from behind my scarf......

today we went to see 'The black Knight' i must say the only thing i enjoyed was that we had booked our tickets for the VIP screen (well at a push I liked batmans motorbike as well) - which means we watched it flat out on oversized leather recliners - when i say watched - i saw the first half and as the never ending intensity increased i viewed the second half with my scarf over my eyes and my nano in my ears :-)(seriously i did i am not joking) it did make stuart snigger who of course loved it and wasn't scared at all! yet more proof that women are from venus and men are from mars - if we needed anymore!

it was classed as a 12A and could easily have been verging on a cert 15, but the thing i must say upset me most of all even more so thn the guys face half missing - was the whole back row and some was filled with kids no older than six years old with their parents..... is this really the stuff for little eyes to see, if i a 29 year old couldnt keep my eyes open - what are we putting into our kids these days! as a youth worker when people question us about how kids these days are so out of control and into violence and how knife crime etc is on the up and up .... i will quickly remind them of the kids watching 'the black knight' and the lack of responsibility society seems to have on what we feed our kids imaginations with!

what we put in we get out..........

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sunsets and sparkles.......

Tonight was a beautiful evening, warm and balmy and we decided to go out and enjoy our lovely surroundings (which we don't take time to do enough), so we bundled our eager cairn terrier Jude in the car and drove about 5 minutes away to the beautiful Strangford Lough.

We drove and stopped at several viewing points watching the sunset on the water and listening to nature – its moments like this that make me wonder how people don’t believe in a Creator. At our last stop we got out and walked on an empty little beach – it refreshed my soul to stand still and watch the water turn red and sparkly as the sun went down and hear the gentle lapping of the water and the birds around settling down for the night………………………….beautiful……. remember to take time to slow down and let God speak to you through His handiwork……..

new read...

as i said 'blue like jazz' was hard to follow. i picked up this new book by erwin mcmanus and love it so far...............

never done learning.......................

Stuart and I have been off for a couple weeks holiday and we are on our last couple of days off! Were does the time go – just when I am getting good at relaxing its time to pick up gear again.

But even when I am on hols I am never off from learning new lessons or being reminded of old ones.

One of the things we like to do when we are holidaying on the north coast of Ireland is play a little golf (not with pom pom funny hats and stripy trousers of anything). When we arrived to play one day the course was packed and me as patient as I am was thinking ‘rats’ we are going to be waiting for ages to tee off! We checked in got our clubs etc and were walking to the tee off spot and just a few steps in front were a family with two little kids all kitted out to play. My instant ‘godly’ reaction was to mutter to Stuart ‘pick up your pace there is no way we are being stuck behind them – it will take forever’ and I quickly adjusted my stride to super walker and passed the family and took our place in front of them in the queue!

All the time I kept shuffling so they would be sure to notice we were first in line! When suddenly I started hearing the still small voice saying ‘it’s so hard for little kids to wait, ‘look how excited they are’ ‘would be so nice to let them go first’. Finally it was our turn to get started and as I stepped forward out of my mouth I hear ‘you guys go first, the kids look excited to get started’. They might I add were as shocked as I was! After some polite discussion they went first, and yes it was slow behind them but it was fun and actually made us go slow enough to drink in the amazing scenery and have fun chatting on the way……………

Just as a reminder to me that it is always good to put others first, the family took time to wave goodbye to us as a thank you before they left and a few days later we were shopping in the local town when all of sudden this guy passed us out of nowhere and said ‘not playing golf today’ it was the family and they had remembered us and taken the time to say hi again!

Taking time to prefer one another really is a blessing and something I need to do much more ………………

finished my book..................

Finished reading ‘blue like jazz’ a few days ago! Such a great read! I have to say it has been a while since I read something that made me laugh out loud on many occasions and at the same time challenge me to the point of discomfort. For a few nights I had to stop reading it before bedtime as I couldn’t put it down and was reading into the wee small hours (and combined with the light on and me bursting out laughing on occasion, Stuart didn’t appreciate it too much).

What a great writer Don Miller is, he is incredibly honest even sometimes painfully honest! He is so good at putting things into words that I think if a lot of us were honest we have wrestled with or pondered.

I’m still chewing over a lot of it especially the chapter about loneliness…..

I am concerned for the next book I choose to read cause I have been really spoiled and ‘blue like jazz’ may be my new measuring rod for a while to come………….

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fakebook......................

Have just been thinking the last few days about as a society are we beginning to lose the art of forming healthy real authentic relationships... it seems as much of a blessing as facebook, bebo, blogging, texting etc etc are they will never begin to be a substitute for the real thing.
If we look at the life of Jesus he spent his time face to face with all kinds of people, and as a youth worker living in a country were the suicide rate of young people is soaring... I have to ask what are some of the roots to that problem and one of them I think is loneliness……….

What will it be like in 50 years time if we continue to go about communicating the way we are, will we all be hiding behind a two dimensional world, choosing which picture we let people see of our lives instead of what really is going on in our hearts. Will we know what or even how to have real, deep rewarding relationships with each other (warts and all), more importantly will we know how to have a relationship with Father God or will we think he is the kind of God who sends us an email or the occasional text and changes his profile picture depending on his mood or the weather………….

