New Blog address: www.meettheblochers.blogspot.com

I know, I know it's cheesy but after we got married, I wanted to start a new blog to share our adventures on. I have loved blogging life, and enjoy looking back over these posts to see all I have done, where I have been and what I have learned...

Please check this new address
www.meettheblochers.blogspot.com

and leave a comment so we know who is stopping by!

Lent

I decided that this year for Lent I would give up sugar. I am still eating fruit, bread and other food which sugar is hidden in but I am not eating desserts, chocolate, icecream or having sugary syrups in coffee etc, you get the point. (And suddenly I am hungry)

I did this last year too and found it much harder than I imagined. Although I considered giving up something different this year to "mix things up a little", I confess I was really searching for a way to make Lent less of a sacrifice and well, really that defeats the point.

Giving up something which I enjoy and I have to be mindful to refuse is a wonderful reminder for the season of Lent. Making the choice not to eat sugar helps me remember the suffering of Jesus. Now, I am not for one moment comparing my cadbury free 40 days with Jesus suffering, I am simply saying that in the moments when I make the choice not to eat something smothered in whipped cream I am reminded to think about Jesus.

I recognise my weakness and sin and in that moment allow God's Spirit to transform a little bit more of my heart and I understand a little bit more what Christ's suffering means for my life.

Return of the blog

I have been gone from the blogging world for some time. I am sure anyone who had this blog bookmarked gave up checking a while ago but recently life has given me a lot to think about, and I am hoping that setting aside time to blog will allow me time in the day to sit and process.

I guess we'll see what happens!!

There's this place I know

Life in Seattle is busy. I have some big changes happening - watch this space for details soon - I am trying to balance preparing and processing these changes and at the same time keeping things running here. This Sunday I am planning a lunch to share with the church about our Mississippi mission trip. Next week I am co-chairing the prayer for a women's retreat. It is in a little town called Levenworth, it's very quaint. We are really hoping for good weather!!

This post is really to share this little video that my friend Amanda posted on her blog. It is a video of a girl telling the camera all about the University district of Seattle. I don't know this girl, but there is an older gentleman named Ed who I see all the time because he sells the 'Real change' paper outside the Safeway where I shop (that's the US version of the 'Big issue')

I watch movies at these movie theatres, I buy food and clothes at the shops, i drink coffee at the coffee shops. This is my life. (Except the abnormal amount of beer purchasing and partying...that's more specific to the college students, but they still let us live here!)

These are the streets I walk on every day; the community I am a part of, and the place I love.



I have also talked to this hot dog!!

Snow and Bikini's

I have had the strangest couple of weeks. Life in Seattle has been busy work-wise as I have been putting together sldeshows and lunchoen's as a way to share about our Mississippi trip with the larger church congregation at Bethany. Tomorrow I will speak in all three services at and we will watch the slideshow, and then next Sunday the team and I will host the lunch and share more detailed stories of our time. I love being able to process our time and tell all about what God did in and through me in Mississippi, because it makes me understand more of God's power and love.

On a stranger note - what's up witht he weather? I am not sure what it has been like in England but last Saturday we had 80 degree weather in Seattle. I drove around with my friend Maggie in her convertable, we laid in the sunshine at the lake, andwere surrounded by bikini's and people swimming, and later we had a picnic as the sun went down over the water. Beautiful.

Today we had snow and hail. It was FREEZING, Colder than cold.

Also, on Tuesday I went to the multifaith day at the 'Seeds of compassion' conference. It was the day of the conference that was a panel discussion with The Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, and Rob Bell, as well as many other significant Spriitual figureheads. It was aconversation about how we grow and develop compassion in children and each person also shared about their personal understanding of compassion and how it manifests in their lives. It was really interesting to hear the perspectives of these amazing people. I have some big thoughts to process from this comference, I am still not sure what I think about the multifaith aspect. Is it really possible to join together with other faiths over issues where we believe God is the answer/giver/foundation and others seek inside themselves? I don't know? I guess if this nasty weather keeps up I can have lots of time snuggled underblankets to think about it - or maybe I will be at the lake or the beach drinking lemonade and thinking about it...In Seattle you never know.

Pillow fight

There are many reasons why I love Seattle. One of the reason being that it is a city who's inhabitants do not take themselves too seriously. One such illustration of this was the undersgourn pillow fight which I happliy took part in at the famous Pike Place Market this Saturday. The rules were that you showed up at the market, with your pillow hiddeen on you somehow - some poeple were better at this than others. Then at 3.15 a whistle would blow and pillows would be unleashed, for a 5 minute pillow fight, after the 5 minutes, another whistle would blow signalling the end of the fight. Pillows down and everyone goes home.

I went with a couple of friends, and met up with a few more at Pikes Market, where we all gathred pillows hidden, waiting to see if the fight would really take place. The large number of peple gathered, drew a crowd in itself, with both locals and tourists waiting to see what was going on. Others just happened to be at the market when *surprise* we are pillow fighting!

3.15 and the whistle blew. Fun, fun, fun. Everyone was good natured and simply out to have fun which made the whole experience really great. There were jids and families as well as many more mature folks who joined in the fun.

After the fight, we did leave a mound of feathers, from the few feather pillows which had burst. There are quite a few videos on youtube and I am sure other places, but I found myslef in this one, at about 35 seconds, I duck out of shot in the bottom right hand corner, I am wearing a black coat, straight hair and have a bright blue pillow. This is the whole fight, but really after a minute or two you get the idea. It's always more fun to be in a pillow fight than observing one, but enjoy!!

