e-holiness

some wedding photos...

some people have been asking to see the photos i took at chris' wedding over the weekend, so i thought that the easiest thing to do would be to drop a link into e-holinesss to my flickr account, so please visit this link to see some of the photos. lovely weather, amazing food and a good time had by all.

it's true....

the wrong view

i love the work of street artist julian beever, unfortunately i have never seen his work 'in the flesh' but the images on his site are amazing and well worth a closer look, what amazes me is not only does his work look so realistic but also the fact that when viewed from the wrong angle they seem so out of shape and distorted, it's not until you are viewing them from the correct angle or perspective that you can actually see what they are.....(see the two views of the same image on the right hand side of this post for an example)

here's the challenging part, many of us have the wrong view of God, much of this has been due to how man has treated us and we base our 'facts' on that. the bible tells us that Jesus is 'the way the truth and the life' and we can only come to God through Him, to many this seems harsh and alienating, however many millions have also found this to be true....

...why not make so time this lent to seek God and His truths, not looking to man and his fallen ways which might lead you to a God who is nothing like the loving father he really is, but look to God asking Him to reveal Himself to you.....maybe it might take a move on your part to be in the right position to see Him, remember as with julian beevers pictures if we are looking at them the wrong way they make no sense at all....    

   

more photos

at last mr warner has started to upload some of his thousands of photos onto flickr, pete and karen joined us in south africa over the summer and not only did pete use his computer skills to help out at the thembacare clinic in grabouw but also put into action some of his photographic skills in capturing the natural beauty of the country and it's people (excluding the photo of my 40th birthday which just captures a moment in time).

to view pete's photos follow this link and to see further updates on mine follow this one.!

who's in charge?

follow this link to a cartoon which pretty much sums up so many of us, whether non-christians or not.!

God still cares

a friend of mine asked if i knew of any opportunities of working in a french speaking african country, burundi was mentioned and straightaway my thoughts went to our good friend simon guillebaud who works in that desperate little country in the middle of africa...

simon was the person who got us thinking about the hiv aids problems in south africa and is one of the reasons and inspirations for us to 'get out there and do it'...i recommend that you take a look at the short video clip of the work that simon (and lizzie) are doing with the great lakes outreach in burundi, a country that man has forgotten but is still in the forefront of God's mind...

towards the end of the clip you will see simon playing (handling) with a snake and a crocodile and lizzie sitting with zac cuddling another baby...this provided me with a picture of what we do with our lives, we can opt for a life of safety and comfort here in the west (and i'm not saving that we don't have our problems over here and if God is calling you to europe or america that is also important) or we can go into those dangerous places standing with the orphans infected by aids or coming against those hostile to the message of Christ (including our neighbours which might seem daunting to us) ..

and yes it is hard, but when we go with the knowledge that God is with us and we are part of His plan to save this dying world we can confidently (as Jesus says when confronting his disciples lack of faith in mark 16 verses 15-18) pick up snakes, drink poison and place our hands on sick people and they will be well....come on God cares for these people and even when a place seems hopeless like the situation in burndi or the aids epidemic in south africa he needs you to show that...!      

going somewhere special...

....i know we usually only post once a day but saw this and had to post again...i don't want to get involved in the whole carbon footprint issue (because that's not what this cartoon is saying) and because that would get me talking about the fact only 4 percent of the worlds carbons emissions are caused by man and of those industry is the worse culprit, i was more concerned about not only mr blair flying over the poor and needy people in darfur, but i wonder how much we think about others as we make our way abroad on our 'holiday trips' this summer...(or within the uk if we are the stay at home types).!? 

tee shirts in vouge

it seems that wearing tee shirts announcing your allegiance to God is in vogue, not only did i spot kaka, the brazilian footballer who won the european champions league with ac milan on wednesday, wearing an 'i belong to Jesus' tee shirt under his football top but joseph arthur can be seen wearing a shirt claiming 'God is awesome' in his new video 'diamond ring'.....

please don't forget this sunday is the global day of prayer, where people in over 200 nations will be seeking God......   

a picture tells a thousand words

one month today we will be back in south africa on our second family visit to the thembalitsha projects around cape town, even today two friends of mine arrive for a week to work with this charity.

as we plan our visit the excitement grows and we go with so much expectation to see God move in powerful ways in peoples lives as we show his love for them, we are also looking forward to meeting up with adrian lange, his girlfriend, gerrida and the managing director chris and vicky hinrichsen, who work with the poor and infected everyday, we hope that our input will add to their amazing work.

this evening we are hosting a preview of the film 'faith like potatoes' at the aylesbury vale vineyard centre in aylesbury, this opportunity opened up from a contact of chris' from south africa. the film tells the story of angus buchan, a south african farmer, who sees God move in amazing ways, i posted about this book in june and also the sequel 'the seed sower' in august. we are so blessed to have frank rautenbach, the lead actor, to join us at the showing.      

we would also like to provide a link to another project called 'the house is small but the welcome is big', this sees women living with HIV in cape town capture their world on camera, take a look at their site and some of the bios of these ladies, we hope that these photos will give you some idea of the sights that we will see in a months time.      

prophetic painting

last night we had the most wonderful worship time, 'led' by john mark mcmillan from morning star in america, mark and his wife sarah waited on God's spirit to bring us to a place of worship, see previous post on john mark's music. whilst we were worshipping john mark was joined by oliver pengilley who has been given a gift of prophetic painting, the pictures he paints 'in the spirit' are most amazing, yes i know it's hard to believe but to watch oliver work (paint) whilst we worshipped was a sight behold. 

just a short reminder that tonight we have another opportunity to join together with others to seek God's face, we have the pleasure of listening to some guys from fresh fire ministries, see separate post for info. hope to see some of you there, come expectant.!