Nutsness!

well, its been a little longer since my last blog than i had planned, but here it finally is, woohoo!

as you can see above, i've entitled this blog "nutsness". now, you're probably saying to yourself, "i wonder why steven entitled this blog "nutsness"", so i'll tell you why i entitled this blog nutsness. i entitled this blog "nutsness" because this past couple of weeks have been totally nuts!

the timing of the whole hand injury was interesting! interesting in that it came just before our busiest two weeks so far this year. is interesting the right word? basically, i tried to not let it hinder me or take away from my work in any way, but sleeping with a cast just doesn't go very well, so i'm always a little tired at the mo! and then as i found more and more out about having to get an op and everything, well, my head was just away with it a bit! (fiona just walked in and said she just had a shower but forgot her towels were all in the wash, so she had to dry herself with those little paper towels, lol) as far as the operation goes, i'm having it on thursday, and luckily i only nee the metal screw, not the hipbone, so thats cool! so yeah, please pray the op goes well, and thatzi'll be able to get home on saturday no problem!

as far as work goes, everythings gone pretty good. we had our ridiculously busy saturday, where we had wesley scouts for 5 hours, then immediately after another kids club thing for 4 hours! wesley scouts went really well, it was our christmas party, and everything ran really smoothly, and the kids all had a great time, and the leaders were all very happy. and then there weren't very many kids at the next thing, but it was fun, we just played with them, did a wee craft, baked some ookies, so twas grand! we were knackered by the end of the day, but everything went well, which was good!

then on the tuesday we had our nativity play for the christmas celebration for Bethanien, the Methodist Church owned hospital we live and work at. It was so much bigger than any of us had expected, it was in the Markuskirche, the big church that people go on tours of, and there was circular tables set out, for dinner which came later, and there was 50 tables with at least 10 seats at each, meaning we did the play in front of more than 500 people! I was getting really fed up leading up to it though, cos people just kept on criticizing the way i speak or something, and i was just like "i'm a foreigner, i'm allowed to sound like a foreigner!" so before we did the play, i wasn't in a great mood, but the play itself went really well, people said they understood everything, and a few people said i was a great Joseph, so all good in the end! and then afterwards, we had a huge meal, which we got for free cos we'd done the nativity play, and we chatted with lots of people, and i had a great night in the end! really enjoyed it!

then the rest of that week was spent organising things, when i wasn't doing something to do with my hand. fiona and i organised jungschar, which was on thursday and went very well. then we were all very busy organising "angels in the city", our outreach day in Chemnitz, which was on saturday the 13th. we had put a lot into organising it, we had 4 different projects: a free cafe, a group collecting rubbish, a group handing out stories and sweets to kids, and a string quartet going into two old-folks homes. i was also organising the services we had as send-out and as feedback with another youth-pastor. when it came to the actual day we were beginning to panic, because nobody had showed up by 12:30, when we were meant to start. but luckily they all came at about 13:00, and we had about 30 people, which in hindsight was the right number. it totally shows that we just have to trust God, He knows what He's doing. All the groups went well, the cafe people had some good chats wi people who were very happy to take a load off for a little while during the stressful christmas period, the group collecting rubbish were also spoken to by a few people who were very impressed to hear they were doing it voluntarily, the people the story and sweets group met were all very pleased having something totally random and friendly to brighten their day a little, and the people in the old folks homes were so happy that people came into play them music the sang along, some even cried! then that night we had an international party for the volunteers and also for the foreign people living in Chemnitz! we had people from Iran, Czech Republic and Italy. twas a great laugh, Fiona had organised it very well, and everyone was in good form!

so i wanna thank God for His blessings and what He has done over these past few weeks! He was in control the whole time and we need to remember not to lose sight of that!

this week, for me anyway, is now centred around the op. i was in the hospital yesterday for a grand total of 6 hours, just all preparation for thursday, and was in again for a half hour today. so yeah, i'm a little nervous, but i just need to keep reminding myself that God's in charge! still, your prayers are very much appreciated!

I hope you have a very merry Christmas, whoever you are, wherever you are! :o)