Je Voudrais ........

 I have done this twice before and I thought it would be an interesting exercise to do again. About four year ago I answered this question on my private blog. The question is: "What do I want?"
This was written some time in the first half on 2010.
I want:

 My friends to become Christians, My Nana to get better, More guy friends, Just more friends, An SLR, A graphics tablet, A mini laptop like the one Audrey has, More music, For the tension in my extended family to go away, My Ps, A new job, To be more certain about the future, My Fridge girls to listen more, For the underlying tension in my group to go away, My drama teacher to stop being a cow, To be better organised/motivated, Better marks, More time, More money.

Well lets analyse this:
- None of my friends have become Christians,
- My Nana did get better that time but unfortunately passed away in July 2013,
- I started uni at the start of the year and I have made some new friends. 
- I do have an SLR It's a Nikon D80 her name is Maggie and I bought her for my course. 
- I did have a graphics tablet but it no longer works :(
- I have moved beyond the 'mini laptop' - see here.
- Fia did give me a couple of gigs of Christian music last year :) 
- About my etended family *sigh who knows but there have been two new additions in my family since then. My cousin had two children; a boy and a girl. :)
- I'm on my green P's  and have 6 months left til i'm on my blacks.
- Ah my fridge girls, :'( possiably one of the hardest things that happened over the last year, the girls that I had at the time of writing this (C, Z, E and Y) stayed with me until they hit year ten and then they got too cool. (With the exception of Y who now has joined the leadership team yay praise God!) We (I) thought that they were really solid and would see it through and then they just stopped coming. But I have a new group of year seven girls and they are really regular and a lovely brunch of girls that are really passionate about learning about God. It is my prayer that they still stick it out with Jesus!
- I think that 'the under lying tension in my group' may have had something to do with some one who is now no longer my friend. It was a really hard thing but she is now no longer in my life and I have moved on. My friends don't see each other much :( we are still good friends some of us have a book club and we meet once a month it's good to keep in touch with them :)
- Ah 'My drama teacher' OK so this was a huge deal at the time of writing but now is just silly drama that doesn't matter and has made me more aware of myself and the people around me. Things I learnt from this, people are very motivated but their own personal views, don't put yourself in compromising situations that may be misinterpreted but third parties and when you are attacked you find out who your true friends are.
- 'Ha!' That is all I have to say about this. This will defiantly be on the next list.
- 'better marks' see here. Hell Yeah!
- More time ha! Well yeah... I have less time now than I did then but I've found that I'm happier. I really love being busy and having things to do. I run on about 6 hour sleep a night but I'm loving life at the moment. :)
- Well this too, I think I poss had more money then as well but I scrape by.

Well looking over the last three year has been a very interesting exercise, I was and still m very materialistic, selfish and inward focused. Although I'm not to sure if what I want has changed all that much. With out any further ado. What I want now:

A macro lens, a wide angle lens, peace in the Ukrane, My laptop to have a longer battery life (currently typing on the icky macs at uni), a website for my photography, regonision for my photography/ people wanting to buy it, the time and energy to set up an etsy shop to sell my craft, to know what God wants me to do after uni, to meet new people/make new friends, to be more organised, to be more self motivated, to have regular sleep patterns and a body clock, to see my friends from school more, to have more patience, to have a better memory, to improve my photoshop skills, to be more bold about Jesus, to write more, to get something published (in any medium, pref photography), to travel, to do mission work over seas, to learn other language fluently, to open up about myself more, the missing plane to be found and the people to be alive, peace in Korea, for anything caffeinated not to run straight through my body, a distinction average, at least a 3.0 GPA, a better sense of direction, a better memory, to read more, to be better imformed about the world, to have more impormed political views, a better memory, a new phone (esp with a better camera), more comments on my blog Oh and did I mention a better memory?

