September already? October actually.

Flip me. That was unexpected. I'm 18 already. And it's September. AND I'm in my last year of school. This is all a bit ridiculous. It seems like only yesterday that I was sitting in Mrs Magowan's room 14 years ago learning how to write. Well, maybe that's a slight exaggeration. Two days ago at least.

Well, where shall I start. I've neglected this blog somewhat, but given that I have genuinely been busy, I think I have a reasonable excuse. I'm back at school, a blessing in my opinion. It's brilliant to get back to structured work and a bit of a routine, to see all my friends again, and to be back to my beloved maths. I do however miss my dear Philip. Many a year we sat beside each other on that bus, and now I'm stuck with Ross McGrady. Which isn't a bad thing to be fair. But I shall still miss my good friend Phil, with whom I shared many a great moment in and outside of school.

But as for school THIS year, I'm loving it. Dropping physics was a rather good decision on my part, I'm keeping up with my work, getting homeworks finished, and enjoying the work I'm doing. German is great now that I realise that I can get by in a foreign country on my own, and have a decent amount of competence in the subject and language, and my goodness did I miss maths. I missed the feeling of thinking you knew something only to be proved wrong halfway through the exercise (Binomial distribution). I missed the knowledge that I could still work sufficiently well despite dossing about in class, and that I got on really well with all the teachers. All in all, school's lived up to expectations, I'm having a fantastic time.

Birthday. That was amazing. I had three of my closest friends round to celebrate my important day, namely Nikki, Courtney and Sally. Between the four of us and Steve, we had an afternoon to remember. Nikki, Steve and I depressed ourselves by revealing our insane knowledge of the first generation of Pokemon (stupid flipping crabs), and then proceeded to laugh ourselves silly to Airplane, in my opinion, the wittiest and best film ever to have been made.

And as I write the next paragraph, I realise that a month has passed since the last one. I've been so flipping busy. I'm currently in Germany doing a school exchange, having the time of my life, meeting new people, new friends that I'll have for the rest of my life. All in all, I love this place. And as I sit here listening to Hillsong and writing my blog in the new found sunshine, I just thank God for everything that has happened to me in the last month. I've become a better person I think, I'm a core leader at youth club, an absolute dream of mine, I've taught a Sunday School class, I'm getting more and more involved in the church and loving every second of it, I might even be going to Ghana next summer with the church to do some missionary work. And despite the financial problems and loss of a dear friend (for the time being at least), my life is perfect. I have God by my side every step of the way, and I just love being used my God in such an awesome way.

I also want to mention a book. A fantastic book, and many thanks to Open Doors Deutschland for giving me this as a birthday present, "God's Smuggler" by Brother Andrew has completely changed my outlook on things, God used him in the most extraordinary ways, fictional writers couldn't come up with something quite so extraordinary, and the fact that Brother Andrews story is a true one just boggles my mind. Anyone who wants it, give me a buzz and I'll be happy to lend it to you for a while.

And for now that is that. I shall write again when I get home to a proper keyboard, and hopefully with some great news from Open Doors.

Until later, God bless.