Here I Am – Village Worship

found a new album by the guys over at The Village Church, TX in the USA, just been listening to this song and its awesome, got some stuff worth saying about this song in particular but will just leave you with the lyrics for now, more info about there album can be found over here

V1
Take me far away from here
Save me from this world of fear
Break me from the things I hold so near
they’re so far from You

V2
Reveal to me what You want me to do
Place me where Your will draws me to
Lord be pleased with the worship I bring to You
I sing to You, I shout to You!

Chorus
Here I am, send me out let me shine for Your glory
I will read, I’ll live out and proclaim Your Word
Take me now show me how I need to live not for me
But for You and Your glory.



Africa United

Went to see Africa United over the weekend with Marie, Marie told me it was supposed to be an accurate portrayal of Africa. the opening sequence when Dudu (Eriya Ndayambaje) makes a football with a condom it made me sit up in my seat straight away as i knew this film just wasnt going to be any ordinary film. The story is that of 3 children’s road trip across Africa to Johannesburg for Fabrice (Roger Nsengiyumva), a football prodigy in the making, to be able to go out on the pitch for the opening of the World Cup. They get on a bus supposedly heading to the Rwandan capital for an audition but end up getting on the wrong bus and thats where there journey begins, they head through several African countries and have to fight the odds with so many things such as wildlife and bad guys threatening there journey and they pick up a couple of friends on there journey.

They hitch through Rwanda, Congo, Burundi, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe and South Africa to get there and it includes many issues other continents would associate with Africa: AIDS, child soldiers, lack of schooling, war and prostitution. But it deals with them in a matter-of-fact, occasionally light-hearted fashion. I have to say it was a sobering storyline. The film was excellent and from the limited exposure i have to Africa i have to say it is pretty accurate. Considering that the main 5 actors of the film were children i have to say that the film was very well done, and its great to have a different storyline for a change rather than the usual hollywood stories where all too often sex or violence feature in some way.

We had quite a debate after the film because the one thing it got me thinking is although its an accurate portrayal, the bit that got me was Africa’s belief that condoms will solve the HIV/AIDS problem, when in reality it wont, it only treats the symptoms when the root cause is hearts need changing. Sleeping around seems to be so prevalent in Africa and all condoms do is seem to say that its ok to do that as long as you where one you wont get HIV, i honestly believe that a heart change needs to happen before the HIV/AIDS problem is going to be reduced. God is needed in so many hearts to convict them that sleeping with more than one partner is wrong before this problem will get anywhere near going away. its sad to see a generation being destroyed because of this.

I will close with this, you really should go and see this film if you dont know what the problems in africa are, in one sense it cant capture the true scale of some of the issues in africa because it would make a very dark and depressing film, however it does highlight some of the big issues in a positive way which is so refreshing given that we only hear about these stories so often in a negative light or once or twice a year at fundraising events. It’s quite exciting to actually see positive culture shaping films making mainstream cinema



3 Years Blogging and 66 Days to go!

it might surprise some that i have technically been blogging for 3 years, no one would have thought it, while this blog in its current form and domain is not that old, i have technically been blogging for that long, i should start with a very brief history 🙂
So i decided to start blogging in October 2007, i had just started FP (Frontier Impact Project) – which is a volunteer year with a local church and also do theological training. I decided it would be good to download my thoughts, i had previously been badly mish mashing thoughts over on msn spaces or live journal or whatever was called then (one way or another everyone is getting moved to wordpress!) that lasted all of about 2 months.

