a little AYS action

Completely strapped for cash I recently got a job as a banquet server. The company is AYS and they do fancy dinners such as movie premiers, celeb parties, rich people’s gatherings etc. (The fact that I got the job was such a miracle as I showed up to the interview late, soaking wet and without being able to hear in my left ear due to an ear infection). I had my first job on Friday at a millionaire’s house. Now most of you know, I don’t really care who you are or how much money you have. Truthfully (as bad as it is) I find it easier to love the poor and broken then the rich and “whole”. (cough cough) So I’m on my way to wait at this dinner and I start crying realizing just how far this is from my heart, I do my best to suck it up but it doesn’t get much better. When I arrive the other workers weren’t very nice to me and my supervisor didn’t seem to like me. I bolted to the bathroom and did a panicky “God what’s up!” He was so sweet and just said “Cass, just do it for me.” Instantly a joy comes over me and I go back out to serve a platter of 260 pound “mini beef burgers” (about $630 for one of many plates of canapés). Well the night shifted and it seemed that all the guests liked me best! Suddenly the supervisor wasn’t so mean and by the end of the evening instead of cleaning up I was in charge of all the guests, making sure they were all topped up and happy. Haha. It was very sad though as those hundred pound dishes often went in the trash. We were aloud to eat some so long as we kept working and I found it soon became “one for me, one for the garbage”. That could only last so long however before the nausea kicked in.
It was so frustrating though seeing all the food going in the rubbish bin that I soon began to collect it. I think everyone thought I was a little weird at first as I start talking about the homeless and how we could develop programs to give the leftovers to street sleepers. They said I could do what I like and by the end of the night I had a trash bag of food that I hauled home.
My job Monday was much different. It was a L’Oreal party (is that even how spell it?) for the upper class and celeb’s. Apparently big shots were there and I felt quite out of the loop as I didn’t know any of them. I had two VIP tables where people would walk straight from the runway to my table but I didn’t know them. They didn’t tip either so I don’t know why they were so special. Lol. (Rumor had it that Beyonce was there but I looked for her and didn’t see her so I think it was made up)
So there you have it. London takes a twist as I now work for the richest of rich yet the poorest of poor. lol

Cornwall Vaca 2007

The Plan: Surf Holiday in the Province of Cornwall
The Result: A rained out weekend of bed rest
So the weekend started out great. We spontaneously left a day early to the beautiful story book village of Gwithian, Cornwall for a few days of fun in the sun and surf on the sea. It had been an intense couple of weeks and we were all ready for a lazy good time ("We" as in Laura, Me and a girl visiting from Canada whom we had met in Africa 2 years previous). The forecast however called for rain and even before leaving London it started pouring. We get there and I'm not feeling to hot. I had been sick all week but it had seemed I was on the mend. Not the case. As the night went on my ears started getting all funny and before I went to bed it sounded like I was "underwater". Well two o'clock in the morning rolls around and i'm pacing the floor in excruciating pain. I honestly thought my had was going to explode out my ears. When I would try to be still and sleep my body would convulse from pain. (lol not the highest pain tolerance) So after almost an hour I woke up the girls in the other room ( I had been quarantined in the lone bedroom due to a bad cough) and collapsed on their bed cring. They prayed for me, found me drugs and put me back to bed but it wasn't until the wee hours of the morning that I managed to get back to sleep. The next day after having my head in the toilet as a mean of coping with the pain we headed to the doctor. The verdict: A nasty ear infection. So we were off the the pharmacy and then I went straight to bed. The end result: No surfing for Cassandra. Exhausted I spent most the vaca sleeping. It seemed that if I rested 3 hours I had energy for 2 and personallity enough for about 30 minutes. I still managed to visit the beach however and see some pretty shops. And due to the chilly weather nobdoy went surfing anyway.
So that was my weekend. I was going to give a full update but I'm bored so maybe another night.

