Yo yo! - Your're coming home in a week - woo! - that's still right, right?
Thanks for your posts, so encouraging and exciting to hear what is going on in your life on the other side of the globe, and how God is revealing more of himself to you through this awesome experience.
Prayers are being sent up for you. Lots of love xxx
Tuesday, 27 May 2008
Thursday, 15 May 2008
Not just about reading...
We looked at the introduction to the Bible section on Tuesday night. It threw up some real challenges for me. I'm very good at reading things fast - with the downside that a lot of it doesn't really stay in my head. I've realised that I don't really approach Bible reading with the right attitude - rather than asking God to bring a particular verse or passage alive, to give it real meaning for me, I tend to approach it like an academic exercise.
Consequently I've been finding the text of the Bible itself a bit dry. I love other people's (well, let's be honest, Tom Wright's!) commentaries but the words themselves don't leap off the page at me. The missing link is the Holy Spirit. Until I start to ask for guidance when reading the Bible and truly open myself to what it has to say, it'll remain a bit of a mystery.
One of the best tips in the Jinadu book on this subject is to insert your own name into particular verses. E.g. 'God so loved Clare / Joy / Naomi that he gave his only Son...' It certainly sharpens just what God has done for us - and continues to do.
I hope Bible reading for you is going well? I'd love to hear more about what God' s been up to in your life since you've been away... x
Consequently I've been finding the text of the Bible itself a bit dry. I love other people's (well, let's be honest, Tom Wright's!) commentaries but the words themselves don't leap off the page at me. The missing link is the Holy Spirit. Until I start to ask for guidance when reading the Bible and truly open myself to what it has to say, it'll remain a bit of a mystery.
One of the best tips in the Jinadu book on this subject is to insert your own name into particular verses. E.g. 'God so loved Clare / Joy / Naomi that he gave his only Son...' It certainly sharpens just what God has done for us - and continues to do.
I hope Bible reading for you is going well? I'd love to hear more about what God' s been up to in your life since you've been away... x
Monday, 12 May 2008
First blog entry!
Hello,
I finally knew enough spanish to set up an account and now I can contribute. Sorry it took a few months! I´ve had a week of classes now with the 2 to 4 year olds, who are proving a little more troublesome than I imagined. They like to play up so any good tips for that age, or good activities to try would be greatly appreciated. I´l post a few questions I´ve had with the alpha book a little later today,
Much love,
Joy
I finally knew enough spanish to set up an account and now I can contribute. Sorry it took a few months! I´ve had a week of classes now with the 2 to 4 year olds, who are proving a little more troublesome than I imagined. They like to play up so any good tips for that age, or good activities to try would be greatly appreciated. I´l post a few questions I´ve had with the alpha book a little later today,
Much love,
Joy
Wednesday, 23 April 2008
When times get tough...
First, a huge apology for being so slack about updating the blog. We've had Easter hols, parental visits, toddler birthdays - not good excuses I know, but it's the best I can do!
We met last night and prayed that your trip would become a little easier. Naomi wasn't with us, but I heard through the grapevine that things haven't been great for you recently out there. I'm sorry to hear that and just hope that you've been able to experience some sense of peace amidst the weird chaos that's probably going on around you. I can imagine that the novelty must wear off when you've been travelling for a while, especially if you're alone (well, at least alone physically if not spiritually!).
Our topic last night was prayer. Luke 22: 40-47 (or thereabouts). Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane before Judas delivers that fatal kiss. It struck us how often Jesus removed himself to pray - a retreat - and that it was only once he had surrendered his innermost feelings and tensions to God that strength and peace came to him. We reflected how hard it can be to pray truly honest prayers - that sense of really wrestling with something whilst in God's presence which is reflected in Jesus' dripping sweat in this passage.
I know I make all kinds of excuses as to why I haven't got time to just sit and spend time with God. I find it intimidating, as though I can't accept that he'll actually want to hear it all, warts and all. But that, I'm assured!, is exactly what he does want. Jesus isn't an insurance policy against storms, but he's certainly one whilst we're in them (I'm paraphrasing something the marvellous Tom Wright noted in one of his 'Everyone' series. Worth a read. Oh, and Dave thinks he's the best thing since - well, Tom Wright!)
