The Claus Delusion

Dawkins writes about an actual myth this time:

Obama Gives Thanksgiving Turkey A Presidential Pardon

Obama gives ‘Courage’ the turkey a Presidential Pardon.

Taking ‘The Big Personality Test’ by BBC Lab UK

What is the Big Personality Test?

“The Big Personality Test is designed to answer the question: do our personalities shape our lives or do our lives shape our personalities? A big question like this requires a lot of people to answer it, which is why Child of Our Time and Lab UK are inviting everyone in Britain to take part in this groundbreaking experiment.

By answering simple questions about things like your lifestyle, preferences, relationships and background, you will be helping scientists to understand to what extent our personalities are shaped by a whole range of influences.

My Result

The Big Personality Test works out your ‘Big Five’ traits (which we refer to as ‘your unique personality fingerprint’). The Big Five test, or ‘Five Factor’ personality test, is a widely recognised and well-used scientific measure of personality.

The traits it measures are Openness, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism (OCEAN). But be careful – these terms may not mean what you think they mean!

• Openness describes to what extent you are receptive to novel ideas, creative experiences and different values.
• Conscientiousness describes to what extent you are organised, strategic and forward-planning.
• Extroversion describes to what extent you are inclined to experience positive emotions and how attracted you are to social, stimulating experiences.
• Agreeableness describes to what extent you are concerned about the feelings of others and how easily you form bonds with people.
• Neuroticism describes to what extent you react to perceived threats and stressful situations.

The Big Five test is generally acknowledged as the most stable measure of personality over time. This means that someone who takes the test even years apart is likely get a similar result both times.”-Text and pics taken from The Big Personality Test website

Life Update- Back in England, What Next?

As some of you know I was away from England for the most part of a year working with a organisation called YWAM or Youth with a Mission. While  in Jamaica and Guyana (see previous blog posts) what I got most fired up about was community action (helping practically in the communities where it is most needed).I believe strongly this is what I should work towards in the future.

Now back in England, living and working in Exeter I’m using this time to get stuck into Frontiers Church and get further solid grounding before I make more radical decisions of where to go and what to do next. Frontiers have a fantastic leadership team aswell as many other great friends who can help show your strengths, weaknesses and help bring you closer to God and subsequently into areas where you can be best used. I’m confident as the year progresses that more pieces of the puzzle will fall into place. Already I found out that my new homegroup leaders are in Bolivia for two weeks, with the view to possibly move out in the future. Will definitely have to find out more from them when they get back; after being two months in Guyana, South America is of great interest to me.

On the work scene I started recently working for Starbucks which has been great so far, very social job with plenty of opportunities to get to know customers, colleagues and have many mocha frappacinos to keep you buzzing. If you are ever on Queen St. (opposite Central train station) come in for the best beverage you could possibly have, served of course by me your friendly barista (currently friendly trainee barista).

Mocha Frappacino- Definite Good times.

Into the Jungle, Imbaimadai.

As we flew over 1 hour of dense jungle and beautiful waterfalls, at the end of the flight as the town of Imbaimadai came into view we saw the mountains surrounding it which coupled with the hundreds of hundreds of miles of jungle makes it nearly impossible to get to by anything other than by aircraft.

Annieke in the co-pilot seat

Inside the Plane

Imbaimadai is small mining town way in the interior of Guyana and was founded by miners for the high nearby concentration of gold, diamonds and other precious minerals. Most of the inhabitants were miners who worked in miners or ‘Dredges’. Many of the miners work months or even years at a time before going back to their homes elsewhere. Unfortunately in the area there is a lot of people with alchohol problems, illiteracy, prostitution, many families with problems and many people lacking hope.

In our time there we worked with Pastor Orrin and the full gospel church who helped organise and find ways for us to help out in the community. In the days we worked in the local school teaching and helping with the School feeding programme which involved  cooking and serving 75 hungry kids with a cooked hot lunch.

