Four and a half months in, still going well with Jo, met the parents at easter. Currently I'm thinking about moving to Shire Green, where Jo lives, in order to join the work they are doing up their, and work out whether Jo and I might work there together long term. But talk about cross-cultural mission, it'll be a big change. Most of the men who live up their my age already have children!
Djing's finished for the while, althoough that hasn't stopped me buying records. Have been experimenting a bit at church with spoken word, so may do more of that. Hoping to put some mix tapes together, maybe set up a myspace account, but as I've said before, I'm not he greatest with technology. Still not on broadband, as I've tried but the line is rubbish, so it's been a bit of a pain. That's still my excuse for not updating this more often!
Currently I have been enjoying listening to Gnarles Barkley, Joseph Malik, Breakestra.... looking forward to new albums, check out Matthew Herbert's new album Scale. Especially I've been following Gilles Peterson's shows on the Tokyo new jazz scene, some great stuff like Sleepwalker and Soil & Pimp sessions.
Well, maybe I'll get into this blogging one day.
Let me know if you read this, especially if you're not local!

hey,my world has changed a little, and it's about time I informed those who are less close at hand. Five weeks in and still falling... in love with a beautiful woman. I've known Jo Lake for about 4 years, I used to be her small group leader, then she went to Equador with latin link last year to work in an orphanage. Since she got back to Sheffield in november she's been living in Shire Green helping to run a kids club called Stomp. Anyway, we got together after Christmas, and still discovering how much we have in common.
Still DJing on a friday night at the Showroom Bar, but it's nearly over as they've decided to ditch it. Since the 24 hour licensing kicked in every bar is able to be a 1am close so the 2am late license the showroom doesn't attract the crowd it used to.
Well, we're going to promote ourselves, probably under the name 'Midnight Player' or 'Nocturnal Artists'. Hoping to start again when the DJ competition run's out of steam.
I'll keep you updated in a month or so. let me know what you think.

A thought for Christmas
"Truly wondrous is the whole chronicle of the nativity. For this day the ancient slavery is ended, the devil confounded, the demons take to flight, the power of death is broken. For this day paradise is unlocked, the curse is taken away, sin is removed, error driven out, truth has been brought back, the speech of kindliness diffused and spread on every side - a heavenly way of life has been implanted on the earth, angels communicate with men without fear, and we now hold speech with angels."
St John Chrysostom, The Mystery
Two other thoughts
My sister gave me BANKSY wall and piece, an amazing book of his work stenciling graffiti, street furniture and altered gallery paintings. I guess I should check out his web page. One struck me as particularly relevant to christmas: Jesus in crucifixion holding up shopping bags. (sorry i'm no good at the picture stuff here)
Secondly; I've been listening to Sigur Ros' new album Takk.... beautiful, amazing, relaxing, thought provoking..... they continue to develop, grow, deepen and just uplift you.

Ok, Okay, I should write again. But I must confess, the main reason I don't write on this thing is that I'm not 'wired to the web', I'm not a surfer, I'm only on dial up and I'd rather really chat to people in person or on the phone.
So I began to get people together a few months ago to have a community house, you may think commune, but it's not really that. The vision is to have a place where we share our lives physically (ie meals and things) and spiritually (prayer etc..). To create a place where we can invite our friends round on a regular basis, and therefore grow a wider community.
Well just over a week ago Ceri and Joe, young marrieds, moved out and for various reasons the vision is really on hold. As you may imagine it's been a difficult few months and we would appreciate your prayers.
What else is going on? I'm landscape gardening still, 4 days a week, which is great, hard work, but satisfying. The other day I'm helping to organise Kairos, our Sunday evening service for young adults. It's been hard work, but seems to be shaping well. We just need more 'community' (the buzz word!), or maybe I should say friendship, for those of us who are not part of the student world.

