YOUR HELP IS NEEDED... URGENTLY!

This past week I was shown a video... A video that made me laugh, that grossed me out... that upset me, that made me angry. A video that made me cry(though it doesn't take much to do that... . A video that made me want to do something. I felt useless...

It was a video tracking the journey of three naive young men through Uganda, a country torn apart by a 20-year-old war. The war is fueled by child soldiers. Children. Abducted from their homes at night to be indoctrinated and changed into killing machines. If these children object or try to escape, they are killed.

In fear of being abducted, thousands of kids walk miles into towns and cities to sleep in the streets or in abandoned buildings, anywhere they could feel safer. But it is by no means safe, they are left open to abuse and to rape no matter where they are. Some children have escaped from the rebel army but more have been killed or remain as child soldiers, killing in a war they had nothing to do with. Many of these kids feel its not worth going on. They have lost hope.

But there is hope! While it is all they can do to try to survive with nothing, we have power to make a change. A resolution to the conflict is in sight, and we can help end this war by raising awareness of what needs to be done to go the last mile to peace. However, thats not all that needs to be done, and thats not all we can do. Because of the war Uganda is poverty stricken. We can provide them with jobs, and with income.

Invisible Children has launched a bracelet campaign that seeks to raise awareness and provide economic opportunities to the people of Uganda. There is a collection of 8 bracelets. Each bracelet is a different colour and represents a different child. They cost about €15 and come with a DVD telling the story of the individual child. €15 might seem like a lot to spend on a bracelet but ask yourself... What else are you gonna spend it on? By buying these bracelets we can make a difference.

so go on, you know you want to:

www.invisiblechildren.com

Buy a bracelet. End a war.

(P.S. Feel free to copy this and spread the word )

Okay, so i thought I'd better finish this, before GAP and, more importantly, before I start to forget the important things. So. here it goes *breath*.

I'd like to think I've grown up more in the past 12 months than i had in the previous 192... but i probably haven't. It's probably just that I've done more - or more stuff has happened to me - in the last year. This is all thanks to TY (for a year of not doing anything, a hell of a lot happened!!), meeting random people on the streets of Dublin, following them around for a couple of months, and going to Godcamp with them (see blog entitled "godcamp"), and CTYI, what can one say about CTYI?? three weeks of concentrated buzz (also available in espresso flavour, but act quickly! available for a limited time only!!).

the latest thing to smack me in the face, or rather greet me with a gentle hug and a nicecupofteandasitdown.com was... dundundun: another Jesus camp!!! (which, by the way I was 1 year, 10 months and 3 weeks too old for). It started pretty much like the other one; hugging people, meeting new people... This time I wasnt so thrown off by the fact there was lots of praying... There was the mandatory Ice-breaker dodgeball, and a team-naming poster-making thing! We were going to name ours the longest Hungarian word(dont ask me what it is, but if anyone knows it, comment!!) but it was unpronouncable and too big to fit on the page!!! So, we were called BIG MESS We were led by the Amazing Ciara and the Astounding Andy!!

(Darn memory, leaving these things 3 months isn't good...) The first couple nights are a bit of a blur, partially because I've left it so long, partially 'cause i probably wasn't listening that intently, and partially because I found it kind of hard to follow. I do remember the speaker, Kevin, saying something like, if you had cancer and you found an absolute, definite cure for it, that would completely get rid of it, you would take it, right? That if you just let God in, things will be better. Maybe not when you want it, or in the way you want it, but if you let Him in, things will change. And for the better(i'm premusing thats what he was on about...anyone who wants to correct me there or anywhere in this, let me know!). He also talked about how, according to the statistics, 1 out of every 1 person dies! And how when we die, we have to meet Jesus and face God. That if we haven't gotten to know Him, instead of greeting us with a loving smile and a big hug, He'll look straight past us, to the next person, who has given the time to get to know Him. I thought the first two talks were a bit hard to follow... but they were pretty entertaining none the less (short and funny )

