Wow, I can't quite believe it's been over three weeks since I last posted. It's been a busy few weeks with trips to Dorchester & Brighton and a close friend's wedding...In the time that I've been away, I've composed many a blog entry in my head but never got round to writing any of those posts.
It's a funny old time at the moment - while there's a lot going on other parts of my life are moving rather slowly which seems to alter the overall feel of the pace of things happening. That is a poorly structured sentence but I cannot think of another way to describe it. What's moving slowly is the task of finding myself a job. I'll look at pages of job vacancies where nothing jumps out at me and get to a point of scrolling down pages of vacancies, only half looking because I don't know what I want to see and because I'm bored of seeing things I can't do.
Anyhow, going back to the exciting events of the summer, I went to the Newfrontiers Brighton conference a couple of weeks ago, which was a wonderful time. Mark Driscoll from Mars Hill church in Seattle was the guest speaker and he brought some profound, astute, prophetic, moving insights into where we are going as a family of churches. He's a brilliant preacher and teacher and I could only marvel at the grace of God upon his life that enables him to be a husband and father to five children, write 6 books this year, and lead a church of 8000 people, which he started 10 years ago in the most unchurched state in America. Only God's grace can enable someone to do all this and stay sane and humble.
Last week was spent painting a mural at my housemate's school in Yate, which was a fun, messy event. Stupidly, I did not take any photos of it - I'll have to get Jo to take some. I had the privilege of working and painting with a friend who I went to Uganda with - Caz. She's a brilliant artist and I couldn't have done it without her - in the time it took me to work out the dimensions of and draw a recycling symbol, she had drawn a dolphin, a turtle, an elephant and a koala bear in a tree. I'm not very good at drawing. So each day, we went home stinking of turpentine, because that was the only thing that would remove the gloss paint. (It's an outdoor mural on a hut.) I was so impressed with some of the children's artistic abilities. One of the children looked just like a miniature of Montse, the teacher who John worked with at school in Spain. Brilliant.
Friday was spent baking 260 muffins for Sarah and Dave's wedding on Saturday. It was a joy to bake in the kitchen of Woodies, the church where they had the wedding. I loved getting to use a mixing bowl five times the size of my own, and use an oven where I could bake 48 muffins at a time. As I loaded up the car with all of my empty sweet tins (all donated, I'd like to add), a big stack of muffin trays and £100 worth of ingredients, I couldn't help wondering whether one day I might not have to cart my kitchen around in a car, but maybe I'll have my own professional kitchen...it's good to dream....
So here's a snap shot of some of the muffins I baked. Unfortunately I wasn't efficient enough to take photos of all of the varieties - I couldn't take photos until the morning of the wedding as they hadn't been iced until then and I only finished icing and plating them up 10 minutes before the ceremony was due to start.
And now I'm going to spend the rest of the evening sewing....
It's a funny old time at the moment - while there's a lot going on other parts of my life are moving rather slowly which seems to alter the overall feel of the pace of things happening. That is a poorly structured sentence but I cannot think of another way to describe it. What's moving slowly is the task of finding myself a job. I'll look at pages of job vacancies where nothing jumps out at me and get to a point of scrolling down pages of vacancies, only half looking because I don't know what I want to see and because I'm bored of seeing things I can't do.
Anyhow, going back to the exciting events of the summer, I went to the Newfrontiers Brighton conference a couple of weeks ago, which was a wonderful time. Mark Driscoll from Mars Hill church in Seattle was the guest speaker and he brought some profound, astute, prophetic, moving insights into where we are going as a family of churches. He's a brilliant preacher and teacher and I could only marvel at the grace of God upon his life that enables him to be a husband and father to five children, write 6 books this year, and lead a church of 8000 people, which he started 10 years ago in the most unchurched state in America. Only God's grace can enable someone to do all this and stay sane and humble.
Last week was spent painting a mural at my housemate's school in Yate, which was a fun, messy event. Stupidly, I did not take any photos of it - I'll have to get Jo to take some. I had the privilege of working and painting with a friend who I went to Uganda with - Caz. She's a brilliant artist and I couldn't have done it without her - in the time it took me to work out the dimensions of and draw a recycling symbol, she had drawn a dolphin, a turtle, an elephant and a koala bear in a tree. I'm not very good at drawing. So each day, we went home stinking of turpentine, because that was the only thing that would remove the gloss paint. (It's an outdoor mural on a hut.) I was so impressed with some of the children's artistic abilities. One of the children looked just like a miniature of Montse, the teacher who John worked with at school in Spain. Brilliant.
Friday was spent baking 260 muffins for Sarah and Dave's wedding on Saturday. It was a joy to bake in the kitchen of Woodies, the church where they had the wedding. I loved getting to use a mixing bowl five times the size of my own, and use an oven where I could bake 48 muffins at a time. As I loaded up the car with all of my empty sweet tins (all donated, I'd like to add), a big stack of muffin trays and £100 worth of ingredients, I couldn't help wondering whether one day I might not have to cart my kitchen around in a car, but maybe I'll have my own professional kitchen...it's good to dream....
So here's a snap shot of some of the muffins I baked. Unfortunately I wasn't efficient enough to take photos of all of the varieties - I couldn't take photos until the morning of the wedding as they hadn't been iced until then and I only finished icing and plating them up 10 minutes before the ceremony was due to start.
And here's a picture of the beautiful bride with her Daddy...
And her brand new husband!
And now I'm going to spend the rest of the evening sewing....
The food you make always looks so yummy!
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