Being towed...

I was just thinking to myself this afternoon, that today has pretty much been quite a 'boring' day. I had vacuumed upstairs this morning, had a nice lunch, checked my e-mail, nothing new or exciting. It was quite sunny outside, but I didn't go out for a walk. I was just moping round the house being a bit bored, when Gary asked me if I wanted to go to town with him for a coffee.


Gladly, I accepted. It's always exciting here just to go to town. Well, let me tell you, before we even had the chance to even get to a shop, our trip into town was terminated. We didn't get abducted by aliens or anything, but what did happen was that we parked outside a bank (to get some money). And that literally was as far as we got to go.

The car would just not start again. Ofcourse we had forgotten to take the cell phone with us, so in the end we had to walk down the main street trying to find a pay phone. It is at times like these, ofcourse, that you learn things about your town you did not know. I did not know that there are no payphones anywhere in sight on the very main road of our town. We had to go to a hotel and use their pay phone in the end.

Gary got his Tim Horton's coffee (which is not as good as Starbucks - but alas, there is no Starbucks in Nova Scotia) and I got a Hazelnut smoothie (which is really nice) and we both got honey dip doughnuts (see bottom right hand corner of picture below - they are so yummy).


We then had to just wait for this guy to come and tow us to the garage station near our home. As the garage was already shut when we got there, we had to leave the car there. The guy who towed us apparantly is not a mechanic so he could not help us and they certainly don't offer roadside assistance here like the AA or the RAC would do in the UK. So the guy who towed us, just left us there. Ofcourse I did not have the camera with me at the time, so this random picture from the internet will just have to do instead...


Fortunately, the garage did have a payphone. Gary picked up the phone receiver to dial home so we can get picked up, when all of a sudden this French Acadian guy drives up to us and lowers down his window and asks us if we need help and offered to give us a ride home. So, Nova Scotia, Canada may not exactly be as modern as England when it comes to Roadside Assistance and they may not have a lot of payphones in public display, but they do have some friendly people.

My first reaction was that of suspicion, but seeing as Gary was with me, I knew I would be ok. We accepted his kind offer and he gave us a lift home. It turns out that he is a nice guy after all and is the second cousin of someone we know round here. I tell you, everyone knows everyone round here - Nova Scotians seem to all be related somehow. So that was my first 'being towed' experience ever, and now I certainly can't say that my day was boring.

Another thing that is never boring or predictable round here is the weather. It changes so much and sometimes quite dramatically, you just never know what tomorrow will be like. If you don't believe me, I have added a 'weather pixie' on my sidebar and it will tell you what the weather here is like, I think it updates itself every hour or so. The weather girl on the icon even changes her clothes according to the weather. So come snow, sunshine, rain or wind round here, you will be in the know.

Sunshine after the rain...

After two days of almost non-stop rain, it was very nice to have a really lovely sunny day. The most constructive thing I've done today is stack wood. We completely ran out of our wood supply in our basement, and although the weather is getting warmer, it's not quite so warm that you don't need the heating on. So between Gary, Gina and I, we've spent a good part of today moving some wood we had in the barn, down into the basement, and later on this evening, a friend of Gary came round and kindly gave us even more wood. So then Gina (who is 8) and I stacked that lot too. It's amazing how kids will help you do a job like this, if it means that they get to spend quality time with you. I really enjoyed stacking wood with Gina. She was a great help and she enjoyed helping me too. Stacking wood is sooooooooooo addictive. And now moving on to a much more interesting topic than what I did today. Have you heard of Julian Beever?


Someone just sent me an e-mail with photos of some of the chalk drawings that Julian Beever has done. I actually had received the same e-mail a few months back from someone else and had wondered about blogging some of those drawings as they are so good. If you haven't heard of Julian Beever or seen his chalk drawings before, then scroll down and check them out. They are really good. Julian Beever is an English artist who's famous for his art on the pavements of England, France, Germany, USA, Australia and Belgium. Beever gives to his drawings an amazing 3D illusion.

People are actually avoiding walking in the "hole"

A gold miner with metal detector (5 in the series)

World's Biggest Fly

Girl on a beach mat

Make Poverty History drawing from the side (40ft long)

Spiderman to the rescue

Batman and Robin to the rescue

For more about Julian Beever and to see more of his chalk drawings click here.

God Is Good

O Daddy, You are so good to me.
Even when I feel so lost and confused,
You are there with me.
Your right hand stretched towards me.
You offer me friendship and love.
You give me peace and security.

Forgive me for the times I look for those things elsewhere.
Forgive me for the times I take your love for granted.
Thank you that you never forsake me.
Thank you that you never give up on me.
Thank you that, even when I mess up, you still believe in me.

I am so blessed to have you in my life.
Your truth sets me free.
Your love lifts me up.
Your presence comforts me.
Whatever my circumstances may be, I hold on to you.
O Daddy, You really are so good to me.

I think way too much.

When you go to sleep at night, do you just put your head on the pillow and fall asleep? I wish I could do that, well that does happen to me very very rarely, but most of the time, I put my head on the pillow and I think. I think about everything. I think about everything I did and said that day. I think about tomorrow, I think about what I read on someone's blog or what I watched on tv (if I watched tv that day) etc. Sometimes I am desperate to fall asleep and long for my brain to stop working, but I'll still end up thinking. Why am I like that? I really do not know.

