I thought it was bout time that I updated everyone on the life of the Lawton Mafia... Jr.Edition.
It has now been 5 months that we have been living with our neighbour Tracy... Neighbour isn't a strong enough word for this woman. She has become so much more to Steve and I. She really has gone out of her way over the last 5 months to show Steve and I what true hospitality, friendship, care-FULL-ness and love really is. I feel like I have gained a new family member and the way Steve and I get to attend her family gatherings so naturally, is truely priceless. I never expected to fall so madly and deeply in love with her and even though Steve and I are really excited to move to the community house, it will be with heavy hearts and many tears that we leave Tracy's. She truely is a Legand. She even would endure dinners with us when we invited over our favorite little neighbour Amara!
Steve and I have had an epic summer holiday. We started July off with a TREAT. We finally saved enought money to buy ourselves a new car. We were really proud of this because it meant that we actually had to talk about money and be adult-ish in our lives... and getting the car seemed to be a mark of success that perhaps we are becoming mature and capable adults.
At the end of July we got to take a mini Vay-Kay to the English Channel Island of Guernsey. Steve and I were really happy to go back to the site of our honeymoon and laugh as we rememembered what it was like being first married and totally gob smacked with each other. We did a lot of island smooches. And we got to go wedding dress shopping (well the girls, the boys went fishing) with Steve's little sister Hannah, who went and fell in love with a Guernsey Boy. She gets married next September! love weddings!
A week after that we packed up our, new to us, car and hit the road. We had 14 days and we decided to go on an road trip through France and Spain. Sprance or Frain.... whatever you prefer. It was such a quality time of being together and learning about what we both appreciate out of life. I think as a Christian, soon to be leader of a communal house, the thing that struck me most about our journey was learning that people who are searching need clear and obvious signs of what is coming up, how to get there and what is on offer. It needs to be clearly visible and in a clear language that they understand. Our journey re-inspired my love for being a spiritual guide and some of the views and experiences we had were truely intimate relationships growing times between me and God. He really took care of us the whole trip and both Steve and I look back at the two week journey and see how God was with us and working things out for us every step of the way. We ended our trip promising each other that we would remember how God stood by us in the good and bad momensts of the trip and took it to be a very tangible promise for our future and time to come in our communal house. This also fulfilled a life long goal of mine to go camping in France!
When we got back from our road trip we got to help put on our "Big Gathered Sunday". Steve and I were in-charge of worship and we did this reflective workship activity. We needed some wood and we called in our our friend and creator of Anrik Creations (on a side note he makes amazing wood furniture all from recycled wood!). We used the wood we got and grabbed some sandpaper and encouraged people to imagine themselves as the wood and God as the sandpaper and to reflect on the type of contact God and them have as they sanded this bit of wood. Then we got people to write what they love most about God all over the bits of wood. It was really a great worship experience and I totally recommend trying it.
However... I also need to update loads of you on our COMMUAL HOUSE. So we get to move into the new house the weekend of 14/15 of September. We can barley wait. I went in to the house over this weekend to help Katy and Rich (very minimally) as they were moving out. I walked into the prayer room and there scrolled out on one of our prayer walls was my big ass written prayer to God about how deeply I wanted to live in a home dedicated to him, how we wanted it to be a house with multiple family names in it, that we wanted it to be a house of prayer for the nations. Next to that I wrote a prayer about how I wanted more Godly men to join our community and really bring the change our neighborhood is crying out for.... gentleness, peace, fathers. My throat got all tight and my eyes a bit misty (hold on just like they are doing now!)... God has really provided for us. I shook my head as I was reading back my prayers to myself... Steve and I are getting to move into a house that many of our neighbours call the "God House", we have mutliple family names moving in as a girl from our community AND a boy from Germany have committed to join our house-share!! plus with the addition of the German boy, God sweeps in and answered three of my prayers in one move (male, international and 4th person!... God be clever like that!).
