Don't hide your light.

We SHALL overcome.

Mahalia jackson---we shall overcome

We shall overcome,

we shall overcome,

We shall overcome someday;

Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe,

We shall overcome someday.

The lord will see us through,

the lord will see us through,

The lord will see us through someday;

Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe,

We shall overcome someday.

We're on to victory,

we're on to victory,

We're on to victory someday;

Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe,

We're on to victory someday.

We'll walk hand in hand,

we'll walk hand in hand,

We'll walk hand in hand someday;

Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe,

We'll walk hand in hand someday.

We are not afraid,

we are not afraid,

We are not afraid today;

Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe,

We are not afraid today.

The truth shall make us free,

the truth shall make us free,

The truth shall make us free someday;

Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe,

The truth shall make us free someday.

We shall live in peace,

we shall live in peace,

We shall live in peace someday;

Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe,

We shall live in peace someday.

If you catch one you win a goldfish.

A flotilla of plastic ducks is heading for Britain’s beaches, according to an American oceanographer.
For the past 15 years Curtis Ebbesmeyer has been tracking nearly 30,000 plastic bath toys that were released into the Pacific Ocean when a container was washed off a cargo ship.
Some of the ducks, known as Friendly Floatees, are expected to reach Britain after a journey of nearly 17,000 miles, having crossed the Arctic Ocean frozen into pack ice, bobbed the length of Greenland and been carried down the eastern seaboard of the United States.
Mr Ebbesmeyer, who is based in Seattle, said yesterday that those that had not been trapped in circulating currents in the North Pacific, crushed by icebergs or blown ashore in Japan are bobbing across the Atlantic on the Gulf Stream.
Any beachcomber who finds one of the ducks will be able to claim a $100 (£50) reward from the toys’ American distributor, First Years Inc.
The ducks began life in a Chinese factory and were being shipped to the US from Hong Kong when three 40ft containers fell into the Pacific during a storm on January 29, 1992. Two thirds of them floated south through the tropics, landing months later on the shores of Indonesia, Australia and South America. But 10,000 headed north and by the end of the year were off Alaska and heading back westwards. It took three years for the ducks to circle east to Japan, past the original drop site and then back to Alaska on a current known as the North Pacific Gyre before continuing north towards the Arctic.
Many were stranded as the currents took them through the Bering Strait, which divides Alaska from Russia. Mr Ebbesmeyer predicted that they would spend years trapped in the Arctic ice, moving at the rate of one mile a day towards the Atlantic.
In 2000, eight years after their journey began, the ducks were reported in the North Atlantic and in 2003, when they were expected to wash up on the east coast of America, First Years Inc announced the reward. By now the ducks had been bleached white by the sun and sea water. Sightings in the past two years have been scant, but oceanographers believe that their next port of call is southwest England, southern Ireland and western Scotland.
Simon Boxall, of the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton, said that the ducks offered a great opportunity for climate change research. “They are a nice tracer for what the currents are doing as they travel around the world, and currents are what determines our climate, and cycles of carbon.
“I would ask holidaymakers to keep an eye out, as they might be very few and far between by now. It’s a real adventure story and the plastic should last 100 years, so we hope it will continue.”
The landfalls have all been logged on a computer model called the Ocean Surface Currents Simulation, which is used to help fisheries and find people lost at sea. Two children’s books have been written about the saga and the ducks have become collector’s items, changing hands for £500.

4 SUDOKU FANATICS

http://quiz.newsint.co.uk/times_online/sudoku/sudoku.php

A leap out of faith.

TIMESONLINE 27th June 2007

It is the afternoon of September 25, 2000, and Jonathan Edwards is making his way to the triple jump final at the Olympic Stadium in Sydney. In his kitbag are some shirts, spikes, towels – and a tin of sardines.
Why the sardines? They have been chosen by Edwards to symbolise the fish that Jesus used in the miracle of the feeding of the 5,000. They are, if you like, the physical manifestation of his faith in God.
As he enters the stadium, he offers a silent prayer: “I place my destiny in Your hands. Do with me as You will.” A few hours later he has captured the gold medal, securing his status as one of Britain’s greatest athletes.