Not finished on this subject…………………….
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Blood Diamond the movie?????

Just watched it and still processing!!

I have a friend who sold her engagement ring after seeing it and gave the money to an African charity. So challenging.

but you know what I think why stop at diamonds - is our chocolate fair trade, our coffee beans fair trade - what about the clothes we wear, are people chained to sewing machines in sweatshops all in name of fashion!

Where do we start and where does it end?

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Its on our doorstep not in far away countries........

British girls as young as 14 are being trafficked for sex within the UK
03/07/2008 :: UK :: This is London
British girls as young as 12 are being forced into prostitution by migrants in a new crime of 'internal' people trafficking.

Children from ordinary families are groomed by older men posing as boyfriends before being pimped around the UK to have sex up to 20 times a night.

They are raped and often drugged, according to police.

Officers have identified 'syndicates of Iraqi men throughout the UK' behind the exploitation.

A Government report said 'internal trafficking' was an 'emerging issue' and it should no longer be assumed young victims of sex exploitation were smuggled from abroad.

A UK Human Trafficking Centre intelligence report says girls as young as 12 are taken from town to town and controlled with threats and assault.

In one operation, 32 victims were identified in the Sheffield area alone. All were aged 12 to 15 and had been raped.

In another study, police say girls 'are given to a life of exploitation, waking up in anonymous towns, unable to contact family and with no way out'.

Figures released at the end of a six-month crackdown on people traffickers showed 167 victims were rescued across Britain and Ireland and 528 suspected traffickers were arrested.

It included 13 children aged between 14 and 17 who were rescued from sexual exploitation and two children who were under forced labour.

Home Office minister Vernon Coaker said it was difficult to establish the scale of the problem with internal trafficking.

'It is something that increasingly people are raising and we are trying to get a better understanding of what exactly is taking place,' he said.

'It is difficult for us to determine what the size of that problem is but it's something we are aware of and we have concerns about.'

The minister said it tended to involve older men grooming younger women and girls by first appearing to be a friend or boyfriend.

He said the officers had adopted the term 'lover boy' to denote the use of such techniques.

'There is no evidence that this involves children who have gone missing from care,' the minister went on. It is people living in an area and people groom them, get their trust and then betray that trust.'

Gloucestershire Chief Constable Dr Tim Brain, who coordinated the major trafficking crackdown known as Operation Pentameter Two, said it had revealed a large number of brothels in apparently ordinary suburban locations.

Out of more than 800 premises visited by this campaign, nearly 600 were residential and 157 were massage parlours, saunas and nail bars, which are the more traditional 'front' for brothels.

'It is impossible to say at this stage whether this is a shift in behaviour,' Dr Brain said.
It is likely that in future police investigations will have to consider all kinds of premises.

'In some of the cases the neighbours who live nearby have not actually suspected any kind of unusual activity.'

Latest estimates by police are that there may be as many 18,000 trafficked victims that are forced to work as prostitutes, Dr Brain went on.

The projections varied considerably and could be between 6,000 and 18,000, he added.

So far Operation Pentameter Two has led to 24 convictions for a range of offences.
The first phase of Pentameter in 2006 rescued 88 victims and made 232 arrests.

Dr Brain said: 'The increase in arrests is good news in terms of police and partner agency effectiveness but it does mean that we still have an insidious problem in the heart of our society.'

Mr Coaker announced that the Government plans to grant a 45-day period of grace to victims of human trafficking after their rescue, even if they are in the country illegally.

The Home Office had already pledged to ratify a European agreement to give a period of 30 days.

Loving this book.

I started reading this book - I don't know what’s taken me so long, I have kept getting distracted and lured into reading other books - but finally it is the turn of 'blue like jazz'. It’s brilliant! Donald Miller is so funny and profound, as I was enjoying reading it last night in bed every time I sniggered to myself Stuart wanted to know which bit I was reading! So eventually he put down his book and i read aloud for about an hour. Its that good he wanted to hear it a seond time.

will give an update when i finish





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White and shiny ……….again!

White and shiny ……….again!

No this is not a post about being cleansed by the blood.

It’s about me having to break in a second pair of white shoes…….

Stuart and I have gone through three pairs of superdry hi tops (shoes) in the last month or so. It’s not cause we have no car and walk everywhere, its cause they keep falling apart.

So I decided we have given them a second chance and they let us down again (harsh I know) so today I went back to the old faithfuls and got a new pair of converse hi tops. But as both have been white – I had just gotten the superdrys not so white if you know what I mean. So its back to walking the streets which sunglasses until I step in some puddles and let Stuart stand on my feet…..

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petals falling from a flower.

There is a happy time, and then it ends


There is love, but for a short time and only in front of my face


Men boast we are pretty, but they are not honest with us


We boast we are pretty while we wear make up


No one knows it, but we are like petals falling from a flower


The only beauty we have is spiritual


Life is just life, it has no meaning

An English translation of a poem on a wall in a closed down brothel in SvayPak, Cambodia. Agape International Ministries are transforming the brothel into a community centre in the heart of Svay Pak. Svay Pak is a small village located on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. They say that Svay Pak is a world wide staging ground for the destruction of young girls’ lives. Where girls as young as three and four are sold for profit.


aim4asia.org

scary luv....

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