Dice shoot

How to be a Fantastic intern

In case you weren't aware I have now been a photography intern for over month now. It's been a slow learning curve but I feel like I've come a long way. I would like to share my wisdom. So without further ado, here are Shell's 12 tips for being a fantastic intern (in no particular order):
1) Learn how to make coffee and memories the boss's coffee order.
2) Learn how to iron and use a steamer, you will be using them a lot.
3) Always have pins, safety pins, sticky tape, sissors and  blue rack readily available, if not on your person at all times.
4) Always remember to put your phone on silent.
5) Remember: "Early is on time, on time is late and late is fired"!
6) Always put something back in the place you got it from!
7) Remember to eat and stay hydrated!
8) If you don't know what to do ask the person in charge 'how can I help?'.
9) There is never nothing to do. If you feel like everything that needs to be done, is done then clean something (then you'll look super efficient).
10) Always wear pants with pockets (even better wear a belt with carabiners)
11) Know where the pens, paper and sewing kit are.
12) Get everyone to sign the release form as first priority, before production starts!


There will be many more things that i will learn along the way but here is just what i have learnt so far :)

Swim/stand in God's faithfulness

I has been such a long time since I have posted on this blog. I should post more regularly. I have however, been posting daily on my photo-a-day blog.  I am quite excited about this project even though I have fallen slack on the daily journaling part of it.. :( 

Um what else is new?.... I got an internship! Yay! My boss is pretty awesome and is really happy with my work thus far and I fairly certain she is a Christian. So that is going well. 

I am also seriously considering going to bible college, either via correspondence or night classes, but I want to start now! Mum suggested that I wait one term to see about my work load, so I'll go with that but I am anxious to start. I talked to some really great people at Next Gen, from Moorling and SMBC. I am leaving that in God's hands.

Speaking of Next Gen... It was amazing, like: crazy, exhausting, my brain hurts, my heart hurts, I feel condemned, God's Grace is wonderful, kind of AMAZING!

The talks were on Nehemiah and 2 Timothy. The morning speaker was Greg and he spoke on Nehemiah, and as I was saying to Dan and Kat he has this amazing way of making you feel absolutely  crap and sinful about yourself and then saying but wait there is GRACE. 
We have a wonderful gracious God who forgives our sin and has washed us clean of any and all sin. However, this does not mean that we can go on sinning something that really struck me was "Do not confuse God's grace with His gracious will for you." God calls us to live a holy life. With the calls of this world this is not easy... I was really challenged during this week to confront my sin, in particular to look at my sexual sin. No one is immune and we need to take up the fight to live as Christians in a sex saturated world. 

Our God is a gracious and faithful God. Something else that struck me from the week was we need to revel in God's faithfulness. Stop and wonder at the awesomeness of God swim in the sea of his faithfulness and stand in awe of his faithful love.

Aren't metaphores wonderful? 

But seriously God is awesome and I am really looking forward to youth ministry this year, I am super excited to see what great hings that God will do in and through our youth this year.

Yeah that's it for now :)

The journey thus far

❝

You didn’t get a testimony on your own - God gave it to you. Whether you give God glory or not for it, He gave it to you and enabled you to tell it to others. Your testimony is valuable.

— Rev. Brian Bowen


My testimony.
I have a million and one excuses not to tell my testimony: I don't like talking about myself, I don't think my story is very interesting, I suck at self evaluating, I have a terrible memory.....
But I have the most important reason to, to tell others about Jesus. So to those excuses I say: My testimony is not about myself, it is about Jesus, every story about someone coming to know Jesus and seeing His work in their lives is amazing, it is amazing that he chooses any of us, I do suck at self evaluating and I do have a terrible memory but God knows my story and He will use it for His glory.

There are parts of my story that I am not proud of, that I will forever regret, but instead of leaving them out, I will let God use them as he chooses.

My story starts out as many Christian testimonies do: I was wonderfully blessed to grow up in a Christian family, my parents and sister knowing Jesus. As a kid I went to Sunday school and Kids club. I loved all the old testament stories, Joseph, Moses etc and I wasn't bad at reciting the memory verses. I remember when I was about 12 I heard somewhere that "you are not a Christian just because your parents are, that you must make that decision for yourself" and sometime after that I became a Christian. I recall sitting on my bed with a gospel of Mark and writing the date that I gave my life to Jesus. 

You see my conversion story is a simple one I knew that I had to make a decision to follow Jesus for myself, I knew all these things about Jesus, becoming a Christian was an easy choice.

However my journey from that time until now has not been smooth sailing. There are times, time and time again that I forget about God I push Him away for weeks at a time, I am sinful and unrepentant. 

At high school people knew I was a Christian but I didn't live a radically different life. In my group of friends I was one of two Christians. My friends at school  lived (and still live) very different lives to me. It was hard not to get sucked in to the things of the world. I love them dearly and it is such a struggle not to envy them their lifestyle. I am getting ahead of myself. 

