Update and Photos of Friends

I've been away for a while, I know. I kinda lost the motivation for a while, but I'll try and write regularly from now on.
Hmm, so, I spent Easter with Stephen Morris' family, which was awesome. Here's a pic of the two of us.
We went to the cinema, played table tennis, and ate his mother's wonderful cooking. On Easter Day we went to a sunrise service at 6am (!) and we had an easter egg hunt too! It was tres fun. It was good to see him again, as i hadn't seen him since Winter School. I didn't realise how much I missed him.

I have now finished all of my exams and I am currently back in Kent for the summer, trying to find work, to earn as much money for Chicago as possible.
Leaving Regents Theological College was not too hard, although I will miss the friends I made there. It wasn't like that last day in March last year though.
Here are some pictures of me and some of my friends:

Note how I have a lot of Asian friends. Ha. (None of them Chinese though. Booo...)

Oh, P.S. go check out my photoblog for new photos from a photoshoot I did with my best friend at Regents. I will be adding more photos there, now that I have more time, so be on the look out and tell me what you think!

Random Bumping-into-people-ness

So I'm eating lunch in the canteen and I look out the window and see Andy Woof!
I climb over everyone and rush out to meet him and his new wife. Turns out, they are on a 'just looking' kinda visit to the college. Weird huh?
Anyway, he's doing fine, enjoying the married life, working with gardening. And Kate and Rich are now going to his church in Carnforth.
I was so disappointed when he couldn't make it to T-Hof in the Spring, but it's awesome that I got to see him again.

Mother's Day or Mothering Sunday?

Today is Mother's Day in England. It's also called Mothering Sunday.
In church today, I learnt that Mother's Day was started by a Pensylvanian woman in 1905. Meanwhile in Britain, we celebrated Mothering Sunday, which was the Sunday that you went back to your 'mother' church.
During WWII, American troops stationed in Britain started giving gifts and flowers to their landladies, which was ever so popular, and we adopted Mother's Day, combining it with Mothering Sunday, but holding it on the British Mothering Sunday, rather than on the American Mother's Day.
This answered a question I've had for years, so I thought I would post about it, but I've just realised that you Americanadians probably have never used the term 'Mothering Sunday', so I'm now in two minds as to whether I'll actually post this or not.
Either way, this is another opportunity to thank God for our Mothers.
Oh, yeah, it's my mum's birthday today too! Happy 25th Birthday Mum!!!

Nightmare on Sermon Street

So this evening I was preaching at a church in Birmingham (the original one in England, not Alabama).
I haven't been well for the past couple of days and my condition remained throughout today. Nothing big, just a sore, raw and raspy throat. And I don't remember putting anything up there, but my nose was blocked up also. These symptoms along with an energyless body caused me to stay bed-ridden until last night, still not having prepared my sermon. I was still hoping on God for more inspiration and the words to say up until this afternoon, after my lecturer had preached in the morning. But no, I had parts still missing.
During the last worship song before I preached, I got a small kid to get me a glass of water to soothe my throbbing larynx. He did, and I got up to preach.
About 10 seconds into my my first illustration, which was meant to be a rib-tickler, I realised I had left my water down by my seat, and was about to motion someone to carry it over to me, when a phone rang. Yep.
It wasn't one of those repetitive monotones, but one of those catchy cool tunes, which you'd usually let ring a couple of times before answering. However, this was not the time. I paused momentarily for someone to turn it off, but I suddenly realised, it was coming from behind me. In a jacket on a chair behind me, this phone had been set to the ringing mode where it gets progressively louder the longer you don't answer it. Suddenly from amidst the congregation, the pastor shouts, "Oh, man, that's mine! That's never happened before. It'll stop ringing in a sec." But when it didn't stop, he had to come up out of the congregation, and pick it up.
This totally threw me off my sermon, but worse was the fact that it was all being recorded to be assessed for one of my modules.
Anyways, after the proverbial diarrhea had hit the fan, I cleaned it up and finished my sermon. There were some really good points in there, but overall it lacked the total enthusiasm and passion that are usually habitual of my sermons. I put this down to the lack of focus. That and the freakin' pastor's phone too.

