London Calling!

I know, far too obvious for a title but I couldn't resist. Well, as you've hopefully guessed by now, I'm finally moving to London! Slightly different from the plan back in July - there's now just 3 of us and only 2 of us are from the original 4. Also, we've not managed to move quite as central as originally planned but we're moving into a house in Plaistow (I know, those Londoners can't spell) in East London. It's only about half an hour from Liverpool Street station so not too far out and the plan is to try this for 6 months or so and then see if we can move closer after that.

So we move on 1st December! Although, it's not quite gonna be that simple for me, but then again, when is it? I'm currently still looking for a job in London so I'm still working in Chichester till Christmas and therefore still living in Portsmouth as well through half of December - nice and cheap that'll be! Still, after Christmas I'll be Londoner finally and hopefully have a new job too (if you pray, it'd be nice!). Really looking forward to the move and being up in London Town after all this time of perseverance.

Also, had some other great news the other day...

- I'm now an uncle! Now I know a few of you were wondering if I'd managed to hide this from them for the last 9 months and that I'd become a father - sorry to disappoint but the cute lil' one is actually my sister's (Melanie) and my brother-in-law's (Tim). They've named her Chloe Rebekah Coleman. She's ever so good, hardly ever cries and when she does it's only a little bit cos she's hungry and even then very quietly - obviously takes after her uncle! No really, apparently I was a really good baby! I wonder how long it'll last?

Still alive

Ok, you can call off the search parties, cancel the 999 calls - I'm still alive! Kinda got a bit behind here. I think it'll take a bit too much to catch up on about 9 months of me so instead, you'll have to assume that I lived the life to the full, that the lows were short and the highs were beautifully memorable. That's not too far from the truth so I'll go with that!

As for where I'm at now? Well, my days in Pompey are quickly coming to an end. I'm packing my bags and heading North! Well, not just yet. I'm moving to London, probably sometime next month. Currently applying for jobs and praying about houses. Got 3 lovely housemates to live with and we're looking for a place in Shoreditch/Bethnal Green kinda area.

Really looking forward to London and all it brings. New challenges in life, new work, new friends, more tubes & buses - NO CAR(!), more clubbing, more djing(?)...

Though gonna miss Portsmouth and the South, my friends, my work (surprisingly), driving (unsurprisingly), my weekly drive up the A3 (well, maybe I won't miss that!).

It's a time of change that's desperately needed and I'm welcoming with open arms. To be honest it's been a long time coming and I've put too many things off in the wait for this...

Bring on London Town!!!

SORRY!!!!

Huge apologies for my general slackness of late. I can't believe it's been sooooo long since I've updated this and that I still haven't finished blogging Ibiza let alone the rest of my life since returning. I'll endeavour to catch people up a little while trying to do justice to some reasonably newsworthy events:

Ibiza
The rest of my time in Ibiza was a little strange. I was the last of the team to leave the island this year and many left more than a week before I did. This led to a rather large wind-down period as one-by-one people drifted into the "short holiday period before I go" time. This was great but for most of the time it was really difficult to focus and be productive.

That said there were some amazing God moments in it all. One was playing host to a random group of Americans that came "to pray in our house of prayer" (that doesn't quite exist yet!). I wasn't really looking forward to this as it could have been a lot of hard work but instead turned out to be quite cool, fun and really worth it. They were really understanding, curious and positive about our current situation with lack of boiler room/prayer room but full of ideas. We ended up sharing our dream for Ibiza, showing them a lot of the island including some key parts of San Antonio and praying round potential buildings that we'd like to use including one that we'd love to become a training base for missionaries to Europe! It's all in God's very exciting hands...

The Americans also happened to be diving instructors so I managed to have a rather surreal moment of scuba diving in Brian and Tracy's pool! Very good fun though I was so buoyant I had to have loads of weights to make me sink!

As I wrote in my previous blog, I got to see Faithless which has to have been one of my highlights of the summer. This however kicked off a clubbing marathon in which we danced effortlessly (not!) through 9 clubs nights/days in 9 days! This was made much easier on the pocket by getting most of them as guestlist or reduced ticket prices and helped by a guy called Luis. Luis is a Christian gypsy dj (who mostly plays house music) who goes to the Spanish church in Ibiza Town. He was playing on the upstairs terrace at Space for We Love... from about 7-10pm (except later we found out he'd been on since 1pm!) and got Debs, Caz, Fiona and I guestlist (except that it didn't quite work and he had to come down to the door to get us in while he left his friend in charge of the decks!). We hung around upstairs with him and chatted to quite a few drunk lads from Hull for about 3 hours. Once they'd figured out that Fiona could speak Spanish, one of them hassled her to teach him lots of rude phrases in Spanish! That didn't work but they didn't really get the message and hung out with us anyway.