The long and the short of it is that we're missing you (still), thinking of you and praying that God will give you the strength and the joy (scuse the pun) to continue your journey out there. Having said that, we'd all love to see you sooner rather than later so whatever you decide, don't fear that we'll think any less of you.
Much love, your Alpha pals x
We met last night and prayed that your trip would become a little easier. Naomi wasn't with us, but I heard through the grapevine that things haven't been great for you recently out there. I'm sorry to hear that and just hope that you've been able to experience some sense of peace amidst the weird chaos that's probably going on around you. I can imagine that the novelty must wear off when you've been travelling for a while, especially if you're alone (well, at least alone physically if not spiritually!).
Our topic last night was prayer. Luke 22: 40-47 (or thereabouts). Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane before Judas delivers that fatal kiss. It struck us how often Jesus removed himself to pray - a retreat - and that it was only once he had surrendered his innermost feelings and tensions to God that strength and peace came to him. We reflected how hard it can be to pray truly honest prayers - that sense of really wrestling with something whilst in God's presence which is reflected in Jesus' dripping sweat in this passage.
I know I make all kinds of excuses as to why I haven't got time to just sit and spend time with God. I find it intimidating, as though I can't accept that he'll actually want to hear it all, warts and all. But that, I'm assured!, is exactly what he does want. Jesus isn't an insurance policy against storms, but he's certainly one whilst we're in them (I'm paraphrasing something the marvellous Tom Wright noted in one of his 'Everyone' series. Worth a read. Oh, and Dave thinks he's the best thing since - well, Tom Wright!)
The long and the short of it is that we're missing you (still), thinking of you and praying that God will give you the strength and the joy (scuse the pun) to continue your journey out there. Having said that, we'd all love to see you sooner rather than later so whatever you decide, don't fear that we'll think any less of you.
Much love, your Alpha pals x
Thursday, 13 March 2008
And finally, the updates are here - all 4 of them...
Ok. so sorry for the delay, but here is the backlog of Alpha-ness you have missed over the last month, including a special from Tim last Tuesday - wohoo!!! (Sorry, have not read this back, so hope it all makes sense - apologies for any typos!)
Week 1: Rest of the introduction to the Cross:
Pg 20 – Jesus lived for us:
Not only is it amazing that God came down to Earth for us, but the way in which He chose to do it was awesome – not with a royal fan fair into the nearest palace, but into a dirty stable, born to a young, poor couple.
Jesus was completely human – if he wasn’t, it would be cheating! If we do not believe that he was completely human, we deny him the true glory he deserves. Jesus simply took advantage of the same spirit of God that is available to us, should we wish to accept it!
This understanding that Jesus is 100% human empowers us – think of Psalm 23 (valley of death) – we know that we will come out the other side of death because Jesus has been there before us and done just that.
Pg 21 – Jesus died for us:
This Cross is IT, the be all and end all – we could lay down everything in front of it, but we can’t, or at least we don’t. Jesus has paid the debt that we can’t afford, but we won’t admit that debt in the first place.
Note: ‘Human nature’ is an interesting turn of phrase, it is used as an excuse, and has negative connotations. Our humanity is not what it was designed to be. REAL humanity is how God intended us to be, how He created us to be.
Jesus rose for us:
We didn’t (and still don’t) understand that the world is not ours to do with as we please. We did not realise/choose to understand that the world and everything in it is God’s.
Vineyard parable: A man leaves his employees in charge of his vineyard and they decide that they want to keep it and run it as they choose. The employer sends messengers to tell the employees how to run the vineyard, but the employees kill the messengers because they think they are in charge.
The employer then sent his son, thinking that surely the employees would respect his son, and know how important his son was to him. They killed him too. The employer tried to deal with the issue remotely, but id you want something done, you have to do it yourself – the employer WILL come back to sort out the employees and claim what is his.
Pg 22 - Power and strength:
Jesus conquered evil by love and submission to God’s will. It wouldn’t have made sense for Jesus to conquer evil with power and strength (all guns blazing), because those are the tools of the evil that he wanted to destroy! So Jesus did the opposite – he LOVED, and laid down all his power. Also, if he had chosen the violent powerful route, we would have submitted for the wrong reasons – out of fear instead of love.
Jesus’ courage:
We never talk about this! He WAS human and so even if he knew he would come out ok on the other side, he still had to suffer the excruciating pain of the Cross.
