The Remaining Rwandan Reflections!

I'm attempting to type this whilst crammed into a Ugandan bus with my knees up under my chin cause there's no foot/leg room on this seat! So please excuse any poor typing that may occur, the roads here are much less good that the Rwandan roads!

So, to continue my account of what we've been up to during our busy week in Uganda: On Tuesday we were back in the LOH office, and Egide had invited a few people to come and meet us. One of them was a guy called Jackson who was falsely accused of rape and held in prison on remand. When LOH met him in prison over 3 years later, he had no knowledge of where his case was at. The LOH lawyer on his case did some research, went to the court and so on, and found that he had been acquitted three years previously, and had therefore ended up serving 3 years longer than he should have. Thanks to LOH he was able to be released and is now working as a farmer, is married and has a daughter! It was really cool to get to meet him - his case was really influential in helping LOH get funding for their prison work, and it's such a clear example of why their work is important.

We also met one of their community paralegals - one of the big aims of LOH is to create a sustainable system that empowers communities to know their rights and to resolve issues themselves. They do this through training paralegals to know the procedure for different types of case and to work with local leaders to resolve issues.

The most inspiring person for me was Mary, one if the lawyers who works with LOH. When we asked her why she decided to work with LOH, she came alive and was telling us how she wanted to make a difference and be a lawyer that had women and children at heart. This really encouraged me that it's actually possible to practice law and still retain a passion and heart for people!

After another typical lunch of rice, chips (Always chips. With everything.) we got on the bus to Nyamagabe. This has to be one of the coolest bust journeys I've ever had, and God showed me so much of his love for me and his beauty. I was really tired and slept really well for the first hour which was very needed, and I was reminded of the verse from Psalm 27 (I think...I can't reach my bible to check!) that says 'The Lord grants sleep to those he loves'. I was then so amazed by the beautiful, beautiful countryside. Rwanda is known as the land of 1000 hills, and its very obvious why! It spoke so much of God's beauty, and it really struck me that even in a land where there has been such evil perpetrated, Gods beauty and love endures even that. It was approaching sundown, and I was really excited for sunset - there was a beautiful clear sky, and sunsets have always been something that speak so strongly of God's extravagant love and beauty - there was no need for him to make them so beautiful, or to create us in a way that can appreciate them, but the fact he did is, I think, such a sign of his love. As expected, it was an incredible sunset, but just as I was settling down to doze off for the final hour or so of the journey, the stars came out. They were so amazingly spectacular! I was expecting the display of God's beauty to end at sunset, but it's as if he was saying 'my love and beauty is so extravagant, magnificent and never ending that is surpasses all your limitations and expectations'. It was really amazing!

We were staying at another Christian guest house, but before we could go to bed we had to plan our child rights training sessions for the following day (we would have planned them further in advance, had we known about them!!). On Wednesday, after an early start, we had devotions at the world vision office, then headed out to the villages. My half of the team went to an Anglican Church to facilitate a training session for adults in the community. My particular section was around explaining child sexual abuse and the rights and responsibilities surround it. Afterwards we had a time of singing and dancing together in the church, and then headed over to join the other half of the team who had been doing a training session with the local Children's forum (a group of children chosen to represent the needs and voices of children in that community). At the end of that session was a lot more dancing, and then the children called up a family of orphans living in their village and presented them with gifts of soap, food, clothes, school books and so on - each family had brought what they could to help these orphans. It was very moving to see!

Over lunch we met some more people who had been benefitted by the work of LOH in this area, and then it was back on the bus for the 4hr ride back to Kigali.

On Thursday morning we explored the local market and in the afternoon some of the team visited a football project, working with street kids and teaching them the gospel and important skills to help get them off the streets. I was feeling pretty exhausted from the previous 2 days, and so stayed at the guesthouse with a couple of other team members who weren't feeling so well. God answered prayers and refreshed and re-energised us ahead of the student conference on Friday.

The student conference took the whole of Friday, from 8am-6pm. We had about 50 Christian law students there (and a Muslim student!) and we had 2 seminars focussing on a biblical view of law and justice, and then 2 more practical sessions on how to be a Christian law student and practitioner. We had some worship sessions too, and one of the highlights was singing 'Our God is an Awesome God' in English and Kinyrwanda. Karen and I were conference worship leaders, and to our surprise were asked several times if we'd released an album, and where people could buy recordings of us...! It was a lot of fun though, and people seemed to really connect with God, which was an answered prayer!
The conference seemed to really impact them and get them thinking, and it was such an encouragment for me to see, having worked with Claire back in Cambridge to set up a Student Law fellowship - it really reminded me why encouraging students to connect their faith and their subject is so important.