“I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”
— Matthew xvii, 20

Edwards’s faith was never an optional add-on. It has been fundamental to his identity – something that has permeated every fibre of his being – since his trips to Sunday school in the company of his devout parents; since he went to a Christian youth camp in North Devon and devoted his life to Jesus, tears streaming down his cheeks and his face glowing with divine revelation. Since he decided to risk everything to follow God’s revealed path, moving to Newcastle in 1987 to become a full-time athlete in the belief that his preordained success would enable him to evangelise to an unbelieving world; since he withdrew from the World Championships in Tokyo in 1991 because his event was scheduled for the Sabbath.
By the time Edwards retired from athletics in 2003, he had established himself as one of Britain’s most prominent born-again Christians. He soon landed the job of fronting a landmark documentary on the life of St Paul and also secured the presenting role on the BBC’s flagship religious programme, Songs of Praise. He looked to have made the transition to life after sport with a sureness of touch that eludes so many professional athletes. Perhaps this was another advantage of his bedrock faith in God.
But even as he toured the nation’s churches with his BBC crew, Edwards was confronting an apocalyptic realisation: that it was all a grand mistake; that his epiphany was nothing more than self-delusion; that his inner sense of God’s presence was fictitious; that the decisions he had taken in life were based on a false premise; that the Bible is not literal truth but literal falsehood; that life is not something imbued with meaning from on high but, possibly, a purposeless accident in an unfeeling universe.
Having left his sport as a dyed-in-the-wool evangelical, Edwards is now, to all intents and purposes, an atheist. But why? It is a question that has reverberated around the Christian community since the rumours began to circulate when Edwards resigned from Songs of Praise in February. Edwards a backslider? Impossible.
I am sitting opposite Edwards, 41, in the garden of his large home in Gosforth on the outskirts of Newcastle, but he does not resemble a man whose world has been turned upside down. His boyish face, cropped with sparkling, silver-grey strands, is alert and alive. One gets the impression that he is looking forward to the ordeal of a lengthy interview. Perhaps he regards it as a kind of confessional, an opportunity to bare all and be done.
“I never doubted my belief in God for a single moment until I retired from sport,” he says. “Faith was the reason that I decided to become a professional athlete, in the same way that it was fundamental to every decision I made. It was the foundation of my existence, the thing that made everything else make sense. It was not a sacrifice to refuse to compete on Sundays during my early career because that would imply that athletics was important in and of itself. It was not. It was always a means to an end: glorifying God.
“But when I retired, something happened that took me by complete surprise. I quickly realised that athletics was more important to my identity than I believed possible. I was the best in the world at what I did and suddenly that was not true any more. With one facet of my identity stripped away, I began to question the others and, from there, there was no stopping. The foundations of my world were slowly crumbling.”
Edwards retains the earnest intensity that was his hallmark when he gave talks and sermons at churches up and down the country. He is a serious person who regards life as a serious business, even if he is now unsure of its deeper meaning. But why did someone with such a penetrating intellect leave it so long to question the beliefs upon which he had constructed his life? “It was as if during my 20-plus-year career in athletics, I had been suspended in time,” he says.
“I was so preoccupied with training and competing that I did not have the time or emotional inclination to question my beliefs. Sport is simple, with simple goals and a simple lifestyle. I was quite happy in a world populated by my family and close friends, people who shared my belief system. Leaving that world to get involved with television and other projects gave me the freedom to question everything.”

“Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?
— 1 Corinthians i, 20

“Once you start asking yourself questions like, ‘How do I really know there is a God?’ you are already on the path to unbelief,” Edwards says. “During my documentary on St Paul, some experts raised the possibility that his spectacular conversion on the road to Damascus might have been caused by an epileptic fit. It made me realise that I had taken things for granted that were taught to me as a child without subjecting them to any kind of analysis. When you think about it rationally, it does seem incredibly improbable that there is a God.”
Would Edwards have been as successful a sportsman had he been assailed by such doubts? It is a question that the world record-holder confronts with bracing candour. “Looking back now, I can see that my faith was not only pivotal to my decision to take up sport but also my success,” he says. “I was always dismissive of sports psychology when I was competing, but I now realise that my belief in God was sports psychology in all but name.”
Muhammad Ali once asked: “How can I lose when I have Allah on my side?” Edwards understands the potency of such beliefs, even as he questions their philosophical legitimacy.
“Believing in something beyond the self can have a hugely beneficial psychological impact, even if the belief is fallacious,” he says. “It provided a profound sense of reassurance for me because I took the view that the result was in God’s hands. He would love me, win, lose or draw. The tin of sardines I took to the Olympic final in Sydney was a tangible reminder of that.”
The upheaval of recent months has not left Edwards emotionally scarred, at least not visibly. “I am not unhappy about the fact that there might not be a God,” he says. “I don’t feel that my life has a big, gaping hole in it. In some ways I feel more human than I ever have. There is more reality in my existence than when I was full-on as a believer. It is a completely different world to the one I inhabited for 37 years, so there are feelings of unfamiliarity.
“There have also been issues to address in terms of my relationships with family and friends, many of whom are Christians. But I feel internally happier than at any time of my life, more content within my own skin. Maybe it is because I am not viewing the world through a specific set of spectacles.”

