Communality

Some clever poet guy once said "no man is an island". Some clever adidas T i saw the other day at Dicks (a rather unfortunate name for a sports store) said "every hero needs a team, every team needs a hero". One of the biggest things i have learnt on my trip is of the importance of connecting with others. Through how much i have missed being able to really connect with and share experiences with friends and family back home. But also the way (sometimes in very short time periods) i have connected with others i have met from many countries and cultures.

I guess its strange for me to talk about connecting with others being that i'm about as independent as they come. I can't stay in one place long at all. This is a part of who i am but can also be a weakness and i know it means i have to work hard at making sure i dont lose the connections i am so lucky to enjoy with the friends and family that i love.

How is it that people can feel lonely in a world of so many billion people? How can we be lonely when we are constantly pass other people? This seems one of the greatest tragedies of the western world that i live in. The part built into me which says "look out for number 1" That says "work hard enough for yourself and you'll be a success". Living like this leaves little time for truly connecting with others.

I spent a weekend in Lexington with a community that are really trying to live out there lives together, trying to follow Jesus teaching of loving God and loving others. About 25 of us came from around the states to hang out together and learn and experience what this kind of lifestyle looked like for them. Both through spending time with these people and being involved in a mainly student church in Lexington i saw groups of people who were daily truly involved in one anothers lives and not just on a friendship hanging out at the pub together kinda way, nor as a family i have to coz we're related kinda way. But in a deep, real, practical kinda way in which they really help and support one another daily.

I know that i have friends and family that i can trust and can rely on, but i want to be there for those who aren't so sure of that. We are all on a journey, and i have been realising how important it is to allow others with us on that journey and to look out for those who have no one.

Two are better than one, for if they fal, one will lift up his companion. But woe to him who is alone when he falls.

Foolish Faith

How often is it that you feel like a fool? I guess maybe i get that feeling more than others, this week i felt like a bit of a fool on a climbing and falling trip while watching groups of young kids and trying to compare myself to a 12 year old dirl who we watched scoot up these rock faces and call down to her friends i hate it when they get easy near the top. I have to say i loved it getting easier near the top.

Big words are another one that often make me feel foolish when i am around conversations that i really dont understand. With heading into so many new situations and environments on this trip i have often felt foolish. The other week i poured sweet tea on my chicken and potatoes thinking it was gravy (all the time adding to the stereotype that we English really love our tea). But something i often feel foolish about is my faith. When you're around so many other people who dont believe what you do it challenges you to really think do you believe what you say and the more i think about the whole Jesus story the more it can seem to become foolish.

That God created a species to love him and follow him but they chose not to and by doing so forced him to judge them and so be unable to have a relationship with them. So to save them all 'God himself' takes on a human form and has to die, and so makes a way for the two to have a relationship with each other.

This idea seems to make little logical sense, about as much sense as rubbing a magic lamp or reading answers about life from big lumps of rock and gas floating in the sky. And yet it works, around the world billions of people have come to know this God that created them.

I was thinking how many of the greatest stories are based on this same idea of someone risking everything and even dying to make a situation right. Lord of the rings, Gladiator, the matrix, Braveheart and the fantastically cheesy Armageddon film all follow this and yet to us we want to believe that what each of these heroes is doing makes sense.

We take on the fact that some of the greatest things in life dont make sense, marriage and childbirth would probably be the most costly things in life, to give up that much freedom and agree to something that will bring you that much hardship seems like its a bit foolish and yet ultimately these are the priceless things that hold the most importance and. Planes and Ships make no sense, how can things that are that heavy fly through the sky or float on the water. Adventure sports are totally foolish and yet are totally incredible. We trust in strange foolish things all the time and maybe there not so foolish after all, these things seem to work.

So back to the faith thing.What takes more faith and is more foolish? To believe a higher being of some form, intrically greater and cleverer than us carefully designed our universe or that out of nothing by luck (even though luck/chance didn't exist then either coz there was nothing there) everything appeared.

The Bible says that God made foolish the wisdom of this world, to me anyway it makes sense to trust in something greater and more wise than me, and if people do think me a fool, i hope at least they think of me as a fool with a good heart.

