Fisherman

caught two fish last night, with my hands... in a tank. Catherine and i had just arrived home with a german family who were feeding us to find that their 600 litre fish tank had just cracked :) we spent about an hour mopping the floor, sucking the water out and best of all trying to catch the fish by hand (they had no net)
all this meant that dinner was a bit late and i didnt get to go on the motor bike, but the fish was much more fun.
so tonight maybe ill go there or maybe ill go to the temple again...

catherine just left and tonight will be my last night in moshi, tomorrow moring i start my journey back to belfast, which will take 2 and a half days :) I have been reading "The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho, it is a great book, about a boy who decides to follow his destiny into the unknown, leaving a shepard job in south spain to look for treasure in Egypt. Very interesting and thought provoking, also reading 1 Corinthians at the mo and the book and the bible talked about love yesterday so this is a reflection

1 john 4v7 "everyone who loves has become God's child and knows God"

love is a universal language a blessing from God for all humanity.
It is the most common experience of spirituality.
All our life we are in touch with our creator, through the love of relationships with parents, close friends and lovers,
if this is a surprise,
consider love
attempt a definition
certainly we can list the physical expression of love, but that is not it's essence
it cannot be distilled in a laboratory or comprehensively defined,
because love in an eternal, dynamic force,
the taste of heaven for all

talking rubbish

after some consideration, i dont think there was any need to swear in the last post, especially when i had been reading those bits in james about controlling your tongue... anyway

the craic now is
family just left, so catherine and I are still in moshi, Tanzania, we are staying with an old friend of our dads. We were at church on sunday and the people were cool, so we have been invited to lunch and dinner on thursday :) also(AS well) one of the guys who lives at the house where we are having dinner owns a 250cc trail bike, so it seems my GTA Vice City dreams may yet be realised (playing the game has given me a real desire to ride motorbikes :)
the guy we are staying with and his wife are Janeish, which is quite cool, its a kind of Hinduy really really old religion, its 4 pillars are pretty cool, and tolerance is high on the agenda, but no grace :( and if this life is all going wrong, it means you messed up the last one, you can aparrently get beyond the law of Karma if you do enough good stuff. You also keep getting reincarnated until you get to heaven. Anyway they are fairly hardcore the lady Pushba is in the temple for 6am every morning and they are currently doing an 8 day fast! although cause Pushba and Himid are old they arent doing the whole thing.
So respect for the committment hopefully some interested discussion to follow..

CHEETAHS and CHEATERS
just back to a computer after 6 hardcore days of safaari, it was in short amazing, we saw just about every animal God made in this land from lions to zebras, eagles, cheetas, rhinos, giraffee, elephant the complete works, which was class. I obviously took a ridculous amount of photos averaging about 36 a day!
also been quite a chalenging time, been reading George Alagia's book a passage to africa hes the old africa corespondant for the BBC from Sri Lanka, youd know him if you saw him, anyway alot of the book is about how fucked up africa is. I very rarely use that word but this definately warrants it, and the rich west i.e. us have a lot to answer, in pursuit of our own political advances and money we have stuck our hands in where its not wanted and then turned our back when genocide (being committed at a FASTER rate than even Hitler managed with gas chambers) was being carried out in Rwanda.

also been reading acts, James and Thessolosians 1+2 which is really cool the way Paul completely bit the bullet for Jesus, he actually got stoned (no) until they left him for dead then got up again and decided it was time to leave the jails. but most interestingly are his comments about being "out of his mind for God" and not to ignore prophecy....

today visited a Massai village, who are undoubtledly the hardest people on earth they can kill lions, they have spears and knives and big sticks and clubs, and they can walk for miles and miles and it doesnt matter. Anyway the village we visited the men had gone to look for water with the cows(their livelyhood) about 3 months ago and the women were in the wee village, so you drive in, in a fancy land cruiser and pay $40 and they do a dance to welcome you and then show you round there houses (mud huts litterally, held together with cow dung) and its all good till the teenagers start asking for pens and money for photos... funy how it took our safarri driver Peter (a complete legend) to explain all the stuff about traditions, cause they dont speak english but then they know how to ask for the money. but i dont blame then about a 1000 ppl b4 probably gave them it and when most people in the country earn less than $1 a day and massi generally have no income the prospect of getting a couple of dollars off people who have paid $75 for their hotel room is probably too much.
which is all and bit mad and all this stuff is running round my head .. a lot
on the plus side got a guinness tonight, it was wierd foregin export stuff thats pretty strong but good for me nonetheless.
night world

SUNDAY IS JESUS DAY

as i mentioned last post feeling a bit spitually frustrated, and had the squirts. Well the squirts got worse and last night was not good for sleepin, but it was excellent for thinking. About lots of stuff but particularly the Flowers estate and how to try do something done so that the uni puts back into the community and the pikeys dont hate students. Thought about getting the glen residents involved early, dara and joe and gordy and tom and i spent 3hrs good revising time talkin about this so we have to make it happen.
Also today just chilled in hotel room and sang a few songs nice and loud then got some top quailty bible, sermon on the mount and then Ester, ester is a classic story. I also prayed with my sisters this morning cause their guts had been dodgy, and praise the Lord, they both ate lunch and i had a cheese toastie and plan on a big dinner soon as. I also just watched Chelsea beat liverpool on Tv(now staying in a nice hotel in aurssha left zanizbar this morning) great match, Jimmy Floyd Hasslebank scored a amazing goal to win it.