Saturday was mainly saying goodbyes to the LOH team, packing and getting ready for our travel to Uganda. Its been amazing to be in Rwanda, I've been so touched by its friendliness, by the strength of its community and the power of their forgiveness. One of the things that really impressed me, which I forgot to write in the first blog, were the community works that were going on on the Saturday we arrived. On the last Saturday of every month, all work stops and everyone takes part in community work, as directed by their local leaders. There's a focus on reconciliation, unity and pulling together for communal benefit. As a result the streets are so tidy, there's no litter and all the grassy areas on roundabouts and by the side of the road are well tended. I can't help but think we need something like this in the UK to get people working together better in community!

Prayer requests:
-  that we'll settle into Uganda well
- everyone's tired and dehydrated from long journeys, please pray for health and team spirit!

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Hello from Rwanda!

Today is our last day in Rwanda, so I thought I would update you all on what we've been up to whilst we've been here! (having now been sat here typing on my phone for 40mins, I'm going to have to split all we've done into two parts!!) I'll also write a blog on some more reflective thoughts on how I've found Rwanda (we've got a couple of very long bus journeys coming up, so plenty of writing time!).

We arrived here on Saturday morning after a long flight to Nairobi, and a short connecting flight onwards to Kigali. We were met here by Egide (one of the partners at Lawyers of Hope) and Richard, who has been our driver for the week. We headed to our accommodation which is a charity guest house - very African, but comfy beds, fairly clean and usually running water! We spent the day settling in, exploring the area around our accommodation a little and getting our first taste of the traditional Rwandan goat kebabs - really tasty!

On Sunday we went to church at a large pentecostal church called Christian Life Assemblies, which was in many ways like a Rwandan version of City Church in Cambridge. It was very different to my past experiences of African church, but they were super welcoming and we enjoyed it very much! We then headed into the centre of Kigali for lunch at a Chinese restaurant (there's quite a strong Asian influence here which I really wasn't expecting). The centre of Kigali is far more developed than I had expected and there is still a lot of development going on. The roads and infrastructure in the city are pretty good, which is again not what I expected. I was talking to another of the partners, Juve, about why this was and he was explaining the government's Vision 2020 which aims to see the country progress in its Development, providing infrastructure across the whole country, including sanitation, and also free WiFi across much of the country. The finding for this has come primarily from international aid - the rest of the world (rightly) felt pretty guilty about not stepping in to prevent the genocide when they could have done, and so Rwanda has received large sums of international aid. The corruption here is very low, although there has been the same president for the last 22 years, and the constitution has just been changed to allow him to continue, and this means the money seems to be getting to a lot of the right places. There is a slum clearance project which has seen lots of people paid compensation to move out of their slum dwellings to allow development to come in. There seems to be some divide in opinion as to whether the compensation is sufficient or not - I do wonder if this is just serving to push the slums to the outskirts of the city.
On Sunday evening we had dinner at another Charity guest house with the board members of Lawyers of Hope (LOH) - standard Rwandan buffet of rice, chips, vegetables, beans, a meat stew and some fruit. It was really exciting to meet the board members and I had a lot of fun with Grace (see photo - some of the team with Grace!) teaching me some Kinyrwanda phrases which have been very helpful over the week.

Monday morning was our first day at 'work' - we went to the LOH offices where Egide explained the various work that they do. Since starting in 2008, they have been working towards 5 objectives:
- To provide legal assistance and access to justice.
- To help religious leaders to understand laws of Rwanda
- To promote unity and reconciliation through access to justice and international conventions
- To contribute to favourable legislation.

They provide legal information, education, advice, assistance and representation. They have prison projects, community projects, marriage reconciliation projects, child rights projects and so on. All their work is aimed at dealing with the root cause of the problems that come before them, rather than just finding a quick fix. They also take every opportunity they can with their clients to share the gospel. It incredibly refreshing to hear lawyers talk about their work with such a passion and conviction - there is no question of them being in it for the money (they're certainly not on high-flying lawyers' salaries!) but they've seen and understood God's heart for justice and long to be used by him to right injustices that surround them in their societies. It's really challenged me to think carefully about why I'm doing a law degree, and where I go from here.