We're all the same

Over the last couple of days, some people's stuff has gone missing here at college, including an iPod. A Honduran guy was suspected by the Koreans, who had been watching his shifty behaviour which coincided with the appropriate timing of his departure from England. So, going to the authorities, they asked to solve the whole thing by searching his room. It had to be explained to them that this was not legal without his permission, which he would not give, being adamant that the impertinence of even suspecting him was absurd and out of order since he led worship back at his home church in Honduras. Then when the Honduran happened to be absent from the college premises one night, a couple of the Korean guys (just think of Kyung Taek and Yi Ho but even less outgoing), climbed up the wall outside and in through his window to search his room. They found the iPod etc in his coat, and took it back.
Upon telling us the story, we had to inform the Koreans that they could not report this to the authorities, as they could be charged with breaking and entering. The Honduran was told what had happened, but denied everything, sticking to a story of evidence planting. Nothing more will be done and everyone has their stuff back, but the people who know the truth do not look favourably upon the Honduran.

However, I am reminded of how theft is still in the same bracket as coveting etc, and that we all have problems and still sin, so technically are no different.

On another note, the night the two Koreans searched that guy's room, many people were praying for God's justice to be done, and the Honduran just happened to be out of college at the time because he was in hospital, having played football, had fallen awkwardly, and broken his arm.
This may or may not have been God's judgement, but some would say that going to play football on a stone floor after just stealing from prayerful Christians was only inviting God's vengeance. I don't happen to agree with either, but who knows. It's just funny how things turn out.

Everyone and their mum

Somedays I oversleep through breakfast. Today I overslept through lunch. The wave of underachievement sweeps over me on days like these. I've been saying that a lot recently.
There was a point today where I had a deep longing to talk to everyone again. Have you ever thought how amazing it would be if you could just summon a friend to you from across the world? Hmm, but what would you do if everyone arrived all at once? That would be weird. I mean, who would you talk to?
Anyway, so today I see James W. Haring III on Skype and I'm so excited. Turns out, it was his mum. She is so awesome and I remember spending quite a bit of time with her when she came to visit in Austria. There was this one morning where Jimmy, Jonny B and myself were out on a run, and we stopped at her Taxi Maxi room to give her a barbershop-quartet rendition of "You are my Sunshine" and she loved it. That was and is a great memory. I think we should be more thankful for mums. Both ours and our friend's mums. Yeah, so I ended up talking to her for an hour, coming to the conclusion that I should call Jimmy and Justin tonight, partly because it didn't seem kosher that I spend more time talking to Jimmy's mum than the man himself.
Here's a picture of me today. Enjoy my burgundy braces. I sure do.
P.S. BJ, Do you remember that German Axe deodorant Johannes got his mum to send us from Germany? Well I found some of that Limited Edition in Austria, so I stocked up. As shown in the top photo. Once again, thank God for mums.

This is worse than that time the racoon got in the copier

After playing Pro Evolution Soccer on the X-Box with a Korean guy for the last 5 hours straight, I come back to my room only to have my nostrils molested by a stench worse than the bowels of Hades…
Ok, so most days I get free milk cartons. Often, more than I can consume. (You see where this is heading). A couple of months ago, I entertained the thought that maybe a substance close to cheese could be created under the sink in my room. It could. However, by the time this was achieved, the excitement at the prospect no longer existed, and the milk cartons just kept on piling up. Little did I expect there to be a saturation point upon which the expansion of the milk/curds/whey quietly burst the cartons, (unbeknownst to myself), seeping something that could be classified as raw evil that permeates the carpet of my daily living.
The smell is so bad, I could throw up, and it would actually smell noticeably more pleasant. I think I’m going to have to sleep in the corridor tonight, or spray deodorant directly up my nose.

Davey got sick

I'm not feelin' too good guys. I have a fever or something. I've been ill for the last week or so, but yesterday and today was pretty bad. I even missed classes... moan moan moan... you know the rest...

I do love a good party

Saturday night we arranged a birthday party for 3 of the lads. Much dancing, much fun was had. Although it did occur to me that hardly anyone English was dancing. Strange? No, they're English.
My Japanese and Korean friends didn't let me down though. That's right. Koreans dancing. Actually, do you remember when we found out they rocked at Dance Dance Revolution? Awesome.

This was my birthday present to Simo, the Finnish guy. I portrayed him with Action Man, who had signs to hold up in Finnish, like, "I've been vomitting", "More bear steak!", "Can I bring my laptop into the sauna?", and "I'm going to need a specimen of your urine."
It's amazing what useful Finnish phrases you can find on the WWW.

Psychic Mind Reader???

Someone sent me this, as they were baffled by it, and I wanted to see what you thought.
It took me about 2 minutes to figure it out, but that's because you get these sorta things inside Christmas crackers. Hey, do you guys get Christmas crackers? I can't remember.