Wonderful, Wonderful Copenhagen

Wow, what an amazing weekend.
I got to catch up with my friend Signe Randrup and spend some quality time with the lovely Sharon Correr.

We went on a boat tour of the sights, Nyhavn, the Queen's houses, the little Mermaid and the Opera house.

We took a couple of bike taxis including to Christiania, a hippy commune that the Danish government allows to be self governing, where soft drugs are openly sold and quality live music was playing (a brilliant band called the Boho Dancers).


On the Sunday morning we went to a church where a friend of mine is the pastor, he asked me to say a little something, so i talked about some of the healings we have been seeing and got to pray for a few people at the end.

One lady, before we asked Jesus to heal her, described her pain level as 7/10.
On Monday afternoon we got this text.

"Thankyou so much for taking the initiative to pray for my knees. Since December I have had major pains in my knees and my right one is making crunching noises when I walk down stairs. The last two or three weeks I have had hellish pain, especially with the right one, but the left has also been irritating. But yesterday the pains disappeared and today I have had none either. I thankyou but my thanks are especially towards Jesus. It's amazing to be able to leave home without supports on my knees."

Wow and Brilliant!
After this we shared our packed lunch with some homeless guys by the river.

I have decided I love Denmark.
I love the laid back quietness, I love the feeling of space - even in a busy city, I love the love of design in buildings and display of art everywhere, I love that they eat raw bacon and love fish, sausages and icecream.
I love the hunger for something real and I love that Jesus loves Denmark.

What if...

I have spent that past 2 days reading a book an old pastor friend of mine wrote about his journey from being a successful church leader to loosing that through a moral slip up and back again.

I started reading this book cos i was curious, curious to what really happened and curious to how he was doing now.

What I wasnt expecting was how much I would see myself in these pages and how challenging that would be.

My friend talks a lot about being a son, what this means, what it means to have God as your Father, like not just as a nice concept but knowing it and living like that. 

• Living like a child who says "Dad can we have fun today" and having fun all day long with him.
• Living as if "My" bank account was actually Gods and believing he has enough cash when my pocket money isnt enough or runs out.
• Living a life asking "Break my heart with what breaks yours" and loving others from that place.
• Not just doing the right thing or what is expected of me, but knowing God well enough to see and do what God is doing

I mean, knowing God like that
Knowing Him

And as I look at Him today, He is smiling and saying, "Im right here".

With fear and excitement all rolled into one,
I feel this may be an interesting summer!

The soup dragon

Since Ive been home Ive gone a little soup mad.
Its a great way of getting loads of veg in ya and tastes so so good.

So here's a recipe Ive been asked for
(please note Im no chef and cooking isnt a precise science for me!)

looks a bit funky, but tastes seriously good.

Mushroom and Spinach soup
3 punnets of mushrooms
2 finely chopped onions
1/2 a big bag fresh spinach
Thyme (about a table spoon)
butter
pint of vegetable stock

fry off the onions until nice and brown in the butter.
Add the mushrooms and thyme and slow fry till cooked.
add the spinach till nice and soft.
pop in veg stock and whizz till its mushed up.




I always make enough so i can pop a few tupperwares in the freezer too.

Enjoy.

Ask for more - Dangerously Generous

I stayed a couple of weeks with my good friends Sarah and Richard when I first got back to England.
(She blogs www.stayingawakeblog.com)
















They have 3 gorgeous kids.
Sam is 4, Rae is 3 and baby Max is a tiny bundle of scrumminess.
Watching how they work together as a family was inspirational.

There was a day when Max had been up most of the night and the other kids were down with a vomcano bug, Rich had been at work all day and Sarah was up to her eyeballs and beyond in "Mummy, Mummy".
On this day I watched in awe as I observed them taking a deep breath and putting others first. 

Why i mention them is that they are incredibly generous.

Not only did they have an extra house guest (me) when Max is just a few weeks old, but because they respond well to their kids in the middle of feeling extremely tired and stretched.

They are generous because they keep choosing to be gentle and kind.
I often think of being generous as a financial thing, but its more.