On Monday afternoon, we visited the genocide memorial. This was incredibly hard-hitting and very moving. It was really hard witnessing the sheer scale and horror of the atrocities that tore through this beautiful country in 1994, where neighbour turned on neighbour, friend on friend, godfather on godson - all over ethnic differences which had caused no problem before the colonialists started dividing and classifying people. The UN general on the ground tried to warn of what was about to happen and ask for support, but it never came. It was so hard to see the pictures and videos of the violence - it wasn't just systematic killing, but it went so far above and beyond that, designed to inflict as much pain as possible - widespread rape, people being buried alive, babies and toddlers being hacked into pieces with a machete or smashed against a wall. It was extremely moving for all of us to see. Putting yourself in their shoes, imaging close friends and neighbours attacking your family and refusing to help you is really shocking. And so much of it started with the media pushing images of the Tutsis taking what was really the Hutus (jobs, wives, land and so on), trying to dehumanise them and encouraging hatred and people to try and find differences between them. I was quite starkly reminded of some of the responses that came out to the migrant crisis, and some of the viewpoints pushed in the run up to the referendum. It's hit very hard - more so than when I visited Auschwitz, I think because its much more recent history (just within my life time), and its a lot easier to imagine the horror of a neighbour or friend turning on you, rather than the slightly more removed Nazi soldiers.

But its also been incredible to hear the testimony of survivors, willing to forgive those who killed their family and siblings, and to see how Rwanda has moved into what appears to be a deep unity once more - there has been a huge effort towards reconciliation, and it's really incredible to see how far they've come in 22 years. The power of forgiveness is so so strong - although this is so central to the message of what Jesus accomplished in his death and resurrection, it's importance hit home on a new level.

In processing and praying through the things we saw there, a quote from Gary Haugen (author of Good News About Injustice) has been really significant: 'Standing with my boots knee deep in the reeking muck of a Rwandan mass grave where thousands have been horribly slaughtered, I have no meaning, no hope, no life unless there is a God of history and time who is absolutely furious, absolutely outraged, absolutely burning with anger against those who took it into their own hands to commit such acts as these.' God is a God of justice - he is a Father to the fatherless, defender of the weak, saviour to the captive. He is not passive when injustice happens in this world, but is present in and through suffering, and is furious when evil is perpetrated. We take comfort in the fact that there will be judgment and perfect justice at the end of time, and that he provides mechanisms on earth through which a measure of justice can be achieved before then.

I've still got a lot to process from this, but I really pray that God would use it to challenge my attitude towards other people, that he would teach me more about his heart for justice, and that he would set a passion for that justice in my heart too.

Prayer points:
- Thanks for safe travels, that all our bags arrived and we were able to get visas sorted.
- Thanks for such a warm welcome here in Rwanda
- Pray that I would be learning more about God and in processing what we've seen here, particularly from the genocide memorial, that I'd be open to what God wants to teach me
- For safe travels over the next few days - we have a long bus journey to Uganda tomorrow, and then on Tuesday another long journey on to Kampala.
- That as a team we'd be growing in our cultural sensitivity towards the partners and that we'd grow stronger as a team.

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Back to Africa!

It's a long time since I've written a blog post - sorry to those of you who've persistently pestered me to do so for the past year and a half! I'm taking it up again this summer cause I'm off to the other side of the world once more, and I've found its a great way for me to keep in touch will all the people I care about back home, as well as a place for me to process some of the things I'm doing and seeing, both in the moment and when I'm reflecting afterwards, its so helpful to see what I was doing and feeling at the time.

So what am I actually up to over my ridiculously long summer break?

First of all, I'm off to East Africa as part of a team called the 'Summer Justice Mission' to work with legal aid organisations in Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya (in that order!). I'm going with a team of 11 others from the Lawyers' Christian Fellowship, an organisation which supports both law students and practitioners to integrate their faith and their vocation. The twelve of us on the team range from first year law students, to newly qualified solicitors, to senior partners who are approaching retirement. In Africa, we'll be working with local Christian Lawyers' organisations who work to secure access to justice for those who need it most. In England we have a legal aid system (despite the cuts and so on, it still exists) which still supports a certain level of access to justice. In Eastern Africa, there is no such provision by the state, and so it falls to NGOs to promote access to the courts and educating communities as to their legal rights. We'll be working alongside these NGOs (Lawyers of Hope (Rwanda), Uganda Christian Lawyers' Fraternity and CLEAR Kenya) running community seminars, Christian law student conferences and various other meetings. We have a team blog too if you want to follow that! https://justicemission.wordpress.com/