Other Thoughts
My friends band, Bromhead's Jacket, are brilliant and played live on radio 1 last night, check out their website.
Music: I was in a christian bookshop today and the worship music playing in the background was fairly bad. Not that the songs were bad, we sing quite a few of them at St Thom's, but so cheesy in how it was produced. On the other scale of worship music, Gareth Robinson's live album came out recently, which is really good. And I'm not just saying that because it's recorded at St Thom's and He's a friend of mine. I just wonder if there's a market for more alternative worship music, or to make Soul Survivour type worship a bit more alternative. I can't really explain what I mean, but I'd like to experiment more, and I think people might like it, and I don't just mean young alternatives like myself!
Let me know what you think.

Busy being a missionary in cyprus, you can check it out on our blog. with just 5 days to go we really want breakthrough.
I'm really enjoying it out here, it's so refreshing and daily challenging, but most of all God is speaking to me a lot about this next year and our missionary home in Sheffield. If you don't know, I've invited people to live in my house this year who really want to build missionary community in and around Hunters Bar, there are others who are also moving into the area, and we are hoping to establish an open sharing community, where people feel welcome to hang at ours, eat together and learn what it means to be a community following jesus.
More next time.

Well, FORM, the training course I have been part of leading, has now finished, so I've got some day time to write on this. I was dating/ seeing someone a few weeks back, it was really good but also a confusing time.... I wrote this poem:
Lost? 22/5/05

Well were do we go from here?
Will we fly off into space,
lost in each other and the world of grace,
'cause my thoughts are lost, confused,
I thought the excitement was falling in love
and now I'm lost where those feelings went,
turning to worry, buried under impress,
I'm just learning how to undress,
do I just make myself into someone else,
hiding the beauty of my true self?
It's so intense one on one on the test,
but this is no way to go left.
'Just be yourself' I tell my soul,
instead of letting an idea of me cloud
eating me up from the inside,
this is just searching and I'm on the right path.
just keep on walking and I'll find true love,
may not be here, not just yet,
but I'm embracing the darkness before me
I'm finding who's the best.

It went on for a few weeks, but I didn't feel it was going to go anywhere, but I thought you might associate with the feelings of the poem.
Gardening is hard work at times, but the weather has been amazing over the last month and hopefully I'll get some design work soon.
In the words of Lamb; I can fly, but I want his wings, I can shine in the darkness, but crave the light that He brings.
Here's to the new thing.......

I think it is now time to resurrect this thing, having almost abbandoned it for the last 9 months. I'm pretty well, I feel like today I am leaving the season of 'pruning' into a time of being 'fruitful' (see John 15 if you like). That means I don't feel so much like even the things I am gifted in I find hard, but I think, with the new light of spring, I am coming into the new season to excel again. Only by the grace of God.
Well I'm now working three days a week as a landscape Gardener, maintaining and building gardens. Jim Willis is my accomplis, middle aged, he's been gardening for more than 30 years, and he's a great teacher. The plan is to create a business to employ dissadvantaged people, whether that's homeless or ex-offenders.... and to improve peoples gardens. In the long run We would like to be maintaining more pulic space as well.
It's going well for now.
I'll tell you more soon.

Had a good few days of rest, two great weddings on friday and saturday. It's been really helpful to see my friends in sheffield and talk about what's been going on in my heart while in Napa. Feel a lot calmer although I know I'm part way through a process of healing, and my mind is still on the mission in napa. Here's a poem speaking of sleepless nights:
Heart sick, an island in the sea of sleep,
a cleft in my heart exposed,
broken, nerves beating,
my resolve to confess is separated by a channel of sleep, will I cross it?
Will I make it? not I
No, not I can make it.
More dislodged the Iceberg dissolves
floating directionless, lapping
worries touch the side of this coracle of limbo,
take me away with you spirit of wind and waves,
blow me to this land of freedom,
the land of day,
Where my sleep is sounded,
my heart is carried,
where your love resounds,
This silence is killing me,
this waiting is dying,
when will I find your home?
Comforter you are my hope,
The emptiness of my hunger yearns,
where will I find a meal?
you set a picnic before me,
you restore my soul.
The beach is calling "Come have breakfast with me"
"Come eat and be filled".

