"Men plan, God laughs"

This was an episode title to a programme I watched recently. Made me think how often do we organise and plan our lifes and God is looking on watching chuckling to himself thinking if only you knew what I had planned for you! I am such a planner- I'm sure Ive provided some laughs!

From the world according to Mr Rogers

"If you could only sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet; how important you can be to the people you may never even dream of. There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person"

Congratulations Ireland!

Superb IRELAND: THE 2006 6 Nations TRIPLE CROWN CHAMPIONS!! I like Emma sadly was forced to listen to the end of the match on the radio while driving! But what a finish - Thankfully I had set the VCR to tape the end. How much sweeter is victory when its against the English?!

Splash of humour

Ukraine 1999 - 200?

In organising this years Ukraine team 2 words ‘Immeasurably more>’ kept coming to mind. This is what will be on the back of the t-shirts this year and a main focus of prayer that God will do immeasurably more this year in Ukraine that we could ever ask hope or imagine. Just like last year that ‘all will see’ how great our God is. With this thought of immeasurably more> in mind and me speaking in church about Ukraine I came up with the idea of working out some numbers re: Ukraine teams. Since 1999 there has been 7 teams broken down in 22 camps/practical teams sent to Ukraine made up of 118 individual people with a total of 189 visits with probably over 1,000 lives touched including people on the teams and Ukrainians. It’s not all about numbers but pretty amazing to think about how it’s grown from our first team in 1999. Jayne and I were on the first ever team and did some reminiscing on Thursday night- The time Jayne and Alison flooded their hotel room which effected 7 floors, watching the thunder storm from the fire exit, “victor my friend”, staying in the monastery, the rats, Jayne and Alison dragging their matrices down the hotel lobby into Andrea and my room so we could sleep in the same room [Hoping Glen wouldnt find out!], “When I tell you to come you come”, taking the public bus from Kiev to Xkmelnitsky, swimming in the river only to be told afterwards that 20 people had drowned in it since Chrsitmas, our stakeout investigating the mystery Nastaha in the room at the end of the hallway, walking to camp in the rain and discovering the pizza place for the very first time- We laughed a lot great times and great memories I love remembering stuff that you’d forgotten all about. Here’s to immeasurably more> and another year. [Picture of 1999 Ukraine team]

The new arrival

Things had slowed down on the boxset front of late so I paid I little visit to ebay and got myself ER season 1 new for 6 quid- Bargain! Back to the early days of George Clooney and Noah Wyle. They are currently showing season 12 on TV so Ive a bit of work to do to catch up!

Not so free ticket

I decided a while back that I would like to go to more concerts currently my concert experience stands at 2 Coldplay concerts. So when I heard that James Blunt was coming to Belfast I thought it would be good opportunity to experience another music artist I'm found of in concert. Although I am getting a little tired of 'You're beautiful' but I'm sure ill cope. It's a little bit more expensive than my free Northern Ireland ticket but I'm sure it'll be worth it especially as its the week running up to the Ukraine team departing and it will give me some haven from stress city!

Free ticket

I got a text message early afternoon yesterday from my good friend Claire offering me a free ticket to the Northern Ireland v Estonia match last night- Not going to turn that offer down couldnt beat it with a big stick infact! Even managed to find myself a lift there and back. Northern Irealnd won 1-0 scoring in the 3rd minute of the match. We were sitting in the south stand near the Estonia fans so it was good banter. It started to snow during the second half which was nice. Although it was baltic couldnt feel my feet by half time! "We're not Brazil we're Northern Ireland... But its all the same to us"