Once Luis had finished he told us that he was playing at Penelope's from 4-6 that night and did we want to go there on the guestlist as well - it's rude to refuse! It's been good to be able to support him cos until recently he's not had support from his church to dj in the clubs and he's only just got back into it. We picked up a friend called Matt from the airport that came to stay for the week then went back to San An to get him settled in. On our way out again, Caz managed to slip on some water down the stairs of her flat. The result was a torn tendon, much bandaging and some crutches! She's ok now though but had put an end to her Ibizan clubbing exploits a little earlier than planned. So instead, it was just Fiona, Debs, Matt and I that made it to Penelope's and it turned out that it was a gay night, a popular one too. Wall-to-wall sweaty topless Italian guys. Hmmm... As Debs pointed out, it was nice for the girls not to be the objects of attention for once! Luis fortunately was upstairs where it was not so busy and he played some great music! We also made it to several other clubs and from the 9 nights I managed to fit in 3 clubs I'd never been to before!

As I said back in July, I helped out a bit with the music at the English speaking church. When I said I'd do one or two Sunday evenings to them I thought that's what I'd end up doing. However, I ended up doing most Sunday morning meetings as well as most of the evening ones too (though the evening ones were only every fortnight). It was great to serve them as they haven't got many musicians and it's good to give those few a rest, besides, many of them were away anyway! It was also challenging trying to lead worship in a very different setting using songs that either they congregation didn't know or I didn't/had learnt the previous afternoon! However God blew me away once again in how much he likes variety and although I didn't always connect with some of the ways they did things, it's good to change from the norm and shift the "tradition" that we put in our "free" meetings!

I also sampled some variety in my eating habits including eating mackerel and Kangaroo! We went to this Thai restaurant for one of the teams final nights (there were only 3 of us left by then!) and sampled some amazing food. Tim had Duck with plums in a white wine sauce while I had Kangaroo chop suey!

I did manage to do loads of other things this year like hang out with Kris (I'll tell you about him in a bit) and some new friends, Sarah & Hannah. Hannah is Bob and Claire's daughter. Who's Bob and Claire? Well Bob's the chaplain of the English speaking church and Claire's his wife. Sarah is Hannah's friend from Uni. Neither Hannah or Sarah like clubbing too much and they were a little stranded in the middle of nowhere at the chaplaincy so I tried to entertain them. Fortunately they were around through my last week on the island which I'd designated as holiday and I'd hired a car so we hung out together and did things like taking a day trip to Formentera (a beautiful little island just off the south coast of Ibiza) and snorkelling and causing mayhem at the water park (on one of the cloudiest days of the summer!). Good fun had by all!

Kris is a good friend we've got to know over the past few years. He's a dj that was brought up a Christian but has abandoned that for the time being cos he just likes partying too much! He spends his summers djing in, to be fair, pretty rotten bars in the West End of San Antonio and his winters in Scotland, djing on the local radio and dreaming/pining/counting down the days till his next summer in Ibiza! At the beginning of August he got kicked out his apartment and asked me if he could kip at mine for a few nights. He ended up staying the whole month which was great cos I got to know him much better and we had some amazing chats as he tried to get his head round why we do what we do and how we (try to) keep from sinning in a place like Ibiza - they were very honest chats! I also hung out in the bar he was djing at and supported him while he djed. I also managed to get to dj there one night for about an hour and a half before djing back-to-back with Kris for the last 2 hours - grrrrrreeat!

Wow this is getting really long now! So much more to say but for the sake of keeping people awake and free from boredom I'll round off now. I'll do an update of my life back in the UK VERY soon... promise!

Faithful Faithless!

Wow - I got to see Faithless play live last night in a club called Privilege which claims to be the largest club in the world with a 10,000 capacity. I must say it was huge and quite impressive. We were about 10m from the front too so had an amazing view.



The night was promoted by Manumission who host parties on Monday nights at Privilege that have a "no-holds barred" attitude to their partying and in the past included live sex shows in their routines. I never expected to meet God in a place that has seen such perversion and was promoted by the very same people yet God suprised me once again! Maxi Jazz (the lead singer of Faithless) led us in some amazing worship even though by all accounts he puts his faith somewhere nearer Buddism than Christianity (so I hear). With such positive lyrics and amazing uplighting and driving music it was an incredible God-encounter - one that I wouldn't mind repeating!