My sleeping place for two weeks!

Front of the Imbaimadai School

In the afternoon after school we visited houses and shops in the community, making new friendships and trying to bring the hope of Jesus into the hopelessness of many lives.

The meals set out for the school kids

Kids having the cooked lunches we made for them.

God really opened doors for us there with the biggest bar/club/”rumshop” called Spice allowing us to do an informal evening service with some testimonies, puppets, worship and then afterwards staying around to chat with some of the locals there. The culture there is warm-climate’ relationship based so people love to talk!

After being in Spice the first night the other bars in the town were more than welcome to allow us to do similar services throughout the two weeks aswell as allowing us to use the projector and show films like ‘Fire Proof and Faith like Potatoes’ which were good thought provoking Christian films. These times in the bars were so valuable and gave us many opportunities to chat, build relationships and pray with many people who really appreciated it, some telling us their life stories, wanting prayer, and to accept Jesus.

We were invited into many homes and even met the bossman of some of the local Gold mines who organised  for us to have a tour of some of his land and water Gold operations. On Sundays we were in charge of doing the kids Sunday school, we taught them fun kids songs, games and a Bible story. In our time there we built up such close relationships with the kids as we walked with them to school, taught them at the school aswell as being with them for Sunday School and on film showing nights. Other highlights were visiting the Amerindian village of Kembaro deep in the jungle where we had opportunities to share, encourage and spend time with the villagers another was having an intense but good-natured debate with a guy brought up in a Christian family who became and rasta and then converted to being a muslim!

Locals Goldmining

I learnt alot from the two weeks in Imbaimadai. God really did open up doors allowing us to connect with people in a way we never expected, they allowed us into their lives.

Although it is frequently thrown around illustration we felt that God worked through us to really sow seeds in peoples lives, causing many to rethink their purposes and to show Gods love breaking down negative stereotypes of both Christians and of white people. People in the community remarked on the effect we had and what we had brought into the community.

Before I came away on DTS some people told me they believed short-term missions  had little meaning as “you can not make some kind of significant impact for God in such a short period of time in my time”. I’ve seen that view couldn’t be further than the truth and actually is limiting Gods in our minds, and lacking in faith. God is more than able to having a lasting effect on a community in a short period of time and in our case he did, helping people in a big way as well as opening many doors for those who will next come their to work and help.

On a personal level I felt God has helped me to grow in confidence as I stepped out ( maybe pulled out!) of my comfort zone, preaching a sermon in a church service or giving my life story at a bar. Previously I was very hesitant  and afraid of  public speaking but by the end of our time in Imbaimadai I felt I was able to speak with greater confidence. I also gained a greater understanding of different cultures but also the pains and struggles we have in common in each of our lives. I realised in my time here also how much I enjoy and seem to grow when working with kids aswell a working in projects to help and benefit a community.

Me with one new little friend, Bendigo

As they say “you get back what you put in” as a team and on an individual level we all learnt and changed from our time here as we gave it our all. Looking back now we’re amazed to see all that happened in our 14 days in interior.

"Team Unity is Vital Man"

Evening Worship Time

A Nearby Waterfall, we visited up the river from Imbaimadai

Off to Imbaimadai in the Jungle Interior of Guyana

Waterfall in the jungle interior

Flying out tomorrow on the one hour flight in the smallest plane I will have ever been on. Tonight we are weighing all our bags and ourselves as they need to know exactly the weight of everything for such a small plane.  The flight will take us over the jungle towards Imbaimadai an Amerindian town situated near the mountains deep in the jungle interior of Guyana which is an area part of the Amazon Basin. Imbaimadai is a small gold and diamond mining town far in the jungle interior of Guyana. We will be there for two weeks working to help build and improve houses in the area as well as helping out in the local school, community in many practical ways and helping to take a few church services. During the two weeks we will be travelling up to Akwioh tribe villages in the jungle and helping out in their communities also.

