Sunday, May 23, 2004

   Things are looking up (somewhat)
Latest update on the Hazel front:

Whatever was going on, it's officially on hold until September.

ie. we were going to go out somewhere, but ended up not doing so due to her illness, and now we're far too busy to have enough time to arrange something right now.

I'm going off to Rome in a week, for a week. Hazel is off to Papa New Guinea in three weeks, for 2 months.

Things are just too hectic, and there's too little time, to try and arrange anything else. So we're going to rearrange in September (when she comes back as the university year starts up again- I'm not going anywhere..).

I feel good about it- mostly because at least I know that it's on hold, whereas before I had little idea what was going on at all (and when that was couple with not seeing her at all for 2 weeks it messed me up somewhat... fortunately these days when things "mess me up somewhat" it gets nowhere near as bad as it used to..)

So yeah- that's the update on the happenings in the life of Dan L.

I feel like I should be saying something a lot more holy, but oh well.. never mind.
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Wednesday, May 19, 2004

   Scriptures/Prayers of the Day (or
scriptures
(NLT translation- some personal alterations, ie. omitted words + added capitals :p)

"The Lord is my shepherd- I have EVERYTHING I need"
Ps. 23:1

"And this same God who takes care of me will supply all your needs from his glorious riches"
Philp. 4:18

"DON'T WORRY ABOUT ANYTHING
PRAY ABOUT EVERYTHING"
Philp. 4:6

"In every battle you will need faith as your shield to stop the fiery arrows of Satan"
Eph. 6:16

"If you need wisdom- if you want to know what God wants you to do- asj him + he will gladly tell you"
James 1:5

"Humble yourselves before God. Resist the Devil and he will flee from you"
James 4:7

In fact, most of James is pretty damn good.

Prayers for...

FAITH- to recieve money for Rome mission trip.. ---> MONEY- For Rome mission trip

WISDOM- to do w. decisions regarding the future

HAZEL- Practically given up this last week. Do I really want to give up?
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Tuesday, May 18, 2004

   Recently
Things are a bit odd.. different even.

I haven't seen or really communicated with Hazel in well over a week. I've sent her a message or two, but not heard anything back, hence there's not really been communication.

Things don't feel that bad, which is a bonus.. but things don't really feel anything at the moment- which is a little confusing.

Off to bed, anyway. There's more to update on than just this one subject, but I'm too tired at the mo.
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Sunday, May 9, 2004

Update on things
Hazel and I didn't go out on thursday- she was ill, unfortunately.

No really, she was. I saw her on Wednesday evening and she didn't look particularly in good health- and spoke to her on Thursday and she didn't particularly sound it.

I'm currently in the process of figuring out whether she's free again this week (health permitting) via text message.
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Thursday, May 6, 2004

   DanLucking.Velegant.com is back online!

Basic site structure is up (took me a few hours for the current design once I found the inspiration- basically the same colour scheme as this myO account- will improve design some other time) and very limited content at present- still working on converting stuff from old site, to the new design.

But you can get a general feel for it.. :p
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Monday, May 3, 2004

   New and Improved..


In all fairness I don't like the close up of Nick in the last picture, so I replaced it with a different pic- and there's still just as much of me in this one, but there's a bit more of everyone else. And not so much of the fire extinguishers...

If you look at the pictures this way:

1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10
11 12 13 14 15

then this is what each one is:

1- Myself
2- No smoking, etc sign- nicked from a tram
3- Joe Bean
4- Chris Wall
5- Jude Stone
6- Chris Wall
7- Greg Sharples; blonde version
8- Jude Stone
9- Nick Law
10- Myself
11- "Zorro Toast"
12- Nick Law
13- Myself
14- Greg Sharples; not so blonde version
15- Joe Bean

Update on life in general

After much fussing about (on my part) trying to decide what to do, Hazel and I are off to "the Green Room" on thursday evening, which is a nice little Jazz bar in town. It's where we went on my very first night in Sheffield- and I've not been there since, so it should be great fun.