Forgive the disjointedness of the rest of my testimony as things didn't really happen  chronologically from then on, these are various chunks of learning different things about God and about myself that I think are relevant to the story.

 In year 7 I was amazingly blessed that my best friend from primary school (who went to a different high school) invited me to her youth group (I had been going to the one at my church but it was very small and had no one my age). So I went and long story short I have never left. I learnt so much at 'Cactus' and what eventually became 'Fight club'. I have always been inquisitive and with our youth pastor Dan no question was off limits. I loved it so much I wanted to know everything! Looking back on this time I feel ( and I still sturggle with this now) that I knew much about God but I did not know Him. I could answer all the questions correctly but it did not effect me I guess. I have often struggled with the concept of head knowledge vs. heart knowledge. I know about God but I struggle with the personal relationship, the relationship that I can have because of Jesus. Jesus who stuffed all his great and awesome magnitude into the body of a tiny human so that he could die to take away my sin. That truly blows my mind.
At the end of year 9 I was asked with a couple of other people to join the leadership team at the younger youth group. This has been an awesome opportunity for me to grow and to walk in my faith. 

There is more to the story and I am not proud of many things that have happened. After high school I decided I wanted to serve God in camping ministry, I had  decided  that this was the best way for me to serve God, I was going to serve him this way whether he liked it or not... so I spent two years of my life not really doing anything because I had chosen that I knew best and this was what I wanted for my life. I thought it would be great I loved the outdoors, kids and Jesus. I didn't listen I was hard hearted, God kept telling me no time and time again that he knew better and had great plans for me. But I am stubborn and at the time I hated  hearing Jemimah 29:11  (For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future"), it ended in quite a lot of heart break and disappointment. I ended up saying to God look really what do you want from me all I want to do in serve you with my life and you are stopping me. But God is more faithful than I could have eve imagined and he placed me where I am now studying photography and loving my work. I am not God He knows what is best for me.

The summer holidays after high school I met a boy and we started dating, I grew to love him very much. But we fell into a lot of sexual sin and were much more physical then we should have been. I thought that we would one day get married. I pushed God away time and time again. I knew what he demanded of me and I pushed Him away. We eventually and inevitably broke up. I was hurt and angry at God and full of guilt and shame, but our great a awesome God has been faithful to me time and time again. He constantly  reminds me that I am totally and completely forgiven because of Jesus. Because of Jesus I am made totally clean and have a clean slate with God. There are some song lyrics that God recalls to my mind whenever I need reminding of this.

"When Satan tempts me to dispare and tells me of the guilt within,
upward I look and see him there who made an end to all my sin."


I guess it was a slow road of coming into a deeper understanding of God and truly accepting what he has done for me. I still struggle with many things. But God has always been faithful to me. That is a very brief account of the work of God in my life so far. I hope that I have done it justice. And that through it you made be blessed.

Loving Being Busy!

It's been I long time since I've posted anything here a lot has been happening and I've been really busy, practically drowning in uni work.
I went to my sister's graduation last Thursday.

Last Saturday was recital, so adorable. They all went the wrong way, got most of it wrong and I didn't even know the dance. But it didn't matter! It was a great fun and even got a complement from my boss. So yeah it was pretty awesome :) the 2-3a 'did fly a kite' and had pink Tutus and the 3-5s did fave things and had black and white tutus. They were all soo adorable and I was so proud of them.

The flowers are from my boss and from Tiana (one of my ballerinas).

And the picture of  Belle is one of the pieces I submitted for my illustrator assessment. I was very proud of it. Even though I unfortunately only got a credit for it... boo :(

Barraba!

I had the most fantastic two weeks holiday.
I spent a week in one of my favorite places in the whole world. A lovely little town about an hour out of Tamworth. It not much and has no claim to fame, but as soon as you drive in it's like you're coming home. My church does an annual mission trip to Barraba every year in the September school holidays. It's been going for eight years and this is my fourth year going. This year my friend Flo and I stayed with Nana Jenny (again) and her new husband Geoff. It was a really great wonderful amazing time, they are such lovely people and their house has such joy. (even though they were constantly trying to find people to set us up with/question us about our (non-existant) love lives.)
Here's some photos: