Hatching Dreams

At the moment, while I struggle to be content and happy in my situation in life and where I’m living at times, I’m also starting to dream as well. Thinking about what I’ll do when (I refuse to think about the if) I’m better and how I don’t want to have regrets. I’ve got a friend off in Palm Springs at the moment doing a course in Bikram Yoga instructing and if  corporate lawyer can do that and quit her high earning job, then I can take a few risks as well I figure! 

You know how you have those things in your heart, that deep down you always thought you’d do?

For me, travel has always been a bit of a passion. I love other cultures and meeting people and mooching around in foreign cities. I travelled a bit in my twenties and lived in London, but I was so busy working I really didn’t make the most of living in Europe and it’s something I’ve always regretted. I’ve decided to start saving anyway and working towards a goal of taking some time out to go travelling around the world when I’m well enough to cope with the stress of living out of a backpack (yes, I’ve done enough travel to know what that is like). I’d love to go to South America and learn Spanish, visit Asia and perhaps see some of my friends living there (Vietnam, Singapore, Japan, Taiwan, Korea… all with couches for me to sleep on!) see more of the  States and make it to Canada finally. Maybe I could also go back to London and catch up with old friends there as well, round the world tickets are generally not much more expensive than say a return ticket to London anyway. I’d love to do some volunteer work, maybe WWOOFing or somethings missions based. 

For now, some of this seems like it would be a huge achievement, but I”m not going to give up on the dream and I’m going to work towards having some money so I can think about doing it. Can you tell that my looming birthday may be getting to me just a teeny bit? I don’t think I ever imagined my life would be like this when I was 32, somehow I have to be content with where I am right now – but I will look forward as well!

Technology, family and pondering

Life has certainly not been boring at all lately, though I am still struggling to manage my energy levels properly. My flatmate is out of hospital and seems to be doing well so far. Not quite sending out the full praise report yet, but definitely very thankful for prayer and good medication! 

I just had the loveliest conversation with a girl cousin of mine who is five years older than me and I haven’t seen since I was eleven (so for twenty years – eek) but we connected with each other last year via Facebook and have been chatting randomly since. I seriously am loving Facebook and Twitter at the moment for the ability to connect with people easily.  

My cousin has Chronic Fatigue and thinks she might be Cealiac so we swap energy level management and cooking tips all the time electronically. She was a great encouragement to me last year when everyone thought I was crazy, as Chronic Fatigue people often have the same issue and lose friends through their sickness. 

Well, we just had the best catch up about a lot of family news (like who has which illness and stuff – actually VERY useful) and really just caught up on the last twenty years. I think we actually used to write to each other when we were little – she must have had to put up with my little kid letters as I was so much younger than her! We even both have the same, slightly Asian looking eyes and ample booty so I really do feel quite a bond. 

Well, the interesting thing that has me thinking now is finding out that her mum really liked my dad and in their family that is a high compliment, as there are nine of them and they are all pretty dysfunctional really. My aunt used to come a lot to visit and we always enjoyed it and then it stopped and the relationship seems to have never been the same. We were never really sure why and there were some issues with money in the family so I always thought that was the reason, but it turns out that it was when dad went ‘all religious’ in the 90s and would apparently lecture her every time she came to visit that things changed.

It’s such an interesting thing being the first born-again Christians in the family. My dad’s background is Catholic and my grandmother had a strong faith (which I’m very grateful for) but all of his siblings have drifted away from the faith into mostly rather strange religions, or nothing. I sometimes forget that their roots are Catholic actually, as I was raised in the Anglican church, it’s only when  a cousin will make a comment about a christening or something that I remember. But, I do really wonder how my dad managed to ruin a relationship with his sister by becoming a Christian.  Was it just that she was exploring mediation and more Eastern spirituality so she felt some sort of challenge there (she runs meditation centres now) or was it really that my dad was a bit of a pain in the butt and pushing stuff at her? I am so curious! My dad did got a bit extreme back in the 90s – he was pretty rigid and was very tough on my brother and I as teenagers (I call it their super-spiro  phase… even though we were Anglican they used to go to a lot of events at other churches and got rather caught up in demonising everything for a while there) so maybe that came across to others as well? It’s not the first time I’ve had someone close to my family complain about the change in dad actually. 