After the team go home, I'll be staying on in Nairobi for a few days to visit Franklyn and Violet, and Vision Peoples in Mission. For those of you who don't know, Franklyn and Violet are good family friends who run a project in the Korogocho slum of Nairobi, with a church, school, clinic, orphanage and vocational training centre. I've visited them a couple of times in Nairobi before and am really excited to be going back! They are like my Kenyan family!

At the end of July, I'll then be flying to Singapore to visit some of my uni friends out there. This will be much more of a holiday, but I'll probably still blog then! I'm hopeful I will also be able to get my blipfoto photo journal up and running again, but I'm not confident I'll actually be able to upload photos from Africa, so it might be a case of mass updating once I get to Asia. We will see!

If you're not used to my blogging style, I should probably explain that I'm an engineer at heart (see maths and science A levels), who's ended up studying law at uni, so eloquence and flowery descriptions are really not my forte...I just write what's in my head at the time, so I hope you don't mind that too much! I have no idea how often I'll be able to blog, as African internet is anything but predictable!

Prayer requests:

• Thank God for all his provision in trip preparations up to this point, for opening the door for me to be able to do this, including financially.
• That I would have a really good few days at home with family before I fly - that we'd be able to spend good quality time together
• That my final preparations would go smoothly
• VISAS! We've all applied but almost all of us have not heard back, so please pray that we'd hear back before we go, or that it'd all be smooth once we land!

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An Attitude of Gratitude #365reasons

Update: This didn't last as long as I intended, by quite some way! I think it did make me more thankful, but my perseverance leaves a lot to be desired, and I'm definitely still a long way from being as thankful as i could be. Re-reading this has challenged me to think about this again!



No matter what happens, always be thankful, for this is God's will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.

1 Thessalonians 5:18

'Thanks'. One of those words we say so often it completely loses meaning. Like when you repeat a word over and over until it doesn't sound real any more: spoon. Spoon. Spooon. Spoonspoonspoonspoon.spOOn. spoon. Is that even a word? Point proved. My actual point is, I've been really challenged at the start of this new year to rethink thankfulness. To rediscover the meaning of 'thanks'. Apparently 'thanks' appears in the bible 151 times. It clearly an important topic!

What does it mean to 'always be thankful' or to 'give thanks in all circumstances' as the NIV phrases it? It's easier to be thankful when things are going well than when life gets tough. But this verse clearly tells us we should be thankful in both these situations (and everything in beteeen. Like every theory in Constitutional Law I'm sure this is a continuum and life generally sits somewhere on the scale between perfection and disaster.)  Let's start with the  times when life is going well. Easy to be thankful, right? Or perhaps not... 

I know I'm guilty of taking so many things for granted, for focusing on what I don't have as opposed to what I do. There's been a lot of articles recently calling us the 'entitled generation'. In some ways I think this is unfair - we are a generation that is repeatedly condemned, and this needs to stop. But that's another discussion for another time. I think the problem of entitlement is very real, but extends beyond  my generation to my parents' generation as well. For those of you who haven't read these articles I'm talking about, the problem of entitlement is as follows: We have started to believe we are entitled to the good things in life, that we have a right to them. Entitled to meat 7 days a week. Entitled to a car. Entitled to a foreign holiday at least once a year. Entitled to fast internet and good phone signal. Entitled to nice clothes. And with this sense of entitlement, we have forgotten what a privilege these things are. So we complain when we don't get them, rather than giving thanks when we do. I'm as guilty of this as the next person (you've all heard the rant about internet speed back home in Sheriffhales...!) Why would we be entitled us to any of these? If we look at ancient kings, they had nightly entertainment, luxury bathing, wine, spices from around the world and time to admire the wonders of nature. Is that really so different to our lifestyle? I'm not saying we should throw away these things and adopt a John-the-Baptist-camel-hair-and-locusts life instead. I'm saying we need to consciously change our attitude from one of entitlement to one of gratitude. To intentionally recognise the things we do have, and to be thankful for them. It's all too easy not to recognise how much we have until we don't have it anymore. In the words of Passenger:

"Well you only need the light when it's burning low

Only miss the sun when it starts to snow

Only know you love her when you let her go

Only know you've been high when you're feeling low

Only hate the road when you’re missin' home

Only know you love her when you let her go"

Consumerism has a lot to answer for regarding this attitude of entitlement and dissatisfaction. One of the biggest myths is that the market exists to create satisfied customers, but if we think about it, it’s actually the opposite. A truly satisfied customer would never return to the shop. Business depends on us being satisfied just enough to appreciate what we've bought, but not satisfied enough to be content with just one purchase. This constant desire for more has spilled over into the rest of our lives. 1 Timothy 6:6 says 'Godliness with contentment is great gain'. Contentment is not having everything you want. Nor is it grudgingly settling for less than you think you deserve because that's a holy thing to do (Holy points are not actually a thing.) Contentment is the attitude of realising how much we already have. When we find contentment, it frees us from the never ending cycle of needing more. Of having to work longer hours to get a better holiday than the last one, which then doesn't quite meet our expectations, so we work even harder to get an even better holiday etc.  This is one of the reasons I think we are told to be thankful - because in giving thanks we are focussing on the good things we have, rather than the things we don't. 

So what about those situations when life seems rubbish. When everything goes wrong. When you're behind on work, missing home, your bike breaks and to top it all off your pick-me-up cup of tea has fairy liquid in cause in washing the mug you only got as far as putting the fairy in... (True story. That was the low point of last term.) Or even worse. Life really can suck sometimes. Surely God can't expect us to be thankful then, when there is nothing to be thankful for? But then if we look back at the verse, it says 'in all circumstances'. That means the low points too. For me, this is definitely harder to fix than my lack of thankfulness in the good times. I think the book of Psalms is a real gift in these situations, and reflect the attitude we should try and take. The psalmists pour our their raw emotion when life went wrong. Yet it is always turned round to praise. Take Psalm 42 - As the deer pants for streams of water, so I long for you. You've probably sung this to the horrendously twee tune we've attached to it. I remember someone saying once that screamo/heavy metal would be a more appropriate genre for this psalm. Deer do not skip around happily when they are dying from dehydration. This psalm is one of AGONY. Of screaming out at God. Yet the psalmist then turns it back round to praise.

v11: 'Why am I so discouraged? 

Why am I so sad? 

I will put my hope in God! 

I will praise him again - my Saviour and my God'. 

In these times, it's ok to scream at God. But we need to remember his faithfulness too, and turn back to praise. If we look hard enough, there will usually be something to still be thankful for. Search for this, and hold onto it. But if we can find nothing else to be thankful for, if everything really has been taken away from us, we know that salvation and hope in our saviour Jesus Christ has not. We can depend on the character and faithfulness and love of God - there are so many promises of this in the bible. The chance to have a relationship with God is the biggest privilege we could ever have been given. We therefore will always have something to be thankful for. And in these low situations, turn to the psalms for support, encouragement and guidance. They have been given to us as part of scripture to help us pray when we can't find the words ourselves. Use them! (Same goes for the good times too - literally every emotion is covered in there!)

To be always thankful is a hard ask, but it's something I really want to work towards this year. I believe in order to do this, thankfulness needs to become a way of life, not just something I do on occasion. I want to have an attitude of gratitude in everything I do. To start with, I'm going to have to be really intentional about this. To purposely look for and make opportunities to be thankful. I hope by the end of the year it will become more natural, but I know it's not going to be a finished work by this time next year. 

I hope that in doing this, I will gain freedom from the pressure to always have the next, best, biggest things, and that it will lead me to live a less self-centred life, where I am not consumed by a desire to increase my own share. That I will find contentment in realising just how much I already have. I love Matt Redman's song, "10,000 reasons", and when thinking about thankfulness at the beginning of the year, I was really struck by the line '10,000 reasons for my heart to find...' 10,000 is a lot, so I thought I'd start with a more realistic target of 365...  I know I missed the boat somewhat with new years resolutions (but since when have I done anything the normal way...!), but each day for the next year I want to post something I'm thankful for on my twitter account. Some days it might be big things, and other days it'll be the little things. I think they're both of importance - God is God in all our life, not just the big things. 

Why am I doing this publically? 1) I hope it will encourage and inspire others towards thankfulness, even if just for a moment in their day. 2) More importantly, it means you can hold me accountable to this much easier than if it was just in a journal. Please hold me to this, and if I get slack please please pick me up on it. You have my permission!! 