“If I should cast off this tattered coat, And go free into the mighty sky; If I should find nothing there, But a vast blue, Echoless, ignorant – What then?
— Stephen Crane, The Black Riders and Other Lines

“The only inner problem that I face now is a philosophical one,” Edwards says. “If there is no God, does that mean that life has no purpose? Does it mean that personal existence ends at death? They are thoughts that do my head in. One thing that I can say, however, is that even if I am unable to discover some fundamental purpose to life, this will not give me a reason to return to Christianity. Just because something is unpalatable does not mean that it is not true.”
His crisis of faith offers a metaphysical dimension to the inner turmoil that afflicts so many sportsmen on their retirement. Some will say he has journeyed from light into darkness, others that he has journeyed from darkness into light – but none could doubt the honesty with which he has travelled. The Eric Liddell of his generation has sacrificed his religious beliefs on the altar of intellectual honesty, a martyr of a kind.
World of his own

— A committed Christian, Edwards refused to compete on a Sunday until 1993, most notably missing the 1991 World Championships in Tokyo. “It is an outward sign that God comes first in my life,” he said at the time.
— Contested the World Championships for the first time in 1993, the first of five successive appearances, winning a medal at each one, including gold in 1995 and 2001.
— There was little hint of his 12 months to come in 1995 when, the previous year, he finished sixth at the European Championships, second at the Commonwealth Games and was ranked No 9 in the world.
— Edwards’s life changed in 1995, when he set three world and seven British records, achieving the unprecedented feat of two world records in his first two jumps of the final of the World Championships in Gothenburg. His 18.29 metres that day remains the world record. His wind-assisted 18.43, to win the European Cup in Lille, is the longest triple jump on record.
— A run of 22 consecutive victories ended when he finished second to Kenny Harrison, of the United States, at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games. Edwards had finished 23rd and 35th in his two previous Olympics and finished second and third at the World Championships between Atlanta and the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, where he took gold.
Words by David Powell

Link to Libby Purves's Blog http://timesonline.typepad.com/faith/2007/06/triple-jumping-.html

Take a look at the Hope Project

http://www.thehopeproject.com/?language=en

GOD on Brown?

A leader who will be humble, and give Britain a soul, a new PM proud of his Christian heritage.

??????Watch this space

GOD in US (PRISONS)

Row over religion's role in US jails
By Justin Webb BBC News, Tucker, Arkansas
Supporters of President George W Bush say it's one of his greatest achievements: encouraging religious organisations to help with the provision of basic social services.

Bobby Lytle says the InnerChange programme has changed his life
The White House has doled out millions of dollars of public funding to these bodies - many of them representing evangelical Christians.
But in one area an effort is being made in the courts to stop the practice.
The "InnerChange Freedom Initiative" has seen evangelicals take over wings of prisons around the nation and set up special courses for chosen inmates.
Supporters say it cuts down repeat offending - but opponents say it is evangelism by the back door, paid for in part by the state.
So far the courts - in an important case brought in Ohio - have sided with those who oppose these schemes. The issue is expected to go all the way to the US Supreme Court.
So I visited a prison to find out what supporters and, crucially, prisoners themselves, make of the fuss.
'Miraculous' change
Bobby Lytle is four years into a 17-year sentence for second degree murder.

Inmates who sign up to the scheme live in a different wing of the prison
His life up to now has not been a great success. But he tells me it has changed utterly thanks to the InnerChange programme at Tucker Correctional Facility, near Little Rock, Arkansas.
Four years ago, he says, "I took a man's life." And, he adds, "There is no going back from that."
In his previous life, he says, the slightest disagreement would have led him to violence. "I would have bust you up," he says.
Now Bobby says he wants nothing more than to contribute to the community. Violence is a thing of the past for him.
It sounds miraculous - and many supporters of this scheme would happily use that word.
The prisoners rise up as one to pledge their allegiance to Jesus and the Bible and to their new selves.
I looked around the room and there wasn't a man there who didn't have tears in his eyes
Christopher ElmoreInnerChange participant
This is recognisably and unashamedly an evangelical Christian setting - but there is more to it than prayer.
In a class entitled Authentic Manhood, for instance, the inmates are taught how to treat women and children. They are taught things they never learned from their abusive fathers and disrupted families, and things that occasionally make them weep with sadness and recognition.
The teacher explains the aim of the good husband: to be a leader of the family but to earn that leadership, not demand it. The prisoners nod, they seem to get it.
The first time he attended the Authentic Manhood class, Christopher Elmore says: "I looked around the room and there wasn't a man there who didn't have tears in his eyes."
Chris Gilbert agrees: "If I was to get into a relationship I would know how to treat her - I know how to provide now."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6228854.stm

A gentle reminder.

One Solitairy Life
He was born in a stable, in an obscure village,the child of a peasant woman.

He worked in a carpenters shop until he was thirty.

From there he travelled less than 200 miles.
He never wrote a book.

He never held office.

He never had a family or owned a home.

He did none of the things one associates with greatness.
He became a nomadic preacher.

He was only thirty-three when the tide of popular opinion turned against him.

He was betrayed by a close friend, and his other friends ran away.

He was turned over to his enemies and went through the mockery of a trial.

He was unjustly condemned to death, crucified on a cross between two thieves, on a hill overlooking the town dump.