I’m not judging dad at all, his family is a bit of a mess generally and he’s probably made the most out of his life (some of it luck that he seemed to avoid some rather unpleasant things that happened to the others, some of it that he became a Christian and put in place Godly principles) but I think there is a lesson in this for everyone. Do we repell people from the things of God or do we attract? Do people really need to be ‘told’ what they are doing wrong or what they should be doing, or can we just have relationship with them, love them and set an example through our lives.

I’m also examining my own life and wondering who I have turned away because of my faith, if anyone. I’m sure it’s happened. Sometimes, I think that someone will run away because of where they’re at in their life and there is nothing you can do about it, but maybe you planted a seed or two for another time. I definitely have some boundaries on where I’ll go and what I’ll do with my time, but I also don’t have a problem hanging out with my smoking, drinking, swearing (or whatever vice it is that Christians judge people for) friends and enjoying their company. Sometimes we talk about God, sometimes they apologise to me for an f bomb or two (hey I dropped a whole missile attack of those last year after my accident, it was one of the unfortunate impacts of my brain injury) but mostly I just be a friend (I hope). Sometimes I find myself slipping too far into the ‘world’, sometimes I find myself too hidden away in the huddle of holies.  

But I don’t want to be turning people away from God and ruining relationship with them as well. 

Hmm, this makes me think of my own sister who is definitely not walking with God currently. Sometimes it’s easier to be a witness to people outside of your family isn’t it? I’ve invited her to church things before and used to talk to her a lot about getting in a good church when she first left home. She didn’t. And now she’s pretty firmly entrenched in the drinking lifestyle and has a ‘partner’ and seems pretty far from God. She can have a lot of animosity towards me at times that I can only put down to the fact that I am Christian and she deep down knows what is right, but is having her prodigal moment.  Like my dad and his sister, she may complain that I’m too religious or judging or whatever. Who knows. I guess you’ve just got to endeavour to do the right thing and pray about the rest of it.

Are there any other first generation Christians out there who battle with similar issues in their families? I’d love to hear some stories. And you know what? Instead of complaining about how useless at being family my dad’s siblings are, I might just start praying for some of them. Hmm that’s an idea.

Funny (and not so funny) moments in the mental health ward

My lovely flatmate is still in hospital and still in the ICU part of the mental health wardm which means pretty much he’s a flight risk (the security is pretty much Fort Knox like)  and not really able to be unsupervised and independent. He is very slowly showing improvement which is fantastic, but I have to admit for the first time yesterday I felt a little teary when he started saying some of the paranoid stuff  (they’re trying to control him, he hides his pills under his tongue etc) as it’s been two weeks now and I was wondering if he’s ever going to get better.

Faith, I know I need it.

I don’t know how many of you have visited wards like that in hospital – it’s sort of funny in a way as you get to see some rather interesting behaviour (like the lady who told me I was really ugly and had dyed blonde hair last week). You start to get to know the people that are in there too,  and wonder what is going on with them as some of them look reallly normal. Some don’t though, like the new guy yesterday who walked around in his PJs with a serene smile on his face and long, uncut hair. Luis told us that he thinks he is Jesus and that’s why he wears his PJs all the time as they sort of look like Jesus attire, but the great thing is that he does really nice things for people all the time.  Excellent. I wanted to try to give him some water and see if we could have a bit of a party!  Just kidding, but really why is it that everyone thinks they’re Jesus when they go crazy? I’m sort of worried that we’ll not be able to tell the difference between the crazy people and the real thing and lock up the actual Jesus in the second coming!