“If your dreams don’t make you want to crap your pants, then they’re probably not from God”.
A guy I know recently said this and it was an oh so timely reminder.
With the wrong perspective big things can look very small. The moon for instance as massive as it is, can easily disappear behind your thumb when caught at the right angle. The same with God. So often we’re so focused on our own problems that ‘our fingers look bigger then the moon’. Funny that we’re called to a life of impossibilities yet we run around only doing the things that look possible. Everything Jesus did was impossible without God so why would we think we’re to live any differently? I’m saying all this because at this exact moment everything seems impossible. Everything I want, everything I’ve planned, even my basic needs. Everything. So really, if God doesn’t show up I’m screwed. Pretty much. It’s amazing, I’m really happy with it and looking at history the “odds are for me” but I’m really learning to rest in what feels like the unknown. Anyway,

The last couple weeks have been ones to ponder, good but interesting. A while back God was talking about me going to Paris. It was right when my job at the clinic ended and I had no money to spare. He wouldn’t drop it however so I made a budget and said that if he wanted me to go he’d have to pay for it. Well, suddenly the job started up again and by the time it ended, it was exactly my budget.
So I got back from Paris Wednesday and have determined that England takes the cake over France ;) . It was an amazing trip I’d do it over in a heartbeat but I probably wouldn’t recommend Paris for the lone lady traveler. The French guys lived up to their reputation and I was actually shocked by their aggression. Even with my diamonds they still persisted! (thus the reason England gets cake) The food was amazing though. A chocolate crepe and the Eiffel tower at night…quite a feat.

One week left in April and I’m looking forward to May. Bring on the heat.

(I saw this in the Paris Metro and thought of Jarett, can you believe it's been 2 years?)

Happy Resurrection day!
Laura and I went to the cottage for the Easter Weekend. Friday we tanned and Saturday we managed to slip up to Blenheim Palace. The Sunday was beautiful and topped off with a chocolate egg hunt that that we put on for the parents and baptismal service in the evening. (LOVE baptisms) Don’t really feel like blogging much else so here are some pics instead. Yay for spring

Only in Oxfordshire....

Seems to have lost his pants in battle :0

So a day turned into a week. Seems about my blogging style. Sooo much has gone on. My goodness. I was thinking what to say and I’ll just give a fluffy life summary.

Well last weekend our tiny little church put on a conference. Rolland and Heidi Baker (With Iris Ministries, whom I worked with in Africa) are old friends of my Pastors so they came in with a lil team to be the speakers. It went really great. So Eleos style, as it had free admission and the first three rows were reserved for the homeless. Laura and I ended up running most of it as Kurt and Asha caught up with the Bakers. We joke that the pictures below best represent the practical part of the weekend “Eleos-Iris Style”.

Things here are still going amazing. New little development, I’m now the keyboard player for my church. Haha. I guess they’ve been praying for a keyboard player for quite some time and even though I haven’t played in a worship band or even really practiced for about two years for some reason I agreed to do it. It was funny as I arrived at church about a half hour before the service the Sunday I was suppose to play and even though everything was set up, nobody had any intention of practicing. I noticed the piano was well, a tad tiny and missing a pedal so I asked if I could quickly have a go at it. I sat down only to discover, they don’t have sheet music. They sort of laughed and asked if I could play by ear. We started practicing and turns out they only have one monitor for two vocals, one guitar and now a keyboard. I don’t know which was more difficult, trying to learn a new song by ear or simply trying to hear myself over the bongos and guitar. One guy was sent on a mission to find music to a song that I didn’t know and came back claiming he was successful. Only one small problem. “Can you transpose music?” “Can I what?” Turns out it was the right song, wrong key. So they gave me a pen and about 5 minutes to try and transpose this song. In the end I did figure it out (proof alone that God is in love with me) and they find music to another song. Except with this song the cords are right but in the wrong spot. “Well you just sort of make it up” The drummer tells me. And the lead vocalist/guitar player agrees, “Yeah just make it up”… Not reassuring. So we play around a bit, made a total new song list and then just waited for people to show up.
Lol Was funnier at the time I think.
It was really good though, I loved every minute. God totally showed up and did his thing and we worshiped for the next two hours, completely skipping the sermon.

