November 5 Update

I thought I should just note down a few of the things I've been up to of late.

The main thing probably is that I'm increasingly getting more and more involved with the worship team at church. In the last month I've began worship leading in one of the youth bands, I'm still quite involved with the "focus"(academy worship) team. The focus team is really starting to grow now, and each week the worship is taken to a new level. Focus is the worship time specific to academy students. It is run for, and by students, and its an amazing time. 

I was also very privileged to get involved with the prison's ministry. I got to worship lead in a men's youth prison for the first time a few weeks back. It was such a great experience. It was quite eventful, as the fire alarm went off just as we began, and then a fight broke out towards the end of the service. The main highlight for me was seeing a load of the guys get baptised. It was such an amazing thing to hear some of their testimonies. I'm going into the prison again this Sunday, but this time to the women's prison. So I look forward to that.

I had last week off as a mid term break. It was great to be able to catch up on a bit of sleep, relax, do a bit of reading, songwriting, practice, etc. It was just a real good week of chilling out.

Tonight is bonfire night or something. It's celebrating Guy Fawkes. So there is fireworks going off constantly, all over Bradford. Its crazy, for the last few hours, it wouldn't have gone 5 seconds without hearing a bang from fireworks. The people over the road have a big fire in the yard, and have been shooting fireworks off all afternoon.

A few of us had a big bonfire last week. I run a small group for youth (which is called a 'life group') and for our first meeting we carried a heap of firewood and marshmallows up one of the biggest hills in Bradford, which looks over the entire town, and we had big fire. It was REALLY cold and windy that night too, so it was great to warm up.

It just gets increasingly colder and colder now. It actually snowed in the next town the other day, but I'm yet to see it myself. Whenever I go out now, I have to really rug up. I got myself a pair of ugg boots too! Guys don't wear them here, only girls, but its starting to catch on. Me and my housemate John Rees wear ours all the time, and alot of people are taking quite an interest in them.

Thats it for now.

15 October Update

This one is just a quick update. I just want to write about 2 quite fun events. I won't go into too much detail.

The first thing was a day out to the 'cow and calf'. The cow and calf is the name of 2 rocks on top of a hill. There is also a nice homely pub up there which goes by the same name. So a few academy guys and I decided to get out of Bradford and explore some of the nearby towns. I had previously heard of the cow and calf, and that it was a nice place, so we thought we'd give it a shot. We hopped on a train and headed to a station about 20 minutes away. Once we arrived, we realised we actually had little idea of where exactly to go. After just wandering in the general direction for a bit, we asked an old man who directed us.

Anyway, we ended up on top of the mountain and it was real nice. Although it was really really windy and cold, and it started raining as soon as we got to the top. We hid in a crevice in the rocks and ate some treats we'd bought earlier. After absolutley freezing for about 15 minutes we headed into the pub for about an hour where we had some glorious hot drinks and dried out a bit. A good day out.

Next thing is I went to a glam rock birthday party. Loads of fun. Me and my housemate John went as 'glam folk' from the mighty boosh. I realised I never actually got a photo of us in our completed outfits. But anyway the party was loads of fun. We played giant jenga, and invented a new form of jenga, later named Glenga. You pretty much play jenga, but you have to stand on top of the blocks and not touch the ground. You verse another player, who stands on their own pile of jenga blocks. Quality.

John and Me getting ready for 'Glam folk'

2 October Update

Ok so it has been quite some time since my last post. Right now its just past midnight, so (to be honest) I'm not feeling like spending too much time on this one. I'm laying in bed in darkness (apart from the laptop screen), all wrapped up in blankets. The weather here has just started to really turn cold. There's been consistent icy cold wind, and rain for the last few days. I've mentioned to a few friends that I'm starting to notice the cold, and they just tell me that its still a long way to go before it ACTUALLY gets cold! Hmmm...

Since my last post in August (I think), quite a bit has happened. I'm going to try stay to the specifics, mainly for my sake, cause I'm ready to sleep.

I guess the big one is that I am now a few weeks into the Leadership Academy. I'm absolutely loving it at the moment. I'm in a class of just under 50 students, and they are just an amazing group. Classes run from 9:30 through to 1, which is divided into 3 teaching sessions. I have found the teaching so helpful and relevant. We are taught by some amazing people in the church, and by the end of the 3 sessions you really do need the afternoon to soak it all in. The Academy is also divided up into electives, and I'm doing the worship and creative arts elective.

On top of classes we are involved in serving in the church, as well as other practical things. 

A few weeks back the church held their "stronger" conference, which is aimed at equiping and empowering local church leaders. So all the Academy students were heavily involved with that. It was an amazing conference. The main speakers were Paul De Jong, Kong Hee, and Paul Scanlon. I was able to get into all of the worship elective sessions, which I found really helpful, particularly the one on song writing. I have a new appreciation for the art that it is to write worship. Its a whole other level of songwriting.

I've started to get involved with the music at church now too. I've been playing in the 'focus' band the last few weeks, which is on a Wednesday morning, and is the worship time for all Academy students. I've also been rostered on (for the first time) to do Friday night youth. I'll be playing guitar and co-leading for 2 weeks later in the month. I'm quite excited about this, and am stoked to be getting involved.

Another thing worth mentioning is that i finished my album a few weeks back. I can't remember whether I've already mentioned this before or not, but basically one of my house mates was doing his master's degree in music production, and he needed to produce an entire album for his final assessment, so he asked me. So we spent about 3 weeks tracking in a really nice studio at Leeds College of Music, and then about a week at home mixing etc. I'm really pleased with the final result - John Rees (the producer) is pretty much a genius. It was so good to work with him, and we had loads of fun getting creative, and messing about in the studio.