• Please pray for protection from illnesses, against animals particularly from snake bites and venomous spiders. The hospital is very small there and apparently “sometimes has anti-snake venom, sometimes it doesnt”!
• That we be a good example to the community regardless of times where we are on or off duty making as much of the “off duty” times to help and encourage others as the on duty times.
• Please pray for safety when travelling in small planes, canoes and other methods of transport.
• Team Unity.

Plane we will be flying in to Imbaimadai

Guyana- “The Land of Many Waters”

YWAM Guyana Base and Street

Along with the team headed to Trinidad we caught the island hopping plane from Kingston, Jamaica across the carribean making stops in St Maarten, Barbados, Trinidad and finally in Guyana.

That morning in team time we had been discussing how its important to not just confine the outreach work to within the projects we are doing but to always be open to talking to and helping others even when we were not in the time specified for projects. I was thinking about this on the plane and I felt I was so rubbish striking up conversations with strangers aswell as telling them about Jesus and the life changing good news of the Bible. I prayed that God would use me and give me the courage and opportunities to speak to strangers.

Not long after that thought and prayer a great Guyanese guy called Earl got on from Trinidad heading back to Guyana. We started chatting and I explained to him what I was doing working for a Christian volunteer organisation helping out in Guyana for six weeks. He then began to tell me about how he was from a family of all Christians himself and he was a Christian but needed to sort himself out and get his life back together as he had been through bad times and had left his faith behind him. He told me he wanted to read his Bible again but he had lost it in Trinidad. I asked him if he wanted one of the Bibles the team had and gave him one of ours and he told me he wanted to learn more from it before we landed!.

I showed him the parable of the prodigal son which helpfully was also printed on the back of the Bible as a stylistic part of that particular Bible. I explained how God is not there sitting there wagging his finger at him for making mistakes in his life but is just like the Father of the Prodigal son parable who is waiting with open arms for his rebellious lost son to come back to Him.

Father welcomes back Rebellious Son

Earl was amazed by this and I could see on his face it was a big revelation for him. I told him he didnt have to wait to be right with God; like the prodigal son’s father he was waiting there for Earl to come back to him right now. It didn’t have to be a complicated process to get right with God again and have the slate wiped clean. I asked him if he wanted me to pray with him and putting his hand in mine he said he was sorry for all the mistakes and messes he had made in his life and that God would give him the strength to live for him and leave the mistakes of his life behind.

He was really excited and gave me about 6 of his different contact numbers asking me to check up on him now and again and telling me he wants to get a little Bible study/discussion group going in his area which was really exciting.
After all this I’m not sure who was more encouraged me or Earl. Couldn’t believe God used me in this way to help Earl and gave me confidence that He can use me in similar ways again. I had not even touched down in Guyana yet and was excited to see what would happen next.

Arriving in Guyana

Arriving in Guyana we were greeted by the YWAM Guyanese staff who gave us bottles of drink and tasty baked treats and drove us (on the left side of the road!)in the minibus back to the Guyana base in Parika. On the hour trip to the YWAM base I saw why Guyana is called the “Land of many waters”. Being below sea level there is water everwhere, canals and rivers of a width I have never seen before. One river near us takes nearly an hour to go across on speedboat. Arriving at the base I realised how hot it really was. It was night time and I could feel that it was hotter than Jamaica even at night.

The next day the team led a local Church service and we had a look around the local town of Parika which surprisingly for such a remote town in Guyana had a scotiabank with ATM and a shop which sells Cadbury Dairy Milk!. There was also a lot of great craft stalls and shops selling many handcrafted things I love. I also found out that Guyana has an abundance of animal life. Crocodiles, tigers, snakes, tarantualas many different poisionous kinds of snakes aswell as Anacondas which grow to many times my size. We were told one Anaconda was found in the canal outside the base 1 or 2 weeks before. There are frogs, lizards and iguanas everywhere here, I found a frog in the toilet on the first day and another on the wall.

