FUSED 2013 - A Quick Recap

Well well well, it's been a while since I've done a proper big blog post here, hasn't it? It's been a pretty busy summer, but that isn't really an excuse. I guess I just haven't had much to say until recently. But that changes today, because today I'm going to write about FUSED. If you know me well, you'll know that for the past four years I have been a leader at a summer scheme in my home town called FUSED. This year, as well as helping out with the Adventurers (kids age 8-11) most days where I worked previously; I had the privilege of actually being a co-section leader of the Swifts (the youngest group) along with my best friend / adoptive big brother Adam Leahy. Leahy is a fantastic guy and a joy to work with. And I hope he's not reading this right now or his ego will inflate like a balloon and he won't let me hear the end of it! We had a fantastic team to  boss around  work with, big shout out to Zoe, James, Megan, Hannah, Cara and Jenny. These guys exceeded expectations despite their young age (most of them were around 16) and were great leaders, both Adam and I felt so blessed to be working with such great people. 

They let us two be in charge, whoops.

Adam Leahy

The fantastic 'Swifts', leaders and kids

If you don't know exactly what FUSED is, here is a video I made to explain it. Incidentally, this video is technically my first ever film under the name 'Joyful Mourne Media' which is exciting, but I'll blog about that more later - 

FUSED 2013 from Joyful Mourne on Vimeo.

I'll just let that video explain what goes on at FUSED. But in writing I can get down to the more nitty gritty stuff. FUSED this year was crazy. Each group has two sessions a day, usually in the afternoon and evening. Swifts, however, has only one session a day, in the morning, allowing me and a few other leaders to take part in another group as well. Three sessions a day was exhausting, I hardly had time to stop and think, but it was good. I would have hated to miss out on helping out with the Adventurers this year, so it was great to go back there with the usual team. 

And the kids, oh how I love those kids! They are so enthusiastic and excited to come back every year which is such an encouragement to see! They clamber over you and give you odd nicknames (a new one for me this year was 'Kangaroo') and attempt to get piggy backs and draw you pictures and they are just the best things ever! This year they seemed more curious than ever, kids that seem so young and innocent ask such hard hitting questions that leave us humbled, and it's just crazy to see how hungry they are for learning more about God. Over 20 youth gave their lives to Christ this summer at FUSED, which is so exciting!! I know numbers shouldn't be something to focus on, and I can tell you that that is not what we focus on, but it's still wonderful news and I am so excited for them all. Keep those kids in your prayers as they start their new lives with God! 

I always find FUSED a very humbling experience. There are days in it every year when I feel like absolute crap, if I'm honest. It's a fortnight of spiritual warfare, when I can always feel like I'm being attacked at my weak points. But I always come out the other end stronger. FUSED is not only great for those kids, but it's a great experience for the leaders too, and I thank God for that. Having been as a youth before I was a leader, it's great being able to watch the programme grow from its early , humble beginnings to something so much bigger. I encourage you to support it in any way you can, whether its becoming a leader next year or even just keeping it in your prayers. FUSED is a beacon of hope in what have been a dark and scary few months in Newcastle, Co Down, and I thank God for it. 

Jo's Film Diary

Just gonna get stuck straight in... I want to make films about Jesus.

I made a post about this kinda stuff earlier in the year [see that post here] but I felt for a while that I should attempt to make a vlog about it, just because I'm not good at talking about it in real life. You can watch that vlog below, which I would love it if you did just that. It's fairly long, about 9 minutes, which is pretty long for a vlog, but I cut it down as much as possible haha! There's more I could say but this was the basics - 

I think this is something I'll continue to do, vlog updates about what's going on with the project. I think that way, the people who watch these things can keep me accountable, which is something I desperately need. So please watch, and you will hopefully see more of these soon (and hopefully some actual short films). If you are genuinely interested in what I will be doing, the best way to keep updated is probably to subscribe on YouTube, if you have an account, then you'll get notified there every time I upload one of these things.

EDIT: A big thank you to everyone who has responded to this video, whether on YouTube itself, on other social media sites or in person. Your support means the world to me, seriously. I've definitely noticed an increase in people asking me about it, which is great for accountability, please keep that up! It's nice when I hear people being interested in it anyway.

Technicolour Reverie

I will always have a fondness for this film. This is the first short film I ever made, at the young age of sixteen. There are so many things wrong with it, but I still really like it. Take a wee look for yourself, I thought I might as well post it here for something to watch in the mean time while I get my next films organised - 

A-Z of Me [Because I'm Bored]

I found this little list of A-Z questions on Kelli Taylor's blog, She Learns As She Goes. Kelli is part of the Blimey Cow trio, probably my favourite YouTube channel! You should definitely check both the blog and the channel out! Let's give this a go shall we?

A // Available or Married?
Uh... neither? I am currently attached to a lovely boy named Patrick, we started dating in our last year of high school and have now been together for two and a half years! This is a recent photograph of us from a walk we went on last week.

B // Book?
Well for my birthday me parents bought me a kindle, which was lovely, so I've been rereading Pride and Prejudice on it! Great book. Couldn't think of my favourite book to be honest. I'd like to say I read the Bible a lot, but the truth is I really don't and I could really do with doing that more often!

C // Cake or pie?
Cake! Chocolate cake! Birthday cake!! All the cake and icing and heavenly goodness!!

D // Drink of choice?
I do like a bit of Coca Cola, though I am yet to find one with my name on it, how disappointing!

E // Essential item?
Clifford the big red camera! Or any camera for that matter. I never leave the house without one. I love capturing all those little moments throughout each day, I'm actually taking up a Project 365 right now, you can check that out here.

F // Favorite color?
Yellow; yellow is the colour of happiness and sunshine and I just like it a lot! The song 'Yellow Shirt' by the Icarus Account also plays a big part in why I like that colour so much.

G // Game to play or watch?
I take it this means sport? Never really one for team sports. I do enjoy video games though, I play quite a bit of Pokemon and Mario etc etc

H // Hometown?
I come from the beautiful Newcastle, Co. Down, a little town by the sea and mountains in Northern Ireland! I have better photographs, but this was the only one I could find right now. I love it. I currently live in Edinburgh right now though, also a really lovely part of the world.

I // Indulgence?
Coke, popcorn, Cadbury's chocolate, pizza, my mothers' cooking, too much stuff to be honest haha!

J // Job?
Working on that right now! Waiting to hear back about what could be a very cool job, we'll see how that goes. Keep me in your prayers as this would really be an ideal job for me!

K // Kids and names?
Don't have any! Not planning to have any for a while haha but I hope that I will have quite a few some day! In the mean time, my cameras are my children haha! And they do have names - Clifford, Nora, Manfred and Rodney.

L // Life is incomplete without...?
For me? God. Couldn't cope without Him, like really. And people around me to support and encourage me.

M // Music group or singer?
I am completely in love with NEEDTOBREATHE, such a great band! I love all their songs, but in particular 'Slumber', 'Stones Under Rushing Water', 'Keep Your Eyes Open', 'A Place Only You Can Go' and 'The Outsiders' are some of my personal favourites. Here's a little video I made a few years ago using 'The Outsiders' as music.

Also currently loving Gabrielle Aplin, Imagine Dragons, Phil Wickham, Chasing Owls, Rend Collective Experiment and many more! Check them out too!

N // Number of siblings?
I'm the eldest of 3, I have a brother, Thomas, 18 and a sister, Katie, 8. They're pretty cool!

O // Oranges or apples?
Hmmmm, oranges as the fruit itself, but I love apple as a flavour in sweets and drinks and puddings etc

P // Phobias and fears?
As I mention a lot in this blog, FOMO, the fear of missing out, is a big issue of mine. But I am slowly getting over it which feels wonderful! To stop feeling so anxious about that sort of thing is amazing! Also, jellyfish. I hate jellyfish.

Q // Quote?
"As you may know, I am a full time internet" - @horse_ebooks on Twitter

R // Reason to smile?
Lots of stuff, I am very blessed. I smile knowing I am loved by God and by my friends and family. This keeps me going in harder times.

S // Season?
I do love Spring, it's my favourite season.

T // Tattoos?
Ooo well I want one of a centurion helmet with the reference 'Ephesians 6:11' on my arm, that would be cool. Dunno when I'll get it, but sometime I hope!

U // Unknown fact?
Hmmm.... I was once pooped on by a hippopotamus. True story.

V // Vegetables you love?
I do love a bit of spinach!

W // Worst habit?
I'm certainly one for procrastinating (this blog post is testament to that as I should be storyboarding right now), and I'm not the best at keeping my room tidy either!

X // X-rays you've had?
None so far... thankfully!

Y // Your favorite food?
This is a very difficult question!! I love chicken pie, mmm, that stuffs good. A nice Indian take out as well would be lovely!

Z // Zodiac?
I believe I'm a Gemini but I don't really care about that sort of thing.

Well that was fun, now you know a bit more about me I guess! :) if you are a blogger yourself, you should do it too and send me a link so I can look at it! x

Epic

After spilling my feelings out in my last blog post I figured it's a good time to write something a little more lighthearted! So why not another film review? Yes, good idea. Well today I shall be reviewing the new film 'Epic', which is out in cinemas now.

When I was looking after my little sister last weekend I asked her if she wanted to go see anything in the cinema, and she said she wanted to see 'Epic'. I didn't know much about the film, but I knew Blue Sky Studios were pretty good, having released such great as Ice Age and Horton Hears A Who. The film also boasted a talented and er, interesting voice cast, featuring the likes of actors Amanda Seyfried, Colin Farrell, Josh Hutcherson, Chris O'Dowd, Aziz Ansari, Christoph Waltz and Jason Sudeikis; and musicians Steven Tyler, Beyonce and Pitbull. Yes, Pitbull.

I have to say I actually really enjoyed this film, a lot more than I expected to. A lot more of an adventure story than a comedy, it has its funny moments but overall it presents an engaging storyline of love, family, good versus evil, belonging and defending your home. The characters are extremely likeable, I really found myself drawn into the characters' plights. Plus O'Dowd and Ansari are hilarious as the snail and slug respectively.

Also, can we talk about how beautifully animated this film is?! It's gorgeous!! Just take a look at the trailer here. Okay, maybe I have a thing for forests, and this is pretty much an hour and a half of beautiful forest animation. That makes me a very happy film student. The textures and the colours and just gahhh, I'm not good at describing it. I just really liked it a lot. The trailer here gives you a good idea of the look and feel of the movie. Just lovely. 

I have one complaint - why name the film 'Epic'?! You've just built up an expectation that the film itself will be 'epic', which is pretty ambitious of you, despite how good the film actually is. Also, with the overuse of the word epic on the internet, you've made it notoriously difficult to search for your film online, as the vast majority of what will come up will quite likely be those Epic Win / Epic Fail pics. Bad choice of title guys. But, that is really my only fault with this film!

I'd definitely recommend it for adults and kids alike, head to your local cinema and go watch it!!

Living on a Prayer

Well, as of about 24 hours ago I am back in Northern Ireland for my summer holiday. Second year of university is over. We're half way there! And now I've got 'Living on a Prayer' by Bon Jovi stuck in my head. Anyway... looking back on the year, it's been pretty crazy! I payed bills for the first time in my life, that was very scary and grown up and I didn't like it at all! I made a few films with university, one of which I'm pretty proud of and you can watch and read about here. I took lots of photographs too, and wrote a good few essays. It's been a big learning curve in university, I've discovered what I'm good at and what I'm not good at, which has been a very interesting experience. I did lots of fun stuff like go to the zoo, visit people in England, take a surprise trip home, host a messy flat party, go to other messy flat parties and lots more stuff! Hmmm... what else did I do? Oh yeah, I started going to Central, a church in the centre of Edinburgh, and there I got convinced to sign up for Potential, only the best fellowship I've ever had... like ever!! 

Now any one who knows me well knows that I am a very sentimental/mushy person. And if you didn't know that, well, you're about to find out. You've been warned. 

When I first signed up for Potential, I have to admit I was skeptical. It was an all girls Bible study, and yes, the Bible is great, but all girls? That's a bit risky, eh? We all know what girl groups can be like, there's all the potential for cliques to emerge, for cat fights to break out etc etc. It seemed only natural! Like many I imagine, I personally have not had a good history of being in groups of girls. I'll not bore you with all the details but I have pretty much always found myself on the outside of groups of girls, never quite sure where I stood, feeling pretty left out. So when I signed up for Potential I assumed it would be much of the same story. To use the phrase made famous by Thorin Oakenshield in The Hobbit: I have never been so wrong!