Steve and I went to B&Q a few days ago because we also have been allowed to choose COLOURS to paint into the house. I know to most of you this wont be that big of a thing, but for me, as we were gettting the paint I was thinking of that bible verse "Here's another way to put it: You're here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world!".... Did you feel that... the shiver!? HA well I did... I am getting so excited to keep being the light... to show people the God-colors he painted them in and how beautiful this worls is when seen in His light!
Woah! Super Spiritual!
Taking it back to normals-ville, Steve and I have just bought tennis rackets at a bootsale and we went and played for the first time and really enjoyed it. we are hoping to get into it more! we even went and looked into joining a tennis club, but i don't think we are posh enough. :)
Steve also has been saying his poetry here and there at local gigs and festivals and we are hoping that he will publish one of his poems in a book before the end of this year. He starts school on Tuesday... so back to working world for him.
Plus we have been having lots of BBQs and our favourites are with our roomie Tracy and her family!
I am most looking forward to throwing a housewarming party that rocks the freaking block, have a killer halloween gathering, enjoying a scrummy Thanxgiving with my brother who is going to visit from America AND having the most fabulous 30th Prom Themed Birthday Party in early December (keep posted for more on that!).
Just wanted to flag up this really great moment in life. The last day of August and in my mind summer... and just say I am so ready for this Autumn, this epic summer was just a taster of how things are going to go this next year. So LET THE GAMES BEGIN! :)
Colchester Boiler Room has recently sent a team of people off to Turkey. Two of the people from our community have plans to move there in the early part of 2014!
With excitement, anticipation and hope we sent them off as they continue on the first start of this journey.
Those of us left here in good old Colchester held a time of prayer for our Turkey Team. We wanted to pray inspired by the culture and people of Turkey... in the way they naturally live and are... and then pray they would see Jesus where they are currently at.
Hahaha I wil say that I don't know that much about Turkish culture and I aso didn't have an extensive time to look into it, but the hour of prayer that we had set up went so quickly and was really amazing I thought that I would mention some of it here to help inspire those looking for creative ways to pray.
To begin we started outside the prayer room. We asked people to take their shoes off and as they did to really leave behind all the drama, stresses or worries that might be playing on their mind.
We then went into the prayer room. In Turkey a huge percentage of the population practices the Muslim faith. One aspect of this is to pray 5 times a day. Since we only had an hour we decided to still pray 5 different times through out the hour, which basically meat we set a timer for 10 min intervals and prayed every 10 min! We really loved this because when the timer went off through out the hour we would all stand up and we had chosen a short prayer to read out all together. At first everyone was a bit shy, but by the last few times the timer went off we were all jumping up and shouting out the prayer.
One of the things we really wanted to pray for was Hope. We put a water jug in the middle of the room and went and found little shot glasses (wink wink). We talked about how living lives of hope is about working together, being intentional and sometimes going out of your way to make it happen. So even though there was no water in the room we all needed to grab a little glass and go find water in the house and then bring it back and pour it in the jug until the jug was over flowing.... WITH HOPE WATER!!!
As we started we prayed that as we went out of our way to work together to fill this jug with water that it would be our prayer for the Turkey team that they would be intention, work together and create hope that was over flowing.
This was really great and everyone really got into it and started saying their prayers of hope as they poured their little shot glasses of water into the jug. We also let ourselves be inspired by the activity and prayed for people not to be discouraged by the messiness of gathering hope to over flowing (we did have a few spills of water... my bad!!) ... and also we thanked God for the joy of all working together to create hope as we started cheers-ing the cups before we poured the water glasses as well!
Then we wanted to create a Turkish Rug!!! we didn't have any classic abilities to weave rugs, but we grabbed some big pieces of paper and cut them in to strips and let each color of paper represent a different person on the Team. we wrote our prayers down for each person and then worked together to weave them altogether.
Before we knew it the hour was over and we were really amazed at how God worked together and we pray that the Turkey Team is blessed and much hope and unity is found and overflowing.