Still alive!

I thought I´d better reassure you all that I´m still alive! It is seeming so easy to fill my days up with stuff and get to the end of a week and be unsure what I´ve actually done! As a result I´ve made it into August without really noticing. However, I shall endevour to fill you in on a few eventful moments from the last few weeks...

As you can see from the team blog, the short term team went well. They really pushed hard through some quite tough times. It´s never the easiest to keep on going when you´re not seeing results but we aren´t here for the stories, we´re here to be obedient to God and trust that he is working through what we are doing.

That was reminded to me during a prayer walk yesterday. We felt that God was asking us to do a kind of re-enactment of the walls of Jericho and that we should pray walk around San Antonio 7 times (once each day over the next week). The first time we went round on Wednesday we started about 7pm (it´s about an hour and a quarters walk if we don´t stop too much!) and it was quite hot still but was quite exciting and new. Yesterday, due to us being invited out to dinner for 7pm, we started at 4:30pm and it was hard work. There was a certain amount of "we walked this before", "not really seeing anything new or anything else to pray into" and I found it quite hard.

Walking up the last hill God reminded me about the people of Israel, how they marched around Jericho each day and probably saw exactly the same things, no change in the city or their attitude towards them and yet they carried on and ended up marching 13 times and at the end of that STILL shouted at the tops of their voices BEFORE God did anything. I think we give up or get disheartened so often before we have done all that God has asked us to do because we haven´t seen him move, change the town/city/island, converted 50,000 people and perfomed several hundred miracles in the process! I guess what I´m saying is that we need to keep on pushing just as much when the going gets tough and keep looking at God not at the circumstances. After all that, God is still working loads through our friendships we´ve made here and some of that we see, some we don´t.

I´m also having lots of fun hanging out with friends here and clubbing. On Tuesday we went to Space (possibly my favourite club that´s a minute´s walk from the beach at Playa D´en Bossa). L T J Bukem played an awesome set that was a mixture of house, old school speed garage, breaks and eventually ended with 1 1/2 hours of drum&bass - EXCELENT! It was great fun to see the "pretensious house" crowd of Space get all confused how to dance to drum&bass! It finished about 6:30 so afterwards 3 of us went for a little walk to the beach to watch the sunrise.



We got a little carried away though and ended up watching the sunrise from in the water while having a little swim! It was quite amazing and completed the experience from a few days previous when I watched the sunset from the water while swimming with a friend near sunset strip (where Café del Mar and Café Mambo are). Unfortunately our spontaneous morning swim was lacking planning in the "how to get dry" front but the sun soon was warm and kinda dried us off! We were also fortunate to get a taxi with leather seats back to San Antonio so we didn´t wreck his car! All in the name of fun and enjoying God´s creation!

I also had the opportunity to view the sunset from a beach up in the North of the island called Benirras. This is the hippy alternative to sunset strip. It is quite an isolated beach in the middle of nowhere that has a single rock sticking about 20m out of the water in the bay that is commonly called God´s finger due it´s shape! On Sundays (which is when we went) they also have lots of drummers that play while the sun goes down and carries on into a bit of a beach party. It was quite an experience but if I get to go again I´d like to get there earlier as we arrived about 10 minutes before sunset and the beach was packed so we didn´t get the best view.

Team fun!

The short term team have been out nearly a week now and this is my first decent length of time in front of a computer since last Friday! It´s the team´s day off so I´m having a little breather but we meet up again tonight. It´s been great to have the team out and has been challenging me loads. For stories of what the team has been getting up to, do see our team blog though I need to update that too!

We have split our team of 14 into 4 groups, one of which I am leading. This has been a real challenge but I seem to be doing really well (in my eyes!). I have also been given charge of a car (wahey) for the two weeks which has been immense fun! It´s a small black Fiat Punto! A turbo diesel - dunno what size the engine is but I´d guess about 1.2. Quite a nippy little thing but seriously doesn´t want to go round corners. It would be ok if we weren´t on a hilly island that seems to be joined up by hairpin bends! The main roads are pretty straight though so that´s an improvement and has stinted the return of "rally Jon"! The best things about it are the air-conditioning and the cd player! I´ve been missing my music loads and seriously considering buying a cheap cd player for about £40. I do get to hear quite a bit of music in my apartment but I don´t get to choose what, when or how loud as it comes from the hotel opposite!

