Heart still being changed & peanut butter Kit Kat!! June

Hi you complete gems
( Fliss in Karen outfit with purple heart shoes!!)

I am starting this on Bank Holiday having just eaten an Indian meal from the Bengal, the best Indian take away in Watford. It looks nothing from the outside but the food is excellent and they always give me extra things thrown in!! I am also watching House on channel 5 which I recorded recently. This week Hugh Lowrie, as House, is trying to sort out a guy who is a Christian and of course, being the no 1 sceptic, it should make good viewing!!

Last week was very difficult on the exhaustion front - one of the worst so far and feeling rough 4 days of the week, so trying some new multi vitamin and will get the thyroid checked out and been lent a book on healthy eating by dear Sarah so....!!

I did manage to celebrate Nicki's birthday on Friday evening and on Saturday there were 300+ girls for Soul Sista where there was an excellent talk on self image by Ali combined with a cafe selling great cakes etc, pamper corner, clothes rack and others selling books and music. Everyone I spoke to loved it and it fills me with admiration to see these amazing young people trying to live out their Christian faith in very difficult circumstances. I realize so much how fortunate I am to be at Soul Survivor which is a great church in so many ways. I also want to a barbecue on Sunday at Ros and Kevin's who are emigrating to New Zealand on the 9th and got driven there in style by the wonderful Marcia and Alan who are two very kind people both with a good sense of humour.

The picture above is me in a Karen outfit and the other picture is when we stood outside the Burmese Embassy to demonstrate about the disgraceful scenes and violence against the ethnic groups in Burma particularly the Karen and the Chin where rape is a regular occurance, villages are burnt down, landmines used, 15,000 IDP's are in Burma or on the Thai /Burmese border, churches burnt down, Christians forced to convert, the army marrying Chin women and other appalling actions. On Saturday following the visit of Burma of the deputy Secretary General of the United Nations Ibrahim Gilbrani, there was some talk that Aung Sang Sui Kyi might be released from house arrest after 10 years and 17 in detention but typically this did not happen. The other picture is of course a reconstruction but even so this is genocide, it is evil and still the rest of the world is stalling and even though people like Desmond Tutu, Vaclav Halva and others are speaking it is still not enough. OK you are tired of me going on about it.....

I am reading several books but the one that really has my attention is one by my old pastor Rachel Hickson who lives in Oxford with her husband Gordon but travels all over the world to speak. Some of you will remember I went to India with her in the 90's on one of her speaking trips which was amazing. It is called Supernatural Communication and is so honest, practical and has an account of her amazing escape in 1984 in Zimbabwe, where a brain scan showed extensive brain damage and she developed multiple fat emboli still makes me cry as she was part of our church at that time. Her husband and parents were told to come to Zimbabwe and take her body home .. and as we say the rest is history as thousands prayed. And yet she says that, even knowing that prayer saved her she STILL found prayer difficult and yet she hears God speak in an amazingly intimate and practical ( and often amusing )way. I would strongly recommend it as it is such an encouragement to us all. I might hear her speak on 17th in Oxford with 4 others from Soul Survivor.

I wonder how you all are. All ex- students whether at university, college or school with exams I am sure you will be fine and do your best. It does not seem 5 minutes since I was speaking to you before waving you off to the numerous exam papers last year with the hope you would put more than your name on the paper!! Just a little joke and I admit not very funny!!

I am now writing on the 3rd June and the energy level has been improved by 90% so that is great. I have not cancelled anything this week, been out to lunch twice which is extravagent in one week and done alot. Two weeks ago I felt strongly that God was saying I was supposed to mentor someone at church ( bit of a joke when not 100%) and then 4 days later she came up to me whilst I was on the welcome desk and asked for a mentoring form and then said about me mentoring her! I did say that I was irritable, moody and straight down the line but if she could cope with that then I was perfect apart from those things!! We went to the pub on Wednesday evening and amazingly she was not asleep in the first 10 minutes!! Thankfully she is under no illusions. We are both on a pilgrimage and God is patient with us both.

There is one area that keeps recurring so will explore this a little more.

I am reading lots of different books and one recent novel is by Charles Johnson called Dreamer and is about a guy who is the spitting image of Martin Luther King and takes his place but is a real sceptic so should make interesting reading.He is certainly enlarging my vocabulary! The other is by a Chinese writer and is called Waiting.

Talking about China, I am off to the Chinese Embassy soon as there is another demonstration about the fact the Chinese are sending North Koreans back to their country when they escape and, being one of the most notorious regimes on the planet, they are likely to be executed. At the moment one Korean is faced with the death penalty for speaking out about the atrocities in North Korea.

I do need wisdom on whether I am meant to do a mixture of things eg mentoring, supply, chaplaincy, retrain etc. I have no clarity.

Today at a conference following coffee and cake in Cassio which was GREAT, a young 6th former from Bath had a picture of a quilt with all different threads and, though I have never met her in my life, she said she felt God was saying that all that is happening is being woven in and is necessary to the tapestry that He is producing of my life and it was all in His plan.

The psychologist continues to have her work cut out but is still being incredibly gracious!! I am still learning loads from it and it makes me think every Friday and challenges me big time during the week!!!Her diplomacy continues to be impressive. When it is all finished I am sure you will love my impersonation (spelling?)of me being the psychologist and talking to me!! On Friday at one point she said "I am unclear what you are trying to say" which made two of us probably due to one glass of wine I had consumed at lunch in Berko with a friend!!!

I forgot to say at the Soul Sista conference that Ali was talking about the names we have spoken over ourselves or what people have spoken over us. She challenged us to ask God to show us what name He had given us so I will continue to ask, even though I think He has just given me the 2nd part of it ( the 1st was on the platform of North Watford Station a year ago) but it seems so IMPROBABLE and not me that it probably is God!! We shall see. He is still doing LOADS OF WORK ON MY HEART ( YES STILL!!). I also re-read Grief Observed on the bus to Harrow in order to compare C. S Lewis's thoughts on the silence of God with my own.

Much love to all you amazing and dearly loved people. Try the peanut Kit Kat- awesome and no calories!!!!! Who am I kidding with twice the twirl bar!!

Flissxxx