If this is something you fancy having a go at, I'd love you to join me in this! Pick whatever number you like -maybe just try it for a week (#7reasons) or take it up for a month (#31reasons) or for lent (#40reasons), or go the whole hog and join me for the year (#365reasons)!! And if you'd just like to follow my attempts to stay thankful, you'll find me on twitter.

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The Reluctant Law Student...

That's me. Can't think of a much better way to sum my position up right now. Not that I can take any credit for that title...but let's start at the beginning and I'll get to that (and why the blog's been restarted and had a face lift)!

20 years and 14 days ago, on 8th December 1994...
Ok...let's not start right at the beginning! Fast forward 18 and a bit years to when I started this blog. I had just finished my A Levels and was preparing to go off on a gap year that would take me to Tanzania and Colombia. And rather disgustingly cheesily I would 'find myself' (or at least find out a lot more about myself). But more importantly I would find God in a totally new way.

Those of you who have known me a while or have heard my testimony will know I've been brought up a Christian, and would have called myself a Christian well before this gap year. I don't dispute that now. But belief in God isn't an end goal - it's a journey. We focus so much on the ends in our culture that it can be all to easy to forget the significance of the means by which we get there. What I learnt and experienced over my time away resulted in a real deepening of my faith and a much clearer understanding of God's unconditional love for me, and what the amazing consequences of Jesus' death and resurrection actually mean for me on a day to day basis, as well as an eternal level. Before you accuse me of over-glamourising cross cultural mission work, I'm not saying my time abroad was easy. In fact if you read some of my blog posts you'll realise it can be demoralising, hard, sweaty, dirty work. But at the same time I found it a lot easier to hear God in it all (and we did have some pretty amazing times too!). Without the comforts of a culture and language I knew, and out of my natural skill area, dependence on God was not an option. It was a necessity.

And then I had to come home and go to uni. It's a good job I applied for deferred entry - there's no way I would have actually applied during my gap year. When I came home from Colombia I spent the weeks counting down, saying 'Come on God, you've got 6 weeks to give me something else other than this uni place'. At Momentum I was eagle eyed for any possible opportunities. And in-keeping with God's beautiful sense of humour, everything I looked at or picked up said 'graduate degree required'. TYPICAL! So reluctantly I headed down to Cambridge to study law.

I expected a lot of work. I didn't expect quite so much work! But I've settled in well. I live with an amazing group of people. The other law students at Jesus College are really great too. As are the CU. And I've found a church home at Eden Baptist, which is full of friendly people. But all term I've been fighting God. I couldn't dispute the fact that he had called me there (although had he changed his mind and told me to fly off to the other side of the world, I'd have been there in a second!), but I was constantly questioning if I'd somehow ended up doing the wrong subject. It's a lot harder to find where God fits into law than it was to see God in my gap year projects. I was praying for confirmation all term and yet closing my mind to every time God answered that, because it wasn't what I wanted to hear. Had I really learnt nothing in my gap year?!

Claire, another law student at Jesus, and all round incredible woman of God, had a vision to create a group for other Christian law students. I caught the vision of this and subsequently we spent all term scheming and praying for how this would advance. We've had endless meetings and coffees with different people, several Skype calls, and lots of connections made for us. It's one of those instances where God just opens doors and things fall into place. Yet despite all of this, I was still adamant that law wasn't really what I should be doing. Two days before coming back home for the Christmas vacation (it's not a holiday - we've had that one clarified many a time!!) we met with Timothy Laurence, from the Lawyers Christian Fellowship in London, who wanted to reach out to law students as well. It turns we've each come to the same vision independently and God's now connected us up in the middle. When Timothy was telling us about his background, he introduced himself as a 'reluctant law student'. Claire looked at me and burst out laughing - it summed up me and all my complaining about having to study law in a nutshell! Timothy's explanation of how Law and God fit together made so much sense, and things began to fall into place. It's not a completed work, and I still fall under the title of a reluctant law student (especially when I'd rather be baking mince pies than reading R v Brown, and my Facebook feed is full of beach pictures from Santa Marta) but at least I'm now a reluctant law student confident in God's calling - even though I have absolutely no idea of the reason why yet.