Well, I´ll try to blog again soon but I´m guessing I won´t have a lot of time till after the team leave on Saturday/Sunday. Till then those that are inclinded to pray from time to time, please pray about the rest of my time here. I was planning to get a job but we (as 24-7prayer) are looking at getting a building that is right in the centre of the West End for use as a base/prayer room/bar/coffee shop kinda thing! We´ve seen a potential building but there have been a few stumbling points such as them wanting 6 months rent up front which we don´t have. If we do get this building my time may well be spent helping sort it out and get it up and running. This would mean that I wouldn´t earn any extra money but God seems to be blessing quite extraordinarilly in that department at the moment so maybe that´s the way forwards!

Settling in

Well my week of settling in is finally coming to a close. I definitely feel a part of the island again. It's great to be back amongst the different cultures that make up the island - the hardcore clubbers, holidaymakers & sun seekers, travellers, ex-pats and not forgetting the locals! I'm sure there are many more but many are too hard to put into a box.

Last Friday we went clubbing at Miss Moneypennies (on the guest list of course - thanks Tim) and it was rather interesting. The music was not up to it's usual standard (in my book) and it was all a bit pretentious, which is not unusual for El Divino's I guess. Anyway, we were all quite tired and we only stayed 2 hours.

Saturday was spent at Brian & Tracy's having "cell". It was nice to hang out with everyone and God. The boys nearly wore me and Caz out in the pool having water-based fun! All in all a great day.

On Sunday after what has to be one of the cloudiest days I've ever experienced in Ibiza, I watched a beautiful sunset in a virtually cloudless sky! It was most strange but seemed to end a few days of slightly cool weather (I think it stayed under 30 degrees for 2-3 days!). Since then it has been clear-skied sunniness. I went to a lovely local beach on yesterday called Cala Gracionette and swam and sunbathed. We'll be back there later this week to clean it with the team!

In amongst all the settling in we've been putting a few final touches to the preparations for the short term team. In a slight accident it seems one of the boys answered the phone to the car hire company and managed to cancel 2 of the 4 cars we've booked for 2 weeks! I'm hoping that's sorted out now otherwise it could be fun trying to fit 18 people in 2 cars!!! Oh well, best be off - gotta get food for tomorrow, 24 people for lunch in our apartment!?!? Could be a squeeze! The team are out nice and early tomorrow... can't wait!

Arrived...

Well, I´ve landed and my moving fun continues. For those that didn´t know, I´ve moved house in Portsmouth but temporarily to a garage so that I´m saving rent and moving in to my new house when I return to England. Having done that and then going home last weekend for a mates wedding, staying in a caravan the night before and then at my mums for a few days before flying out here, (breathe), I landed to find out that Mark had secured us an apartment! It´s in the same block as the apartments we had last year - 1 minute from the two hotels and where the teams will be staying. Answer to prayer number one!

However, I had to stay in the hotel last night and we moved into the new apartment this afternoon. It´s a great place but could do with a bit of a clean up. We´ve just sorted out the fridge-freezer that looked like it hadn´t seen the light of day for a year or so! Conveniently Mark is heading back to the UK tonight (with Debs) for the Transmission training so misses out of on my week of sorting out the apartment. Nevermind. It will be my 5th different bed in a week but I can now make this my home for the next 9 weeks!

My apartment will be shared with quite a few people and will be affectionately known as "the lads apartment". Initially Mark will be sharing with me but he goes at the begining of August.

Besides the moving fun, I´ve enjoyed my first day back on the island, starting to work on the tan, catching up on the plans for the team. The short-term team arrive next Wednesday after their training and that will start two weeks of hard graft into the island. Looking forward to it but definitely looking forward to this coming week to prepare myself, catch my breath back and get ready for the summer. That´s all for now. I´ll be back with more news soon...

Ibiza: past and present

So, time for a quick background on Ibiza... For the last 4 summers Ibiza has been invaded by a bunch of Christians from a charity/organisation/group/thing called 24-7prayer. I have been involved with them every year while we've been working with local churches (praying with them, leading services and doing odd-jobs etc), cleaning beaches & wastelands, worshipping in the clubs and bars, praying for clubbers, workers and the island itself and generally chatting to people about God, life, the universe and everything. The main aim has been to spread God’s love and be missionaries in one of the key strongholds of our generation.

For the first 3 years I was part of "short term teams" that are on the island for 2 weeks. There have been between one and four short term teams going out each summer and are overseen by the summer long team that are on the island for the whole summer (up to 3 1/2 months). Each year has been a development from the previous, from scouting out to see how our vision could become reality to becoming a welcomed addition to the Ibizan clubbing community.