On Monday we had our scheduled day off and went to Georgetown the capital city of Guyana which is about 40 minutes bus journey . There we saw what until recently was the largest wooden cathedral in the world, St. Georges Cathedral, and had a look around the craft markets there. Compared to Jamaica which is even more expensive than England, Guyana is far cheaper.  Most of the team bought these extremely cheap but durable and well made Brazilian hammocks to chill out in on base. In the evening we led a reflection time for the Christian guys in the community where we put on a showing of Louie Giglio’s Indescribable.

St. Georges Cathedral- Completely made of Wood!

On Tuesday in the morning we worked on the base which is still in the early stages of developement. In the afternoon we went to a prayer meeting in the local church which was really encouraging with the pastor there praying over the team as well as all of us praying for the community in particular the rising problem of illiteracy.

On Wednesday morning all the team with some of the staff and locals started work on a bridge over the canals in the area. This bridge when finished will have a large positive impact on the area as farmers can then drive over it and use their tractors instead of having to do their fields by hand with the machete which takes a very long time. In the Guyanan heat this was hard work but we were all in good spirits and worked together well as a team dragging large trunks of trees by hand with chains and using planks of wood to lever and support the trunks as we pulled the trunks into position. We used the the tree trunks to sink the supports of the bridge deep into the mud of the canal, this required some work to lever and lift tree trunks up into position to start the sinking process of the supports.

No tractors, pulling logs for the bridge the hard way

Bridge we built for one of the locals

In the afternoon we came back to work with many of the local kids in Literacy Club, a scheme on the base where kids come on to the property and we help them to read and spell with songs, helping them in various ways to read and spell.
Many kids come as the area has a high amount of illiteracy (as I mentioned early) with some kids of 10 years of age and older having problems spelling many basic words and even identifying the letters of the alphabet.

Annieke helping Natasha Read in Literacy Club

Thursday we went to the local primary/secondary school of Parika and were teaching assistants/teachers for a day. I was in class 2C where the kids were about 5 and 6 years old. There the kids called me “Sir Sam”. Throughout the day I went around the class helping the kids with spelling and complete the tasks set out for them. I really enjoyed the day and made a lot of little friends who continually offered me their sweets, telling me they really liked me and were interested in my eyes, asking if they were artifically blue and brown.(They all have brown eyes being indian or afrocarribean)

Later on in the night we took a boat down river with some of the students staff and locals to catch Cayman crocodiles     ( mini crocs). They are a delicacy here when marinaded in sauce for about a day. Heading down the river we shone our torchlights on the bank of the river to spot their reflecting red eyes. Half way through the trip the tropical rain pelted down, an experience I will never forget being on a river in Guyana, looking for crocodiles being soaked to the bone,  made you feel so alive! We caught a few crocodiles and kept one we called Stanley.
Please continue to pray for protection against illnesses and unity and effectiveness in the team.

“Many waters cannot quench love, Nor will rivers overflow it” Song of Solomon 8:7a

Me and Zac the monkey enjoying a coconut

Off to Guyana

We’re all packing now  in preparation for the 7 week outreach in Guyana; (back on the 19th June). Really looking forward to the change of scenery and to see what God has in store for us in this beautiful part of South America.

First of all we are staying in the YWAM Guyana Base which is not really built yet so we will be doing some construction work there as well as working locally in the churches leading youth group services aswell as working in the Hospitals working with the homeless and doing other community improvement projects.

A few weeks later we are moving on to catch the boat and hike to Imbaimadai where we will help again in the community with construction and painting, working with the poor and the sick. As well as travellign to a nearby Amerindian village where we work also.

Towards the end of the trip we will spend a few weeks deep in the jungle, working with tribes who have little contact with the outside world. Please be praying for us in our time here, it will be a fruitful and growing experience but very hard work.

Prayer points:

Protection during transportation, we will be doing a lot of hiking, some boat rides, travelling in very small planes.

