We made our almost daily visit to the fabulous place that is ‘onestop’ last night to buy provisions that are needed when watching a film and discovered something of our childhood. Instead of buying chocolate (o how we love thee!) we instead opted for all those favourite childhood sweets! So here are my top five childhood sweets…

1. Rainbow sherbet

2. Millions

3. Rainbow drops

4. Dib dabs

5. Chalki lollys

Please remind me of any fabulous sweets that i have forgotten about!

We have interent in our house!!! hurrah!

I thought that I’d write a post as I was forced to by Gareth!

I thought I’d ask you guys what you think about church…and if you were looking for a new church what would you look for?

I’m in the middle of trying to find a church in Chester. I’ve been to 4 so far…1 was okay – they gave me free lunch, 1 had awesome teaching, 1 was really friendly, they fed me and the teaching was good (I like this one) and 1 was good but a big long.

Things im looking for…

1. A church with Jesus at the centre

2. Good teaching

3. Friendly

4. Things which I can get involved in

5. Not too many students

Above all of this I’m just praying that God will really show me which is the church for me…

We still don’t have the internet in 14CCC so I’ve escaped to the library to do some work…and generally look at internet things! Lots of work to do…lots of fun to be had…lots of sleeping to be done! Have now joined the gym…it’s full of people who are thin…that’s not going to encourage me to go.

I have become known as the spider killer of the house…my 2 main methods are by dropping Bibles directly on top of them or drowning them (this I hasten to add was not on purpose).

I’ll be back in Ipswich on the 8th of November…hopefully…

Chester run a Christian Youth Work and Theology course and I have been blessed in the fact that I am living with a youth worker and also have come to meet many of them through CU and the sharing of some lectures. Having spent the last year doing youth work i have the upmost respect for all who are persuing a career in this field as it’s an amazing important area of work, and is not the easiest job in the world… it’s not all eating pizza and playing computer games!

However I worry. I worry that the youth work side of things and the theology side of things is to separate. Theology is to often seen as an academic subject that’s not important enough to be talked about at a wednesday night youth group. That’s to hard to study. That it’s something to be left to those studying to be a vicar. As a youthworker to know theology and to have studied theology I feel is essential. Because the young people that are coming to church and exploring the Christian faith have big questions, that need big answers. Who is God? Who is Jesus? Why is there suffering in the world? Why should i trust a book written 100’s of years ago? So many of the young people that I got to know last year wanted to go deeper. They wanted to understand more about the God that they were living for and a lot of what was being offered to them was just issue based.

I’m not saying that issue based stuff isn’t important. It is. very much so. But, there is only so many talks on Self Image that you can hear with out shutting off. From the age of 10 I have been to Church. At the age of 14 I was told that I could have a relationship with God. No one ever explained to me why Jesus had to die on the cross. No ever explained how Jesus was fully God and fully human. Now these are big issues that even theology scholars still grapple with, but surely we should be trying to engage with them as they are fundamental christian beleifs. And we’re not engaging with them alone…God helps us.

I have been studying Theology for a year. I am now starting to study it at university. In the last year my relationship with God has grown and grown as I’ve learned more about him. It’s not easy, but it’s exciting and it’s for everyone… in my opinion theology and youth work, go together like Ross and Rachel.

what do you think??

im feeling really homesick today. half of the girls have gone home, and the others are helping with the open day. I’ve just spoken to my mum, read emails from people from home and cried in the Library… but quietly…nobody noticed. Don’t know why I’m telling you this, but thought I would…..Gareths last post made me smile.

Freshers flu is a myth… False…Im sooooo ill!

When you get to the Uni you’ll have internet in your room… FALSE…they lie!

As a student you’ll have loads of free time, and never have to work… False… I have the worst, fullest time table ever!

Girls out number boys by lots…True… at the chester it’s apparently 7 girls to 1 boy.

The SU bar is the best thing ever… False… it’s rubbish. 10,000 students and a bar that holds 400… you do the maths.

So…here I am! This week has been so amazing so far…am missing you guys though! I’m sharing a house with a lovely group of girls! There’s me in room 1, in room 2 we have Monica who is from Finland, Steph from Chesterfield in room 3 – she’s our girl with the broadest Northern accent, in room 4 there is a fellow ginger who speaks Welsh in the shape of Gem. Opposite her in room 5 there is the lovely Jen – who is studying to be a teacher and who passed her driving test last week! Hurrah! And finaly in room 6 there is Laura – from Coventry, who is studying Christian Youth work and Theology!

This week has been eventful so far. What with Gem nearly getting her phone stolen, Steph getting locked in the toilet, getting conned out of money by a guy selling balloon flowers and generally just having a bit of a laugh!

CU was great last night, they’re a really awesome group of people and I can’t wait to get more involved! Pub crawl round the hundreds of bars in Chester tonight (Gareth, you would love it!), and another bright and early start tommorrow. Look forward to the forth coming series…Fun facts about Chester!!!

Miss you

x x

just wanted to let you all know that I (Hayley) won’t be posting this week as am going to be away from home and with no internet! Sorry, I will miss you all very much, but will be back in no time.

I’ve had a very strange week. I’ve been saying my goodbyes to people before I leave for Uni next Sun, and man, does that take it out of you. An arwful thing about the week…I’ve lost my waterproof mascara, but I’ve never needed it so badly!

see you soon

x x

Is it ever possible to cut an onion and not cry? I swear that I have done it in the past, but for the life of me I can’t remember how, I feel that as a student this is going to be a very important question that I need to be answered.