A couple weeks ago I also got a chance to leave London and see some country side as Laura and I took a train to visit her parents in Oxfordshire. It was great, her parents are moving to a new little village that we visited that is all thatched cottages! No joke. The whole thing looked straight out of a movie, topped off with a 16th century pub next door and a castle up the way. Below are some pics.

Work is going better. I’m working part time now while secretly looking for a way to love on babies and annihilate poverty in London. No luck as of yet but I’ll keep updates.
Laura and I went with Kurt and the team to “Church without Walls” last Saturday. In short it’s breakfast, a short talk and prayer with about 40ish homeless guys under a tree at about 7 in the morning. Kind of similar to what I did in S’toon.
The shear quantity of homeless people in London though, has been quite the issue lately. There is a solution, I know there is, I just don’t know what it is yet. Giving up my futon isn’t it and neither is throwing a pound or two at their feet. Lol I’m not going into that now but man, I refuse to sit on the fence for this one.
Anyway there’s some of life’s basics, below are some pictures. Cheers

-The location of the conference was moved across the street so to avoid confusion we posted a sign, we feel this picture sums up the practical aspect of the weekend.
-The place that it was held in was an old anglo-catholic church probably older then my country. The bathrooms were ancient and a joy not only to use but also to clean.
-Just got off the train and still a little tired and cold. (laura’s parents new cottage)
-16th Century Pub

Floods in Mozambique

Hopefully most of you know about the floods in Mozambique, probably through Rolland and Heidi's email. If you didn't get the email, the pictures or you have no idea what i'm talking about, you can go to www.irismin.org.

but here's my friend Jessie's update. I'll try and write about my little London life tomorrow.

There has been serious flooding in one of our southern regions because of all the rain we’ve been having in this part of Africa. It has affected not just Mozambique but Malawi, Zimbabwe and Zambia as well. But, with the rain in those nations, because of the river systems, a lot of their excess water comes to Mozambique and adds to our flooding problems here. It has washed away over 4,500 homes as well as a lot of crops. There are people even now still isolated because of the swollen rivers and thousands of displaced people living in temporary camps until they can rebuild.

Iris sent a team down to Zambezia, the province that was hit the hardest. I was so happy that I got to go! I found out Thursday night before and left 12 hours later. (There were issues because I was the only girl, but Josham went so they said I could.) There were 8 of us with 1 Land Rover and 1 camiao/truck. On the way we stopped in Nampula, a large city, and bought rolls of plastic, rice, sugar, salt, soap and cookies for the kids. Going down we had no idea what we would find or even what we would be doing. It took us two long days to drive down to our center there. We worked with the provincial pastor in talking to the Governor and getting approval by the government, as well as actually visiting the camps where the people were.
We got permission to visit 12 camps where people had set up temporary residence. Since their houses were made of mud, with all the wind and rain they either melted or blew away/apart. They had built temporary ‘houses’ out of bamboo and the grass that grows everywhere. The conditions in the camps were so bad. Some of the people had lost everything as their houses were carried away in the flood, they didn’t even have a way to cook food. Some had more than that, but still it wasn’t much at all. We tried to visit about 7 camps, though we couldn’t get in to all of them. Even though we had the blessing of the head of the province, we still had trouble with the local governments leaders. They wanted us to leave the food we brought with them instead of giving it directly to the people. If we did that, food would disappear before it got to the people, or the corrupt officials would turn around and sell it to the people. Who, by the way, had just lost everything and had no way to buy the food they needed to survive. It was heartbreaking. In one place we ended up driving 3 hours back home with the food still in our truck. That was one of our worst days.
At the camps we visited we always gave food, and in a lot of them one of our team was able to preach. Even though we brought them food, it wasn’t much for all the people that had been displaced. But they were so thankful, there was always clapping and cheering African style. We visited some of our churches and were able to give them food as well. We also bought some supplies for them to start rebuilding some of the churches that were washed away by the rain. Even though we couldn’t do much, the people were so encouraged that we had come all that way to help them. We were the first people in a lot of places, even though there were other world aid organizations there and aware of the problem. They were still in the planning stage while people were starving. So when we came with what food we had, they were encouraged that they weren’t forgotten and that more help was on the way. Even though we gave out food everywhere we went, our main purpose was to share the love of God with the people there. He’s the only way they can get through the next few months or even year of trying to rebuild their lives.
I’m still trying to process what I saw down there.I’m still trying to process what I saw down there.
I’ve never been faced with such poverty, devastation or overwhelming need. I still cry when I think of the conditions down there. Even with the realization that God is the only way that the people can get through the process of rebuilding their lives, I’ve realized that He is the only way I can get through it too. How do you see things like that and keep going on? Even with what we could do, it seemed like so little in the face of such great need. But then I think back to the face of one of the children as they received a roll, or the face of a mother as she’s able to give a roll to her crying child and that alone makes it worth it. To be able to help the one if front of you, it makes a difference in one life. I don’t have to do it all, I can’t do it all, but I can be the hands, feet, smile of Jesus to that one person in front of me. So on I go with Jesus holding my hand as I embrace the heart of Iris Ministries and stop for the one in front of me.