Can you blieve it but Steve and I have been living in our First Home for 19 months. I remember when I migrated over to Enlgand 20 months ago to marry steve. Within the first day of being here Steve walked me over to our little flat. He of course had sent me gobs of photos and epic facebook messages describing our first little "flat" (ooo "flat" how english and adorable!), but it was absolutely amazing to walk into our little flat and be thinking "I'm going to live every day here with my best friend, I'm going to be a wife here, GREAT memories are going to happen here!"...
Steve had bought us a few bits of life furniture, a bed and a kitchen side trolly, besides that it was completely empty.... I walked in and he had a card, flowers and a bottle of wine all by the bed... I knew life was going to be amazing. And it has been. Our start here in England has been epic.
Whenever we stop and think about what we have gotten to do here I am like "Damn, life is big and I love being in the thick of it".
A few months after we moved in I finally convinced steve to nail up all these pictures we had of ourselves from our wedding (it possibly boardered on creepy self shrine, but we were too in love to care so we got away with it!). After he 'ruined' the wall with all those damaging and deposit risking nail holes (his words not mine!), he decided to turn the surrounding walls into a bit of a memory wall. Before either of us knew it our little wall of memories has grown into this massive mural of happiness.
Invites to parties, poetry events, poster from friends who had visted winston church hill war museum, maps from our charleston mini american vacation, receipts from ordering food in kosovo, my graduation cap, movie ticket stubs, house concert invites, more poetry events, my kate nash poster that asked steve to marry me on it, music festival tickets, towie tour tout... Whenever we did something we loved we tried to bring back a bit of memorabilia that could be stuck up on our wall. Secretly it was my favorite part of our nest.
This week it came down.
It only took 20 min and now it's blank again.
I didn't help take it down. But watching it come down had to be one of my least favorite moments.
I love our life. Its been so good. What garentee do I have that we wont leave the good behind? That what we had was as good as it gets?
The next day I walked by that same wall. That same blank wall that had me the day before being bitchy and moody because I struggle with change and hold on to things to tightly and possibly have unhealthy love attachements to inaimate object and at the end of the day still regularly pinch myself becaue I can't believe that Steve fell in love with me and that we are getting to live out a real life happily ever after ****deep breath in**** AND I was excited.
I AM excited... for a new wall. For the promise of a furutre. For the chance to do more! To do different! To fill a new empty until it is over flowing and frost my new life with a similar joy! The beauty of life is not that I capture a bit of it and hold it so tight that it never changes, but that I grab on to this wild, uncontrolled forces that pulls me and keeps pulling me forward (and possibly up!?!). All I have to do is hold on and enjoy the ride.
Sometimes it's messy, sometimes it's unexpected, sometimes it's hell'ava lot harder than I anticipated. But I have definiately learned that God certainly does work all things together for good of those who love him and listen to Him calling and asking to do life with Him.
And now we are getting ready to move into another unknow. A beautiful neighbour named Tracy has invited Steve and I to come live with her for the next 6 months. She lives just across the square from where we are now. She has such a lovely soul. We went to her house today and started measuring the room and talking through how we are going to move our things in. Tracy is quality. She has put up hooks for us, bought a spare freezer and is even letting us store all our over flow crap in her garage.
It will be a new adventure for us all. Steve and I are excited to investigate what living with someone else as a married couple is like and Tracy is preping for having more 'noise' around her! We don't know how it will go, but the uncertainty of it almost makes it more awesome. Change or not here we come!
But even in these moments of being really excited to move on I still find a bit of me holding on to our first little nest. The perfect patch for two. Out Lawton Mafia Hideout. I don't want to let go and at the same time I am ready to jump.
So, if you see me at the end of this week standing on an empty staircase at number 12 Memnon Court looking up and possibly hiding a tear or two just remind me that the memories of the past are just the beginng and for God's sake never forget to keep looking up!