Lots of people study their entire lives to prove either that God does exist or that he doesn't and they are all pretty much guaranteed to fail in this quest. Many people gain greater and greater knowledge and yet never do any good with it.

Some Christians study the Bible their entire lives trying to figure out more and more complicated answers from it and rightly so but by the end of their lives when they meet God and explain this great secret they figured out the answer to I wonder will God be pleased with them, after all he knows all the answers anyway. Or will he wonder why they couldn't just trust him to know the answers and get on with doing what he had asked and loving people.

Seems to me you save this world one random act of kindness at a time. You change this world for the better by making a difference wherever you're at. Helping those you meet along the way sounds like a bit of another foolish idea, what happened to looking after yourself. Well hey maybe bein foolish aint such a bad idea after all

Lexington Kentucky

As well as spending time on group weekends, in Universities and at churches i have been able to get to see a bit of the countryside as well. I enjoyed going to see the races, a tradition in Kentucky where they say they are the horse capital of the world.

I also got to visit some great huge houses out in the country, things like i've never seen, maybe this is the place to retire to. View from the back 'yard'

I also got to visit Mammoth Cave - unsurprisingly named after the fact it's a big cave, the world's longest cave in fact which stretches 365 miles and they continue to discover more every year. Me and the Hughes headed over for a tour of the cave a really impressive 300 or so step spiral staircase down into huge Caverns many full of the greatest Stalactites and Stalagmites i've ever seen. I learnt a bit about Kentucky history and saw some of the tackiest looking areas i've seen including Dinosaurland, numerous crazy golf courses and Big Mikes (Kentucky's largest small shop). The caves though were incredible and certainly a very memorable place to see.

Later in the week i visited a place here they call The Gorge, which was as the name suggests a gorge, are you noticing a trend in their naming of things yet (they also have a london and a paris not too far away). I went climbing with 2 great guys and as we arrived at the cliffs we were gonna climb we enjoyed watching some amazing young kids climbing up the walls, its amazing how small you can feel after being shamed by a young girl. These kids were part of the USA climbing squad who were away training with friends and made things look far easier than they were. My forearms are still aching the next day, probably because i took about an hour hanging on to get up the wall. It really was too hard for me but after falling off a few times i did make it eventually to the top of both climbs we did. It was a lot of fun and we saw some great views from the top, it really was a cool place. We ate at a restaurant called Miguel's which is a true climbers hangout, it has a huge campsite out back and people will come and spend their whole summer's there and whilst they do serve pizza they also sell all manner of climbers gear. I don't know if it was coz i was so tired but that pizza was goood. Interesting fact for you Brits out there, this place was in a Dry county, and no that doesn't mean they don't have any rain here, i'm serious no alcohol!!!!

But no bother coz they have a great drink here Ale 8 as they say around here. The drink of the God's a mystical drink fusing fruit and ginger flavours along with secret ingredients to create an authentic family made Kentucky original beverage and all served up in a beautiful green beer bottle. Ok they paid me to say that, but it really is good stuff.
My last night at the campus it was Chicago night, every monday the halls at UK housing 50 or so students have their food cooked for them by someone who comes in from the outside. This week one of the girls parents came in to visit from Chicago and cooked Chicago food. Hot dogs, italian beef sandwiches and traditional deep dish pizza, after this they held a service to bless the seniors who were graduating. It was a great evening and a nice way to finish my time there.
I am now an honorary Chicago cubs baseball fan and with my record whilst here standing at 13and 1(for non americans that means 12 wins and 1 loss) they are threatening to keep me here till october.

I also was lucky enough to play in an indoor soccer match which was good fun and also enjoyed a load more good food and a beautiful sunderland bon voyage cake.

Off i go again on a bus, the greyhound express is on its way to Columbus along with some interesting travel buddies (i feel like i was on a Jerry Springer set). Goodbye Lexington and all my friends there, may we meet again one day.

Welcome to UK

After lots of thinking, plotting and planning about what was the best way to get from Miami to Lexington, from 36 hours on a bus, to an exciting road trip i plumped for a last minute flight via Detroit (now my favourite airport). The flight gave me a free car which i picked up at Lexington airport and i got to drive in a whole new area of the states, very different and with much more chilled drivers than i found around Florida. My new wonderful American family (The Hughes) met me at the airport and i was whisked away at 10pm to meet a group making last minute plans for a college (university) age prayer retreat weekend that was beginning the next day.