My train of thought has stopped now, so I'll leave it at that. I'm pretty sure I've covered all the important things.

19th August update

So a fair bit has happened since the last post. We had a great time in Edinburgh. The highlight for me was definitely our last morning there. We had gone to bed early the night before, preparing ourselves for an early start. At around 4am (I think), we managed to pull each other out of bed and wandered out into the dark and quiet streets. We then caught a taxi to the bottom of 'Arthur's Seat' - a mountain which is just outside of Edinburgh, and overlooks the whole town, and has a great view of the castle.
So we climbed the mountain in the dark, and when we reached the top were rewarded with an AMAZING sunrise over the ocean looking one way, and the view over Edinburgh the other way.

Overlooking Edinburgh

Looking the other way, out to sea

The day after getting back from Scotland, it was straight into things at Rocknations - the youth conference at Abundant Life Church. It ran for 4 days, and I was involved as a volunteer, mainly helping out with running the skatepark.
Rocknations was just such an incredible time. Reinhard Bonnke was the main speaker, and hearing his passion was just so amazing/challenging/inspiring. Rocknations was really like nothing I've experienced before.

Ok, so Rocknations finished, and then it was straight to the Lake District with Isaac (the amazing dude i live with), and his family. The Lake District is a truly beautiful place. We stayed in a cottage, and spent most of our days going on drives to various places. We did a different area each day. We'd spend our time at each place going on walks, boat rides, sightseeing, and chilling in rad little cafes. I had the most amazing chocolate cake of my life.
On one particularly long walk, we got caught in really heavy rainfall at the half way point. And because we had no rain gear, we just had to keep on walking in the cold wetness that is English weather. But it was all good fun.

Isaac and Me on a mountain

After the Lake District, I had a few chill days at home, but now I'm down in London.
I'm staying in a hostel in Camden. Its a rad town. The markets are the biggest I've ever seen, and so much good gear. Heaps of rad vintage stores, and little arty bits and pieces.
Sal, Shay, and I were keen to do something last night, so we decided to grab some last minute tickets to the 'Wicked' musical. It was so so good. The set, and music was amazing.
Today we just chilled about London. I opened a bank account, we shopped, went to Abbey road, and had buffet pizza hut.

At first we didn't find Abbey Road, but instead ended up here!

Once again I find myself with an hours downtime, and hence this blog...

But we're off on another adventure tonight... not sure what it is yet, but there's always some random adventure to be had!

More photos can be seen at:

Scotland - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=51087&l=21020&id=626191009

Lake District - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=51090&l=7c1af&id=626191009

London - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=51088&l=7900d&id=626191009

Time to make a start

To be honest, I really did want to start this blog at the start of my trip. However, since I've never made a start, the task of writing out the last month (or so) of activities has really deterred me. It just seemed like a massive task that one day I'd start, but for the moment would take WAY too long.

So I've just decided to just start off with whats happening now.

So currently I'm in Edinburgh, Scotland. Its raining outside. Last night was my first hostel experience. Sally, Tess, and I came to Edinburgh (from Bradford) as a last minute thing. The Foley's (who had also been staying in Bradford), had left yesterday morning for New York, so we decided to go somewhere too.
I have been travelling around quite a bit with the Foley's. I'd first spent 2 and a bit weeks with Chels and Jess (and 8 other Oz friends) in Uganda, Africa, which was an amazing time. Chels, Jess, and I had then met up with the rest of the Foley gang in London, where we stayed for a few days. We did as much sightseeing around London as we could in our short time. Jess was in a wheelchair (due to getting injured when we went white water rafting on the Nile river in Africa), but it made for some great entertainment. After London, I'd caught the train up to Bradford, where I moved into where I'll be living for the next little while. We've been doing heaps of fun stuff with the Foley gang in Bradford, and the surrounding areas.

Africa crew

Pushing Jess Foley around London

But now they've left, which brings me back to now...

So...... when they left, Sal, Tess, and I decided we should go somewhere. We went to Leeds airport intending to pick up a random cheap flight to absolutely anywhere, but there was nothing under 150 quid. So we got on the internet at the airport, searched around a bit, and then a few hours later we were heading for Scotland.
There is a massive festival on here, so we had alot of trouble finding somewhere to stay (we didn't book ahead), but we found somewhere just before dark.
Edinburgh is amazing. We look out our hostel window at the most amazing castle I've ever seen. It tower's above the whole town on the side of a huge cliff. There's heaps of incredible, old architecture. We walking through these old cobblestone streets last night, and just looking at all these old buildings, and little rad alleys, and there was the sound of bagpipes coming out from behind the castle walls. I was like, "dude, this is like ACTUAL Scotland!"

Tess and I in Edinburgh

So now I'm just sitting in the hostel internet room. Someone left 30mins of credit on one of the machines, so i thought i should make myself useful.
Today we are heading to Glasgow. Its only 4 quid n the bus! So we're gonna go check it out, and stay there a night. But before that, we're gonna try hire some bikes and ride around the streets of Edinburgh!

So, if you're at work, or at home on the computer, have a good time with that!

Oh.. also, I have an English mobile number now. Its probably not a good idea to put it on a public blog, but if you want it, just send me an email or facebook or something.

More photos can be found at:

Africa - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=49996&l=4bfb2&id=626191009 and;

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=50007&l=1110a&id=626191009

London - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=51084&l=64ef0&id=626191009

Scotland - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=51087&l=21020&id=626191009