And when dead, was laid in a borrowed grave, through the pity of a friend.
Nineteen centuries have come and gone, all the armies that ever marched, all the navies that ever sailed, all the parliaments that ever sat , and all the kings that ever reigned have not effected the life of man on this earth as that One Solitary Life.
He is the central figure of the human race, He is the Messiah, the Son of God, Jesus Christ.
Anon.

Time to relax!

Out on 3rd August

Are you ready to drop?

Just come in from doing a bit of gardening, very relaxing. The apple tree has just dropped its excess fruit, a process of thinning itself naturally allowing it to send all its energy into a lesser amount of fruit.(called June drop)It prompted me to think of the verse "you shall know them by their fruit" notice it doesn't say bricks and mortar. Think about it.

Please Take 40 minutes 51 seconds to listen.

http://www.htb.org.uk/audio/how-deal-anger-nicky-gumbel

What a way to live.Thank God for what you have.

A man scavenges rubbish on a polluted canal in Jakarta, Indonesia, a city which struggles to dispose of thousands of tons of refuse every day.

Confidence in POTTS

When we are given the encouragement and the forum to let our talent blossom I believe God smiles and a tear or two may be shed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0dzZTPWrSM&mode=related&search

Lord of the Rings

'Purity' ring row reaches court

Lydia Playfoot says she has been discriminated againstA teenager is due in the High Court to accuse her school of discriminating against Christians by banning the wearing of "purity rings".
Lydia Playfoot, 16, was told by Millais School in Horsham, West Sussex, to remove her ring or face expulsion.
She alleges discrimination because the school allows Sikh and Muslim pupils to wear bracelets and headscarves.
The school denies breaching human rights law, saying the ring is not an essential part of the Christian faith.
BBC News religious affairs correspondent Robert Pigott said a group of girls at the school were wearing the "Silver Ring Thing".
Human Rights Act
These rings were inscribed with a biblical verse and Ms Playfoot has said the jewellery was intended to symbolise "her Christian commitment to sexual abstinence until marriage".
Ms Playfoot will claim her right to be able to express her religious beliefs, under Article Nine of the Human Rights Act, has been breached.
The school will insist that it is not operating a discriminatory policy because allowances made for Sikhs and Muslims only occur for items integral to their religious beliefs.
It argues that a Christian pupil would be allowed to wear a crucifix.

Sue shares her thoughts from House Group on Me and You and GOD

ME AND YOU AND GOD

The ME in this is obvious. ME is me, it is my life and from birth through to the end there will always be ME. Whatever life brings, whatever the up and downs there is always a ME.

GOD is also obvious. GOD is always with us, His love is unchanging, and His love is unconditional. Our choir leader, Sarah, sums it up with words she has written in her score ‘God Loves Me – Whatever’. That is so true, God does love us - whatever, and however many times we may mess things up His love is for always. I read this in a magazine recently “Without any doubt, seeing things in their true perspective can be a mighty help when dealing with life’s problems. For Christians, nothing offers a truer perspective than to know that the Risen Jesus is close beside them at all times and in all situations. Sometimes we allow this comfort to be forgotten. This is the thought behind such lines as these:
‘I tramped the pavements cursing God
When there beside me Jesus trod’.
But when we remain aware that Jesus is with us, come what may, we possess a perspective of life that spells victory.”

It’s the word YOU I want to think about. YOU can be almost anyone. It could be your husband, your wife, neighbour, friend/friends, family, church family, care group, colleagues and so on.

No matter where we are in life, whether we be on ‘a high’, or just going along easily, or in the depths of despair the YOU’s is our lives are so important.

When we are ‘on a high’, when things are going well it is the YOU’s we want to share our happiness with. We want to phone them and tell them our good news, invite them to weddings, invite them to our celebrations etc.

We also need the YOU’s in our life when things are ‘jogging along nicely’. We want to have someone to share our day with, talk to someone about the news, have someone as a sounding block etc. I have a friend who lives on her own and like me is also a school secretary. Sometimes she will ring me because she just needs to talk through her day at school with me. Perhaps she will want to tell me some thing her Head teacher has asked her to do, discuss the latest form to be completed for County, or tell me something a parent has said etc. Whatever it is though, it is always something to do with work. That’s because she has no one else to share her day with and she knows that if she phones me I will understand what she is talking about, I will have experienced something similar/have the same forms to complete/the same deadline to meet. Although we are friends and often go out together when she makes these calls we rarely discuss anything about our families or general news and that is because she just needs someone in whom she can share her day, someone to be her sounding block. I am an important YOU to her at that moment in time. This sharing of experiences or frustrations is reciprocated and on occasion she has been my sounding block, the one on whom I have needed to share my day with.

