Pocket Watch

We had a time of sung Worship at the base here last night and they prayed for us to send us out to Egypt and it was Wonderfull!

We have been so blessed to be living in a communtiy like this over the last 3 months. Jesus love is real here, its talked about all the time, its lived out, its shown and given freely. To be arround it is just wonderfull. Something like how it must have been in the early church i suppose.

At the end of this time i get given a present by a very Jesus like man.

It was a pocket watch and there was also a poem to go with it....

Early Retirement

Today is the day you retire from sin,

Lay down your guilt and let grace enter in!

Burn all your sackcloth and toss all you ashes,

Put on your robes and bright golden sashes!

Sing from the rooftops and dance on the chimneys,

Stand like a giant amongst all the pigmies!

Rejoice and be glad, for today you retire,

From all of the muck and the sin laden mire!

 Cid Stephens

This was written for me.

Wow,

God is great.

Photos

Ok so this is just to show off my really crazy broken arm, i went to the hospital today for the 8 week xrays and they gave me the pics.

Enjoy!

Bring It

Why good day to you.

Another late journal entry, ever so sorry about that. This blog post straddles last week's teaching and this week's frantic preparations. A tad divided, but I shall attempt to focus even though i'm listening to One Republic (again) as loud as my earphones will go. Sometimes I play air drums and alarm those sitting near me.

Anyway. Focus. Yes. Last week: must find another word for epic, but cannot. This teaching was on world view and that basically boils down to two questions. The first question seems to be 'what stories are the various cultures of the world telling us about God, people and this planet?' The second question is 'so what does God say about these things and how are we called to live?'

The answer to the latter? Love. Predictable and yet our preconceptions shattered again. I wish I could download the beauty in which were immersed for the second half of the week - stupid computers don't have a 'convey heart leaping' button. Someone should invent that.
We looked at how the Bible asks us to live, about how God intends for us to treat this world that he loves, and how he longs to treat us. And that 'everything is permissable' don't jump straight to the rules bit but sit and chew on that for a bit. Jesus is not a pansy. He does not faint or turn up his Holy nose in the face of my sin, but comes closer and holds me tighter. I think that's what we call grace.
Something that also stuck out for us both was how positive God is about all things that have beauty in them i.e. films, music, art etc. And family. And business. And justice. And chatting. And suddenly life seems so much more fulfilled.
Ok so I guess here's the next section. Hold on to your seat because it's deeply riveting...

we're packing.
Yup.
That's about it. But apparently God is into everything we do so... we're packing! WOOHOO!
Er yes, this week is mainly doing stuff like learning some Arabic. Important phrases such as 'where is bathroom' and 'I want eat'. We're also trying to store everything we won't be taking, getting all the wheat free food we can find, cleaning our room, finishing assignments and sorting out insurance and stuff. I'd kind of forgotten to anticipate Egypt in the midst of the tasks and chores, but yesterday I remembered that most of my best memories i've ever made were made on missions trips.

So we'll go make some more.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Did you know Bach is quite good?

This is me. Today I am writing the blog. Me me me.

Howdy there y'all,

sincerest apologies for the lateness of the blog update. Not that we think you've been obsessively refreshing the page since saturday, but still, sorry.

OK so what to tell you? We think that last week's teaching was the best we've ever had. Do I say that every week? We had a guy called Troy Sherman (who we dubbed Boy Sherbert) (it's not funny but we were amused) who grew up in YWAM and then was a hip hop dancer for a while. Now he stops people traffiking and is a YWAM teacher on things like 'Relationships'. He dances, he says bad things into the microphone, he makes your brain explode and then he diagnoses John with a pinched nerve because Jesus showed him where the pain is. He's a cool person and we were very sad when he left.

He also had some astounding stuff to say about God, and about how we're to treat each other. He says if you don't watch the news then you're not a Christian, because God loves people. If we're not loving people we don't love God, full stop.
The DTS students seem to be watching the news quite a lot now, but of course we all have all along. Of course.
It's hard to explain or condense all the things he said, or to explain why he told us to 'get our hump on'. Ask me later.