Protection from the tropical diseases present there such as various forms of Hepatitis, Malaria, Dengue Fever among others.

Protection from the animals especially when we are travelling and living in the jungle interior of Guyana. There are many highly poisonous snakes aswell as other dangerous animals, of them all the one that scares us the most is this fish the Candiru Vampire Fish which can swim up your urethra and chew at your inside, sucking your blood and eating your tissue until you most likely hermorrhage to death.

Pray for unity of the team as this time will be testing and stretching to the max.

Guidance from the Holy Spirit in our words and actions, operating in the gifts and fruits of the Spirit so we can make the maximum impact in our time there.

Energy for us all as our days are packed full.

Local Outreach

For a week we went up to Mandeville where we stayed at the Carribean Christian School for the deaf. Each day we worked around the school helping in various different ways  painting the school bathrooms, sanding chairs and helping out around the schools farm among other jobs. I learnt a small amount of sign language which i used to speak to some of the kids, asking their name and telling them my own. In the afternoon each day we went into the community to chat to people, give out Bibles and have a postive effect there.Some of the highlights of the trip were meeting an old lonely lady who we had the opportunity to chat with and pray for as well as a young girl with post-natal depression who we met many times; we had chance to pray with her and talk with her about her issues.

Another one of the highlights for me was meeting the local churches youth group and having the chance to have a basketball game with them which was good times. They really opened up to us because of that and we had good chat with them all afterwards.

On Friday we returned to the local area around the base and worked on creating the foundations for a house for a poor family in the area. This was part of the Homes of Hope project, providing homes for those who cannot afford to build their own. This was easily the hardest work we had done by far, however all the team got stuck in with pickaxes, sledgehammers, jackhammers and spades and we shifted alot of rock and soil. Was great that the people who we were building the house for were there helping too and we could see they were very enthuasiastic. After a few hours many people from the local area turned up to help their neighbours with their new house.

Lead Us Up the (Blue) Mountain…. Trek to the Peak

In one of our weekends off we decided to make the most of it and hike up Blue Mountain to the highest point in Jamaica, Blue Mountain Peak. We caught the public bus from Montego Bay to Kingston which was crazy even before it began. Drivers from all the buses shout and do their best to persuade you to get on their bus and not anyone elses, once on the bus the driver does his best to fill every part of the bus with a person so he can get the most amount of money per trip possible.

When we got to Kingston we caught a taxi from there to a small village a quarter of the way up the mountain. The scenery was breathtaking as the taxi drove up the winding hills at incredible speeds. Most of the time there were no barriers between us and a sheer drop where we would have plenty of time to think about the bottom before we hit!

From the small village a quarter of the way up we caught a 4×4 up deep into the forests of the mountain to our lodge half way up.  We realised why we needed the 4×4 and could not take a normal taxi, we went through rivers up, dirt track roads; incredible experience. By this time it was night and looking down we could see the lights of Kingston far off in the night. Was incredile to drive through little village and hamlet communities so far and deep up in the forests of the mountains.  It was strange to see in these little communities in the middle of nowhere hat they had massive stacks of speakers pumping out the jamaican rhythms. We arrived around 11ish at a little lodge lit by only oil lamps in the rooms. We set our alarms for 1:30 to get up and make the peak in time for some rise. We managed to leave the lodge by 2am and made it to the peak by sunrise at around 6am. The sunrise, colours and scenery is something I could never forget. We were so high up some clouds rush over the mountains and many are below you as you stand on the peak. We watched the sun rise slowly from behind the clouds, was so perfect. Reminded me of the film ‘City of Angels’ where the Angels come every morning to watch and see the song of the sunrise as it peaks up from behind the horizon.

We stayed for about an hour before beginning the 3 hour hike down. On the way down we met a very strange donkey called Jordan with an obvious multiple personality disorder. We arrived back at the lodge around 10am after 7 hours of hiking in total.

Amazing what you can do when you wake up early.