We also met properly last night a Russian dude who has been in there for the last couple of weeks too – he sat down and had a chat with us last night and we asked him how he was doing. He replied in a way only the Russian can “they are trying to help me, but I feel like something is missing, like my heart is being torn” all said with a wonderful Russian accent and a tone of total and utter despair. We just sat there and really didn’t know what to say – anything in my head certainly sounded trite. 

What I have found is that you have to keep a sense of humour about it all, otherwise it is a very difficult place to be and I’m in awe of the staff who work in those sorts of facilities. Oh and if you have never had to visit a mental health facility, then please don’t be scared by this post, most people actually look pretty normal and you wonder why they’re in there and I always think that mental health issue aren’t discriminatory anyway – it could happen to any of us at any time just like any other illness.

Ok, so obviously my head injury didn’t really make an impression…

Have a look at this video of a friend of mine from a wee accident he had in the weekend mountain biking through a park in London. His loving fiancee caught him being an idiot on tape for us all to use as a warning.

I was like, um did my accident happen in vain? Why were you not wearing a helmet?

Though I have to say it’s sort of funny that firstly he fell into the river and then he was hit on the head by his bike! But only sort of funny. If you don’t like blood, don’t watch this by the way!

Conference and playing hostess

Life is ticking along here, my flatmate is doing a little better and every day his family are seeing progress. I’m praying for a small improvement each day this week before his sister flies back to Chicago on Saturday – if you have time to pray I would really appreciate it also.

We had a lovely night at the beach on Saturday night as well and it was well worth the drive as the weather was so good over there – 21 degrees and sunny, though I hit the torrential rain on the way back and then the heavy traffic going north on the motorway so the drive took about an hour longer than it should have. But I enjoyed the chance to have a quiet walk on the beach and watch some trash TV as the house has satellite.

Luckily, I’m hardly having to do much to look after them as they are very self-sufficient, but it could be a bit harder next week when the sister is back in Chicago and I have to try to remember my very basic Spanish a bit more. 

Our church is hosting a conference this week (it hardly seems like a year ago that I wrote about my thoughts on this blog after the last one) so I’m going to be out in the mornings copying CDs and DVDs after the sessions finish. I get an access all areas pass as we are tucked behind the stage, which is actually really, really loud when the music is playing so I’m not quite sure how that will go for me! Hopefully I can get away if it’s too bad, I’m sure it will be hard to be productive if you are vibrating from the music on stage. I’m keen to hear the speakers that will be on in the morning also, but will escape in the afternoon as I don’t think the sessions then really apply to my stage in life at the moment and I know I’m going to need my nana nap.

Oh and the really funny thing? I got talking with one of the nurses up at the ward and he asked for my number! He could just be another friend and is fairly new to NZ so that’d be cool… but wouldn’t that be a funny way to meet someone. Yeah, haven’t really written about it here but the whole long-distance thing is all a bit hard right now.

Remind.org

I have been looking through Bob Woodruff’s site for his organisation Remind  as I was very interested to see that he was back to working on ABC when I was in the US recently. I heard about his story last year on Oprah just after my own accident and it highlighted to me the increasing issue that so many people are sustaining brain injuries in Iraq – and they are able to save so many more people than they ever had. Infact, on his site it says that 90% of people survive serious injuries! 

I’m not American and I have some strong opinions on the involvement in Iraq that I won’t go into here, but I do feel that there needs to be more awareness of what is going to be a huge issue for the individuals and their families as well as America as a whole, you can’t send troops off like that and not be there to help support them when they sustain life-changing injuries… ok off my soapbox now.

Some of the Veterans are going to have a looooonnnnggggggg road in front of them and perhaps never fully recover, I suspect Bob himself probably still has a lot of brain injury symptoms – don’t be fooled by his return to work and think he is 100%. Some of them may never be able to hold down a full time job again due to fatigue issues, they may lose relationships, struggle financially etc etc etc.  This is serious and in a country without adequate support financially (from what I have seen, please correct me as I’d love to be wrong on this) they need your help!

I suspect also that MTBI (what I have) and Post Traumatic Stress are huge, perhaps under-reported issues that will also have serious repercussions. My heart goes out to those veterans too – their issues will be more subtle, but they are very real none the less. 