I've really missed blogging, writing about all the random thoughts that go through my head. So at the request of a few people, I've decided to take it up again. In one of my procrastination sessions I have given it a make-over (complete with background photo from Bogotá - you can't escape Colombia just yet!). I'm planning on writing in 3 main categories: Crime (for anything law related), Corinthians (for anything faith related) and Cake (for all the food related goodness. Let's be honest this will probably be the biggest category...!). All my gap year posts are still on here, should you be sad enough to want to re-read them...And one day I will finish my blipfoto journal!

I hope you find some encouragement (or light relief...) through my blog. Please feel free to leave me comments, and if there's ever anything you'd love to know my thoughts about, send me a message and I'll write you a post (insert legal disclaimer here just in case I don't)!

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This time last year...

A year ago today was my first day in Musoma. So much has happened this year, I can't really believe it!

I've met some truly incredible people who have really challenged and inspired me. I feel so lucky to have had these opportunities and I really want to thank everyone who made that possible - everyone who supported me financially and in prayer, everyone at GoMad, Tearfund and Latin Link who organised the projects, my two wonderful teams and my family. And I am incredibly grateful to God for allowing me to partake in a tiny part of bringing his kingdom closer. It has been a real privilege. And the best thing is, it's just the start of a bigger adventure!

I have learnt a lot about God's love for me, and about my identity in him. It's been really freeing to realise my identity does not rest on my own performance, but who I am in Christ. If you want to hear more about what I've learnt this year, especially in Colombia, you can listen to the talk I gave at my church here: http://www.stjohnsmuxton.org.uk/awe-sermons/21st-september-2014-3/
In reflecting on my year, I was trying to pick my top 5 moments. Not easy! This is what I came up with (no specific order...that's just impossible!):

• Day 4 of Hadrian's wall - the awesome scenery combined with raucous singing, visiting the Roman Army Musuem, jumping over the wall to look round Housesteads and meeting two cool Canadians visitng the entire UK in 4 days, before ending up at the lovely Grindon hostel where the owner snored loudly on the sofa while we watched telly!
• Cooking for over 70 people out of our modest church kitchen (and the caravan parked outside for an extra stove!), with a fab team of waiters and co-chefs. It was a great challenge and I thoroughly enjoyed it, especially all the testing of altered recipes beforehand - I think the family had eaten enough pesto variations to last them a lifetime, but somehow they never complained about the brownies...!
• Spiritual Reflection Day in Tanzania - This was SUCH a special day, and one I don't think I will ever forget. It was great to have a whole day set aside to spend with God. It started with an utterly incredible sunrise up eagle rock and we listened to a sermon which has really impacted my faith and my understanding of how I'm called to live my life. It was also nice to have some quality time together as a team, in the midst of the hectic life of Eagle Lodge.
• Street Party at Colegio Filadelfia para los Sordos - The street party we organised to say goodbye to the kids has to be on this list. Whilst it was really emotional having to say goodbye to the kids we had made really good friends with, it was also an immensely special time, reflecting over everything we'd done together through a photo slideshow, sharing the fruit of that week's cooking classes together and then presenting certificates to each pupil to congratulate them on something they had done particularly well during our 8 weeks there. Then to our surprise, the students had their own presentation for us, and really blessed us with their comments and beautiful gifts!
• Beach Trip with Santa Marta Vineyard - The beaches around Santa Marta are stunning. So where better to go for a church day out? The opportunity to spend a day off with the whole community was really precious, playing in the sea together (the concept of hot sea is still weird, a far cry from the beaches of Northumberland where you want your wellies!), brushing up my footie skills, then some great Spanish practice when I was asked to preach at the meeting straight after lunch! Crazy! Another day full of treasured memories.

There are so many more highlights from this year, if you want to hear about them then you're very welcome to take me out for a coffee or even a meal (I love anything Italian...) and I'll tell you more!!! This year has had its tough moments - as in, seriously tough moments, times when you want nothing more than to go home and you just feel like you can't cope with it anymore - but there have been so many more laughs and jokes, I couldn't even begin to tell you (especially as most of them are in-jokes I can't even remember why they're funny anymore...anyone for a game of duck-duck-llama, or would you prefer some carrot cake...?). And in many ways I think it's some of the tough moments that have developed my faith and my character, and brought me a lot closer to the people around me.

