I will not die an unlived life.

'I will not die an unlived life

I will not live in fear

Of falling, or catching fire.

I choose to inhabit my days,

to allow my living to open me

To make me less afraid,

More accessible

To loose my heart

until it becomes a wing,

a torch, a promise.

I choose to risk my significance;

To live

So that which came to me as a seed

Goes to the next as a blossom

And that which came to

to me as blossom,

Goes on as fruit.'

Dawna Markovna

This is a prayer I want to tell my Heavenly Father for my life in 2012. I want to live out of His fullness in me, trust that worrying is a worthless hobby and step into all the plans He made for me. I want to learn how to love from Love and then let love gush out of me wherever I go. I want to attend the seeds planted in me, enjoy watching the petals develop and then pass something beautiful to someone else. I want to be thankful in everything because I know from my journey last year that this produces much joy. I want to not be satisfied with comfortable but unfulfilled because actually my life is a gift which I want to give back to my God out of loving surrender.

Athentikos

PLEASE SUPPORT ATHENTIKOS TODAY!

Isaiah 58:6-12

⁶ “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:

to loose the chains of injustice

and untie the cords of the yoke,

to set the oppressed free

and break every yoke?

⁷ Is it not to share your food with the hungry

and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—

when you see the naked, to clothe them,

and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?

⁸ Then your light will break forth like the dawn,

and your healing will quickly appear;

then your righteousness^[a] will go before you,

and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.

⁹ Then you will call, and the LORD will answer;

you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.

“If you do away with the yoke of oppression,

with the pointing finger and malicious talk,

¹⁰ and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry

and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,

then your light will rise in the darkness,

and your night will become like the noonday.

¹¹ The LORD will guide you always;

he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land

and will strengthen your frame.

You will be like a well-watered garden,

like a spring whose waters never fail.

¹² Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins

and will raise up the age-old foundations;

you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,

Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.

I see a need. When I heard who Jesus was, the King who stopped for the poor, the broken and the needy I realised that helping those that have a need is a natural heart response if you love the Lord Jesus because you can't help but care about the things He cares about. However, to have this revelation on my own isn't good enough. I want to raise the alarms, I want others to see the need too because of the love they've encountered from the living God. The video above is a video created by my big brother Alex showing a need and showing a hope. A need in Guatemala that isn't going away any time soon unless more people start to join together to respond and it crushes God's heart but an amazing hope that there is a movement of motion pictures aiming to raise awareness for God's people to respond to this need. I will be showing this video tonight to the group of young people that I help to lead. I want them to see the need. See Guatemala's struggle that they are trying to push past and see the potential in God's beautiful young people that live on the street.

There is hope because there is LOVE.

Fogo de Deus!

God told me that I'm made to be someone who, like a bee travels from flower to flower tasting their sweetness, travels from place to place and marvels at the beautiful things God has made. I went to Italy on Friday 21st September till Tuesday 25th September with some others of the older youth age to spend time with a Brazilian church 'Centro Alleanza'. Treviso, the town that we stayed in, was so beautiful and I noticed a similarity there between China and Treviso; in that there was such a relaxed atmosphere as you walked down the street unlike busy, busy London. It felt so surreal as Katie and I sat in the back seat of a car with no seat belt (!), without a clue where we were going and listening to the Brazilians chatter away to each other in Italian/Portuguese. The different languages that we spoke I originally thought that would be a barrier but one thing I took away from this trip is that with God's love there are no barriers. I can't say grazie/obrigado enough to the people from Centro Alleanza because they welcomed us with open arms, literally! We embraced their culture and they did the same with ours. It was as if family was coming together as we took it in turns to sing the line in a song 'nothing compares to the promise I have' in our different languages. It touched me every single time when the pastor would tell everyone during worship to prophesy over each other and the people next to me didn't hesitate to hold my hand and start praying for me. In my head I was thinking 'this is church!'. So I took back with me in my heart that I would do all I can to make church about love and relationships. It was then in the midst of love that the fire of God came down, hearts were changed by messages of God through worship, dance, talks and drama that our England team presented. We took a day trip to Venezia where we had a lot of fun shopping and looking at picturesque views of clear water and elegantly designed buildings. Now did I mention the food?! Pizza and pasta! ahhh yum! I don't know how all these Italian girls stay so slim! I'm really looking forward to where God is going to take me next :)

As I looked out at beautiful Edinburgh...

