages (wink!) and even more thanks to God for patiently waiting!!) my emotions have settled down and God really has given me such peace about this decision to come to America for a season. I have no idea if my plans for fall will work out! I can only hope... but being in a place of hope is always safe with God!

Funny story: so Charl, the girl, i live with and i were walking back from our morning prayer slot yesterday and she loves to just pick on me by try to be irritating. This morning it was actually working so i was getting a little huffy with her. So, i started storming off down the street. she was laughing and yelled what i thought sounded like "alright why don't you just run like Buddha"! i was mortified. Buddha!?!? why did she think i look like a small man, that wears only some pathetic loin cloth, and that has a large floppy belly that people rub?!?!?! i turned around at her and yelled "BUDDHA!!! WHY DID YOU SAY THAT!" she tried to defend herself by saying she didn't say that..  and was laughing to much to make me believe anything she was saying. so i just stormed off... all was slightly forgotten (tho every now and again i would remember and would grumble under my breath "Buddha rrrrr") but then the next day we had this huge meeting of all the leaders of the prayer house and we all got together to eat lunch together and just chillax... and supposedly the drama that we had... happened at such a loud leave that one of the neighbors (who also happen to be one of the head leaders of the Boiler House) heard the whole thing... so they ended up telling everyone that Charl calls me "Buddha"... it was sooo embarrassing! who wants to be know as the Buddha of the group! i was so mad a charl... and she just kept laughing!! ha ha! good thing this year i have learned about turning the other cheek! shheezzz!

love and kisses! 6 more weeks of england and then America beware!!

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Posted by Teen Bean

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blood and fire... nah Neil and Eric be where its at!!

Posted by Teen Bean

so for the past two days we (as the transit girls) have gone up to sunburry ct (in london somewhere... and only 20 min from Windsor castle for what i learned today!) to garden for the Salvation Army. Now the Salvation Army is an organization that i just don't understand. i wont get into all of it because i don't understand all of it... but the bottom line is that i just don't like the way they push structure so much. I know they are really trying to encourage people to just dig into the discipline of God, but to me its just to wear this uniform, stand up, sit down, shine your shoes, sing this hymn... ok now you can go to heaven. I totally know this is being way to judging on them, but its just the way i am. 


so it doesn't help at all that we go to this salvation army "headquarter/ retreat center" and just have to serve them. it just pushes my buttons in more ways then one. Plus they never really know what to do with us... so you know how you go somewhere and people don't know what to do with you so they find you busy work... yeah that is how i feel there most the time. And its a freaking long haul there as well. This one woman that works "the grounds" just wonders around checking up on us... and every time i see her headed our way i physically have to remind myself not to break multiple of the 10 commandments. 

to say the least... i wasn't looking forward to these two days in the least. But sense starting my last term here i really want to give my whole heart to all the things we are asked to do... all the things we are asked to do lots of times includes things i really don't want to... but i just want to have a better servants heart about it. monday night as we are preparing for bed i sit and just pray to God that we could just have some amount of joy over the next two days.... Little did i know.

so we arrive at Sunbury Court and are greeted by two normal but slightly quirky looking older gentlemen. They introduced themselves as Neil and Eric... Yorkshire men.. not Englishmen as i was later corrected on! The next two days we spent working along side these two guys was one of the most educations and inspirational. These guys have been friends for over 60 years. They had such good laughs with each other and equally took such good digs at each other they had me in bits most the time i was there. At one moment I was working along side Eric, fondly digging a little whole for my flower to go in, singing my heart out (to my favorite beyonce song "to the left") and Eric just stopped digging and looked over at me and with all seriousness asked "do you know how to whistle..." I fell to the ground laughing... i mean this guy had hearing aids in both his ears and my voice was to much for him... it was beautiful. 

Neil i think by the end of the two days became my hero. He was a tell like he sees it guy. He had such a servants heart... just giving his all to making these gardens for the salvation army look prize worthy... but that didn't stop him from voicing his opinion on everything from the misplacing of certain buildings to the laziness of certain grounds keepers. I loved the way he challenged authority and had no regard for worthless rules. There was a sign posted above a table of books that read "please feel free to help yourself to anything that interest you"... he said he went into the manager and said that we would take the chandelier (he show us the £6500 chandelier in one of the dinning rooms... it was incredible and ridiculous!)... the manager just looked at him dumbfounded and then Neil explained himself and the manager just stumbled over his words as he explained the sign was for the books on that table... I just laughed out loud! my kind of guy... clever! 

so in between gardening and laughing and joking... i realized how great God is to be good enough to me to answer my prayer for a good day... and who would have thought it would have come through the wonderful personalities of Neil and Eric... a classic "pinky and the brain" duo if i ever saw one! cheers

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back in the swing

Posted by Teen Bean

so its good to get back into the thick of life here in corringham. just being able to walk to the store for salad and bumping into kids that want to chat about life or have you meet their parents just confirms in more ways than one that God is on the move.


today i was standing in my bedroom looking out at our town (as i was waiting for charl to get her butt off my laptop!! wink) and as i stood there, i saw two kids from bar n bus that i see ever week, then a guy walked by that i knew from one of the local pubs, then another man that gemma and i had the pleasure of praying with randomly during a moment of spiritual attack popped by; all the while normal everyday life of corringham was buzzing around us. Families where lining up at the corringham hall for karate lessons, council workers were going about business, cars zipping by... and it really made me realize how to anyone it might not look like were are doing much... but to God we are making all the difference in the world. 

