cheesy grin cheesier posting it 

May 2004 me in my mess 

CHOCOLATE QUIZ made by Lyssa

1.	Who were the first people known to have used cacao?
2.	In what part of the world was cacao first grown?
3.	How were cacao seeds first used?
4.	Europeans from which country first shipped cacao from its place of origin back to Europe?
5.	In what century?
6.	What did they add to the drink which changed forever the way it was used?
7.	In what country did chocolate become a state monopoly that could only be consumed by the royal court?
8.	What happened in the 1800s which made chocolate cheaper and therefore available for the masses?
9.	In what decade was the first solid chocolate bar developed for snacking?
10.	Which botanist gave chocolate its scientific name?
11.	And what was that name? What is its literal translation into English?
12.	T/F Chocolate was used to treat haemorrhoids (piles).
13.	T/F Chocolate was used to ease childbirth pains.
14.	What shape are the pods containing the cacao seeds?
15.	How many seeds are in an average pod?
16.	How many milk chocolate candy bars does that make?
17.	How many cacao harvests are there per year?
18.	T/F Cacao is related to the coconut tree.
19.	T/F Cacao is related to the coca plant (cocaine source).
20.	Which country produces roughly 40% of the world’s supply of cacao?
21.	Which country imports & grinds the most cacao?
22.	Which country consumes the most chocolate per person (10 kg per person per year)?
23.	What is the world’s best selling chocolate candy bar?
24.	What is the best selling chocolate bar in Britain?
25.	Cacao beans are fermented for how long after harvesting?
26.	What irritating little creature, also found in Britain, pollinates cacao flowers?
27.	Which environmental conditions are best for growing cacao plants?
28.	How many varieties of cacao plant are there?
29.	What is your favourite chocolate candy?
30.	Which country in the world makes the best chocolates?
	TOTAL:

Keeping up

Hello land of lines of text and the occasional picture!

Today is Thursday and on Thursday we have awaken to the grey skies of a typical English spring. Yesterday while walking around the countryside of the Rivlen valley with Bethany School on walk "C" I thought I had been transported to some other warm sunny beautiful place. It was the euphoria of a sunny day out that made us think about holidays (vacations to you yanks). The Bode's have never been annual holiday takers. We just have not been able to afford it. And we have always combined "ministry" with time way. Most of all our children rarely get a proper holiday. The kind where you go somewhere to relax and don't do anything and don't have a schedule to keep to. A place in the sun. When they were quite young one time we went camping. I thought it was a holiday but Lyssa did not think so. One time we went to stay in Chicago, but to try and save money we stayed at a cockroach infested apartment where the kids were sleeping on the floor covered in roaches. Yuck!!!!!
One time we had our best holiday ever, but sadly not with the kids. My folks took us to Mexico, to an island called Cozemel. Wow, that was great!!!!
So yesterday Emily was begging to have us as a family go to Corfu an Island off Greece. She was looking at pictures. And she was looking for flights and hotels.
We have and do lots of things. Things, many people will never get to do, try, see, hear, experience. Maybe if we can get ourselves more financial footed or find a real steal of a deal the Bode's can have a week or two in the sun just relaxing.

Time Zones

I live in GMT! Greenwich Mean Time.
I have friends that live in other time zones. Do you know what that is like? I suppose you do if you are reading this you may be my friend and live in another time zone.
Right now it is
06:00 in EST Michigan and the East coast of America
12:00 in Belgium
05:00 in CST Chicago Illinois and the Midwest
21:02 is the time for my friend in Australia


http://www.timeanddate.com/

Here is a link to a clock that covers people I know.

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/custom.html?cities=234,64,77,136,48,240

Keswick

I'm with guys from our church in Keswick, Cumbria. This is a beautiful area refered to as the Lake District, the place prefered by Wordsworth. I am here learning about the Puratins. Specifically we are reading John Owens on the Holy Spirit. Please pray for up 8 guys.

Dietary supplements?

Jean is my grandmother on my mothers side.

For as long as I can remember Jean has taken a

gargantuan

cocktail of vitamins. Although this is not strictly true. I think I vaguely remember Grandma Jean crediting her

elixir

of longevity to our octogenarian German immigrant retired agricultural working neighbors, Bernie and Hertha. They took vitamins too.