I'm out in Ayia Napa, here for another 6 weeks, while coming back shortly to the UK to be part of Rachel and mani's then Dave and Susan's weddings, returning on wednesday for a week. I'm pretty exhausted and going through a lot internally, while trying to press on with leading the team. You can check out the team blog at D3uk.net diary.
God's really mocking my legalism as a leader, appropriateness about when to recieve healing and when to give. My heart is truly broken at the moment, many hidden insecurities are arising, but Rachel, Anna, Ant and Bex have really been looking after me and praying with me. I feel quite a fool, but it can only be good.
Thanks for your prayers

I have just returned from the wonderful country of Norway.
The first thing that struck me when I arrived was that the sun seamed more static and further away, which it was. It's slightly colder there, more like spring weather, and it was pretty wet. It has been a good time to retreat from life in Sheffield, though I didn't find much time with God. Great to meet Miriam's friends and see another culture, though it's difficult when everyone is speaking a different language, they all understand you, but you cannot understand them! Felt quite lonely at times.
Went to a Norwegean wedding on saturday, they have some differences, the best, after exchanging rings, was having two candles representing the bride and groom, then lighting one large one and blowing out their own. Brilliant symbolism, I hope I'll do the same when I get married.
The other strange thing was how the norwegeans live on separate islands and therefore go everywhere by boat. In some ln places they've got over this by digging U shaped tunnels 250m below sea level under the fjords, ( couldn't see the signature of slaaty blaatfast though).
I bought a wonderful album by the Norwegean artist Thomas Dybdale (thats dib-dal) sings in English, and plays acoustic guitar, rather like Damion Rice.
Here's a poem I wrote on my return journey, it's not very poetic, but it says some of what's going through my mind:
Rocks, scarred out of the sea,
From high into the clouds,
Shaped into scoops of blue,
Quality reihns on the land,
Fortune pays for streets of granite,
sardines once lined pockets,
now cans are packed by another class.
Oiled from the ocean a rich nation
of beauty, delicacy, norse.
The feeling of exclusion of language
brought into inclusion by a touch,
I'm no enemy, I'm no long term friend,
Listen to my heart and I'll show you what I see
just a prayer, a connection to the one whome we're free.
This is where I loose all place
this importance of ritual familiarity
finding their roots, finding my feet.
A time of realisation
humility in helplessness, lonliness.

I was really blessed to stay with the cave's. felt like one of the family in a way I haven't experienced before...
Thank God, thankyou Norway.

I find it really hard to rest, I don't mean sleep, I find it hard to do more passive forms of rest, it soon feels like it's fading off into meaninglessness, watching films, reading books, I can do these things when I need a break in work or other business (busy-ness), but when that's all you can do....
I came off my bike on wednesday, as some of you might know (ttai), came round a corner near church slightly too fast, on some gravel and there was a car driving on the other side of the road so I couldn't go wide. The bike came out from beneath me and I slid along the ground on my chin. I walked bleeding to church and Mary Hopkin's took me to hospital, stayed with me for about 4 hours. I had three stitches in my chin, two chipped teeth (not to the nerve), a fairly grazed face and further grazes on my hands, elbow and knees. I've got my glasses fixed (badly scratched), thank God, but the worst thing is eating as I bit into my lower lip when I fell and it's really saw. Well it could have been loads worse, I've had to explain it to everyone I see, so here's the record.
I'm getting back to normal really, it's certainly helped me not to procrastinate over sorting things out, especially as i'm going to Norway to see Miriam on tuesday. It's easy to get down at times like these, partly the shock I guess, but I don't do passivity well, and I haven't really spent time with god, I find it easier to do that on the move. I know that God is telling me to rest, so I'd better.
I've finished my Diploma (Landscape Management, 5th year), pretty sure I've passed, so what next? I've got plans, but the next few weeks I'm going to try to calm down. It's been a really hectic year in one way or another, 24 years old, life stretches before me, and I'm not going to just find purpose in doing things!!

