Kuala Lumpur Part 1

Greetings fellow people...hehe, hello from the Petrona towers and mental towers they are. They are so flippin tall. We are sitting under it in Starbucks trying to get in from the heat. We're having great fun. We went to look around a few places and old buildings which included a mosque and we all had to wear mad gear. We had to wear head scarves and robe kinda thing to cover us all up, we have some funny pics, esp of Naomi who looked like a old woman farmer from Ireland. They're brill. Will upload asap. Trying to upload pics at the moment from Hong Kong so we're well behind. Sorry for delay but it really is hard to download here as it takes sooooo long. Anyhow temperatures are about 35oC today and the humidity is heavy. But beautiful blue skies with some clouds. Our accommodation is VERY basic and the air con and electricity all shut down today so we're glad we're out and hoping for it to come back on when we head back later. We're going to China town tonight to the market and probably to a huge shopping area. Also hoping to go to Shrek 3 while we're here. Anyhow will update again soon. Now we have found wifi here. Hope your all well. Bye for now. Linda & Alex Xo

We have Naomi!!!!

Ok we have Naomi. We are eating in McD's at the moment in the airport just catching up and having a laugh. It's GREAT to see her and see some of our family from City Gates. She's tired from a long flight and long wait for us but now we're all together and we'll get the bus into the City centre in about half an hr. It's so good to chill out and just chat. Alex is chatting away about his surfing adventures in Bali, sure to put Naomi asleep for sure ; ) Will blog again soon. Xo

Entry from Alex

Bali rocks: Golden sand, perfect sunset, big surf (oh yes) but everywhere has at least one downside. Bali’s people are so annoying everyone wants something. We have been to Thailand, Kenya etc but we have never been so heckled by people before. If you get talking to any random person they all want something or are trying to scam you with some promotion. Having said that we are in the Hard rock hotel, probably one of the finest hotel’s we have ever stayed in. It’s ½ minute from the beach and with the biggest pool we have ever seen, it rocks.

Half the pool has a sand floor and movies are shown on a big screen every night. We watched the sunset go down last night it was incredible. It gets dark at around half six here and then the town comes alive. By the way Bali has worse traffic than Dublin. The island is 88km by 136km roughly but has 8 million people on it so traffic is scary. We walk everywhere so it is cool. The world is so small I met two different lads from Dublin, one yesterday and the day before one of them was from Sandyford.

We only have 3 days left here which sucks, we wished we could have stayed longer maybe a month or two, but your one Naomi Sloane is dragging us away to meet her in Kuala Lumpur. Pretty selfish of her eh ; ) Anyway I highly recommend you come here for at least two weeks you won’t regret it. Food is good and surroundings are perfect. Will post photos (apologies for not yet) as bandwidth sucks here. Hopefully in Kuala Lumpur.

Bali

Hey everyone we are in Bali. It rocks, it really is sun, sand, sea and surf. The weather although a little cloudy it fantastic. The temperature is perfect and there is a fab breeze to cool us down. The food is a little scary and the people can be a little in your face trying to sell you stuff but we LOVE it here and would defiantly come back. Alex was out surfing today and met someone from Sandyford, my how the world has shrunk in size. While Alex was chatting with the guy out at sea I was on the beach chatting to a lovely lady called Yoman Ani and had a real interesting chat about Hinduism and her life, it was fascinating to hear about what her life is like ad got to share about what God is doing in ours. She was quite taken back and not sure what to make of my beliefs. She wants to me to call tomorrow to buy something from her. As we were leaving the beach she was shouting my name and saying goodbye, it was quite cute really. Pray that she finds God in her life, she was a lovely lady. She is married and has two sons 15 & 10yrs old and she has been working on the beach selling stuff for the last 25yrs!!! Hope to have more chats on the beach with her. The weather was lovely and cloudy so I didn’t burn to a crisp. Also on the beach as Alex came out from surfing a ton of girls came up to us and asked for our photo. It was hilarious we said yes but then we saw about 10 girls with all their cameras snapping away at us, it was like the Bali paparazzi!! We couldn’t stop laughing. We found out they were all here for 5days from Java another island here and wanted to get their picture taken with a foreign person. We’re having lovely times just relaxing by the poolside and beach and eating in some lovely restaurants when we can find them ; ) Bali is just what we needed for this time. God is good. We’re on our way to a cool restaurant we even had to make a reservation so we could get in there. So will update you again soon. Hope everyone is well. Talk to you soon. Alex &Linda Xo

Greetings from Hong Kong

Hey everyone,

Sorry this is overdue, hard to find anything in this city. So far so good. The weather has been wet, wet, wet but 90% humidity so plenty of heat. We have walked so much that we're in bits and have gotten lost so many times in Hong Kong Island with the crowds and mad streets it's not even funny. Our accommodation is brill, would highly recommend if you ever come to Hong Kong to stay in the Boothlodge Hotel in Kowloon, great location and great price!! We have seen most things to see here, done loads of shopping already, which would include my new (Linda) Macbook and I Pod Ahhhhh can't believe I got them. So happy because at least now we can try to find wireless and update and email more frequently. It'll be brill. We'll upload pics as soon as we get to Bali as it's crazy here. We're in our last day in Hong Kong (Fri 15th June) we fly to Bali tomorrow for our next adventure.

