Trying to get back to normal!

One thing that I didn't think was so hard is to write a blog post after several weeks MIA. But here I am struggling to find the words to describe the somewhat short journey ive been on since arriving back home.

I arrived home from South Africa on December 6th which for many people started the run up to Christmas, for me it started the question " what next? " What would I do in my future.
After much consideration I decided to drop all questions and let Christmas pass before I worried about ' Tomorrow '

The Christmas celebrations started the very night I returned home at the Wyldlife Christmas Club, we played silly games, had a halarious Christmas Calculator skit and we even met santa even if it was in the form of a good friend of mine Jordan :)
The next Christmasy thing to look forward to was Moonlight Missions that is held at my church every year, this year the theme was frozen. As always it proved to be a good night.

Now with only 5 days till Christmas everyone excited for Santa and presents there was only one thing on my mind...

The next few days proved to be manic with visits to the family, Christmas eve communion at church and the Christmas day service celebrating the main reason for the season... JESUS, the fact that he came into a normal family in the most innocent of ways 'a baby ' born into a mess so that he could fix our Mess.

Christmas Day arrived and it was off to Grandas to see the family and surprise him with his present :) A Shitzu ( excuse the spelling ) called Jake :D BUT one thing that I knew we were all thinking was " if only Nanny Violet was here ". My dad, my brother and myself then indulged in the beautest Christmas dinner ever at my Aunty and Uncles.
Christmas Day Night was then spent at my Great Aunts house, who hosts us every single year for nibbles and drinks :)

Boxing day was again spent at my grandas house, all the boys where at their annual boxing day football match (Linfield vs Glentoran). Boxing day was a great day with good food and even better company :)

I don't know much but one thing I do know is that my Nanny Violet would have been soo proud of the family all pulling together to have a really great Christmas. 

It's now 30th December 2014, the year is almost over and now I am still answering the same questions "what's next? "
Ive just applied for my dream job,  I have the greatest friends and family ever so I guess the answer is "Just wait and see"
And to
Live life everyday as it comes because tomorrow is never guaranteed ♥

This is a messy blog post and again I'm sorry for the lack of structure.

(Photos below)
Much love... Courtney xx

This is a selfie I had to take of this wee cutie Jake, my dad and I had the privallage to look after him for two days before Christmas as a surprise for my Grandad.

I Met Santa !!! 

My three lovely friends and I at Moonlight Missions.

Getting ready for Santa Claus.

Busy doing nothing

ILet me say one thing first,  im sorry (kind of) for not posting in six weeks but I've been busy doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

In other words I have no real reason for my absence.
Let me rewind to three weeks ago when I was greeted at the airport by four of the greatest people I know,  my bestfriends. Straight home to leave the bags,  a quick chat with my dad and then off to the church for a Chinese and lots of fun at Wyldlife. 
It was such a great day seeing everyone again after 10 amazing weeks In South Africa ♥

 

What have you been doing since then I hear you ask ( or not but ill tell you anyway)

Ive been sorting pictures, been at moonlight missions,  and Christmas time. 
See ? I told you I've done nothing.
This post was just a follow up ans im going to try and post regularly ( not making any promises tho)

Much love... Courtney xx

Week SIx ??

It’s hard to believe that im finishing my sixth week here in South Africa. Feels like yesterday I found out I got a place on this project. Not going to lie parts of it has been very challenging but I feel almost all of them have added a learning curve to this experience.

I wasn’t sure what to include in this post so I thought since we’ve just had our mid way project debrief id give you my highlights of the first six weeks in KwaZulu- Natal, one for each week ive been here. (Not one from each week)

1. The first one has to be meeting the spectacular team of course, made up of 60 unique individuals from all over the place, South Africa, England, Wales and of course the best of all Northern Ireland (im not biased, promise). 

2.  Being able to say I am 1 in 10000 ICS volunteers…..

3. Being able to go into Children’s Support Groups and teaches them life lessons, such as Healthy Eating, Growth and Development and Hygiene etc.

4. (Similar to Above) but Highlight number four has to be seeing Children Smile…..  Unconditional Love goes along way.  I can’t make a difference in their lives but they sure as heck have made a difference in mine even in this short period of time.

5. Midway Debreif, a beautiful day spent with beautiful people in beautiful surroundings…. What more can you ask for ?

  

6. The sixth highlight obviously has to be from Tala Game Reserve where we seen stunning animals up close.

Credit to Becky who took the last two photos cheers Kid

P.S it was very hard to only choose six photos as highlights during a time that hasn’t failed to disappoint…..

Much Love Courtney…. xx

SOUTH AFRICA !!

Sawubona from  Kwazulu Natal, South Africa !!