Last year I stayed on the island for 5 weeks and was part of the summer long team, helping to lead the short term team, being part of the prayer team and getting a taste of the workers community. Last year was also the first year people from our group went out to specifically get jobs within the clubbing community (typically promoting or working in a bar/hotel). This is where we feel the big change will come from – by influencing the influential. While we may have earned no right to go straight up to the bosses of some of the biggest and influential clubs in the world and tell them what they’re missing out on, we can start at the bottom and show them with our deeds. Changing an island that has a 3500-year history in worship to gods of love and fertility (that were worshiped by music, dance and child sacrifices interestingly) was never going to be a quick easy task but we’re in it for the long haul!

This year I’m going out for 2 months. I’ll initially be helping run the short term team (just one this year) while they’re out for the first few weeks. I’ll also be leading worship on my guitar for a few family services at the English speaking church we work with. After the short term team have left the island I am hoping to get a job, either working in a bar or promoting a club night. I am also hoping to take some music with me (space permitting) so I may see if I can get a chance to dj though this will be with cds rather than vinyl that I’m more used to.

Some prayer pointers for the summer:

• Friendships – relationships with the workers, club/bar/hotel owners etc from previous years to be continued and new ones birthed. That God may shine though everything we do and that through our love for one another they may truly know we are His disciples
• Unity among the churches – between 24-7 and the churches we work with, within the churches themselves and between the Protestant and the Catholic churches on the island. May the lies be broken and God’s truth, grace and love wash over it all.
• Brian & Tracy Heasley – a family that moved out to the island in April to work for 24-7 with us to help provide a long term base and support. Their vision (and ours) is to plant a 24-7 Boiler Room - a creative outreach base - in the centre of San Antonio and then a recovery centre for teams and discipleship training inland – quite exciting! For regular financial support, settling in to a new country(!) and their new home, their two boys settling into schools and new friends, for wisdom and direction in taking the dream forward into reality
• Accommodation/transportation – my accommodation hasn’t been finalised yet but pray that it will be before I go or at least soon after I land (else I’ll be staying in a cheap hotel briefly!)
• Transport was a major issue last year – pray that it isn’t this year
• Jobs – there are always many jobs but also MANY more applicants. Pray for direction for the right jobs to go for and success!

I’m off on the 5th July and return on the 7th September. I’ll endeavour to do regular updates while I’m gone…

Life update

Ooops. Well, I kinda meant to add this on a few weeks back but for one reason or another it just never happened. I was hoping to get things flowing so that once I'm in Ibiza it'd be second nature just to blog my goings on. "Ibiza?" I hear you say! Well, I would doubt that it would shock even the people I'm least in touch with to say that I'm going to Ibiza this summer, again, but this year will be a little different. I think to make the most sense of everything I'd better give a quick update of my latest goings on, where I'm at and everything and then later posts might be comprehendible! First I’ll start with the churchy stuff...

I've been part of a group called Refresh&Redeem based in Portsmouth for the last 2 years. We've been exploring how to tell people about God, and ultimately how to plant church, within club culture. We've had a fair bit of advice and help along the way from others doing similar stuff up and down the country but as it varies so much from location to location with what the scene's like and the set up of the supporting church(es) etc we've been very much experimenting with different things. We've done prayer walks around the clubs and regularly pray, worship and dance in the clubs. Last year for about 4 months we put on a regular club night in one of the local clubs and in March this year we had a month of 24-7 prayer&mission focused around the clubs and bars in the city - possibly one of the most hectic but worthwhile months of my life! Some stories from this have been blogged at our Refresh&Redeem Blog.

In the meantime, through Refresh&Redeem, my time in Ibiza and 24-7prayer, I managed to make contact with a few guys and girls doing similar stuff in the clubs in London and over the past 12 months have been frequently popping up to join them on a grand tour of 7 of the major big clubs of the capital such as Pacha and Fabric. I've really enjoyed this, not just to get the chance to go to big clubs with some great djs and dancing to music I really love and connect with, but also getting to know Sarah (who heads it up) and the other people involved.

So, at the moment, I've finally succumbed to the fact that as much as I love Portsmouth and want to see its club scene changed, the scene here really is based around R&B and hip-hop which I don't connect with. For now, my commitment to Refresh&Redeem is one of moral/prayer support and maintaining the website (which is severely needing some attention!). As far as my church involvement I'm still linked in with my local Anglican church who I've been part of since the beginning of the year.

Well that’s a brief update! More about Ibiza soon…