This post is a response to Dave talking people who have had a significant impact on him personally. I originally planned to write this a while back, but never got round to it and Dave’s been nagging in the comments!
So here is a short list of people who have had a huge impact on my life and my walk with God.
Ishmael: the famous children’s worker was a part of our church when I was growing up and I learnt a lot from the way he included kids like me in the wider church services. His songs also taught me a lot of scripture that I remember to this day!
Jez & Kirsty Wong: Kirsty took over the kids work at church when I was 11 and allowed me to ‘help’ out. She suffered each week at my over-enthusiasm, and both her and Jez became a constant source of encouragement over the years. I now return the favour as youth leader to both their children and I am proud to be able to call them all my friends.
Dave Boniface: When I was 17, I went on a short-term mission to South Africa that really opened my eyes to the power and responsibility of the gospel. Dave led the team and showed me a humble and gracious model of leadership that I had not experienced before. We have laughed and cried together ever since!
Paul Sanderson: Paul gave me my first real job and spent those first few years encouraging and inspiring me in my youth work. It’s impossible to summarise what I learnt from working alongside such a passionate and visionary man. I now have the pleasure of being Godparent to his fourth child Promise.
Kirsty: My beautiful wife has taught me so much about life and friendship. She’s constantly keeping me grounded and realistic when I get carried away or fed up, and she helps me to be a little less selfish every day.
So there you go. There are plenty more people who could fit into this list, but I want to keep it short and focused. Who would you say has inspired you?
Our good friends Ryan and Anna have finally given birth to their first child, whom they’ve named Bethany Hope. I’m really looking forward to meeting her soon. Congratulations guys!
Oh and I’ve just made a great chocolate cake with real chocolatey chunks in! Kirsty’s very happy.
We’ve had a great weekend catching up with friends and chilling out. Part of our fun was heading over to Brighton to track down some of the creatively hidden exhibition 41 Places. From the site:
41 Places is a city-wide artwork of 41 true stories, installed in the place where they happened – stories of people who live, work and play in Brighton.
After wandering around for a couple of hours, we only managed to find around 13 (even using the map)!
Some people have made it a mission to find and photograph all 41. Check out the Flickr group to see the others we didn’t find!
“Derrick” is a good friend of mine who’s doing a great job up at Soul Survivor working alongside Tim Hughes. As well as generally a great bloke, he’s also annoyingly creative. Check out Evans & Greg on mySpace.
After reading Dave and Rosie’s blog posts on the new range of PG Tips monkeys that are available, Kirsty has just run down to Sainsbury’s to get her own mini-monkey!
It’s pretty cute and is a welcome addition to our monkey collection, but we now have a lot of tea to get through…
I’ve been trying to think back over 2006 and sum up my thoughts of the year. All in all it’s been quite an emotional ride and I’ve taken on a lot of responsibilities; buying a house, working towards my DipHE Level 2, staff changes at work, etc. So I thought I’d be fun to take a look at my best of 2006!
So that was my year. Now here’s the challenge: Kirsty, Ben, Sam, Dan, Ruth, Dave, Pete, Mumf, Sim: You’ve been tagged! Let’s see your “Best of 2006″ lists online!
Here’s a couple of the most unique and impressive gifts I was given this year:
I Am Plastic. A great coffee table book about the designer toy explosion. A really cool gift bought for me by my ever-loving wife! Check out kidrobot for more of the same.
Zounds. Given to us by Ben & Sam, this is an amazing toy/tool/instrument thing that loops samples when you place the shaped pieces onto one of the 3 glowing dots. It’s the kind of technology that 60’s sci-fi ‘B’-Movies promised us in the future and then never happened (kind of like the Ice Crystals in Superman’s Fortress Of Solitude).
With 3 sounds for each of the 6 shapes and a cube that you can record your own sample to, there are a great number of musical combinations. Add in the tempo, reverb and echo controls and you get a wide variety of sounds from ambient chill-out through to hardcore techno and acid jazz! Totally bizarre and wildly addictive, get one now!!
It’s been a busy few weeks and I’ve not had much time to post my thoughts here, but I just had to say thank you to all the people who made my Birthday so special earlier this week (27 if you’re wondering).
I was working all day and Kirsty had to work late so I had nothing special planned and wasn’t able to catch up with any family or friends, in fact it was going to be just like any other day which isn’t really a bad thing. However, it turned out to be pretty cool because my phone was buzzing the whole day with people sending me Birthday messages! I’m not kidding, I got around 20 texts, many from people I didn’t think even knew my Birthday. It really made my day to know that people were thinking of me and cared enough to send a message. Thank you all.
On top of all this good will, the big surprises of the day were the two international calls. First was Jason Carter phoning all the way from South Africa to wish me Happy Birthday. It was great to hear his voice again and have a quick catch up. It’s been ten years since we first met! Wow! Second was my Mexican ’sister’ Katy calling from her new home in California. We last saw Katy when she was over in the summer and it’s good to know she’s settling into school there.
After work, the wonderful Bellamy family took me in and prepared an amazing roast chicken followed by Lucy’s homemade cheesecake! I couldn’t have asked for more. Then to cap off the day, I was invited to join Stuart Bellamy, Phil Atherton and Clive Price for drinks and conversation down the pub. Not being my usual social circle, it was an amazingly different experience for me and my thanks go to to them all for allowing me to tag along.
Ever since we got married young at the age of twenty, other people have expected Kirsty and I to start producing babies rather quickly. I must admit, I do get a bit of a kick out of proving them all wrong!
Perhaps the funniest moment was when my nan approached Kirsty one Sunday morning with the words “Congratulations! When were you going to tell us?”
Apparently the rumour had gone round the Thursday ladies meeting that Kirsty was pregnant, and my nan was quite indignant that she hadn’t been one of the first to know!
Anyway, this was all prompted by the news today that Jamie & Merve are having their baby boy on Monday (they’re not prophetic, they’ve just got a caesarean booked). From the look of the photo, Merve’s about ready to drop! Congratulations guys, you’ll make great parents!
My name is Jon and I'm a full-time Youth & Schools Worker in Littlehampton, UK. This site reflects my thoughts, ideas and experiences of working with Young People. I hope you find it useful!
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