Its hard to believe I've been in this beautiful country for almost a month now... Ningani? (how are you in Zulu)

Let me give you a short overview of what I've been up to since I've been here. 

WEEK 1:  We arrived at Durban International airport were we were greeted by Tracey who is our In Country Manager, she split us into our teams and some of us headed to The Valley Trust  (TVT) where we will be staying for the duration of our stay. Another team went into Inner Durban where they will be based and the final team went to their base at Lilly of the Valley. 

Week 1 was also our training weekend where all three teams met at the TVT for training on various aspects that we may come across while in our projects.  This week was also a great opportunity to interact with the teams we will be spending most of our time with, specifically the South African In country Volunteers who we only met this week.

WEEK 2:  This was the first week that we actually went into our organisations to see the work that we will be doing.   

So where am I i hear you ask ?

I am based with an Organisation called Hillcrest Aids Centre Trust (HACT). HACT is a multifaceted, holistic HIV/AIDS project that exists to provide unconditional love to all infected and affected by HIV/AIDS in a practical, sustainable way. It was founded in 1990 as part of a ministry of Hillcrest Methodist Church as response to the then Minister's conviction that the church needed to respond to the emerging HIV pandemic. HACT have many projects all of which focus on three main aspects, Care, Poverty Alleviation and Prevention of new infections. 

As a team of Five, Lungelo, Tshepo, Keziah, Abi and Myself   we have been involved with two projects directly, the first one being the Feeding scheme that happens every two weeks, this project provides food parcels to around 40 families who have no other form of income and no way of accessing food.  The feeding scheme is only a short term solution to hunger and HACT work with them to find a longer term solution's by helping them access grants or introduce them to their Income Generations schemes.

The other Project we have been involved with is the Children s Programme, were we go into support groups for children who are infected and affected by HIV/AIDS either directly or Indirectly and we deliver lessons on various topics. e.g Healthy Eating, Growth and Development etc we also play games with them and even sing some songs :)

This work that we have been doing will continue for the remainder of my time here in South Africa.

WEEK 3:  Again we were in HACT and the work was basically the same as the week before as I've previously mentioned, but this week myself and Tshepo went to a parenting Course delivered by a gentleman called Gavin Kruger. The main aim of this workshop was focusing on Parenting with Assurance. it was a very informative day and we were able to bring back the information we learnt and put it into some of our lesson plans.   Saturday 18th October all three teams met at Spirit of Adventure to do some team building exercises. it was a really great day and it was awesome to catch up with the other two teams to hear all about their projects and see how they are all getting on personally. 

WEEK 4: Has only really begun, Monday we were in HACT offices doing so admin to make sure that they had all the correct information about the children in the Support Groups, Tuesday we went out with Bongi on the Feeding Scheme for the second time, it was a blessing as usual. On Wednesday (today) we stayed at TVT and prepared a lesson plan regarding Growth and Development for the support group that we are going to tomorrow for children aged 4-11. 

As a whole TVT team (28 of us) we have planned some extra projects to do outside our main projects so once they get started ill hopefully be able to tell you more about them in my next blog post.... 

Here is some Pictures of what I've been up to.

TEAM SOUTH AFRICA

Tshepo and I delivering a Food Parcel to a member of the community

A well deserved Cup of Tea in a lovely cafe after project last Friday

Raft Building at Spirit of Adventure

The Winning Team :)

 Hope this Post makes sense, much love .... Courtney xx

Meningitis Charity Ball

One of the reasons I started this blog was to keep those interested up to date with what I've been getting up to, mainly to be used when I start my placement in South Africa but I decided to blog during the summer to get used to this new venture. 

Although I do apologise for the fact that what I'm about to talk about happened before my week in Craigavon(see previous blog) but I couldn't not tell you guys about it.

So here goes....

On Friday 15th August I attended a charity ball with some of my closest friends from school, church and other people I did not know ;) 

The charity at the forefront of the evening was Meningitis Now.

Why you may be asking yourselves ? 

To cut a long story short it was my big brother Christopher who organised and planned this event in memory of our sister Gemma who sadly passed away from Meningitis when she was nine months old, 3 years and nine months before I was born to be precise. 

This wasn't the first event my brother had organised for Meningitis, the first being a football tournament but in my opinion this was the most successful. 

It was an all round fantastic evening with food, table entertainment, photographs, ballot, auction and live music for the remainder of the event. 

I personally had such a good night as I was able to spend it with my nearest and dearest. 

But what really made it special was two guests in particular, Steve and Gloria Dayman. For the average person these names may not mean anything in particular but for my family they are as Steve was the founder of the meningitis trust charity who supported my family back in 1993 when Gemma passed away. For them to be there and share the night was phenomenal !!! 