Then when we are down, when life does not seem so good, when problems seem all around us, boy, do we need the YOU’s in our lives then. We need others to support us, to love us, to care for us. I know that in my down times I have truly felt the love of my care group. They have been the people in whom I have shared my cares and burdens and when I have felt I had nothing else to give/cannot pray anymore etc. it is my care group who have loved me, cared for me, prayed me through the difficult times. It is not always Christians either who are important YOU’s in times of trouble. For instance, in our front garden we had a number of rather nice solar lights (some lovely tall, slim elegant looking ones and some pretty ones that looked like butterflies and dragonflies.) Colin loved those lights and every night before he went to bed would open the front door just to look at them. A few weeks ago he opened the door and all the lights had been stolen. These lights probably cost no more than20.00 but poor Colin was so upset. The next day he was out the front and crying so much (as you know he gets very tearful at times) that our neighbours were getting concerned about him. Colin also has a bench in the front garden and he wanted it moved to the back garden but our neighbours would not let him they said to him “No, we expect to see you sitting on there, it would not feel right if you were not there, the bench must stay where it is”. Then in the afternoon some neighbours came round to give Colin some new solar lights. Not the same as had been stolen but nice ones. Colin was going to put these in the back garden but again our neighbours said no they were bought for the front garden. Then another neighbour came round with a security light that he did not need anymore for him and even fixed it up for him. These neighbours were the right YOU’s at the right time for Colin and I thank God for them.

I am sure you could all think of times when the YOU’s in your life have been important, in the good, the ok times and the difficult times. We need to thank God for them and never forget to thank them for being there for us.

Colossians 3 The Message says this:
So, chosen by God for this new life of love, dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline. Be even-tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offence. Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you. And regardless of what else you put on, wear love. It’s your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it. Let the peace of Christ keep you in tune with each other, in step with each other. None of this going off and doing your own thing. And cultivate thankfulness. Let the Word of Christ – the Message – have the run of the house. Give it plenty of room in your lives. Instruct and direct one another using good common sense. And sing, sing your hearts out to God! Let every detail in your lives – words, actions, whatever – be done in the name of the Master, Jesus, thanking God the Father every step of the way.

To finish I have two final thoughts:

One – always remember ME will also always be someone else’s YOU!

Two – the phrase at the beginning was ME AND YOU AND GOD. Notice that it is not ME YOU GOD three separate things but ME AND YOU AND GOD. The dictionary says for AND ‘ a connecting word’. That is so right all three connected together all dependant on each, especially God.

Drive on the righteous side

Vatican's 'driving commandments'

The Vatican City has a 30km/h (19 mph) speed limit The Vatican has issued a set of "10 commandments" for motorists to promote safer driving.
The "Guidelines for the Pastoral Care of the Road" call on drivers to respect speed limits, refrain from drinking before driving and avoid cursing.
Roman Catholics are also urged to make the sign of the cross before setting off on a journey.
This is said to be the first time the Vatican has specifically dealt with the growing worldwide problem of road rage.
'Occasion of sin'
The 36-page document was put together by the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Migrants and Itinerant People.
We know that as a consequence of transgressions and negligence, 1.2 million people die each year on the roads
Cardinal Renato Martino
"Thou shalt not drive and drink", "thou shalt not make rude gestures behind the steering wheel" and "help accident victims" are among the 10 recommendations for motorists.
The document also warns that driving can bring out "primitive" behaviour in motorists, including "cursing, blasphemy, loss of sense of responsibility".
It says that automobiles can be "an occasion of sin" - particularly when they are used for dangerous overtaking or for prostitution.
Cardinal Renato Martino, who heads the Vatican's council, said it was important to address the issue because driving had become a big part of contemporary life.
"We know that as a consequence of transgressions and negligence, 1.2 million people die each year on the roads," he said.
"That's a sad reality, and at the same time a great challenge for society and the Church."
There is not much speeding going on in the Vatican City itself, the BBC's David Willey in Rome says.
A 30km/h (19 mph) speed limit has been enforced for years in the tiny state.
The last recorded accident there was a year-and-a-half ago, our correspondent says.

Bless them!

My faith in human nature was restored, and my Fathers Day was made by two special children as well as my own on Sunday.We couldn't attend church on Sunday as we were travelling back from the South coast, but apparently the children were given a small bag of chocolate eggs with a bible text attached.They were to be given to their Fathers or someone special.

Andrew ,Yvonne and Grace popped in last night with one of these small bags, and gave it to me,

Little Kimi and her brother Alex who lost their own father only a short time ago told them to give it to me. I was so moved ,touched and honoured that these two dear children would have thought of me.God bless them and their mum Becky as she attends the Alpha course.

Thanks Mick! A Pilgrims Progress.