Steve and I moved to colchester a year and a half ago and took up residence in a little one bed flat. As a newly married couple we had one aim, to try and love Jesus and move with him into our neighbourhood and uncover the hope of him here.
I haven't been the most positive of people. I started looking around at my home and my neighbourhood and I am a bit ashamed to say, I let the physical definition of success be what I strove for. Don't get me wrong I loved Jesus and all, but there were a lot of 'good little projects' to get involved in and I started letting the success or failure of them define who I was and the purpose for why I was here.
I started letting other peoples stories and experience be the definition and standard for my life.
By the end of this last year, I was becoming such a moan addict (just talk to my closest friends!! whenever they asked me how things were going, after I got the 'oh fine fine' out of the way I would launch in to self pity monologues about how I was doing so much but was getting so little back).
Steve and I had a beautiful opportunity to go to a 24-7 Prayer leadership training conference. It was both an intense challenge to step up; as well as a moment of space to reflect and relax on what God has been doing in our lives.
After those 4 days I came away saying to Steve... "this year i need to remember how much good we get to be a part of ... how much hope we get to experience each and every day!" and I need to let that... let God define who I am and how well I am living.
So many great things have happened sense I have come to live in colchester.
#1 I have met and live with the greatest man I have ever met and we get to share our ever day normal lives together. It was not that long ago that I remember crying out to God about how desperate I was to just share the same house with Steve... now I do every day and I don't stop and thank God (and Steve) enough for this great life we share
#2 I have an epic job!! God so provided in his perfect timing a job that is beyond all I could have hoped or imagined. I get to spend the majority of my time with some amazing young people and am supported by a great, intelligent and caring team. I know God was up to something good when he planted me in this team and even now I am tinging with excitement for what I get to do.
#3 I have met some of the most amazing and extraordinary women sense of I have moved here to live. From a great friend who cooks epic meals for me and will endure my endless conversations about God and Church even though it isn't really her thing, to an amazing and tender friend that totally accepted me into her and her daughters life and even asked me to be her daughters God-mother, to my great bubbly and active friend who inspires me regularly to physically take care of my body by going to zumba with her and includes me in her life in a way that makes me feel more like a sister than a silly neighbour, to two of the most hilarious women I have ever lived next to who can have my sides splitting in laughter at the epic way they commit to games and dinners together, to the complete friendliness of my good neighbour who cuts my hair on short notice, to the incredibly generous neighbour that invites me over to her house for dinner on that very day that I had NOTHING in the house to eat and couldn't be bothered... need I go on ...
#4 Steve and I have been able to find a new home to move into!!! As many of you know, just as Steve and I were deciding that this neighbourhood was definitely the place we wanted to live, we got a notice in the mail that said we were going to be evicted from our apartment due to the land lord not paying her rent. I just remember when this happened a few months ago, going into our prayer room on the estate and saying to God with a smile on my face "What are you up to?!?!"... and let me just say... God was up to the best idea. A few weeks ago one of the most generous women you will ever meet invited Steve and I to come and live in her house with her... and she lives JUST RIGHT ACROSS THE SQUARE. It couldn't be a better place and we are so thankful for this fun, new and exciting opportunity...
I could keep going on... but really what it all boils down to... is that while I was moaning that we didn't have enough- enough people, creative inspiration, new idea, etc... the reality is that we have loads going on in this little part of the world. And let me tell you, what we are getting to be a part of is one of the most epic adventures of hope and purpose.
I feel so proud of what God is working out here in our lives... and if he can do all this in just a few years that we have been here... I am really looking forward to what will happen in the next couple.
So from here on out... I want to remember how closely we have been written into this story of hope and how involved we can be in it and just simply enjoy it!
About Me
- Teen Bean
- I'm just some regular girl trying her best to be a good friend, woman, christ-follower, wife, mom and adventurer (in no particular order). I love variety, trying new things and meeting new people and sharing experiences with others. All of which in one form or another can be found in this space. WELCOME!
Heart Heart Time!
Stevie and Beanie
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