I’m going to definitely do some more reading and find out more about what is going to be done to support these people as they return home, but I just wanted to help raise awareness as well. If anyone can tell me more I’d be really interested!

Can I go back to being bored?

Finally I have some energy after the last few very crazy days! Sometime this afternoon I finally started to feel normal again which was amazing  - perhaps it was sitting freezing in the Domain after a visit to the hospital that helped, or the ten hours of sleep? Anyway, I feel a lot more energetic now and actually managed to cook dinner. 

Luis was a little better today when I went up, but he’s drugged up to slow his brain down a bit so he fell asleep after about ten minutes. That was fine though as it was really hard to make conversation for much longer than that, after he’d hugged me about five times for telling him that his sister and dad are coming there wasn’t much else to say. Oh, other than to remind me to clean the house before they get here – sheesh! I am doing that, don’t worry! Have gone and bought snacky kinds of food and will try to make a crock pot soup or casserole or something. 

I’m not totally sure what will happen while they’re here, the mental health system seems to be very pro-patient so I’m not even sure they’ll be able to just take Luis back to Chile like they want to. I’m sure I’m going to have to help them understand things here, so it’s going to be an interesting few days! Praying for energy to survive! 

It seems like a huge blessing that I’m not back at work yet, if I’d just started a new job I know I would have been exhausted and unable to cope with all this added stress so I’m very grateful. Though, I think I’d be happy to go back to boredom!

The trip to Florida, part one

I just realised that I didn’t post any pictures of my trip on here… though they’re about a month late here you go!

This is the foutain at the entrance to J’s community – I still find the set up in South Florida a bit strange, but it was nice to see all the kids out playing basketball after school at least on the communal courts, so maybe the fake communities aren’t so bad.

Eating Gelato in City Place, West Palm with a the Internet Pastor from the church J attends and that I attend online from NZ. Coincidentally, Ed was back from Iraq at the same time, he also watches church online from there.

A ‘Flight of the Choncords’ poster – supporting the fellow kiwis! I met the first person who could recognise my accent in Miami actually, he was a huge FOTC fan so he knew what a kiwi sounds like. 

The canal thingy in Delray Beach – I actually almost got caught by the bridge as it lifted because they didn’t see me! Luckily I was smart enough to figure out what was going on, just!

The actual beach – I didn’t stay for long as being Kiwi I objected to having to pay for somewhere to sit (actually the little umbrella seat things are pretty clever, I just didn’t have sunscreen or a bikini on me). 

My ‘Floridian’ salad from a little natural cafe. I’d never had chicken and fruit salad before, but I liked it! If anyone can tell me how to make a salad like this I’d be happy! I think it may have had dairy in with the mayo though… but can’t remember any adverse effects, just every similar recipe I’ve found online seems to have dairy in.

Driving the boat around Biscayne Bay to look at the famous people’s houses… that was totally a spur of the moment decision to do, but it was really fun. And no I’m not actually pregnant – this dress just seems to be really unflattering.

I told you I saw Richard Simmons – here he is again leading aerobics or something like it! He was so nice and I got about three bottles of cranberry green tea stuff, nice but full of artificial sweetners so it bloated me up. Shame because it’s a great concept otherwise.

More photos to follow when I can upload them

Ok, so the last day or so have been really bizarre….

My flatmate got admitted to hospital yesterday as his behaviour at work had gotten pretty crazy, so he was taken in an ambulance to the emergency department and I spent most of the day down there with him as he got progressively more worrying. He ran away TWICE in his gown with his ass hanging out into the park nearby the hospital (stupid guards were too slow to catch him) and the second time was picked up by the Police.

God is providing and answering prayers through all of this – his boss just told me that they will keep paying him and support me which is fantastic. I think they will try to get him back to Chile if he is allowed to travel so that is also great and  a load off my mind. I sent out a prayer request to a few people with specific request to pray for my financial needs to be met as well as I can’t go on for too long in a limbo of not knowing whether he’ll be ok, but not being able to kick him out of the house either.  