Will keep everyone who's actually paying attention, updated (out of interest- who is paying attention here? Leave a comment if you are :p)
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   Disclaimer: This post in no way reflects actual actions to be taken or to be desired to be taken by Mr. D C Lucking at any time in any place. Ever. Funny though..
Dan C Lucking: :p.. .. simulated "knock and run".. you could make a video game out of that
Elite Dragon0: lol
Elite Dragon0: You could
Dan C Lucking: I think I might
Elite Dragon0: and call it sexy lingerie party 4
Elite Dragon0: Watch how many people buy it
Dan C Lucking: *watches*
Dan C Lucking: oh my word
Dan C Lucking: it works, truly it does
Elite Dragon0: lol
Dan C Lucking: Admittedly, I bought most of the copies myself, and I was shocked to be so decieved despite the game being my creation.
Dan C Lucking: Then after the initial shock I went out and bought a ton more on the off chance that I might get "the lucky copy" which lives up to the title
Dan C Lucking: but alas, I was decieved again


Dan C Lucking: I left a question in your myo update thingy- it goes like this: "How much wood would remain unchucked if woodchuck couldn't chuck wood?"
ZaionzCynic: cool, I will answer that in ym next update ^_^
Dan C Lucking: I look forward to it :p
Dan C Lucking: and I'll be judging your answer on style, elegance of delivery, artistic impression, scientific backing, alliterative impression, use of the gift of tongues, prophetic insight, humour, brevity, and maybe another random factor
ZaionzCynic: o_O
ZaionzCynic: It'll have all that, and more, lol

(ZaionzCynic is Shinji on myotaku)
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Sunday, May 2, 2004

   Online Knock and Run
Dan C Lucking: knock knock
Elite Dragon0: who's there
Dan C Lucking:
Elite Dragon0: ...
Elite Dragon0: THERE IS NOBODY I HAVE BEEN DECEIVED



Dan C Lucking: Knock Knock
Afnanno: ey up duck
Elite Dragon0: Who's there
Dan C Lucking has left the room.
Afnanno: aw :o
Afnanno: knock a door run
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   4 new games for kids at St. Thomas' Church, Sheffield...
..implemented as of this morning by a mob of unruly children:

1- Jump on Dan (with optional Jump on Dan's back)

2- Sit on Dan

3- Get Dan to give you a piggy-back

4- Draw on Dan (preferably with felt-tip pens)

Aye, 'twas good fun though.

**onto more churchy randomness**

And then, we had a fantastic opening quote from the sermon given by some guy called Rupert (OK, so maybe I should have payed more attention to who he was or what he did..) at the King's Centre church tonight-

"A story is a lot like a woman's skirt. It needs to be long enough to cover everything, but short enough to keep things interesting"..

I don't think I'm going to say a lot more about that.. :p

**back to the Kid's work at St. Tom's**

Saw Hazel this morning too. Things are going really well- we're going out somewhere on Thursday, as friends (good starting point, whether it moves on from there or not). And there certainly isn't much of an awkwardness there, as at one point Hazel was joining the children in game #2 (see the top)...
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Saturday, May 1, 2004

From: Dan Lucking
To: Tony Palmer ; Stuart Smith ; Steph Stone ; Solo ; Sarah Sheratt ; Sara Jean ; Rob Cates ; Rebecca Molyneux ; Rachel Humphreys ; Pete McKenzie ; Norvan ; Nishan ; nikki ; Nigel DiCas ; Natalie Fee ; Mo ; Melanie ; Luckings ; Lizzie Thomas ; Liz Crofts ; Kiri ; Keele C.U. ; Jane Elizabeth Howell ; Iris ; Haz ; Ginny Lyn ; Fiona Minol ; Dave ; Colin Roberts ; Chris Clowes ; Chris Anthony ; Chaz ; Adam Ovens ; Abi
Sent: Sunday, May 02, 2004 12:42 AM
Subject: I'm ALIVE!!!!! And I have news


It's been a loooooooong time since I've sent you guys an e-mail, hasn't it?