(So for now I am having problems up loading the video, but if you want to see it, go to www.youtube.com and search for seattle pillow ight. The first option is titled 'seattle pillow fight 2008 in Pikes market'. That's the video you want to click on!)

Mississippi 2008

I just got back from a week long trip to Tylertown, Mississippi. It was a wonderful trip. here are a few pictures to share with y'all (see how the southern accent sticks!)

We were a team of 9; myself, Jillian, Josalyn, Keith, Kevin, Beth, Anna, George, and Caitlin. We went to the rural town of Tylertown, Mississippi. We stayed at Holy Temple ministry church, under the care of Pastor Glenn Allen. We woke each morning at about 5.30am and after breakfast and packing lunches we left for the work site. Hammers in hand by 7.30am

We were introduced to Patricia and her son Taran. Patricia is very involved in the community, and as well as being a fulltime parent, holding down a fulltime job which she has to drive over an hour each way to get to, she makes time to visit the elderly in her community. She is a beautician, and until Hurricane Katrina, she had a small beauty shop on her property which had given her a second income, but also allowed her to bless those in her community by helping them prepare for job interviews and other important events. Pastor Glenn wanted to bless Patricia and so we took on the project of restoring her beauty shop.

Patricia's parents also live on the property and their house had been very badly damaged by Katrina. All the crucial repairs had already happened for them but their front room had never been fully repaired, and so we pulled up the floor and repainted for them.

Grandma Ruby and Grandpa Lee were so blessed, Pastor Glenn told us that Lee had been so choked up on the phone when he was telling him how grateful they were to us fro helping them. I am so glad because they really blessed us. Grandma Ruby made coffee each day, and served it sweet - just like everything in Mississippi!!

We got to experience many southern delights, crawfish, fried catfish, hush puppies (corn bread balls, and peppers deep fried) as well as gallons of sweet tea.

We spent one day visiting Mendenhall, another rural town in Mississippi, made famous because it is the ministry of John Perkins, a special man passionate about racial reconciliation. Mendenhall is a town still literally divided by the train tracks in the middle of town. One side black; one side white. Mendenhall had many different projects, a school, a farm, a medical clinic plus many other programs to serve the community. It was an eye opening experience for us as white people who live in the pacific north west where racial divide is much more understated and hidden.

I have so many stories, and hope to continue sharing about my time with you all, but for now here are some pics... Enjoy!
Me trying crawfish - yum


Shopping at Piggly Wiggly!!

The start of our project


Cleaning the chairs for the beauty shop

We took some of the church members and friends out for dinner - fried catfish and fried frogs legs both made an appearance on the menu!

Me with Kevin, Anna and our new friend Taran

Pulling up the floor inthe beauty shop

George and Beth fix on the trim

the beauty shop

Hearing the story of Mendenhall

The team outside the John Perkins centre

A very tight van ride to teh mendenhall ministries farm!

Mudding hthe walls

Jill and I sample the local treats - sno balls, shaved ice and flavouring


Granpa Lee comes to see how work on the beauty shop is going

Laying the floor at Grandma Ruby's and Grandpa Lee, with Caitlin and Josalyn

Me at teh work site

Lunch break!

Eating chilli out the back of the truck - classy!!

The new shop is called Pretty ladies

We chose a pretty pink for the inside - the boys really loved it!!!

The finished result - team picture with Patricia and Taran

Thoughts on Tuesday

I am almost a week into not eating sugar for lent, and boy, it's been a wake up call. The first few days my body was in total withdrawal and was telling me I was hungry when really I think it was just craving sugar, I ate about 6 meals on Wednesday and Thursday. Things have evened out a little but I almost inhaled a bunch of grapes the other day when the sweetness hit my taste buds! I have survived one party so far, a baby shower for my friend Tami. There were pretty cupcakes and pink and white m&m's which normally I would have eaten without a thought.
It has been a good thing for me to go without sugar because I am very conscious of what I eat now and am reminded many times a day that I am not eating sweet things, and then I remember the reason behind it all. Jesus.

We had our first service in our new church building this weekend and it really was a time of celebration. It felt bigger (it is bigger) but it still felt like family. The two bands, which play alternate weeks for the services combined, and the evening choir performed. There was such a sense of community and coming together to celebrate this awesome gift. Of course it will take some time to get used to and a 3-hour long meeting yesterday showed us all that there are some kinks to iron out, but all in all it was a success.

Combining the two previous evening services meant that there were about 500 people at the 5pm service this week. Richard preached on 'soul furniture.' A reminder that the new building is great, and certainly a gift from God but that we must make sure that this space becomes a place of prayer, the word of God, confession and hospitality. We want this new building to be an invitation to people to come broken and be met in love. It is vital that we infuse the space with the character of God. During the final songs we were invited to spread out in groups around the sanctuary, on the stage, in the prayer room etc and pray together that this would be the case for our new building. That it could be a place where people feel safe to come as a broken person and know forgiveness. This time of worship and prayer was really powerful.

On another note, I have a prayer request. As you know I am planning a trip to Mississippi in March, and (praise the Lord) our team has come together. However, we still need to find someone who can be our cook/shopper for the week. It is getting pretty last minute to find someone, and be able to raise their money to come, as well as booking tickets on fights etc. Please pray that God will provide the perfect person to join our team.

It's raining in Seattle today - shocker!