But now, the gap year is very definitely over. The car is packed and I head off down the A14 at 8am tomorrow morning, reading for the next adventure. People keep telling me anything will be easy after this year, but I'm not sure. This law degree seems a lot scarier right now...! Once again, thank you so much for sharing this journey with me, it's been such a joy writing this blog! (One day I might complete my Blipfoto...perhaps!)

If any of you are considering a gap-year or gap-week or anything of the sort, whether you're 16 or 60, I'd really encourage you to go for it! Please get in touch if there's any way you think I could help you with this, I'm so excited to see more people have experiences like I've had this year and have the chance to grow in a similar way!

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We Came. We Saw. We Conquered. And then we went on holiday!

Ok, there's so much to write about, but it's already gone midnight here and I don't know when I'll next get the opportunity to write, so it might be a bit of a brief blog post, but there's more detail on a lot of the things on my blipfoto.

So, this is what the building now looks like:

 

 It has a door and a roof and windows and everything! There are even tables and chairs! The terrace still needs to be done and the electricity hadn't been put in before we left, but work is continuing as we speak. Through the remaining project fund we had left and an additional donation from someone in the UK there was enough money for them to finish the building and hopefully to buy a projector afterwards. Josh and I had the amazing privilege of sharing this news with Adelmo and Nuris. They were so overwhelmed they were lost for words for a few minutes. Thank you so much to everyone who donated to support our work here, it will be a huge blessing to the church: you cannot even begin to imagine their joy and excitement at having this practially finished. They have been praying for years for something like this.

We were sent this picture of them using the building with the kids club for the first time on Saturday!

We have done far more than we could ever have imagined or hoped here (reminds me of Ephesians 3:20 -  Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us). We thought we might just get the platform ready for the building to be built on at some point in the future. But look what's there now! And on top of this, just living as part of the community for 2 months has had a bigger impact than we could ever have planned or hoped. Through the way we lived together as a team, the community told us they learnt various things, and we have also learnt so much from them too, about God and about life in general. I will write a separate blog post about all the things I have learnt here in Colombia, because there's just so much to write, I couldn't possibly fit it all in here! We have a huge sense of achievement, especially considering some of the difficulties we faced, including spiritual attack. Massive thanks to everyone who prayed over this, things got much easier and so many of the burdens were lifted which made the last week much more enjoyable. The power of prayer is huge!

We have become like family here, and Adelmo and Nuris are just like parents to us. Leaving was so, so hard. There were a lot of tears! But what I've come to learn over my gap year is that the goodbyes generate some of the most special moments. There are 2 particular times that will stay with me forever from our last week in Santa Marta:

• The surprise birthday party! There's loads about this on my Blipfoto (29th June), but in short, they decided for our last Sunday to host a surprise birthday party for us all because we won't be with them on our actual birthdays. It was a really precious time, and I will never forget the things that were said.
• Our final prayer meeting. Again, loads about this on my Blipfoto (1st July). For our final prayer meeting we decided we wanted to share food with everyone, so Josh and I cooked chili con carne. I spoke from the bible in Spanish at about 2 minutes notice and led my first worship song, which was scary but I'm so happy I was able to do it! Afterwards, everyone stayed to play twister, jungle speed, pass the pigs and uno, with never-before-seen levels of cheating! The fun and friendship shared that night mean I will never forget this.

So now we are in our final rest week, our final few days together as a team. They're like a brother and sisters to me, and it will be tough saying goodbye, but we already have plans for meetups basically every month between now and New Year! We spent the first 4 days of our rest week in coffee country on a beautiful coffee farm, just relaxing and enjoying the scenery and free coffee. We are now back in Bogotá and are looking forwards to seeing all our friends from the first 2 months. And I get to see my actual family in 4 days! Although I now feel like I have other family members out here (the guys in the team and in Santa Marta) it feels a long time since I've seen my proper family, and I really do miss them, and I can't truly replace them with Colombians!

I am now reaching frostbite levels of coldness, despite wearing so many clothes I look like Michelin Man, and it's 00:35 so I'm going to sign off here and go to bed. I hope this fills you in enough on what's been happening since the last update. You'll have plenty of opportunities to grill me in more detail when I'm back in the UK!

Prayer requests:

• Continued safety on the building site back in Santa Marta as people carry on work to complete the terrace of the new room
• Safe travelling for the guys back to England and for me and my fam in Peru
• A great 2 days in Bogotá
• Thanks for everything we've been able to do, learn and achieve. God is so good!

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