I got to go away with the group the next day and had a great weekend making lots of new friends. During the weekend the group focus was to simply pray, sounds like a long time i know, praying for a weekend when most of us i guess struggle with even 5 minutes of prayer. I guess some people really think prayer is a bit weird, at best its cute and quaint and at worst its crazy and talking to yourself. But how do we explain all the times it seems we pray and things seem to happen. I know for me i love it when all those "coincidences" happen. The big thing i know i and a lot of Christians don't do enough of is listening to what God is saying to us. We ask him a question and don't listen long enough to hear if there is an answer or not. Some people think God doesn't speak to people coz no body ever hears him, but if you can't tune your radio in and hear the radio, does that mean that Chris Moyles (man i miss whoever) or whatever radio station you listen to aren't there speaking? (They have cakes made of ice cream here)

Anyway enough on that thought, i had a lot of fun meeting new friends, they were a great bunch who really cared for each other, and even if they couldn't play football (soccer) i still kinda liked em:)

During the next week or so i spent time around the UK college campus. UK stands for University of Kentucky although when i first arrived i just thought they really liked the United Kingdom a lot as everyone had t-shirts and there were hundreds of signs with UK on them. Although it does seem they like the accent, i was stopped one day whilst out running by 2 girls in a car asking for directions and whilst i couldn't help them they did shout out that they loved my accent. It made me laugh a lot that people here think the Yorkshire accent is sophisticated.

Bill who i am staying with is the chaplain of the university wesley foundation, a block of halls for christians studying at the uni. They have a service together every week and i shared my story and some of my life experiences the monday night after i had arrived. I spent a lot of time around this campus meeting with other students and hanging around, generally drinking coffee and playin around - does this mean i can say i've been to uni now? I also visited Asbury which has a Christian college and a Bible college. In a lot of ways this is very much a more Christian country than the real UK.
But what else have i learned of Americans in Kentucky so far. Well they could not exist without cinnamon and peanut butter, they like guns, they have drive through everythings, they think 45p a litre for petrol is horrendously expensive, they have churches everywhere and they are fantastically generous and are looking after me so well.

Florida

Mum arrived on Thursday and i went and met her at the airport. We picked up a car and after getting horrendously lost and taking about 3 hours to do what should have been a 30 minute drive we found our hotel, and collapsed enjoying some pretty shady microwave food. American food is having some serious dodgy effects on my body, i managed a month in Peru eating anything i was given no matter where it came from and was fine, i never heard any warnings of Miami belly, maybe this is why everyone on the beach here is so thin.

It was great to see Mum again and catch up more on things back home and kind of bring my thoughts a bit more onto the real world again.

We drove north to Orlando, passing through the Historic downtown of Melbourne Florida (Historic here is anything that is over 20 years old - I don't think, the town was even established when my house in Melbourne, England was built) But i did get to enjoy my first really good meal in America.

Orlando is a crazily busy city where everything is open 24/7 and if you dont want to you can never leave your car.

They have drive through, food, starbucks, banking and cinemas and they have a them park based on everything from Disney to Jesus, from waterworld to indoor skydiving anything goes it seems.

Mum and i spent the next couple of days in the 2 Universal studios parks
enjoying all the rides, shows and performances.

I was very proud of her she went on every ride, including the highest log flume i've ever seen and some of the wettest rides ever.

In England you couldn't have them as people would freeze, thankfully here you dried off pretty quick. The rides are based on different films that Universal studios has produced and as a bit of a film geek it was great to experience some of that including a fantastic laser and firework display with clips from all these different films projected onto these enormous globes, which was really impressive.

Orlando really is a strange place, it just doesn't feel real and i can't imagine what living there would be like. Walking around the theme parks, where everything is perfect, the trees, no rubbish, everythings clean, all the lights work, none of the buildings look like they are gonna fall down, the waters perfectly clear but i guess coz we're so used to things being broken or messed up when it's not it kinda feels weird, but anyway it was a lot of fun.

After the business of Orlando we drove across to the West coast of Florida and enjoyed the beautiful beaches all the way down there.