Sometime in my fathers life before he was my current age he started taking vitamins each day.

And now each day so do I.

My dad is happy, I suppose my g-ma would be too.

One of the large capsules I down each day is cod liver oil. My older English friend remembers having to take that each day. I recently with in the past week saw an article suggesting because the English diet now contain so little fish that the population was becoming quite deficient in omega-3 fatty thing-a-ma-bobs. Sounds heinous.

Among the concoctian I administer myself is a couple of herbs Echinatia.

So the big question of the moment is, "Do you take dietary supplements?" Do you think they are any good for you?

Sorted or sordid?

Sorted or sordid?
According to the Compact Oxford English Dictionary;

sorted• adjective Brit.organized; arranged. 2 emotionally well balanced.
sordid • adjective involving ignoble actions and motives. 2 dirty or squalid. —
DERIVATIVES sordidly adverb sordidness noun—
ORIGIN Latin sordidus from sordere ‘be dirty’

To my ear not only do these two words sound similar but they seem to me to be related. You may even see them as opposites. At the very least you can infer that a person who is sordid will not be very sorted at the truest level of what it means to be well balanced.
Often we see tidiness akin to cleanliness, and I can understand why.

If nothing else we ought to try and pronounce the words we are using so that the confusion won't exist.
You could say, My friend is sordid. Or speaking about a future engagement that has terribly gone wrong because the person you were booking the entertainment and venue through turns out to be a child molester. So a friend asks( not knowing of the sordid affair) how the plans are going and you reply, "It's sordid", But your friend hears, "It's sorted" and figures you have all the details worked out.

The problem arises from a situation where a bunch of scum bags are meticulously planning some vile event and then they would have to say, "the sordid affair is sorted."

Two very dear friends! Maybe they will come to visit again. 

York Minster, York taken by Matt Falzon 16/02/2005 

a couple of things

I'm not sure what you know about the Salem witch trials but this may be of interest to you.


http://www.nationalgeographic.com/features/97/salem/

Have you even heard about the King James Debate? Well this is an interesting bit of information for those who have.

http://www.locksley.com/6696/kjv1611.htm


Earlier today I nearly beat all the levels of this Disney Princess game, even after Bethany left me here all alone.
The US and UK sites are different!
Oh go to fun and games, Princess Challenge is the game.
http://www.disney.co.uk/DisneyOnline/princess/


Last time I was in London I saw this:

http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/compass/ixbin/goto?id=OBJ67

Pretty cool.

And this is a great site!!!!!

http://www.wikipedia.org/

House church

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

House church is an informal term for a group of Christians gathering regularly or spontaneously in a home instead of a building dedicated to the purpose. Another term with the same meaning is "home church".

Some groups meet like this because they lack a conventional church building; but these are not normally regarded as house churches. Others meet in homes because they prefer to meet informally, or because they believe meeting in a home is the true pattern set in the first century and intended by Christ. Some, perhaps, meet in homes for several of these reasons.

[edit]

Structure and organisation

House churches should not be confused with "cell churches". A house church is not normally part of a larger, overseeing organization, although the group may associate informally with other Christians and house churches in networks reflecting equality rather than hierarchy. Those who meet in house churches regard themselves as belonging to the worldwide Church, but are self-governing and independent.

Some house churches have a conventional leadership structure, others have none. A commonly held belief in the modern day house church "movement" is that the Protestant Reformation did not go far enough to demonstrate a New Testament belief in the "priesthood of all believers" and that Jesus Christ alone is the Head of the Church which is the body of Christ. This movement has been gaining momentum worldwide in both industrialized countries such as Australia, Germany, the UK and the USA, and in third world countries.

The absence of hierarchical leadership structures in many house churches, while often viewed by the Protestant church at large as a sign of anarchy or rebelliousness to authority, is actually viewed by many in the house church movement to be the most viable way to come under true spiritual authority of love, relationships, and the visible dominion of Jesus Christ as Head of His own bride. Some within the house church "movement" therefore consider the term house church to be a misnomer, because the main issue within people who practice their faith in this manner is not the house but more the type of meeting that takes place; other titles which are sometimes used to describe this movement more functionally are "simple church", "relational church", "primitive church", "bodylife", "organic church" and similar terms.