I wonder if I was missed.. :p

I really can't be bothered to go into elaborate details to do with how TT is going on, purely because it'd just take far too long. The general overview is that it's been fantastic for two main reasons- the first is to get away from "home" (in inverted commas because Stoke is now my original home, but not the home where I live) and start taking responsibility for myself. I don't think I've ever been put so far into the deep end before in my life- and for the first month or so, it was just plain scary. For the first week or so I just plain didn't know what to do (someone I passed in the supermarket saw my overwhelmed-looking face and thought a relative had died or something!..). Anyone who's heard Lloyd cookes teachings on people from Stoke will know that we don't exactly move very far away from home very much (I remember moving home to another part of Stoke when I was 17, and my friends in the area said they'd never see me again... the worse part is that they never did..), so the move to Sheffield was a lot bigger for me than some of the other guys.

But hey- I lived in the end and now I'm moving out again at the end of TT, into Daniel (my accountability partner)'s new house, which is 15 minutes walk away from here. So basically, I'm staying up here, rather than going back to Stoke at the end of the year.

The second thing that's been great about this year is TT and the teaching, mission, and socialising therein. It's been incredible to grow so much in just a year, and I find that these days when I talk to people about things spiritual I actually know a lot more of what I'm on about rather than rambling on towards what I hope to be a conclusion. And for that reason I'm staying here too- because for some reason when I go back home I feel a bit like a spiritual baby still.. I "grew up" at St. Mary's.. but at the same time, I didn't really grow up anywhere near as far as this last year has taken me (don't get me wrong- the first year of input from there was vital), so when I return it feels a little bit like when you meet a long-unseen relative who reminisces about when you were yay-tall (about 2 feet) at the moment.

I kind of have my own patch up here at the moment, or so it feels. Maybe I'll end up going back to Stoke one day to live- but first I think I need firmly to come to terms with who I am how I've grown in the last year. Identity has been a vital part of this year's teaching, and I've learned all sorts of things, such as that I'm pastoral in ministry, introvert in nature, and more recently that I have a gifting in discernment of spirits (until recently I'd heard of that but didn't even know what it really meant...). Some people don't think it's a particularly good idea to classify people in such a way, but I actually find that it is incredibly useful to know your identity in terms such as this, because then you can understand more of your shortcomings, how to defeat them, and how to nourish yourself to grow as who God made you to be.

I've some way to go in this area still, and I think that St Tom's is the best church to be going in this journey with, for me personally at the moment.

Anyway- back to next year- I'm staying around here, as I've already said. I'm most likely going to work full time or 4 days a week (after working 3 days a week I really don't know if I want to do full time, so I'm pushing for at least a day off in the week, as hard as I can :p) at Northern Map Distributors, my current employer, and the year after that (2005-2006) I'm considering going into Teacher Training at Sheffield Hallam University.

It's a toss up at the moment between Primary School Level (because I work very well with that age in the Sunday mornings when I do kid's work) and Science/Maths at Secondary School Level (because I have one year in a Physics degree, I'm naturally maths-minded, and I'd only have to do two years according to the Hallam site). And then of course, there's the possibility that I might end up not going for that at all and taking a completely different direction next year. But it's always good to have a primary plan which you can fall away from..

So yeah.. that's my first update in yonks.

Another good reason to stay in Sheffield is best said by Chris Lewis (a TiM2 student- kind of a 2nd year TT)- "One of the main reasons I don't want to leave Sheffield next year (he applied to do medicine somewhere else) is the sheer number of young, Christian women"...

But we TTs are all super-spiritual and the fact that lots of us are staying around (that weren't originally) has nothing to do with that at all.. nope..

Best wishes and God's grace to all recipients

-Dan
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