Hmm funny stories so far consists of Alex swelling up like a baloon on his legs after the flight, it was hilarious and what sucks is that I lost a real funny pic of him. His legs were like tree trunks : ) those of you that know Alex well know that he has what we call spindles for legs and they were the opposite after a 12hr flight from London to Hong Kong. Other story was of yours truly walking into the guys loos in McyD's here in Hong Kong, looking at a very shocked man who politely told me that I "may" have been in the the wrong restroom. I nearly died. We went to the area where I stayed 7yrs ago on my first missions trip ever, which was to Hong Kong and China so it was really strange being back but so cool to see it 7yrs on and see what many more adventures he brought me on, and being so blessed to be back here again with my husband seeking our future. It's all part of the journey, funny how we get brought back to the starting points of major steps of faith and my trip to Hong kong 7yrs ago was one of those massive steps and he brought me through then he'll certainly bring us through these nexts few steps for the future. The verse he gave me 7yrs ago when I came here was Is 41:10. How appropiate as I begin to panic about the future. Well gotta go but until Bali bye bye.

We love you guys and miss you. Alex and Linda. Xo

Itinerary for our trip

Thought it might be a good idea to give you an outline of where we'll be ~

June~
10th Leave Dublin for Hong Kong there for 5nts.
16th Leave Hong Kong for Bali there for 12nts.
27th Leave Bali for Kuala Lumpur there for 4nts.
31st Leave Kuala Lumpur for Bali and then Bali for Cairns there 6nts.

July ~
8th Leave Cairns for Sydney there for 7nts.
15th Leave Sydney for Wellington, NZ there for 1nt.
16th Leave Wellington for Christchurch there for 2nts. Then travel South Island for 5 more nts.
23rd Leave Queenstown for Wellington there for 1nt. Then 11nts on the North Island.

August ~
4th Leave Auckland for Honolulu there for 7nts. In Hawaii..ahhh can't wait.
11th Leave Honolulu for LAX there for 1nt.
12th Leave Lax for San Francisco there for 3nts.
15th Leave San Francisco for Las Vegas there for 2nts.
17th Leave Las Vegas for Lax in Ventura somewhere for 5nts.
23rd Leave Lax for Home. Arriving into Ireland on the 24th.

The Next Step

Well we've have one week left at City Gates and then we're off for the summer for 3mths on a sabbitcal round the world. We are really looking forward to travelling, having some quality time together and a time to really seek God on our future so we make the right decisions. There are lots of options at the moment so we really need to take time out to see where God is leading us. We are still really excited about training leaders throughout Ireland and helping Irish churches with their youth and their outreach to their communities as well as looking into doing missions trips with different groups. Will update you all as soon as we know what's happening. We will also be updating this blog as we're travelling round so you know where we are and what's happening. I'm sure we'll be guaranteed a couple of stories involving my husband.

The last Gap BBQ for us

The Girly leaders

The girls group

My girls!!

The whole group together


the lads

Our leaders

Gap Easter BBQ 6 Apr '07

Everyone hanging out in the back garden

Hanging out with the chef

Alex's cooking

The leadership team but missing Paul & Paddy.
It's a great group

New guys at our group

Lauren with some new girls

Jon jo, Jonny B, Emma, Eilidh & Sean

Andy & Martin on the Indo board

Megan & James

The lovely couple awwww!! ; )

Mother's Day at home in Cork 18 Mar '07

All the family

The kids, in laws, girlfriend & grand kids

All the girls

All the lads

My older brother Bobby, me, my dad, my mum,
my (baby) brother Andrew & my younger brother
Dave

Grace Church Weekend Away

We were invited to come along on the Grace Church Weekend away and work with the teens and youth leaders. We brought Andy & Naomi along with us for the experience. We had an amazing weekend and God blessed us so much with fellowship, encouragement and so much more. Just a few pics to show you a glimpse of the weekend. They are a non Denominational Irish Church based near Cork City Centre. There are around 500 people who make up Grace Fellowship and they are blessed with people from Ireland, England, Nigeria, South Africa & Brazil and I'm sure many other places. Grace have also committed to helping us financially in our new adventure ahead. They have asked us to come to the church once a month to help train, encourage and give their youth leaders a break. We are really excited and grateful for this amazing opportunity that God has given to us.

Naomi & Andy

Youth & leaders at Grace

Some of the teens

Doing a couple of games with them

Church service at Grace

Beyond48 / Teenstreet Ireland

Wow what a weekend!! There were 370 people for the 1st Teenstreet Ireland. God went above and beyond our prayers and really touched many lives at this weekend. The main speakers were Dan & Suzie Potter and were really used by God to reach the Irish teens. The teens loved them. Om Ireland & a team of youth leaders really put in a lot of work and the weekend was a success. People are already asking when is the next one??? And for it to be at least a week long, haha I think we'd be shattered. Anyhow Beyond48 happened on the 17th-19th of Feb '07. Myself & Alex were responsible for the Interaction Zone, which happened in the evening. We had Sumo suits, seating area for chilling out, book shop, prayer wall, play station area, table tennis, main stage where we had fear factor, games and a dj. It was hard work but so worth it when you saw all the teens having a laugh and mixing. We were also responsible for going on stage & giving a few announcements ahhh we were so nervous getting up there with so many people in front of us. Anyhow I put up a few pics so you can get a better picture of what it was like. Enjoy oh and sorry for the long delay in updating this site, I had fierce hassle trying to upload pics. So hope you enjoy.

Almost finished the room, just need people now.

Service team ~ Lais & Katie, fab girls

The room is full & the wkend begins

Teens from all over Ireland

Kilkenny Castle, this was the town we were in.

Teenstreet Set up

The main room being set up

Omni vision working hard

Leaders meeting, just some of the leaders on the wkend
from around the country!!!

Highlights from the Interaction Zone

Empty room and a big set-up ahead

Starting the work

What to do with this material

We could put it here

Alex having a little break it was a long eve.
Worked from 9-2am