The more people I meet and the more places I visit the more sure I become that the only thing I can be sure of is the love of God. That he loves me unconditionally and that I can trust him with everything. All my hopes, all my fears. The desires that everyone knows and the ones that I’m even afraid to admit to. I’m learning that if I do nothing for the rest of my life but love him and the ones around me then that’s enough. Whether it’s the Queen of England or the homeless man by the tube station. It’s all about love. I always thought I had to become something fancy or do great impressive things but now I know that if I do that then fine but all that matters is that you love. And love selflessly. Not expecting anything in return. And extravagantly, going above and beyond what’s “normal”. Love is always a risk, but when your hearts in the hands of a trustworthy God we can afford to take that risk.
There are such extremes here. The extremely rich and the extremely poor. In the past we’ve gotten annoyed at the poor. Thinking they’re a “burden to society” or something, completely missing what they have to offer. In my little “London adventure” I hope to be taught by some of the best. (of the west that is) I hope to never forget the presence of God at church last Sunday when a little broken “homeless” guy stepped up to the mike and softly sang a song to Jesus. With his thick Scottish accent I barely knew a word of what he was saying but I did know that that place became electric. Something about the pure love from this man got all of Heavens attention. There needs to be such a balance though. To be completely satisfied yet to live with complete dissatisfaction. Loving Jesus and those around you has to be enough yet you must always be desperate to see more, to have more and just know more of God. His presence and his power. Talk is not enough. Talk is never enough. It must always be backed with action. Love requires action. Such a simple revelation but for me so profound. Love is so huge and like God, we’ve often made it small. In the words of Misty Edwards [God] “Won’t you let me love you more”! I love the fact that he’s everything. He’s my “enough” and everything else comes from that.
Guess I’m rambling and I’m sorry but words can’t properly describe what God’s up to right now.
Anyway… My first week at work is over (sigh of relief) It wasn’t bad just super stressful. I just kept looking around thinking “Do they know who I am and my qualifications?” as I typed up “Urgent Cancer” this and “Brain Surgery” that, desperately praying I didn’t make a mistake. Not to mention learning new computer programs and formatting new templates at the same time. Yeah, almost cried at first, lol but no it was fine. I think the worst part was just being chained to my desk all day. They offered me long term, which I thought I wanted, but now I know it’s not.
Last night Laura and I went to see Rolland Baker speak in Eeling. (area in London about two hours away) Gotta love Iris, Laura and I were quite a scene. (sloshed, not groupies;) Kind of been struggling with keeping my emotions for Africa in line though, and that certainly didn’t help. So in the meantime I’m going to ask God for English babies. Might as well, at least until I hit up the Sudan I guess. ;)
Well that's a lot and i'm running out of time.
*NOTE to mum* -Got your parcel! Fell head over heels at the sight of the Sweet Chili Heat Chips!
*NOTE to others*- I normally don't ask for specifics but if God puts it on your heart to send me Sweet Chili Heat chips, I won't refuse them. :)