Life with Matt McChlery

I wish to apologise to all those who signed up to my mailing list on Scriggle-it.com as they have seemed to have vanished off the face of the internet!  I have since created another mailing list with a more reliable provider.  Please sign up again (sorry for the inconvenience).

You can sign up by going to my website www.mattmcchlery.com and enteering your email in the orange box.

I don't know about you, but Christmas is an extremely busy time for me.  Being a primary school teacher as well as a worhip leader equals absolute melt-down at this time of year!

I am swimming through a mountain of reports, School nativity plays, christmas disco's, leaving dinners, magicians, christmas displays and hyper-active kids!  Then at church I am madly searching for and rehearsing Christmas worship songs, carol singing events (x3), market place outreach etc. etc.

I've been in the process of buying a house.  All the legal stuff is finally over and I can move in really soon.

Praise God

    

Gordon Brown has at last acknowledged that the people of Zimbabwe are in desperate need of help and support!  His decision to boycott a forthcoming summit of Mugabe attends, as well as extending targetted sanctions is a great thing! Opposition voices from Zimbabwe are often silenced, so I feel it right that I voice my thanks now that I'm living in a country where freedom of speech and human rights are respected.

Hello again

It has certainly been a long while since I bolgged last!  My life as a school teacher has come back with a vengence, with a new school year starting!  It feels like my feet haven't even hit the ground in the last 3 weeks or so.  Anyway, God is good!

I'm also moving into a period of transition with the worship band at church.  Trying out new things and training various people to enable them to grow and reach their true potential. This is not to say everyone is entirely happy.  Some are quite scared about the unknown and changes ahead.  But with prayer and with God's grace and guidance leading the way, it will be alright.

I have written a new song about Zimbabwe - the country where I grew up.  It's in a state of such termoil it's inspired me to write!  It's designed to be a protest song, but don't know if it fits that box as neatly as it could.

'Chema'  means cry.

Have a listen and let me know what you think.

To download this song for free go to my website

My landlord told me yesterday that the flat I am living in needs to be totally re-wired.  So I'm up for a week or two of total upheval!  my door is even being moved!  So there's going to be dust and banging and plaster flying everywhere.  I'll have to move furniture etc etc.

I really couldn't be bothered to do it all, but it will make the property safer and better.

Well, I've just been away for a refreshing week with some friends.  We stayed on the coast, near Minehead and had a great time.  I was able to unwind and relax as well as continue writing some of my novel on the rainier days.

I've also enjoyed re-connecting and catching up with many friends from uni and high school on facebook whom I had lost contact with!  Its amazing how life has moved on - people getting married, kids on the way etc.  Its great to be back in touch.

My parents, still living in Zimbabwe are struggling to survive, like everyone else!  In the last few weeks, the madness of the regime has got extensively worse.  The government are now enforcing price controls that are ridiculous as they force shopkeepers to sell goods way below cost price, thus forcing them out of business!  So shops are going bankrupt all over the country, and if they try to flout the new laws, they are ransacked and then arrested and beaten up. So as a result shops are now absolutely empty!  No food or goods at all!