How do you become someone who keeps giving?
The only way I know to do this is:
Ask God to love you first,
many times a day,
"fill me so I can give good love away".
I don't have enough with out it, I'm just not that nice.

Generosity is a weapon.

• It destroys loneliness and builds community
• It combats selfishness and helps others realise their dreams
• It fights individualism and builds a culture where everyone matters
• It smashes through self-pity and makes you and others happy
• It confronts self reliance & helps you realise that others genuinely love you
• It feeds the hungry, clothes the stranger and homes the wanderer.

Ask Him, He is generous and has plenty more to give you.

New Music

Ok,
Ive been asked a lot since Ive been back about any new bands or music I am presently loving.

Let me recommend
Drum roll please........

Hudson Taylor - (no not the Missionary to China - its their surname)

They are some brothers from Ireland and frankly are amazing.

You can find their music on itunes.

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/artist/hudson-taylor/id303938015

Chasing Rubies is one heck of a song

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/chasing-rubies-acoustic/id578574971?i=578574975

 If anyone wants to come to gigs, I am wanting to see them live this summer somewhere.
(They have been touring with Jake Bugg this past few months.)

Also you can check them out at

www.hudsontaylormusic.com/

you will thank me.

ZJ

Fluffy Socks

The latest news is I will not be returning to Zambia at this point.
The door seems to have closed firmly shut for now, but as they say as one door closes another opens...
I have no idea what is next.


 Im gonna take some time to rest.

Im taking a trip to Denmark over the summer to collect some belongings that some dear friends will take there from Zambia and going to Toronto
for a missionary/leadership school for 3 weeks of encouragement, good time with the Father and again, rest.

Ive have moved into my friends basement (which is lovely).

Here are somethings I'm appreciating freshly this week,
I like the speed of the internet here, heaters and warm duvets, friends whom I have a long history with, English home cooked food, family, love, endless movies, clothes shops, good mushrooms and sweet cherry tomatoes, coffee shop culture, warm fluffy socks, hair straighteners, good cheese, time to be and digest the past few weeks, emails and encouragements.

Im gonna keep blogging whilst Im here too.

Here's to the omelette!!

Also a little wee thanks to Hannah Moore, also newly returned from Zambia - check out her amazing photography.  www.hannahmoore.org.uk

Omelette

... at last, I got my replacement passport from the British High Commission in Lusaka 2 weeks ago, only to be told by the Zambian Immigration office that I had been rejected for my work permit.

After a rather stressful week and interesting interactions with a immigration officer who got me the necessary paperwork to leave the country.....

Here I am sitting in my friends lounge in rainy Bedford, England, wondering how I got here and what the next few months might look like. People have been so lovely offering spare rooms galore, meals, space to be and talk and taking me shopping (I have dropped 4 dress sizes! Yeah!).
In the middle of chaos and things not being either in my control or in my plan, one can be left wondering... WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON!

I know it's not just me, life is all too often unpredictable and throws all sorts of challenges and things at us that we have no idea of how we are going to get through.
Nearly 2 years ago my brother came up to visit for the weekend, we went for a walk on a sunny Sunday afternoon and he sat me down on a park bench and told me he thought he may have cancer.




The next year was full of hospital waiting rooms, a very sick bro on my sofa and much hand holding as he went through chemo.

It was hard.

Without friends praying, talking and helping practically, I'm not sure how we would have coped.

The thing is we did.

He had 4th stage cancer, that's the variety you don't wanna get, it was in his neck, opposite shoulder and liver.  He now has no cancer, we believe Jesus healed him.

Having gone through that and seeing how he is really thriving in his new life up here in Bedford, (I mean the guy is really loving life), we met up this week and reflected on the past 2 years and I have to say, 

I don't know how it happened, but 

going through that unpredictable, pain filled darkness has produced so much beauty.  

 I gives me hope that even when I don't see the path ahead, I know my heavenly Dad is holding my hand and has a plan that is far better than what I could have come up with.  The trick is to keep holding on to that hand.

Just before I left Zambia I was talking to God one morning and heard Him say
"if life throws eggs at you, make an omelette"

So, here is to eating omelette for the next few months, in England.
Let the new adventures and fullness of life roll.