The house church movement also owes much of its networking and exchange of information to the use of the internet; HC is generally used as an abbreviation for 'House Church' and IC is used to designate "Institutional Church" which is the generalized term for more traditional church structures, including a church building and/or sermon-centered church services led by a pastor or minister.

As a rule, house church gatherings are free, informal, and sometimes include a shared meal. It is hoped that everyone present will feel free to contribute to the gathering as and when they sense the leading of the Holy Spirit to do so. Leadership structures range from no official leaders, to a plurality of appointed elders; however, there is a deliberate attempt within most house churches to minimize the leadership of any one person, and so having one pastor or leading elder is generally frowned upon, in favor of a more plural responsibility of leadership diffused over several people or the members as a whole.

[edit]

Origins and history

The origins of this movement are varied. Some consider it a new variety of the Plymouth Brethren movement, others recognise a relationship to the Quakers or see it as resulting from the writings of Gene Edwards ( http://www.seedsowers.com ). There is also an argument that the house church movement is a re-emergence of the move of the Holy Spirit during the Jesus Movement of the 70's in the USA ( http://www.one-way.org ) or the worldwide Charismatic Renewal of the late 60's and 70's. Most see it as simply New Testament church Restorationism ( http://www.ntrf.org ), urging Christians to return from hierarchy and rank to practices described in the Bible ( http://www.century-one.co.uk ). The house church movement may in some ways be considered a cousin of the Emerging Church movement.

Probably there is no single factor, but all the threads noted above have contributed to the growth of house churches.

Two of these guys are someone elses sons! 

Me doing what I do best (talking nonsense), Matt Falzon doing what he does best! EATING!!!!

I just called Matt on his cell=(USA), mobile=(UK), gsm=(Belgium) and you can't guess what he was doing!? Well I'll say this, he wasn't working out at the gym!

Backwards and Black Pudding!

Backwards and Black Pudding!

A full English breakfast often consists of the largest portion of grease you could ever consume in a meal in the UK. And in among the ham and tomatoes will be two dark discs. Here in England they go by the name of black pudding but where I'm from we called a spade a spade, and so we call them blood sausage.  There are a lot of nutrients in blood. And we can be glad of that. But somehow the idea of making it into a sausage isn't very appealing. This morning in Manchester airport my mum bought her and I the famed Full English Breakfast, complete with tomatoes and black pudding. The grease sunk to the pit of my sensitive stomach like a depth charge sinking below the cold waters of the North Sea down toward a German U boat. So with an over full feeling I boarded the train. Now I should mention at this point I can get motion sickness lying in bed, let alone all the times it has plagued me on boats, airplanes, coaches and cars. So when on a train I try to ride facing forward. It seems to help me not get sick. Well following the gut wrenching saying goodbye and the intense  Full English Breakfast the train I was scheduled to take was canceled and twice as many people crammed on the train to Manchester Piccadilly. I was left with a backward facing seat. I thank God for the, "All change for Sheffield!" called out to me from the tannoy. So was the welcomed brisk air as I stepped out on the platform and like a dog riding in a pick-up truck with his face to the wind I was once again invigorated and less queasy. So I found the platform I needed and waited for the Train to Sheffield. A loud group of woman apparently coming back from some holiday some where warm looked like they had wrestled with far too many Full English Breakfasts and won triumphantly like Sumo wrestler pinning a African famine survivor. I was actually getting a bit cold so I waited for a few minutes while trying to type this out on my phone in a warm shelter and nearly missed the arrival of my train. Also while waiting I noticed a woman walk up to where I have been sitting and smoke like a chimney presumably her last cigarette before the train came right in the spot I had been sitting. I was glad I wasn't there any more. I had , had enough cigarette smoke and pipe smoke during the Full English Breakfast. My father always seems to find a seat in the worst location. And there were all these smokers nervous about flying trying to get as much smoking in before boarding the plan. She was also talking loud on a mobile phone, which was all the more reason to be glad I was in the warming shelter. When the train arrived I walked to what I thought would be the quiet and less populated front of the train. So I got on and looked for a seat. I wanted some space and I wanted to finish typing out this blog. So I chose a forward facing seat in a foursome with a table and I chose the aisle seat. It wasn't too crowded when I first got on. Some people were coming from the rear cars of the train looking  for a seat. And Mrs. Gravel voice chimney asked if she could sit down across from me. I could smell her smoky breath and the smoke that clung to her clothes. I said sure that would be fine I was traveling alone. I was quite tired and decided to finish with the blog. I stretched out my legs because she took the window seat facing backward spread out her things on the table and I leaned back and closed my eyes. "Next Stop Sheffield!" Wow I must have slept for the whole hour and a half! I realized the train was nearly in the station in Sheffield and I was heading for Norwich and parts unknown if I didn't rise from my slumber get myself together and get off the train. I stood up; I cleared my head; I said sorry for the snoring to Miss Chimney and stepped off the train back in Sheffield just in the nick of time with nearly none of the normal standing waiting anticipation. Watch Out for being backwards on a train after the Black Pudding!