Repentance:
This is a change of heart and mind – Jesus is still interceding on our behalf today – constantly – he is always between us and God. Repentance signifies a ‘turning back’ to God – a gradual U-turn – there is always forward motion. This explains why a lot of Jesus’ language is organic – it signifies growth, steady progress, movement.
Week 2: Reading 1 of the Cross p27 – Nicodemus (‘N’)
Qu 1. N probably thought Jesus was a bit crazy! – because he did some crazy things, but also evidently had some kind of power of God too. N wanted to suss Jesus out for himself. He recognised that Jesus could provide him with some answers which had been evading him. He wanted to meet Jesus himself, instead of just sending a messenger. N was high up in the religious pecking order, so going to Jesus (who was generally being undermined by N’s co-workers) shows a certain humility in N’s nature.
Qu 2. Rebirth of both spirit and through water is vital. The word/concept of ‘birth’ had strong significance In the Jewish religion. Birth was tied into Jews’ identity – being Jewish meant being born of Abraham’s family – tribe was very important.
Jesus, in saying ‘flesh gives birth to flesh’, throws everything that N believed in the bin! Being right with God is not a birth right – N was, on paper, as good as you could get (like Paul in our earlier study). BUT Jesus is saying that nothing else matters except the rebirth of the spirit – this is a great leveller, because it doesn’t matter what you are born into.
This spiritual rebirth still requires a personal response. Life is a constant journey, along which we will have to continually repent and renew ourselves in God. In repenting, we are not only asking God to forgive us, but also to help us change so that we will not make the same mistakes again.
Qu 4. People condemn themselves by not accepting God’s gift of forgiveness – God is offering it to us on a plate, arms outstretched to welcome us home – will you run to Him?
Note: v11 – the snake bit: In Numbers, God sends lots of poisonous smakes which start killing the Israelites, who simply weren’t getting it! Moses spoke to God and God said ‘make a bronze snake and lift it up on a pole and everyone who looks to it will be cured’. Parallel with Jesus – in v11, Jesus will be lifted up on a cross and all who look at him will be healed. This is why the Hippocratic symbol is a snake wrapped round a pole! – Cool huh?
Week 3: The Cross Reading 2: New Sight
Qu 1. Jesus was the Light of the World. Then in v5, we are told that Jesus will only be the Light of the World whilst he is on the earth. The plan was that when he ascended to heaven, we would be the light of the world, with Jesus in us.
Light vs darkness: until someone turns on the light, you can’t see where you are going. Also, when it’s light one can act – Jesus was an action man – he got involved. We can get involved in God’s plan for us when we let the light come in so we can see where we’re headed.
Qu 2. The Pharisees were wary of Jesus – they wanted to suss out whether he played by their rules. By healing on the Sabbath, he clearly wasn’t going to stick to their rules. Then they realised he may be a threat – that’s when they decided he had to go.
Cynicism and scepticism seem to be instinctive to us humans – however amazing God is, and however many times he shows us how amazing he is, we still need more convincing! Here, people just couldn’t believe that the man had been healed, to the extent that they thought he was a different person!
Qu 3. The best way to talk about God to others is to recount personal experience and speak about God from our personal experience of him and how he has changed us. That is the strongest, most powerful way of being a witness.
Note: ‘Jesus didn’t come to start Christianity, he came to lead people back to his father’. There is a distinction between following Christ and following ‘church rules’ – this is the modern equivalent of what the Pharisees did.
Note: Why didn’t Jesus just heal the man with a wave of his magic wand? Most, if not all the healings in the Bible require some sort of action on the part of the healee. In other words, a faith response is required – Christ wants us to step out in faith. If the blind man had not had that faith, he may well not have gone to that specific place to wash off the mud, and then may not have been healed…God wants us to respond actively to Him, and to demonstrate our faith in Him, His son and His Holy Spirit.
Week 4 – School trip to church to hear Tim’s talk:
Strength
Does God have a bigger plan for my life?
If you try to look at life fit into the perfect shape of what you think God’s plan is for you – spending X amount of time at work/with family/at church, factoring in everything and ticking off the check list, then this can be frustrating when we fall short of what we think we should be achieving. Instead, God has given us each bit of a jigsaw and told us to fit them together however we want, whichever way works best for us so we can serve him the best way we can.
God’s heart is involved in his plans for us, not just his head. These plans aren’t set in stone, they are changeable. So what ARE God’s plans?