Change is part of life and as some things in my life have been moving out of their comfortable positions lately, this truth hits me straight in the face again. I arrived in Edinburgh on Tuesday morning to the smile of my good friend Avril who goes to university there. One of the things we decided to do was climb Arthur's Seat. Arthur's Seat is the main peak of a group of hills that are an extinct volcano, which rise above the city to a height of 823 ft. The climb was tiring and at various points my legs were yelling 'you've seen enough!' but as I looked out at beautiful Edinburgh I knew I wanted to reach the top to see the city in all it's glory. I pondered as I climbed that sometimes God places experiences in our lives that can be tiring and all up hill but all of that 'climbing' is worth it when God reveals through it a different perspective and blesses us in ways we can never imagine. When I got to the top...wow! The view was magnificent. All the different buildings that I saw close up, I saw how they looked in the grand scheme of things. Then God gently reminded me of the Louis Giglio talk 'Indescribable' where he shares facts about God's amazing universe and how small we really are, and I thought of how small I really am standing on this huge extinct volcano that seems so big to me: a tiny speck in the grand scheme of things but God still loves me more than I can ever imagine. So as I was overcome by these thoughts that were brought on by the fantastic view of Edinburgh city, my unsettled heart finally settled with the acknowledgement that God is so big and therefore how could I not trust Him? I can definitely trust that He's got me.

My Treasures

I went out to lunch the other day to catch up with my friend Sammi, who had just passed her A levels. She was telling me about the poem 'If' by Rudyard Kipling; which she had read alongside other poems lately to keep her mind challenged since she had stopped revising for her A levels. I read it today and I did find it was an interesting poem with mind-probing ideas and written well. I decided to entertain myself by reading a few more poems and stumbled across this poem that I

enjoyed reading therefore I thought I would share it with you.

MY TREASURES by Robert Louis Stevenson

These nuts, that I keep in the back of the nest,

Where all my tin soldiers are lying at rest,

Were gathered in Autumn by nursie and me

In a wood with a well by the side of the sea.

This whistle we made (and how clearly it sounds!)

By the side of a field at the end of the grounds.

Of a branch of a plane, with a knife of my own,

It was nursie who made it, and nursie alone!

The stone, with the white and the yellow and grey,

We discovered I cannot tell HOW far away;

And I carried it back although weary and cold,

For though father denies it, I'm sure it is gold.

But of all my treasures the last is the king,

For there's very few children possess such a thing;

And that is a chisel, both handle and blade,

Which a man who was really a carpenter made

What I love about this poem is that it took me right back to when I was a child and would find something small and insignificant to others but to me it was so special and valuable, giving me so much joy to have. That is a wonderful ability that most children have, no wonder they have so much fun. This also gives one of many reasons to explain why God wants us to become like children to enter His kingdom. When I on purpose look for the beauty around me, I find God does reveal so much more little things that people tend to overlook because of the 'busyness syndrome' that I do receive a lot of joy from. Perspective is everything I'm coming to learn. On another note if you have any poems that you liked reading, share them with me! I'd love to check them out :)

Can you hear the sirens?

It's funny how something starts to feel all the more of a serious issue when it reaches your 'own front door'. Last night facebook was bursting with constant updates of London's residents reporting news of the riots spreading. On Saturday night, a riot erupted in Tottenham in what seemed to be in response to a police shooting of a man named Mark Duggan. Police cars, buses and buildings burnt to a crisp, shops looted and smashed, people injured physically and emotionally. In the media, the Duggan family declared that they did not condone any of this violence. By Sunday, the riots were spreading to other areas such as Enfield, Chingford, Ponders End, Islington and my own areas of Walthamstow and Leyton. My boyfriend's place of work, Tesco, was smashed and looted; with the unprotected night staff running to get to safety. I highly think that the people that are carrying on the riots now actually don't seriously care about the death of Mark but are just using the events in Tottenham as a greedy and careless excuse. It makes me feel so sad that people can want to do this. Eventually a lot of them will get caught as there has to be loads of CCTV cameras. As I laid in bed, the sound of sirens whirled from outside. Time to pray.

Hans Zimmer! :D

If you're looking at the title of this post and thinking 'I have no idea what Hans Zimmer is' then you need to get to know! Hans Zimmer is a musical genius. He has composed the music for over one hundred films: 'Pirates of the Caribbean', 'Kung Fu Panda' and 'Gladiator' to name a few and won many awards. Last Saturday I was very blessed to be able to see him perform with John Powell (another film composer) and an amazing orchestra in Northampton. The event was mainly focused around the 'Kung Fu Panda 2' movie but I was so glad that they played compositions from other films too. It's such a touching experience to see an orchestra play live and I think I underestimated that before I went. I highly recommend that you go to see an orchestra play if you have the opportunity. Not only was it a fabdabbydozy musical experience but it was a great opportunity to spend some time with my family; introducing Alex, my Guatemalan brother, to some traditional English grub: pie and mash ofcorse! before we left for Northampton. I also bumped into a couple of my good friends, Avril and Melissa, who I hadn't seen for a while so that was great :) That day I will be holding close to my heart and I think my musical appreciation has only just begun.

Here is a link to a youtube clip that has a selection of Hans Zimmer compositions for you to enjoy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BX_dyTkFbG0

On another note, today is our annual church fun day, which should be another good day but prayers asking God to bring out the sun would definately be appreciated :)