TURTLE CHASER

alright, just got back from a days diving, which was class, am in Zanzibar which is a very good effort at paradise, palm trees, calm sea big red sunsets, lobster for tea etc. The highlight of today was definately seeing a turtle, and then swimming off after it so the instructor had to chase me down and remind me i was nearly out of air :) the day started with a lengthy toilet session its seems after 5 weeks the dreded squirts have caught up with me. Had a nice massage on the beech yesterday, and leaving to meet up with catherine(my big sis) and then 5days safaari, which should be class. Kind of frustrating time spiritually, but God has been showing me some fine grace. cant get enough
until the next time....
enjoy the mango

LEGEND COUNTRY

tanzania is legend, it is really chilled out, with a ridculously perfect colour of sea and sand, and thats in the capital city. i cant wait to see the rest, had a really good day chillin out with God and market shoping with americans, they having a big chat with a kenyian capitalist and a development facilitator about the state and future of africa, heavy but excellent vote 3rddan

ON THE RUN WITH A DRUM

im in jo'burg airport paying lots of money for a nice and fast internet connection...

just flew in from cape town, i stayed there for the last week doing crew leader for another habitat team, which was a bit of a joke seeing i had 7days building expereince and was then made kind of in charge of these 7 people on a big programme thing but sure it was sunny and we built a house so thats all good, it was actually very fast. We arrived on monday with just the foudations poured (a big muddy trench filled with concrete for those who dont speak builder) and when i left on thursday, we had only to tile the roof and put up a few internal walls, which would have happened on friday while i went to Uni of Cape Town with my new flatmates...
let me rewind a little, i got to know a couple of the students at one of the churhes and managed to get to sleep in the louge of a flat owned by emma and amy, to cool girls. so from there i could get a lift to the township and generally have a good time. I was quite bizzar to be living with ppl i had just met but then i was also a good adventure, a another amazing bit of God's providence cause i didnt have the money to say in a backpacker all week and thanks to some good training from catherine (lasagne), chitra (tomato and roast pepper soup), dad (scrambled eggs) and mary hughes (massage) we all got along well. they even give a lift to the airport at 4:30am this morning with a couple of their other mates jules and ang. so i have had quite a rounded cape town experience from Township community spirit to white middle class high fences and pepper spray carrying, welcome and love.
its been cool, they dont drink very much here, like there is NO bar on the campus of the uni or in the halls of res!! they also seem to be quite introverted and discuss everything that everyone did or said at length, but they were very cool welcoming people, i would def go back in summer (it was proper raining yesterday) for beaches and chillin
gotta fly remeber vote 3rddan ( www.3rddan.co.uk )

ITS RAINING IN LONDON/ DONT STOP TILL YOU GET ENOUGH

team left yesterday, it was sad to see them go, but looking forward to the next adventure, went a checked myself in to "simply the best" backbpackers a rather optimistic title, it is total backpack stero type, the owners dog is called ganga, i went out last night with a german 2 south aficas(one with dreads), a dutchman and a californian girl! first we went to a bar that had really good guinness, it soon transpired however that it was a gay bar, and without being arrogant i think i was on the way to pulling, so quickly jumped in a taxi and we headed to a club in town, it was quite swanky, a sort of milk feel to it, the music was amazing and we did some serious dancing till after 3 and it was only a pound for a beer..
we finnished the night in a food place called Mr Pickwicks, which had.... HP fruity!!! legend

today got up late and read a bit of bible im well behind in cover to cover, it was really sunny so i decided to go to a park to read in the sun, opened to lonley planet and looked at the map to find the closest piece of green, unfortunately it turned out to be a bit dodgy but before i got mugged by the teenagers a old guy called lionel came and made friends, (cape town if full of beggers and stuff) and although we were generally advised against giving them money, and i know its not good to encourage it but i read the Matt 25 sheep and the goats, when i was hungry you .... so me and lionel went for a KFC, interesting guy, had done time on robin island had a family far away on the cape flats, earned a little money from car minding(a common thing in SA) but couldnt get work and didnt want to steal. chatted a bit about home ie the norn iron situation, and then i was thinking about some sandboradiing i booked for tomorrow and whether Jesus would have done that or maybe give this guy the money...

so maybe he was spinning me a great story and maybe i was a fool for giving him the cash but maybe he wasnt and anyway i dont really need to go sandborading. it was nice to do something a bit different and i felt God leading me and closer after it so im happy enough

it still recks me but cause you cant give every kid on the street some change but yet arent we meant to treat eveyone we meet like they are Jesus?