1. BIG PICTURE
The master plan for us personally: God is full of love – he, Jesus and the Holy Spirit had so much love that they wanted to share it with beings made in their likeness. God created us to share in his love, so we could have the same capacity to love as he did. So the plan for us is to be like Jesus, and to love in the same way.
If you go on a journey, you generally know where you are going to end up. You have your destination in mind. God’s destination for us is JESUS! But, God wanted us to love him through choice, not by programming us. So he made us with free will, so that we could love him wholly and completely. But in giving us free will, he knew that we would also therefore have to choice of turning away from him. God loved us so much that he wanted to be able to be with us anyway, so Jesus was prepared to come down and save us from ourselves on the cross. So we can end up at our intended variation via Christ.
Really bad analogy – on the Road of Life, God started us off on track, on the straight path from start to the finish line, being Christ. But, because we had free will, we decided to go off course, we didn’t listen to God’s sat nav system - we hit a few speed bumps and road works but luckily for us Jesus provided a diversion to get us back on track, and end up at the finish line – wohoo!
2. BIG PURPOSE
Master plan for changing the world: to change a world that is in self destruct mode. God has chosen us to be his body on earth. Think of the head and body – the head has lots of ideas, but it can’t put them into action without the body. We are God’s body here on Earth. The Bible calls God’s people the ‘Elect’ – this is generally connected to an election – a choice. Once we choose to be a Christian, God chooses us to represent Him on Earth.
3. INDIVIDUAL PLANS
God has specific/unique plans for each of us. God knows about us, he knows us and put us together to have the right combo of everything so that we may serve Him in the unique way that only we can. God has made us for something specific. When we find that purpose, it all clicks! It feels right. This is true of everyone, non-christians and Christians alike!
Week 1: Rest of the introduction to the Cross:
Pg 20 – Jesus lived for us:
Not only is it amazing that God came down to Earth for us, but the way in which He chose to do it was awesome – not with a royal fan fair into the nearest palace, but into a dirty stable, born to a young, poor couple.
Jesus was completely human – if he wasn’t, it would be cheating! If we do not believe that he was completely human, we deny him the true glory he deserves. Jesus simply took advantage of the same spirit of God that is available to us, should we wish to accept it!
This understanding that Jesus is 100% human empowers us – think of Psalm 23 (valley of death) – we know that we will come out the other side of death because Jesus has been there before us and done just that.
Pg 21 – Jesus died for us:
This Cross is IT, the be all and end all – we could lay down everything in front of it, but we can’t, or at least we don’t. Jesus has paid the debt that we can’t afford, but we won’t admit that debt in the first place.
Note: ‘Human nature’ is an interesting turn of phrase, it is used as an excuse, and has negative connotations. Our humanity is not what it was designed to be. REAL humanity is how God intended us to be, how He created us to be.
Jesus rose for us:
We didn’t (and still don’t) understand that the world is not ours to do with as we please. We did not realise/choose to understand that the world and everything in it is God’s.
Vineyard parable: A man leaves his employees in charge of his vineyard and they decide that they want to keep it and run it as they choose. The employer sends messengers to tell the employees how to run the vineyard, but the employees kill the messengers because they think they are in charge.
The employer then sent his son, thinking that surely the employees would respect his son, and know how important his son was to him. They killed him too. The employer tried to deal with the issue remotely, but id you want something done, you have to do it yourself – the employer WILL come back to sort out the employees and claim what is his.
Pg 22 - Power and strength:
Jesus conquered evil by love and submission to God’s will. It wouldn’t have made sense for Jesus to conquer evil with power and strength (all guns blazing), because those are the tools of the evil that he wanted to destroy! So Jesus did the opposite – he LOVED, and laid down all his power. Also, if he had chosen the violent powerful route, we would have submitted for the wrong reasons – out of fear instead of love.
Jesus’ courage:
We never talk about this! He WAS human and so even if he knew he would come out ok on the other side, he still had to suffer the excruciating pain of the Cross.
Repentance:
This is a change of heart and mind – Jesus is still interceding on our behalf today – constantly – he is always between us and God. Repentance signifies a ‘turning back’ to God – a gradual U-turn – there is always forward motion. This explains why a lot of Jesus’ language is organic – it signifies growth, steady progress, movement.
