I have just celebrated my two year anniversary of attending HTB with helping on an amazing alpha weekend.  When I said last time I was really bad at the journaling thing I wasn't joking 4 months have gone by since my last instalment!!!  The first time I went to HTB I got lost and never found the church - i managed to find SPOS (by looking for the spire) and tried to follow the map to htb to no avail - after completely missing the 5 and the beginning of the 7 I decided to give up and go home.  Looking back now it was probably a good thing, why? because I was only familiar with small churches and every time I went to a large one I didn't like it.  I think had I found it that evening I probably would have had that reaction and never gone back.  When I had properly moved to london after getting confirmed in bristol - I determined to try again.  This time I contacted the church and they said they were having the party in the park (2005) and I should come along.  When I arrived I got introduced to a pastorate who were merrily picnicing and as it was near the end of term they invited me to go to their home group which I did.  After spending the afternoon with them I felt so much more comfortable in the 5 pm service than I would have if I had just walked in off the street.  So I went to home group over the summer and then started going to pastorate in the autumn - I also enroled in the bible school pre cursor to bible track and started to fill in some of the blanks in my knowledge of the bible.  In january I helped on my first alpha course with my pastor as group leader which was such an amazing experience.  On the alpha weekend I received the gift of tongues - something I had been petrified about only a year earlier.  In the new year 2006 I moved in with my first Christian flatmate which was a great experience and really helped me to grow in my faith, he was a former htb member who left with one of the church plants.  He had been a pastor and worked for the church so was a great inspiration.  In my new flat I  started up a new small group in our pastorate which is still going.

Next life changing moment was going to home focus 2006 - God really met with me there most particularly through listening prayer.  I was still very sceptical about the whole prayer thing and I challenged god to prove it to me which he did - by giving one of the people who was praying for me a picture that I had drawn the day before in one of the seminars which I was able to pull out of my bag and show them.  That holiday was the start of some serious healing for me particularly understanding how i had projected on to God my relationship with my own father.  I was an approval addict and my self worth was based on what I thought other people thought of me rather than what God thought of me.  Anyway with alot of prayer and a few conversations with my mum and dad about some hectic stuff that went on when I was very young God and I worked through it!  God also put my finaces on my radar at focus, I was very convicted about how I was spending money and the amount of debt I had accumulated.  I spoke to some very wise people at the debt seminar who gave me the confidence that with God I could do something about it.

In the autumn of 2006 I signed up for the faith track as I am now addicted to studying theology and also started working in the htb bookshop as a volunteer.  

In December a friend in the pastorate was looking for a new flatmate and I decided to move in with her to where I am currently living which has been great, living with such a godly women.  Because I was trying to repay some debt my budget was very restricted and so I thought about getting an additional part time job at the weekends - little did I know this turned out to be working in the htb bookshop on Sunday evenings and on special events like international week and worship central days.   This really helped me out and introduced me to a whole new set of people at htb who I would now consider great friends. 

God has been very generous in his blessings on my life, I received the gifts of intercession and prophesy at a malshanger weekend with my pastorate when a quick prayer time with the girls turned into a 3 hour work of the holy spirit.  Ever since then I have a real heart for prayer and recently joined the prayer ministry team - put all that together, bookshop, SOT, helping on alpha and the prayer meetings and it sometimes seems as if during term time I spend more time htb than at work - but I abosolutely love it and don't know how I ever lived without such a community.  I am so thankful to God for coming through on all his promises to me - the prayer I prayed on the alpha day back in December 2004 certainly was the beginning of an intersting journey. 

Coming up to date I am as happy as I have ever been I feel more like myself than ever before, jesus was not exaggerating when he said I came to give life - life in all its fullness John 10:10  I can't wait to see what the next years hold - look out for the updates!