Finished FP then decided to do an update and then promptly forgot again until the following year (09), by which point i decided to get a bit more disciplined and start blogging slightly more regularly. Until June this year i had previously used the Drupal CMS framework and i had some crazy ideas that i could extend the site with cool stuff but in reality that never happened, i decided to move (and move all my current blog content) over to wordpress and moved to the current domain at the same time. and thats me pretty much for 3 years of blogging

last friday was exactly 10 weeks until the big day and i cant wait and cant believe how quickly the days are counting down, but i cant wait either. last week i had to pick up my “Certificate of Authority” to marry and take it to the fulham registry office, this basically means i handed in my notice a little over 3 weeks ago and the mandatory 15 days had passed where they advertised to the general public that i was getting married and have a certificate to prove that. I can now legally and freely marry my best friend in the UK, many people know that we are getting married in Zimbabwe but to avoid the red tape and probable “Gift’s” that would have to be exchanged we thought it wiser to satisfy the legalities before we fly out, in a London registry office.

so for about a month it will be a kind of wierd limbo time we wont be married but legally we are, its helping me to thing that we won’t have been officially married under the eyes of God until New Year’s eve so are not really married so even though we have a piece of paper that says we are, I wont be considering myself married until 31st December 2010 and thats when our wedding anniversary will be each year and its not an easy date to forget and your pretty much guarenteed to have a fireworks display on your anniversary every year 🙂

it’s 66 days until we tie the knot and i just cant wait, i wish it would come quicker but i know it has to go at the right speed otherwise we wont get all the neccesary planning and organisation done! and other important things like Hen & Stag parties 🙂

its been a busy few days this last week with a fair bit of work coming through and new clients (praise God), am praying this continues to grow as God certainly has been blessing it so far



76 Days :)

its 76 days until our wedding day, thats just over 2 months or just under 11 weeks, either way time does not wait for anyone! And i cant wait either!, we have just been to our second week of marriage prep and i have to say i am finding it remarkably helpful, Ross & Joy have experience and advice from there 30+ years of marriage that we would neccesarily be able to access as openly and honestly in any other setting except perhaps one to one, its humbling to see a couple so open and honest about some of there past challenges and issues and how they dealt with them, its refreshing and only helps for when we might have those same or similar issues.

this week involved a little bit about looking at some wedding vows and what they mean to us, we were given a few different versions, and i have to say we found something pretty much on the money of what we want to have at our wedding – not going to reveal them here so its extra special on the wedding day and we still haven’t tweaked them for us.

Life in general has been ebbing and flowing this week, had some work through this week but i cant say i was specifically busy, my uni lectures hit that “Mind Bending” stage which is good, i shall no longer be bored in the lecture! for my freelancing i got Marie to help me with Proofing the copy on my work website (http://somersettechsolutions.co.uk) and i am glad to say it now makes sense and is grammatically correct – i wish i could say the same about this blog!

we have looked at a few houses and flats now while hunting for our new home together for the new year, pleased to say we put an offer in on a place and it was accepted, so hopefully the relevant credit checks and paperwork go smoothly and we can pick up the keys from the landlady or agent in early december just before we fly to Zimbabwe for Christmas and the Wedding! pictures of all of the above to follow in due course)

next week is a little bit more of the same at the moment, although uni coursework is out so i should really get on with that (shouldn’t take too long) Running Front of House Sound at church tomorrow which will be good fun, will try not to put too much delay on lead vox (echo to non technical people!)



Shuffling stuff about

today has been a slow day for me. not a lot of work to do today, so i was productive and decided to continue to work on my business website, one of the things i am doing is splitting my blogging! my intention is that this blog becomes a personal blog and the other blog is a technical resource, that will mean that this blog will become less geeky and more about personal updates. most of my existing geeky posts will eventually make there way over to my work site and will get redirected from here (so i keep some SEO niceness) one or 2 will likely stay here though mainly because they dont quite fit onto the new blog just yet 🙂

uni lecture was boring but neccesary, will help me look into some professional development which means getting free or discounted access to courses, am hoping to firm up and get W3Schools certification on my HTML, PHP & MySQL and Javascript(if time allows)

got marriage prep tonight, should be good fun, am doing it with another couple who are my friends too which will be good. leaving this now with a link over to my new blog which currently has a nice intro of what its going to contain (to keep the geeks happy)