Thursday, December 28, 2006

2006 highlights

Well, its almost the end of 2006 how scary!! Time to reflect on the year gone by - here are some of my fav bits:
- New Years day in beautiful Howeth near Dublin - screaming down the phone in excitment over Nic's engagment
- Cornwall mission week - laughing a lot - playing SatNav games with Steph, running round a sixth form college with Andy dressed as a gorilla and talking to a load of sixth formers about Jesus - woo!
- Diamonds - setting up Diamonds - an outreach cafe for over 60s. It going from me and Al sitting in a coffee shop going 'Just can't see how this will work...' to it actually working! Even though the week before the first one everything went wrong and it was really stressful - God pulled it off and it was amazing. Being struck by how the gospel binds people together as our Diamonds team spanned the generations. Almost being moved to tears by Phyll, a lady who'd become more and more open about spiritual things, she thanked me when I went back a few weeks ago and told me setting up Diamonds was the best thing I could've done.
- Babies - knowing at least 10 new babies being born this year! Meeting 6 hour old Adam Fox. Looking after Jasmine and Lily as Leila went for her 12 wk scan, and being there as she told that they had a new brother or sister in her tummy. Lily's reaction: 'woweee!!'
- the agony of the decision whether or not to move back to Brighton (ok the agony was a highlight, but learning to rely on God through the experience was a Good Thing - as was feeling loved and valued by people at Rock Helpful chats with lots of wise people. People's reaction when I told them I was leaving: thinking Al was going to cry when I told him in the car on the way to the day with Roger Carswell (again, probably not a highlight!), thinking Greg was going to explode when he started being nice about in the 7am prayer meeting. Suz / Nic / Kath's excitment at me coming back
- The Outlook Conference - well not so much the actual conference (except maybe the 'turn to your neighbour and discuss you memories of the 1960s' bit!) but the roadtrip up to Sheffield with some of the elderly team - feeling about 12 mucking around in the back of the van with Alice- mocking Al.
- roadtrip to Norwich with the hilarious Katie, Ange and Sair to see to wonderful Anne-Marie
- Nic's wedding, helping her get ready, seeing how happy she was, spending the day chatting to anyone and being told I look beautfiul by lots of people (as it is obligatory to say to a bridesmaid..!!)
- the move to Brighton not being as stressful as I feared - being warmly welcomed by Christ Church and feeling settled very quickly. By the 3rd week of being at Christ church, people asking me questions as if I know everything about the church..!
- Being back in a place I love and know well - being able to no longer dread days off (as I sometimes did in Cambridge when I had nothing to do) but have fun relatively spontaneous days off - woo!
- working with Carl, Peter and Mirsaid, who already feel like family (espeically when we have fun days out in London)
- seeing God answering prayer and being faithful time and time again, no matter if its in Cambridge or in Brighton. Hooray for a God who doens't change - and who will remain the same into 2007!!