Every night one of the leaders would give their testimony, which was cool, and pretty brave for some of them. Some of them were kind of like the situation I was in, not being satisfied and losing faith or never really having any but coming to camp and having an amazing time. some were more complicated, quite moving, and frankly, a little hard to listen to... Still, I thank them for giving them, showing that they too had to make the huge difficult decision. (Thank You!! The music of course was brilliant! Really fine playing you guys! The music got me thinking just as much as the talks

It was Kevin's Birthday on Tuesday, so he abandoned us for the Lord of The Dance! How Could he?!?!?! To replace him was this guy Pat, who was pretty cool too! His first talk seemed a bit predictable and useless at first, but when i thought about it a bit, it was actually really good! It was about Samson and how he became really cocky and gave into temptation too much, until it cost him his strength and freedom. Basically he was telling us not to give in to temptation(Aaaah! The Occult....sorry). As i said, I didnt find it very ground-breaking at first but our quiet time(i LOVED our quiet time!!) seemed to be focussed on that kinda stuff for the rest of week!

On Wednesday things started

OK, i think its about time i used this blog thing for more....bloggy....type.....things.
 ...so im gonna write about the amazing time i had at ovoca manor at easter!!! just to warn you, this was quite a weird experience personally, so if you dnt wana hear(??) me pour my heart out i suggest you stop reading now...............................
 good. now, for those of you who care...

i'm no jesus freak. however, a few good friends do happen to be that way inclined!!! and so they invited me(well more suggested to me, as "invite" suggests they payed, which they didnt...) to come along with them to ovoca manor in wicklow to....do stuff....

now i have to admit, being unreligious, i was slightly nervous as to the kind of things we'd be doing.....and, although i was well aware it was a christian camp, i was completely thrown off by the Grace after dinner on the first day.....but as the week went on i got used to it, and, on some level, more into it(i did have to agree with what they said, as it was true!).

we did lots of a-religious stuff too, so im gonna get that out of the way before i dig into the soul stuff....it being an adventure camp, we did stuff like orienteering(and some weird thing in the dark, tied to each other looking for glowsticks...), hiking, and there was stuff like canoeing, zip line, weird slide thing, (none of which i did cz i just wasnt arsed and it give me a good reaon to go back). we also did circus tricks like platespinning, juggling, tightrope walking and (STEPHEN GARAHY) UNICYCLING!!!!!(not with monkey though, stephen) all of this was great craic with the guys n the girlinis from room 1 yay go us!! we did some art n craft aswell, like painting and tie dying(dream come true!!!).

the religious stuff we had to do was actually pretty cool and fun sometimes too! like every night(and a bit in the mornings too) we had worship, which is basically praising god through song!! nd not crappy 600 year old hymns, but songs with contemporary music and lyrics that you could see actually meant something. unfortunately i lost my voice by the second day(from both sining and tlking louder to be heard over everyone) so singing was kinda hard(luckily there were speakers n stuff so no one could here me...i hope) but i still tried. even by the second night i was kinda moved by the whole thing n i was kinda welling up inside, but we'll get back to that later.

every morning we had about half an hour of "quiet time" where we tlked out stuff, usually, but not always, to do with God and the Bible n stuff. we talked about whatever came up in the meeting the night before and prayed a little too. we also got these memory verses to learn, which were just like different things taken out of the Bible n had to memorise them. for some reason, maybe that i hadnt used my head to try n remember anything in sooooo long, i thought it was kinda fun.... and also at the meetings we had these sword drills, where had to race to find a particular verse. oddly enough, i found a few, didnt really take part to try n win, until, even more oddly, on the last morning we kinda lost a finalist so we had to have another one n i found it, and stood up!!! weird, cz i wouldnt normally do that!! anyway, it ended up four of our group in the final and the amazing eoin winning!! go team eoin!!

at the meeting things every night there was a speaker who tlked to us bout stuff, under the theme of labels!!! the first was kind of like...'ok, stop trying to get me to believe, forcing me aint gonna do anything, and stop singling me out' but anyway, the got good! he talked bout like, zaccheus and the adulterer and peter, who all had labels, either just put on them or through sin and such.... the las t tlk was really moving and this is where im asking those who dnt wana see into my head and are just reading this cz there bored to stop!.............................
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ok, so now that iv whittled you down to the really bored, or those who actually c