There's hope for you!
25 Jun 2007
'"...I HAVE...PLANS TO GIVE YOU THE FUTURE YOU HOPE FOR."' JEREMIAH 29:11
In Jeremiah 29:11 we have a great promise in a not-so-great chapter. So if things aren't going too well in your life at the moment, this verse is for you! God's people were living as slaves in Babylon. Why? Because of disobedience to God. And worse, Babylon was about as pagan as you could get. It wasn't the kind of place God's chosen people hung out; it was a moral and spiritual wasteland. And on top of that, the Israelites' own preachers were leading them astray. So God told them, ' "Don't let all those so-called preachers and know-it-alls...take you in with their lies..." ' (Jeremiah 29:8-9 TM). Yet in the midst of all this, along comes the God of hope saying, "I still have a plan for you. It's not over till I say so. I'm going to turn things around for you. Your best days are ahead" (Paraphrase.) You say 'How do you know that God still has a plan for me?' Because you're still breathing! He has a plan for every single person He ever created, and it never goes out of date. Unlike the milk in your supermarket that has an expiry date on it, after which it can't be used, God's plans don't have expiration dates. Even if you've missed His plan entirely for years, that plan can still swing into operation the moment you turn your life over to Him and fall in line with His will. Now, your plan might be somewhat modified from what it would have been 20 years ago if you'd paid attention, but that doesn't stop God. He can adapt to fit anything that comes up, in any life that's ever lived - including yours. So, there's hope for you!

Check out The Big Book

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tI-xlbDzVbQ

Keep on praying!

Alan Sugar for Sheriff???

TO THOSE OF YOU NOT FAMILIAR WITH JOE ARPAIO, HE IS THE MARICOPA COUNTY SHERIFF (ARIZONA) AND HE KEEPS GETTING ELECTED OVER AND OVER AGAIN.

Thanks Kerry-Anne

These are some of the reasons why:Sheriff Joe Arpaio created the "tent city jail" to save Arizona from spending tens of million of dollars on another expensive prison complex.He has jail meals down to 40 cents a serving and charges the inmates for them. He banned smoking and porno magazines in the jails, and took away their weightlifting equipment and cut off all but "G" movies. He says:"they're in jail to pay a debt to society not to build muscles so they can assault innocent people when they leave." He started chain gangs to use the inmates to do free work on county and city projects and save taxpayer's money. Then he started chain gangs for women so he wouldn't get sued for discrimination. He took away cable TV until he found out there was a federal court order that required cable TV for jails. So he hooked up the cable TV again but only allows the Disney channel and the weather channel. When asked why the weather channel he replied: "so these morons will know how hot it's gonna be while they are working on my chain gangs." He cut off coffee because it has zero nutritional value and is therefore a waste of taxpayer money. When the inmates complained, he told them, "This isn't the Ritz/Carlton. If you don't like it, don't come back." He also bought the Newt Gingrich lecture series on US history that he pipes into the jails. When asked by are porter if he had any lecture series by a Democrat, he replied that a democratic lecture series that actually tells the truth for a change would be welcome and that it might even explain why 95% of the inmates were in his jails in the first place. With temperatures being even hotter than usual in Phoenix (116 degrees just set a new record for June 2nd), the Associated Press reports: About 2,000 inmates living in a barbed- wire-surrounded tent encampment at the Maricopa County Jail have been given permission to strip down to their government-issued pink boxer shorts. On Wednesday, hundreds of men wearing pink boxer shorts were chatting in the tents, where temperatures reached 128 degrees."This is hell. It feels like we live in a furnace," said Ernesto Gonzales, an inmate for 2 years with 10 more to go. "It's inhumane." Joe Arpaio, who makes his prisoners wear pink, and eat bologna sandwiches,is not one bit sympathetic. "Criminals should be punished for their crimes not live in luxury until it's time for parole, only to go out and commit more crimes so they can come back in to live on taxpayers money and enjoy things many taxpayers can't afford to have for themselves."Wednesday he told all the inmates who were complaining of the heat in the tents: "It's between 120 to 130 degrees in Iraq and our soldiers are living in tents too, and they have to walk all day in the sun, wearing full battle gear and get shot at, and they have not committed any crimes, so shut your damned mouths!"Way to go, Sheriff! If all prisons were like yours there would be a lot less crime and we would not be in the current position of running out of prison spaces.If you agree, pass this on. If not, just delete it._____________________________________________________________

Sex,DRUGS,ROCKNROLL and Horlicks??

Welcome to a whole new kind of rock and roll - awash with shiny pates, bubble perms, horn-rimmed specs and sturdy handbags.
The Zimmers are not your average band. The 40-strong group have a combined age of 3,000, a lot of attitude and are taking the world by storm.
Granted, some members might feel more at home at Mecca bingo, or doing a nice bit of crochet and fretting over a suduko, but this week they've put all that behind them and launched a bid for pop stardom with a cover version of the The Who's classic.
The plan is to storm the charts tomorrow - ideally, straight in at No. 1 and, so far, it's all looking surprisingly likely.
After all, when their video was released on the internet site YouTube last month, it attracted more than two million hits in a fortnight, along with praise from such unlikely quarters as Amy Winehouse, The Who's lead singer Roger Daltrey and even pop music's MrNasty, Simon Cowell.
Since then, they've been swamped with interview requests from media in more than 50 countries and, next week are jetting off to sunny California to appear on The Tonight With Jay Leno Show alongside George Clooney.
For Winifred, Buster and Alfie, life will never be the same again. 'The whole experience has brought me back to life,' exclaims Alfie when I meet him for tea and custard creams in his North London flat of 30 years. 'I was stuck in a rut and now I feel alive again.
'I've already had people checking me out on the street. And my little brother, Peter, 82, has a few friends from the bingo who want my autograph. I just hope any groupies can't run too fast - I'm surprisingly light on my feet for a fat man, but I'm not the swiftest'.