yesterday i had the pleasure of sitting with my four man team of transit and plan out the last two months of our time here. we have much to do... from helping set up prayer room in Woodridge (the first time this community of believers steps out in this way... so we are all really excited for the potential there), to church camping trips, preparing bible lesson, organizing corporate prayer, creating welcome packs, getting involved with youth mentoring... the work here is endless and beautiful and wonderful! Our community as a whole has really felt the challenge to get out into our community. there is a time to come into the prayer room and fill that space and equally there is a time to step out of the prayer room and into the community. One of the ways we are thinking of doing this is choosing a local pub (hopefully the most dodging in town) and just going there once or twice a week and hanging out and getting to know the staff and the locals and just simply share life with them. I am actually quite excited about this because our community does an amazing job reaching out to the youth in our community (we are good at that) but a challenge to us would be to start reaching out to the 20-30 year olds in our town... there is a huge lack of that age in our community... and its time for us to listen to how God is calling out to them! wow am i excited to see where God takes this!

I think over the next two month what i am most looking forward to (besides my sister&cousin and Sarah&Julie visits!) is just taking responsibility for my faith and the work we have here. I am going to start mentoring some youth here and tho that scare the sheez out of me i think its time to stop letting fear in my weaknesses control me and let Gods strength finally do a good work through me! A good friend told me that i have this way of drawing people in and that means that i have a "bit of responsibility to live well"... (deep breath) I'm ready for some well living! 

I also get to help plan some stuff that the community will build on next year and it feel amazing to invest into this coming up next year! But what i think i am most excited about is really digging into this idea of doing church with out a building. How can we do church in corringham with out a building, with out the prayer house, with out our house, with out our garage. we keep saying that God, the church, the body isn't found in a building... and i know we all know that and we do function like that... but ... BUT how are we showing that to the people in our community? to them we still our running back to our buildings, our church, our prayer house, our garage... we interact with them and then say we are taking what we chatted about with them "back with us". i want to be challenged to cut that out of our routine. to stop taking what we experience with them back and to just experience church with them on the street... in completely simple but intentional ways! i have no idea how this looks... and it scares me because we are totally going to have to rely on God to make this work (shock... big gasp... what living in faith...NO!!) YES, FINALLY!!!!

so i look forward to letting you know how it goes... cheers peeps! 

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aprils gone!?!? what the heck!

Posted by Teen Bean

so i can't believe that april is so gone. two weeks in amsterdam, one week at a kiroas, one week in ibiza... and finally back in england. i missed it soo much here it was scary! but it was amazing to come home to good friends and with new kindled passion for the mission we have here in england!


so a little update on ibiza. the island was just incredible. we got to spend a good amount of time walking the streets praying for the bars, pubs, clubs, workers, prostitutes, and business. It was so powerful to join the prayer team there that by the end of the week i was sad to leave because i wanted to stay and see how our prayers were answered!! We also got to spend a lot of time farming. The 24-7 team there in ibiza just started renting this gorgeous and hugmungo house and they are starting to farm it as well. we spent the better part of two days just digging into the ground, pulling weeds, and connecting our physical work of gardening to the spiritual work of gardening. it was incredible. plus every now and again i would just stop working (all freaking dirty and sweaty) and just look out at the most amazing view ever of two mountains, soft valleys, and an unbelievable sight of the ocean. it was breath taking. we also spent one night worshiping God in the club. which was so amazing and different from anything i had ever done before. it surprised me how easy it was to worship God there. the team did an amazing job preparing us for all that we had to do that week and in the end it really payed off!

we got home on saturday and were just completely knackered! but i refused to let any sort of physical weariness stop me. The 3 year out guys (john, james, and steve) all leave this week for their "overseas mission" part of their year. its been a weekend of extreme happy-sadness if i ever had one. i am so excited for them to be able to adventure out into the world with the mission of taking what they have learned about God and blessing the nations, but at the same time i selfishly am quite irritated that they would dare think of leaving me at such an emotionally vulnerable time! how rude! 

oh i'm also stressing because this week... in fact in like 2 hours i have to make a life decision about what i am doing next year. i have an interview with the school i was thinking about doing my masters degree at... and more than anything i want to go through with this interview... but it just seems sooo wrong. i can't put my finger on it! its times like this that i die for people like Laura and Sarah that i could just vent my entire life to! oh the need to vent! what can i say i process externally... its a curse not a gift!

so in between crying my eye out and laughing when i remember the good time... i also had an amazing day just getting back to the everyday life of transit! i got to serve at the boiler house today and i absolutely loved just tidying the house. no one else was there and I just blasted my music and went ah-lah-crazy on cleaning the house... it felt way good! then i went over and help this lady named lisa plan out a prayer room that we are going to help this church in this little english town (suffux or something like that) set up... i am so excited because setting up prayer rooms is actually one of my favorite things of this year out! the theme is "Alive to God" so should be fairly solid i say!

ok well i will write later... maybe when not in such an emotional state and then maybe my blog will come out a little less scattered and a lot more focused! sorry my bad! 

KISSES and rockstar wave!

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