This week's teaching is on worldview and I think it's going to be fairly epic, we've had the first day of teaching and a few of us kind of blubbed our way through it. We learnt about glory being reflected in everything beautiful, for example how God is reflected in music so we got to listen to things like Bach and slowed down crickets. Again, hard to explain.

Our speaker is a guy called Don Stephens and he was based in Bosnia for ten years. We may be picking his brains about the whole called to Eastern Europe thing, and he has many helpful ideas about our future. We're not going to write our plans down until we're home because we don't want to speak too soon. But you should know that it's starting to look pretty exciting/ terrifying/ challenging/ fun/ hard/ GOOD.

The speakers have all been so good i'm worried about how we'll function in Egypt without constant input. I've asked staff about this and apparently the point of all the teaching is not to make us addicted to lectures, but to equip us for mission. Who knew?!

Aside - Mitch's parents are visiting from Canada and Mitch's mum just gave me loads of fabric she lugged over from Canada! I'm very excited right now! I shall make bags for all! Bags with bows upon them!

What else to tell you? My brain is somewhat addled, sorry, from all the work we've been doing lately. We've had a fairly intense assignment and my job has been to research current events in Egypt. We're leaving in twelve days and this does bring Egypt into slightly sharper focus, including trying to find suitable garb. Swiss fashion does not lend itself to Egyptian climate/ modesty restrictions as such.

Things are good - last week was a good week for the school and we're all getting on rather well as a group. This is helpful because things are going to be pretty intense for the next two months, and i'm glad that we love the people we'll be going with.

I would like to go and eat my dinner now. John is waiting to proof read this for me to check I haven't said anything awful, which is pretty likely.

We miss you lots,
and lots.
And lots.

love F and J xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Seabiscuit

John again, sorry for all the fans of Frithas amazing writing skills but she is writing the official supporters letter this week and i thought it would be nice for her if i offered to write the blog again so...

...Here goes another week in the lives of the John and Fritha super duo.

This week has been interesting, we have been taught on the Cross and some how the speakers included in their teaching watching the film Seabiscuit. This film is about race horses in America and pretty much has nothing to do with the cross but is a nice film and made Fritha happy due to her love for horsey things and animals in general.
Its been a funny week, and up until the last day we were pretty much thinking this is very nice but kinda heard it all before, but then God turned up the heat and Fritha got some cool prophecies thrown in her direction about how being here is exactly where God wants her to be (phew). And then the teacher looked at me and just said "Preacher". Funny for those of you who know me. I ran out of the class crying in my mind but in body sat there sulking!
So that was exciting and of course we will be weighing up those words with lots of serious study and caution, especially mine!
We have re-learnt amazing truths like what Jesus did for us on the Cross and this has again put us in the position of absolute awe of how wonderfull it is to be a son/daughter of God!

EPIC.

We are amazingly blessed to be here and are very aware of this. Its still just wonderful to be around people who trust God for everything. Over the last few months we have been chatting to and getting to know a guy here called Tim who has been to many places in the world serving Jesus, listening to his voice and being obedient to the call what ever that is. And its people like this who we are getting to live with, getting to know, getting to pray with, getting to seek advice from who are really shaping our thoughts and increasing our faith levels in our Amazing God who provides and longs to guide our thoughts and steps.
Its wonderful to be here for the teaching but to be surrounded by faith like this its impossible not to trust God more and more. That he has got us and our silly little futures, that because of Jesus we are going to shape this broken world we live in for Good for his Kingdom come.

Ok.
We really hope you all are having a good week.
do feel free to email us with any responses or prayer requests to:
frithawashington@hotmail.co.uk
Johnwashingtonsweet@hotmail.co.uk

Please keep praying for us as we prepare to go to Cairo at the end of March,
also that God would continue healing my back/arm. And that God will provide to cover Frithas dental bills and other unexpected costs that have cropped up over the last few weeks.

Thanks for reading.
God bless.

F + J xxxxx