Along this coast the sea is so flat and calm that other than the salt water it feels like you are swimming in a lake. To get to a depth you can swim at you have to walk out a really long way because the land is so flat. Loads of islands surround the mainland that just stick up above the water. On one island we visited called Sanibel Island
we visited a nature preserve and saw Flamingo's and lots of other storks and Heron's.

Later that week we headed back across to Miami via a swamp natural park where we got our first sight of real wild alligators, and went on a board walk around the forests ad swamps where we saw snakes rustling through the grass, lots of lizards, a big owl chilling in the shade, vultures, hawks and lots of other tall birds wading in the swamps along with the alligators who were enjoying sunning themselves in front of the crowds.

During the rest of our time in Miami we did some shopping and enjoyed some good days on the beach the weather being in the 80s every day. We also made 2 other trips one down the Florida keys, loads of Islands that stretch out 100 miles off the coast of Florida into the Carribbean all connected by a giant causeway surrounded by the most beautiful blue seas i had ever seen.
Our last day out was into the Everglades a unique environment that covers the whole of the southernmost part of Florida which is actually a big river (apparently the widest in the world) running out towards the sea but so slowly that it doesn't seem to be moving at all. We saw lots of birds and lots and lots of Alligators as we sped around the canals on one of those fan powered hover boats. The place we went to was the most stereotypical redneck country american thing you could ever imagine, as we headed across the water with captain Skeeter.
It was great and such a contrast to the cool beautiful people environment of miami beach. I enjoyed the local delicacy of home cooked frogs legs and gator tail, and as well as eating some gators held a tiny baby one.


Before i knew it, it was time for mum to go and me to move on again. But it had been a great reminder of home and great to spend some time with mum again. Love you lots mum

Miami beach

As i arrive at Miami airport i find the bus stop and grab a couple of service buses across to my Hostel located 1 street off south beach an area where the cool, young American crowd come to hang out and party.

The hostel i'm staying in is called Jazz and is a really busy party kind of hostel. I find myself in a room of 10 beds 5 of which are full of English travellers. The sun is shining and the beaches are busy with people on Spring break, seemingly a tradition where everyone from around American goes on a road trip to find some sun and hit the beach.

The next few days were a pretty relaxing time of late nights, lie ins and lying on the beach except when the rainstorms hit which you really did not want to get caught in.

My first night there was St Patricks day and i headed to an Irish bar, which was busier than most places on new years eve, it was a pretty crazy experience but the really seem to love the Irish out here.

A few things i have to get used to here, they charge you for everything and tips are gonna kill me, you tip everyone. We went to one place to watch a game of soccer (dont worry i've not turned American already its just a few friends from over may read this and there easily confused you know. I think i would have more chance explaining Quantum physics than cricket), anyway the bar told us we had to order a meal or we couldn't sit and watch the game - weird. Oh and you can turn right through a red light, this meant a couple of near misses whilst crossing streets.

Last weekend

My last weekend in Peru was a really special time, i took a trip to the beach a few miles from Lima with some of my new friends, and enjoyed the fantastic sunshine (it was a hot one) and great waves of the beach there. We had a great day playing around and then went back to the house and were joined by most of the youth group who came to wish me off, we had a special time where i shared with them some of my experiences in Peru and some of the things i had felt God had been teaching me. They all prayed for me and my future
it was a great feeling to be part of that environment and to in such a short time feel like i had been so accepted as part of that family, something i shared with the church the next morning.

It seems amazing to me that as a Christian it seems no matter where i go there is always a part of my family already there. It is a hard thing to describe to people who haven't experienced that before. But having a common love for God no matter how different your experience, culture and lifestyle are you have a real connection. The Christian faith, and love of God seems to cut through and cross over barriers of language, culture and ethnicity.

I had a great time in Peru with some of my most memorable experiences and was lucky enough to spend time with some great people who really looked after me so much, and despite the warnings i managed a month in South America without getting sick. I'm sure when i have opportunity to stop and reflect more i will realise even more things i have learnt but for now i'm on the move again and as Will Smith would say its time to "Party in the city where the heat is on, All night on the beach till the break of dawn, Welcome to miami, I'm going to Miami."