I’m in bed still and probably will try to keep things quiet today as yesterday was very long for me. Luis is being assessed this morning by the psychiatric team so hopefully we’ll get some answers. And we are yet to talk to his Dad or sister who are in Chile and Chicago respectively.

I’m so tired and hoping that the mental health system will take care of him ok, there are some interesting laws here so this isn’t a given.  

If you pray – please pray for a proper diagnosis, right medication if needed and that we can figure out what is going on. He’s 32 and a well respected architect and a lovely, sweet guy – I can only imagine what this feels like for him.

Sometimes life isn’t fair

Maybe it’s my inner three year old rising up, but lately I’ve been thinking a lot about how unjust life is. How to the human eye this world really just doesn’t make a lot of sense.  We love the idea of of ‘what goes around comes around’ don’t we? That you reap what you sow. I’m not denying that poor decisions do bring a harvest of poor consequences, as unfashionable as that idea might be in our world today, but don’t you ever get to thinking that really it is unfair that bad things happen to good people and sometimes there seems no justice for those who do wrong? 

As Christians I think we can be far too quick to judge especially, we can see someone going through a drought season in their life where life is tough and sit on our high horse, or in our nice house with our nice things and feel smug that at least we are good people who follow the Lord and therefore we are blessed and will prosper (and don’t get me started on the definition of prosperity that exists in much of the Western church). I think the blessing of the current economic situation is that we are going to be drawn into closer relationship with God, that we’ll get back to what’s most important and have a whole new maturity level in our relationship with Christ, perhaps even with other people.

I have been really impressed lately with the teaching that seems to be emerging in the Church, in my own local church and the churches I follow online, there seems to be a different focus now and I like it. Relationships, identity, foundations – has anyone else noticed the same thing? At my church in Auckland on Sunday we didn’t really have preaching, we just went straight from worship to prayer to a sort of extended prophectic time speaking out words from Elijah and how he went up the mountain seven times looking for rain. So many people, as I looked around needed to hear that message, I know I did. The key point I took home – that when there is a drought, God is trying to get your whole heart. Perhaps we should embrace the struggles, the dry times and welcome them? Hmmm, I’m not sure I can manage that just yet.

We need to remember that whatever where experiencing is just a season, that eternity stretches before us and this difficulty might be key in preparing us for the future that God has for us, we just need to keep close to Him and follow it through.

I’m trying not to covet other’s lives at the moment, it’s not even the material that I envy, but the family, the husbands the ease.  I need to remember that I can’t see their hearts, I don’t know what goes on behind closed doors. That comfort and ease can breed complacency and Revelation speaks about being lukewarm and I definitely don’t want that. My prayer is that I can show the goodness of God in this season of life, that I can demonstrate my faith and that I trust Him that He’s in control. Sometimes I think I’ve been part of a Christian thinking that loves excellence (which is great of course, God is pretty amazing and we need to honour Him) but that seems to stretch over into our personal lives – that if we’re not being a great example and visibly flourshing like the proverbial Cedar in Lebanon – then we are setting a bad example. I think sometimes the power comes instead from being real, from showing others that you are fighting on, that you have faith and that they are not alone either. Otherwise, we can end up very showy and surfacey and quite frankly I don’t think it’s good for anyone. I’m praying at the moment about being a better witness to those in my life – I have non-Christian flatmates at the moment as well as neighbours and others and I know I’m well enough now that I need to focus on this more. 

At times when I struggle, I’ve gone back to the Beatitudes, to Job and I’ve been encouraged that I am blessed anyway and maybe the trick is to truly be content regardless of the circumstances of our lives, like Paul. Life isn’t fair, Grace isn’t really ‘fair’ either when you think about it – the parable of the vineyard workers demonstrates that quite nicely, to turn up late and still get the same pay – how rude! But, I think somehow we’ll see how it all fits together when we get to heaven and wonder why we wasted any time on temper tantrums.