Week 2: Reading 1 of the Cross p27 – Nicodemus (‘N’)
Qu 1. N probably thought Jesus was a bit crazy! – because he did some crazy things, but also evidently had some kind of power of God too. N wanted to suss Jesus out for himself. He recognised that Jesus could provide him with some answers which had been evading him. He wanted to meet Jesus himself, instead of just sending a messenger. N was high up in the religious pecking order, so going to Jesus (who was generally being undermined by N’s co-workers) shows a certain humility in N’s nature.
Qu 2. Rebirth of both spirit and through water is vital. The word/concept of ‘birth’ had strong significance In the Jewish religion. Birth was tied into Jews’ identity – being Jewish meant being born of Abraham’s family – tribe was very important.
Jesus, in saying ‘flesh gives birth to flesh’, throws everything that N believed in the bin! Being right with God is not a birth right – N was, on paper, as good as you could get (like Paul in our earlier study). BUT Jesus is saying that nothing else matters except the rebirth of the spirit – this is a great leveller, because it doesn’t matter what you are born into.
This spiritual rebirth still requires a personal response. Life is a constant journey, along which we will have to continually repent and renew ourselves in God. In repenting, we are not only asking God to forgive us, but also to help us change so that we will not make the same mistakes again.
Qu 4. People condemn themselves by not accepting God’s gift of forgiveness – God is offering it to us on a plate, arms outstretched to welcome us home – will you run to Him?
Note: v11 – the snake bit: In Numbers, God sends lots of poisonous smakes which start killing the Israelites, who simply weren’t getting it! Moses spoke to God and God said ‘make a bronze snake and lift it up on a pole and everyone who looks to it will be cured’. Parallel with Jesus – in v11, Jesus will be lifted up on a cross and all who look at him will be healed. This is why the Hippocratic symbol is a snake wrapped round a pole! – Cool huh?
Week 3: The Cross Reading 2: New Sight
Qu 1. Jesus was the Light of the World. Then in v5, we are told that Jesus will only be the Light of the World whilst he is on the earth. The plan was that when he ascended to heaven, we would be the light of the world, with Jesus in us.
Light vs darkness: until someone turns on the light, you can’t see where you are going. Also, when it’s light one can act – Jesus was an action man – he got involved. We can get involved in God’s plan for us when we let the light come in so we can see where we’re headed.
Qu 2. The Pharisees were wary of Jesus – they wanted to suss out whether he played by their rules. By healing on the Sabbath, he clearly wasn’t going to stick to their rules. Then they realised he may be a threat – that’s when they decided he had to go.
Cynicism and scepticism seem to be instinctive to us humans – however amazing God is, and however many times he shows us how amazing he is, we still need more convincing! Here, people just couldn’t believe that the man had been healed, to the extent that they thought he was a different person!
Qu 3. The best way to talk about God to others is to recount personal experience and speak about God from our personal experience of him and how he has changed us. That is the strongest, most powerful way of being a witness.
Note: ‘Jesus didn’t come to start Christianity, he came to lead people back to his father’. There is a distinction between following Christ and following ‘church rules’ – this is the modern equivalent of what the Pharisees did.
Note: Why didn’t Jesus just heal the man with a wave of his magic wand? Most, if not all the healings in the Bible require some sort of action on the part of the healee. In other words, a faith response is required – Christ wants us to step out in faith. If the blind man had not had that faith, he may well not have gone to that specific place to wash off the mud, and then may not have been healed…God wants us to respond actively to Him, and to demonstrate our faith in Him, His son and His Holy Spirit.
Week 4 – School trip to church to hear Tim’s talk:
Strength
Does God have a bigger plan for my life?
If you try to look at life fit into the perfect shape of what you think God’s plan is for you – spending X amount of time at work/with family/at church, factoring in everything and ticking off the check list, then this can be frustrating when we fall short of what we think we should be achieving. Instead, God has given us each bit of a jigsaw and told us to fit them together however we want, whichever way works best for us so we can serve him the best way we can.
God’s heart is involved in his plans for us, not just his head. These plans aren’t set in stone, they are changeable. So what ARE God’s plans?
1. BIG PICTURE
The master plan for us personally: God is full of love – he, Jesus and the Holy Spirit had so much love that they wanted to share it with beings made in their likeness. God created us to share in his love, so we could have the same capacity to love as he did. So the plan for us is to be like Jesus, and to love in the same way.