The main aim I want to get across in this post, which I don't say very often is that I AM SUPER PROUD OF MY BIG BROTHER, he was able to pull off a incredible night and raise awareness and vital funds for meningitis now to help research along. 

A staggering £2147, so well done Christopher, you should be very proud because I sure am. 

(I'll leave you with a photo of my fiends and I suited and booted, don't we look dashing? ) 

(*photo by Curtis Irvine Photography*) 

Much love..... Courtney x 

Craigavon Summer Mission 2014

Recently I had the privilege to spend a week with 30ish teenagers/leaders from my church and around 150 kids in Craigavon Baptist Church.

It undoubtedly ranks itself as the best week of this year.

This is the second year West Church have teamed up with the local church in Craigavon to deliver a five day holiday Bible club for primary school aged children.   During this week we lead the kids in songs, crafts,  arts, games,  snacks and story stations with a day dedicated as a salvation day.  On this day the message of Jesus living, dying and rising again is the focus of the day, giving the kids the opportunity to place their hearts on the cross as a way of asking Jesus into their lives.

Craigavon 2014 taught me a lesson that I already knew but never really understood untill now.  It taught me that even tho hardships will happen and evil will try to influence our minds it will never succeed because we have a Awesome God on OUR side that will always be beside us, He will never leave us and He will Never give us more than we can handle.
Craigavon 2014 taught me the true meaning of friendship,  love, kindness and Patience.

As I sit here writing down these words I can't even truly express how valuable Craigavon 2014 as been in my life.  I want to say soo much but I can't find the right words to do it justice so ill end by saying.

Iam eternally grateful for the amazing experiences that I can face with my family in West Church but I am even more grateful for a God that loves me more than I can ever imagine

Much love... Courtney x

World of Owls

 29th July 2014, I had an awesome day with two awesome people, they look like proper tourists haha, all they need is a big camera and a weird touristy stance ;) 

Apart from the wasps (well no because that made it HALARIOUS) I had an amazing day at the World of Owls. I kid you not this place had the most beautifulest (if that's a word) owls I have ever seen. 

Now if I knew how to reduce the size of this photo I would but i can't haha. This tiny owl was by far e cutest, I mean just look at those eyes ;) 

I don't really know how to structure this blog because I can't comprehend how awesome it was... Although I'll finish by saying I was grinning from ear to ear throughout the whole dare especially when I got to hold Harley, an owl who was in Harry Potter (how cool is that??) 

I'll leave you with another photo.

Much love..... Courtney x 

The lady's

Now the picture you see below is a picture of the lovely lady's I call my bestfriends.... Kerry, Hannah and Bethan.

They are the weirdest bunch of people in my life and that's why I love them. 

Each one of them are my friend for a different reason, we are all sooooo different but that's what makes us click. We have many fall outs but an hour later and we are right back to where we began.

Without these girls I wouldn't know where I would be but with them I know I am always going to have someone to talk to when I need advise or someone to rant with.

We laugh together 

We cry together (well Hannah does haha)

But more importantly we love God together.

These girls are the ones who continually encourage me and love me through the good times and the rough times.

I thank God for them every single day and I pray to God we will be friends till the end of my days ❤️

So Kerry, Hannah and Bethan... Keep being you because I love yous soo much

Much love.... Courtney x 

Good Ole West

Remember that "West church" I spoke of?? 

Well this is a lovely weird photo that was taken of 82of our youth and some leaders who took part in a Easter Mission scheme in our church....

  West church has been the biggest part of my life practically since I was born, it has given me the best opportunities that any girl could ask for.

They (I say they because west is more than a building, it's a family) have let me be apart of something    so amazing that I can't even contemplate. 

I grew up through West, nursery, Sunday school, Young West, mission trips and lots and lots of Banter. They introduced me to the best friends I could ever imagine. 

"There's no place I'd rather be, than here In your love" 

Weird Animals team on Weird Wednesday!!

Much love.... Courtney x 

Getting to know Courtney

Today I decided that I want to start blogging... So here I am writing my first ever blog.

I couldn't decide what to blog as I'm new to this so I concluded that I should probably let people learn a little more about me.

So here's 10 facts about me !!

My name is Courtney

I am 18 years old

I have finished 14 long years of education as of June 2014

I have one brother 

I love to diabolo

Have 8 amazing cousins 

I go to West Church Bangor Presbyterian and I love it.

I have the three best friends you could imagine

In September 2014 I will be heading to South Africa for 10 weeks with a charity called Tearfund.

Okay so that was nine but that will have to do ;) 

Much love.... Courtney x