I realise it's been a while since I last updated my blog, but I guess that's another one of those things that I've been thinking far too much about what I should actually write about? rather than just writing. I've been blog hopping quite a bit lately, just reading other people's blogs, and I found myself reading quite a few blogs written by young Iraqi bloggers in Iraq about their day to day life there. I really want to go there and I can't at the moment, so it's kind of a bit cool, that I can have this window into people's lives there. What is not cool, though, is facing the reality of what life there is really like at the moment. It's not so much the terrorist attacks in themselves (as I obviously hear about those from the news) but what is more depressing is seeing young people lose hope for the situation to get better. I know it must be really hard, but I wish there was a way, that these people can have hope. I really pray that God has mercy on the average Iraqi person living in Iraq. I pray that more Christians would live there and spread some hope in the area.

Speaking of Iraqi people, there is a new doctor in town working in the local hospital and he's from Iraq. He's only been here six weeks and doesn't know many people, so one of his patients introduced him to me as she goes to my church. I met up with him yesterday for a coffee at Tim Horton's. It was really nice for me (and probably for him too) just to meet up with another Iraqi and speak with them. He is married and his family are abroad - I hope they come to live here with him, then there would be more people I can visit and make new friends with. Anyway, he seemed like a nice man and he didn't mind that I was a Christian so that was nice. I'm sure I'll be having coffee with him again another time.

I spoke to someone from church today and she really blessed me because she finally 'got' what we've been trying to tell people here for so long, that you cannot depend on a person to 'fix' you, you have to go to God, because He is the only one that can do that. She's been through a lot this lady, but no matter how much we tried to love her and support her, we would always fall short because we could never be there for her 24/7. She told me today on the phone, that last Sunday at church we had played a Jack Frost cd on 'Sonship and the Orphan Spirit', God really spoke to her through that cd and showed her how she had been trying to get her love needs met through other people (her husband, her pastors, friends etc), but that really she needs to go to Him. So for the last week, she has been going to God and He has been transforming her and filling her with joy, she feels like a new person. She said that she feels as though her heart is going to explode with love. Yay God! I love it when people let God's love find them.

God's love is a love that finds you.

I love just thinking about that. I've uploaded a song on my 'My Space' blog (you can listen to it by clicking here or on the sidebar link), it's called 'Till I See You' by 'Hillsong United'. I love the first couple of verses of the song, especially the first line that says:

The greatest love that anyone could ever know

it overcame the cross and grave to find my soul.

Wow! Isn't that just soooooooo cool? I love that line, it sends shivers down my spine. The rest of the song is good too. God's love is really just so amazing.

Butterflies, Jesus and Little Girls

Yesterday morning, I really enjoyed church. I was leading the children's service and I usually get the kids to do a few minutes of journaling (hearing God's voice - asking Him to speak to them and give them a picture etc) at the beginning of our service. Well, yesterday, we had three extra visitors than normal, two of whom were sisters and had never been to our church before. They come from a non-Christian background - their parents don't go to church and they live near Halifax which is a few hours away from here. So the reason they came was because they were visiting their cousin Morgan this weekend and she does come to our church and she (8 years old) brought them along with her.

I briefly explained to the new kids how to journal (even though I'm aware they don't have Jesus in their heart - but I'm trusting God that He'll still speak to them). After all the kids have a few minutes to journal, I asked if some of them wanted to share their pictures - which they did and that was really cool.

One of my Pastor's daughters, Anja, who's also eight (most of the kids in our church are eight year old girls) shared that she had this picture of God picking her up in His Hand and holding her in His Hand. She didn't know what it meant, but I thought that was a really cool picture and told the kids that I thought that picture was for all of us and that God was saying that He looks after us and keeps us safe and He holds us in His Hands. (But anyway I'm digressing - back to the story of the new kids...)

I asked one of the new girls who was 6 years old if God gave her a picture and she said that she got a picture of a butterfly but didn't know what it meant. (Tuning into flow and spontaneity myself) I told her that I thought that God is saying He wants to set her free. I told the kids that caterpillars don't always look nice and they are not free to fly, but when they change into a butterfly they get set free and they can fly and they're also more beautiful. I said when we don't have Jesus in our heart we are like the caterpillar, and we're not very free but when we ask Jesus to come and live in our heart, He changes us and we change into a new person and we become like the butterfly - we get set free and God makes us more beautiful.

I then asked if any of the kids wanted to ask Jesus to come and live in their heart and it was so awesome because both the 6 year old who had the picture and her 10 year old sister and another girl, Kennedy, not related to them who's 8 (and usually comes to our church but had never responded to altar calls before), all put their hand up and were keen to come forward to pray with me. So all three girls gave their lives to Jesus yesterday morning and for the rest of that morning kept smiling at me and were so full of joy. The new girls who were visiting even came and thanked me for them having so much fun and said that they really wanted to come again. I know their parents are not Church goers, but I am trusting God to look after those precious little girls. Please pray for them if you are reading this. Kalley is 6 and Kate is 10.