• TO FIND out more about The Zimmers, visit myspace.com/ thezimmersband. For more details about Age Concern, see ageconcern.org.uk.

http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=459353&in_page_id=1770

Woodland Chapel not PC

Scouts' forest chapel torn down after 70 years because it might offend non-Christians.

By DAN NEWLING - For almost 70 years, Scouts and Guides have savoured their place of peaceful worship under the trees.
But no longer. The woodland chapel has been demolished - its wooden pews and rudimentary cross and altar removed. In its place is a campfire circle.
The change has been imposed by the Scout Association, which believes the chapel excludes non-Christian Scouts.


Woodland worship: Children sit on pews made from old telegraph poles during a ceremony at the open-air chapel
Locals are dismayed, but the association says it is simply "moving forward".
The basic open-air structure in woodland surrounding Belchamps Scout Centre in Hockley, Essex, was built between the wars by volunteers.
They used old telegraph poles for pews and built a basic altar and cross. Visiting groups of Brownies, Guides,
Cubs and Scouts, have used it for generations.

Weddings have been blessed there, ashes scattered and memorial trees planted.
But in April, as the Scouting movement celebrated its centenary, it was torn down.
Former Scout leaders are outraged. Keith Rooks-Cowell, 66, led Sunday services in the outdoor chapel for more than 30 years.
The retired civil servant said: "Part of the Scout promise is to do our duty to God. It's an important tradition.
"Scouting has got no objection to any religion or faith - you should have faith, but it's not important which one.
"Anyone from any faith or any religion could go and use the chapel, it's never been a problem. The chapel was already inclusive.
"It has been wrecked. All the posts and everything had been demolished and laid flat. I was amazed and felt disgusted that this had been done."
Wendy Wilson, a bank worker and Scout leader from South-end, held religious services in the chapel for seven years. Her son Joshua, now nine, was baptised there.
She said: "It's a really special place. We all make a promise to do our duty to God, whatever God that may be.
"The chapel has never been an issue. If people didn't want to attend services, it didn't matter and they could choose to have their own ceremonies there. Nobody was made to feel excluded."
However, centre manager Nigel Ruse, 42, said: "The updating of the chapel was done to turn it into a place of worship for all faiths and not to exclude any one from Scouting.
"This is a case of taking Scouting-forward."
He said religious ceremonies could be held at the campfire circle.
But Mr Rooks-Cowell said: "A campfire is a place for sitting round singing, telling jokes and stories. The chapel was used as a quiet place for any leaders to go and sit and think. The two don't sit comfortably together.
"The campfire is not the right place for worship. All religions involves meditation and relaxation."
Last year, it was revealed that the Scout Association banned helpers from putting suncream on children unless they already had sunburn. This was to done to prevent allegations of child abuse.

I guess it takes practice!

We popped over the moor the other day to see the Chinese State Circus,it was very entertaining, better than watching the tv, good old live entertainment.

Again we are so blessed to have interesting things going on on our doorstep.

Anyway my thought stems from two men who were juggling and spinning plates, keeping them all rotating at the same time then running up and down as the audience shouted, alerting them to those that were about to fall.

I find myself so often these days saying yes to so many people then wonder why I have so many jobs to do in such a small amount of time, or visits that I should be making but not being able to do.

Focus on your core competencies ucb notes
?THIS ONE THING I DO? PHILIPPIANS 3:13
Howard Hendricks says, ?As a young leader, my biggest mistake was allowing my time to be eaten up with things outside my core competencies. I wanted to set the pace for others, to demonstrate that nothing was beneath me, so I devoted an inordinate amount of time to things I wasn?t good at ? things I?d never be good at. At the same time I invested little energy into developing my strengths. I worked hard but not smart. Finally, I realised that my true value lay within the context of my giftedness ? not the number of hours I worked. There were some balls I?d no business juggling. When I finally got the courage to let them fall to the floor, I began to excel in juggling the two or three balls I was created to keep in the air in the first place. And the amazing thing is, people came long and picked up the other balls. What I couldn?t relinquish were the opportunities they?d been waiting for. What drained me fuelled them.? Of the two or three things that define success for you, which of them are in line with your core competencies? That is where you must focus your energies! That is where you?ll excel. Within that narrowed context you?ll make the greatest contribution. And best of all, you?ll enjoy what you do! ?But I can?t afford to focus all my energies on one or two things?. Maybe not yet, but that should be your goal. It?s something you should be working toward if you ever hope to maximise your potential.