As soon as I turned up on the first week I knew that I was going to get along really well with these girls, but still for the first few weeks I waited for the cliques to emerge, for groups to start making friends around me, but to my delight, it never happened. Very quickly we became a giant close-knit group of friends, who were constantly encouraging and building each other up. We studied the Bible together, prayed for each other, and had an awful lot of laughs at the same time! I was welcomed into this group with open arms, and always felt so loved whenever I walked into that kitchen every Tuesday night. And I wasn't the only one! Any of the other girls I talked to about their experience of it agreed that they loved this fellowship. One thing I loved about it was that girls who only turned up once or twice were treated no differently from girls who had been every week. That's brilliant. Turns out not all girl groups have to involve a negative experience, in fact, they they can be quite the opposite!

I'm very grateful for Potential and all the girls there right now. Through all that support and community,  I believe I have grown a lot this year, in both confidence, maturity, and my faith. I've begun to face a lot of my fears, some I didn't even realise I had before, some that have been really dragging me down for years and years. But all that is starting to get better! Without them I don't think I would have had the courage or determination to get up in front of 400ish people and tell my testimony and get baptised. I feel I have a lot better of an understanding of what God wants me to do with my life, and I'm slowly beginning to sort myself out, to start changing for the better, so that I may do that. 

To the Potential girls reading this right now, I guess I just wanted you to know how grateful I am for you. You guys are are amazing, God is doing awesome things through you all! You all have become very important to me. Keep being those wonderful ladies you are. I love you and miss you! Thank you for a great year and I'm excited for starting a new one with you all as my friends!! Now trust me, I could write pages and pages more on how great you all are and how much you make me laugh and how you've helped me etc etc but there's only so much cheesy stuff I can write in one post before I just turn into a massive block of mozzarella or something. So I'll leave it here. But yeah, I love you guys. Thank you.

“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven." - Matthew 5:13

Laughable

"He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision." Psalm 4:2

I had a very humbling experience yesterday. For a while I'd been struggling with a few things. Pretty much I wanted to become a better person, and I wanted to do good things for God. I had faith in God, and I truly believed that He could make me a better person and help me do the things he wanted me to do. But there was a voice in the back of my mind, holding me back, telling me I wasn't good enough. I had faith in God alright, but absolutely no faith in myself. Self doubt is something that cripples me a lot. It was like although I knew God had the power, I didn't trust myself to be open enough or 'spiritual' enough to let God do these things within me. Does that make sense? I dunno, but it was something that I had been thinking. I just felt completely useless before God, too useless to be changed for the better. 

It was something I hadn't thought about for a while, but I brought it up last night in a discussion with some fellow students in my church. On the way home I brought it up in prayer again, and this time I felt a response. It's not often that I really feel a response when I pray, so it was a pretty exciting moment. What was the response I felt? Well, I felt God laugh at me. Yep, you read that right. Not in a mean way, or a harsh way, but a loving way. The way a father would laugh at his tantruming two year old, full of love and empathy. I felt that he was asking me, "So, what you're implying here, is that you think your inability is powerful enough to hinder my ability? Ha! If I wanted to change something within you, do you honestly think you could stop me? Who are you?"

Well, I just had to laugh at myself as well. What an idiot I was being! My inability, my uselessness, my stupidity, my failures; they are all irrelevant with God, because He is above and beyond them all. I was reminded of that part of the Exodus story, when Moses encounters God at the burning bush. Moses complains of his own weakness and God puts him in his place, reminding him that he is powerful above all weakness. It's probably one of my favourite bits in the Bible, I love it because Moses reminds me a lot of myself at this point, scared and doubtful. "Moses said to the Lord, “Pardon your servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.” The Lord said to him, “Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute? Who gives them sight or makes them blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.”" - Exodus 4:10-12

I think it's good to laugh at yourself, it's humbling. Maybe we should do that more often. And don't ever feel like you're too far gone for God to fix, or not good enough for him to do anything with. Yeah, we're broken, we're messed up, but that's what's amazing about God, he can still fix us and use us, and he chooses to do so. Cool.