If you go on a journey, you generally know where you are going to end up. You have your destination in mind. God’s destination for us is JESUS! But, God wanted us to love him through choice, not by programming us. So he made us with free will, so that we could love him wholly and completely. But in giving us free will, he knew that we would also therefore have to choice of turning away from him. God loved us so much that he wanted to be able to be with us anyway, so Jesus was prepared to come down and save us from ourselves on the cross. So we can end up at our intended variation via Christ.
Really bad analogy – on the Road of Life, God started us off on track, on the straight path from start to the finish line, being Christ. But, because we had free will, we decided to go off course, we didn’t listen to God’s sat nav system - we hit a few speed bumps and road works but luckily for us Jesus provided a diversion to get us back on track, and end up at the finish line – wohoo!
2. BIG PURPOSE
Master plan for changing the world: to change a world that is in self destruct mode. God has chosen us to be his body on earth. Think of the head and body – the head has lots of ideas, but it can’t put them into action without the body. We are God’s body here on Earth. The Bible calls God’s people the ‘Elect’ – this is generally connected to an election – a choice. Once we choose to be a Christian, God chooses us to represent Him on Earth.
3. INDIVIDUAL PLANS
God has specific/unique plans for each of us. God knows about us, he knows us and put us together to have the right combo of everything so that we may serve Him in the unique way that only we can. God has made us for something specific. When we find that purpose, it all clicks! It feels right. This is true of everyone, non-christians and Christians alike!
Monday, 10 March 2008
Better late than never...!
We've been rather remiss with our updates here Joy, so big apologies for that. We had a week off for half term (that's our excuse!). Hope everything continues to go well for you.
Last Tuesday (4th) we looked at the second bible reading within Chapter 2: New Sight. There's a long passage about a blind man having his sight restored which threw up all kinds of interesting issues and questions.
I'm deliberately doing this without notes so that what has stuck most in my mind is recorded here - hopefully Naomi will also post her thoughts so you'll get a double whammy! Things which struck a chord from our discussions were:
Last Tuesday (4th) we looked at the second bible reading within Chapter 2: New Sight. There's a long passage about a blind man having his sight restored which threw up all kinds of interesting issues and questions.
I'm deliberately doing this without notes so that what has stuck most in my mind is recorded here - hopefully Naomi will also post her thoughts so you'll get a double whammy! Things which struck a chord from our discussions were:
- Jesus didn't heal the blind man there and then but instructed him to go somewhere and do something. This can be seen as a metaphor for Christian faith - it's not just about passively standing there and having faith 'done to you', it's about making a proactive step forward towards God. If you take those steps, you'll be rewarded, but you do have to take them.
- The blind man wasn't interested in the finer theological points of what had happened - all he knew was what he had experienced. Testimonies can be the most powerful way of communicating God's power and Jesus' love: if we tell it like it is in our lives, people are likely to respond.
- This passage also shows that Jesus was healing spiritual blindness: when he tells the man that it is in fact Jesus who is the 'Son of Man', it's like the man is given his sight a second time - this time it's his spiritual 'sight' (hope that makes sense!)
We'll be looking at the third chapter next week as we're off to the Church tomorrow night for a special 'Strength' evening. Tim's giving a talk on God's plans in our lives which we'll then chat about in our group. Promise we'll let you know how we get on!
Much love, stay safe xx
Monday, 18 February 2008
Travel highlights from Joy...!
I'm still in Brazil at the moment, in a little town called Bonito which has incredible clear rivers; went snorkelling yesterday and looked to my right at one point to see a camen (little alligator thing) sat about 1.5m from me! We've just left the Pantanal (wetlands the size of France) which has been by far the best bit yet. We stayed in a jungle lodge the first night, with camen, monkeys, thousands of huge birds right outside and there was the most incredible thunderstorm I've ever seen- we walked along a boardwalk into the middle of the undergrowth and sat by the river watching it reflect off the water - seriously impressive but also a bit scary as there were jaguars rumoured to be prowling in that area.