Where there is Life there is Hope!

Coma victim wakes up to post-communist world

By Peter Popham
A Polish railway worker has woken after 19 years of a coma to discover that his world has changed beyond all recognition.
"When I went into a coma, there was only tea and vinegar in the shops," Jan Grzebski, now 65, told a Polish news channel.
"Meat was rationed and there were huge petrol queues everywhere."
Mr Grzebski lost consciousness in 1988, after he was hit by a train. Doctors gave him only two or three years to live. But because of the tireless care of his wife Gertruda, who moved him every hour to prevent bedsores, he remained in good health. He was, however, completely removed from the dramatic changes across the world.
After regaining consciousness, he told his family that he had vague memories of family gatherings and of his relatives talking to him, trying to provoke a response. There was plenty for them to tell him about, if they had wished to startle him with amazing news.
When Mr Grzebski lost consciousnessin 1988, another Polish working man, the electrician Lech Walesa, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983, was back at work after years under house arrest. But the Communist authorities still had him under close surveillance. Within two years, Communism had collapsed and Mr Walesa was elected President of Poland with 75 per cent of the vote. Walesa turned out to be a flop as president. And when he stood again in 2000, Mr Grzebski's relatives would have pointed out, that only 1 per cent of the electorate voted for him. By that time, Poland had a market economy, communism was receding rapidly into the past, but the injured railwayman was still dead to the world.
His wife, who was said by Mr Grzebski's doctor to have "done the job of an entire intensive care team", continued to change his position every hour. "I cried a lot, and prayed a lot," she said of those long and lonely years. "Those who came to see us kept asking, 'When is he going to die?' But he's not dead."
Mr Grzebski's remarkable story is a real life version of the film Good Bye, Lenin!, in which Katrin Sass, an East Berliner, suffers a heart attack and slips into a coma in 1989 - thereby missing the fall of the Berlin Wall and the sudden and dramatic transformation of everyday life as the communist system collapses. "Mother slept through the relentless triumph of capitalism," says the character, Alex, her son.
When she comes back to life, the doctor warns Alex that a shock might kill her, so he goes to drastic lengths to conceal from her the revolution that has occurred, rescuing tatty East German furniture, restoring the dingy communist decor, persuading friends to visit dressed as Young Communist scouts.
Gertruda Grzebska took no such precautions when her husband came round, and the miracle of modern Poland flooded his senses. He couldn't help noticing that people were complaining just as much as during the years of empty shops and martial law. "Now I see people on the streets with cellphones and there are so many goods in the shops it makes my head spin," he confessed.
"What amazes me is all these people who walk around with their mobile phones and yet they never stop moaning."

When no-one else can understand me

When everything I do is wrong

You give me hope and consolation

You give me strength to carry on

And youre always there to lend a hand

In everything I do

Thats the wonder

The wonder of you

And when you smile the world is brighter

You touch my hand and Im a king

Your kiss to me is worth a fortune

Your love for me is everything

Ill guess Ill never know

the reason why

You love me like you do

Thats the wonder

The wonder of you

God knows what art is?

Hirst unveils £50m diamond skull

The diamonds encase a real human skull
The diamond skull Artist Damien Hirst has unveiled a diamond-encrusted human skull worth £50m - said to be the most expensive piece of contemporary art.
The 18th Century skull is entirely covered in 8,601 jewels, while new teeth were made for the artwork at a cost of £14m.
The centrepiece of the 41-year-old's creation is a pear-shaped pink diamond, set in the skull's forehead.
Hirst's most famous work is a shark preserved in formaldehyde.
The skull, which was bought from a shop in Islington, north London, is thought to belong to a 35-year-old European who lived between 1720 and 1810.
Flawless
The £12m-worth of diamonds are said to be ethically sourced.
Hirst said his piece, called For the Love of God, is "uplifting, takes your breath away".
"It works much better than I imagined. I was slightly worried that we'd end up with an Ali G ring," he added.
"You just want it to be flawless, like a diamond is a flawless. We wanted to put them everywhere," Hirst said of the skull.
"They go underneath, inside the nose. Anywhere you can put diamonds, we've put diamonds.
"I wouldn't mind if it happened to my skull after my death," he added.
The artist said that he was inspired by an Aztec turquoise skull at the British Museum, and hopes that his work will eventually be displayed at the institution.
Other Hirst works which have also gone on display at the White Cube gallery in London include a painting of his son's birth by Caesarean section and a tiger shark cut in half and suspended in two tanks of formaldehyde.
Art expert Charles Dupplin from specialist insurer Hiscox called the skull "another bold move" from Hirst.
"This is a spectacular piece and undoubtedly the work with the highest intrinsic value in modern and contemporary art," he added.