I watched two films this weekend; Spellbound and The Last Samurai.
The formed was pretty funny, I recommend it have a laugh at American culture and what these poor kids have to go through.
The Last Samurai is fantastic, it really echoes in me of our own battles against progress. Progress seen as the God of the industrial revolution, and still very much a God today. Now we further bow down to money and material wealth, the samurai remind me of other monastic people, who know how to find peace in a corrupt world. If only we could also learn to say no to all the many distractions that surround us. I really struggle with the idea of living simply, I have so much, I am a hoarder, although I have recently thrown a lot of stuff out: or more accurately given it to oxfam.
The samurai are focused people who live in discipline, duty and honour, qualities I would like to be known be, qualities hard to find in today's world, but then you don't see them because the spotlight isn't on them. I hope I might learn to honour God and fight against my own consumerism in the same way the samurai do.
I may have more to say on this.....
Ben and Helen's cat is really cool, he's not only cute and stylishly grey, he's very playful but also affectionate.
Speak soon.....

Thoughts 020504
Sewing is brilliant, yesterday i made a STRAIGHT JACKET (i didn't mean to write that in capitals, it just happened) with my sister (my older one that is not the 3 year old). I've been reading 'salam pax the Baghdad Blog' (thanks to benaskew.blogspot.com) which has inspired me; it's too easy to be too serious about life, we need things that remind us that it's supposed to be a laugh. Salam Pax has got the balance well which is why his blog probably got so popular. Plus that fact that his awareness of the media coverage and tongue in cheek reviews are hilarious and yet cutting to the reality. (I think his blog is called where_is_raed?.blogspot.com, but I could be wrong).
Why did we make a straight jacket you may ask? My sister is a video artist in her third year at Wimbledon school of art, she does some weird things, always thought provoking, I think she'll go far. I believe in using the accident, it's what makes art, the jacket has very long arms which go back to an earlier piece (see the auction, a painting of this is on sale, Claire Blundell Jones) it's all about need, needy people, recognising the vulnerable, and for her, becoming vulnerable.
One of my favorite musical artists is Matthew Herbert (magicandaccicent.co.uk) he has a rule for making music and using the accident:
5. The inclusion, development, propagation, existence, replication, acknowledgement, rights, patterns and beauty of what are commonly known as accidents, is encouraged. Furthermore, they have equal rights within the composition as deliberate, conscious, or premeditated compositional actions or decisions.
This is called the manifesto of mistakes (part of the PERSONAL CONTRACT FOR THE COMPOSITION OF MUSIC or PCCOM)

Hope you enjoyed reading, Tim

We had Heidi Baker talk at St Thom's last night, quite crazy, she leads about 500 churches in mozambique. She spoke about the intimacy of God, dieing to ourselves etc.
After she called forward those who are called to be missionaries. As I am now part of the mission order I felt I should go forward, it was an amazing time. I really felt the presence of God, overwelming peace. My body was so rested in His presence it took me quite a while to breathe normally.
I have felt that God is drawing me into him over the last few days, to just be like a son in the heavenly fathers arms. More Lord.
If only I would be more like Jesus that is my heart and that's what this is all about. I hope my faith will increase and I'll see more of God's power released in others lives.
Praise God

Thoughts 070404
I'm going through a time at the moment where I am humbled by how useless I am at being holy, at being a leader and at relationships. I think it's God's way of calling me back to him, both in terms of sin and pruning back after a time of fruitfulness, and extreme business (busy-ness).
I'm so driven to God in need of him, knowing his grace is the only thing that has sustained me over this last few months. One of the biggest blessings for me at this time is listening to Tim Hughs song:

I've had questions without answers,
I've known sorrow I have known pain,
but there's one thing that I'll cling to;
you are faithful, Jesus you're true

(Chorus)
When hope is lost I'll call you saviour
When pain surrounds I'll call you healer
When darkness falls you'll be the song within my heart.

In the lone hour of my sorrow,
through the darkest night of my soul,
you surround me and sustain me
my defender forever more

I will praise you
when the tears fall still I will sing to you
I will Praise you
through the suffering still I sing; (Chorus)

Hello and welcome to the wonderful world of me.... Actually I hope it's not about me so much as life, god, relationship and Art