The next two nights we spent on a farm in hammocks. There we went trekking/wading through the wetlands, pirana fishing (no sucess from me, though some other people caught some wicked ones) and the BEST thing so far - horse riding across the wetlands. I told the guy I could ride and asked for a fast one so he put me on a horse called 'Principo' who he told me was very fast. Near the end of the ride he stopped the group and told us we could gallop to the farm. I didn't even have to kick my horse and he took off, leaving everyone else behind and galloped like a crazy thing for about 15 minutes! He didn't even slow down when we dived into water up to his chest; he paused only for a second when he almost trod on a camen; it was the most exhillarating thing I've ever done!! I'm planning to horse ride wherever I can now because it was out of this world. I was really lucky too because some horses wouldn't even trot when they were kicked!
Rio Carnival was pretty insane. The sambadrome parade was spectacular. We danced for about 10 hours in the rain and the whole time the atmosphere was electric. I've never seen costumes like it, or even imagined floats like it- one was an actual dry ski slope! It was really wierd because afterwards they all just throw their costumes onto the street and walk off. The floats are dumped just outside the city too. All that effort then they all trundle off as if nothing has happened.
I took myself to a football match at the Marcana stadium in Rio. They are the loudest and most insane crowd I've ever seen. We sat in the 'party'zone, which we soon found out meant 'dangerous'zone, as in the second half a huge fight broke out about 5 people down from us. The whole crowd stampeded to get away right into us, so we ran but not fast enough to avoid the police who tear-gassed everyone. It was pretty scary; they were properly beating the fighters with their batons.
Rio generally felt pretty safe but I think maybe it was a false sense due to the numbers of people there for the carnival. We're camping most nights at the moment and will be until we hit BA. I absolutely LOVE it! Being in the tent is so much fun and they're pretty big too so we have plenty of space. I'm sharing with a girl called Charlotte who has just quit her management consultancy job and will be training to be a primary school teacher next year. Surprisingly I'm one of the youngest on the bus: the average age is about 26, loads of people have quit their jobs to come travelling and over half the bus are Aussies. We have our one token American, two Welsh girls and the rest from around the UK. Strangely almost all of them either went to uni in, worked in or are from Bristol! We're all still getting to know one another because there are so many of us but everyone seems pretty easy going and up for loads of fun!
The next two nights we spent on a farm in hammocks. There we went trekking/wading through the wetlands, pirana fishing (no sucess from me, though some other people caught some wicked ones) and the BEST thing so far - horse riding across the wetlands. I told the guy I could ride and asked for a fast one so he put me on a horse called 'Principo' who he told me was very fast. Near the end of the ride he stopped the group and told us we could gallop to the farm. I didn't even have to kick my horse and he took off, leaving everyone else behind and galloped like a crazy thing for about 15 minutes! He didn't even slow down when we dived into water up to his chest; he paused only for a second when he almost trod on a camen; it was the most exhillarating thing I've ever done!! I'm planning to horse ride wherever I can now because it was out of this world. I was really lucky too because some horses wouldn't even trot when they were kicked!
Rio Carnival was pretty insane. The sambadrome parade was spectacular. We danced for about 10 hours in the rain and the whole time the atmosphere was electric. I've never seen costumes like it, or even imagined floats like it- one was an actual dry ski slope! It was really wierd because afterwards they all just throw their costumes onto the street and walk off. The floats are dumped just outside the city too. All that effort then they all trundle off as if nothing has happened.
I took myself to a football match at the Marcana stadium in Rio. They are the loudest and most insane crowd I've ever seen. We sat in the 'party'zone, which we soon found out meant 'dangerous'zone, as in the second half a huge fight broke out about 5 people down from us. The whole crowd stampeded to get away right into us, so we ran but not fast enough to avoid the police who tear-gassed everyone. It was pretty scary; they were properly beating the fighters with their batons.
Rio generally felt pretty safe but I think maybe it was a false sense due to the numbers of people there for the carnival. We're camping most nights at the moment and will be until we hit BA. I absolutely LOVE it! Being in the tent is so much fun and they're pretty big too so we have plenty of space. I'm sharing with a girl called Charlotte who has just quit her management consultancy job and will be training to be a primary school teacher next year. Surprisingly I'm one of the youngest on the bus: the average age is about 26, loads of people have quit their jobs to come travelling and over half the bus are Aussies. We have our one token American, two Welsh girls and the rest from around the UK. Strangely almost all of them either went to uni in, worked in or are from Bristol! We're all still getting to know one another because there are so many of us but everyone seems pretty easy going and up for loads of fun!
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