Joy?!

It has been a month (maybe a life time) of short nights followed by early mornings. This morning's reason for a short night is the departure of my parents. Last night at our church meeting we had a really especially great time of singing, prayer and studying the Bible. At the end of the meeting Tim gave each home a "Minute Bible" and said we could all read a page each day and this way we could all talk about the things we have been reading. Today's reading was about joy. I should be full of joy, and in fact I am. So much good has happen over the past few months. I am a new man in Christ and in these past few months my wonderful church family has helped me discover that a fresh. We have our settlement visa and I can work. I have enjoyed the best visit with my folks ever here in England. And yet I am typing out this entry on my phone while sitting here next to my mum in the airport. I'm waiting to say goodbye. Being separated from my folks isn't easy especially for my kids. We have a close family and we all love the Lord. My Parents are great examples of faith. And we are divided by the Atlantic. So I must have joy even in saying goodbye. And this we do for the sake of the kingdom, being confident of our burden and calling to help plant churches in Belgium.

Growing love!

We've been sold a lie. Somehow we have been made to think that love is an exclusive emotion we direct towards one person and more importantly that special person directs towards us. But love, true love, is not simply a good feeling nor is it all that dependent on the object of its attention. We can quite amazingly love the unlovely regardless of thier response. And actually you can feel the genuine warmth of love when you love not for what you can get but when you begin to see people from God's point of view. Selflessly caring about people as we see them amazingly uniquely reflecting thier creator and having needs which we too have. I knew this love for the world but had lost it for a long time because my eyes were on me and on how I thought others viewed me. I failed to see God. I could only see others in a very limited selfish way. Seeing God as he is and myself as he does frees me to know real love for others.

Bird song at half four

Lying in bed with the window open, I hear some beautiful and enthusiastic birds singing. So after a quick trip to the loo and a check of the email I take my trusty Nokia 6230 and click out a thought or two. (Lyssa just rolls over and asks what I'm doing and she is more sweet than the birds.) Although I get to live in England's 4th largest city {in a country with a population density of more than 600 people per sq mile} it sounds more like a small village. Truly the birds rule the pre-dawn soundscape outside my bedroom window. [unfortunately my computer cooling fan sometimes rules the sounds of my interior, surely they can make them quieter, not to mention the horrible sound using a mobile to key out an email makes]. Ain't no bird gonna sing in my place all my life I'm gonna sing His holy praise, gonna sing his holy praise all my life I'm gonna sing God's holy praise.

Granted visas

We are so excited we have our visa. And further more I have permission to work!

The often illusive William Bode sporting his robe with more clothe!  

The big blue robe with more clothe

About a year ago I saw bath robes for sale at my then favorite retail outlet for Sporting Goods. In fact I could have been a Decathlon addict. Not that I spent much in there really. But I loved to "do the walk through" on my way home from when I worked at the Drum. Decathlon has a number of store brands you won't find anywhere else. For the water sports aficionado the Tribord brand makes great clothing and equipment. On the aforementioned "walk thorough" I noted that the Tribord big blue hooded beach bath robes were on less than half price. My black bath robe which I had been given as a gift a few years before was plagued with a huge unraveling hole. My beloved bath robe was becoming less and less and it was nearly embarrassing. So the sight of a really nice Tribord robe with a hood was more than I could take. But then, what size? Now I'm not really a very large person at all. Maybe I need to think more about slimming but when I look in the mirror I see a rather slight figure with less than a copious amount of flesh piled on the rack of bones. Maybe I am a bit of a chunk but my guess is I'm right and most people would say Bill is thin. Now the truth is I can get a bit of a gut but that doesn't translate to thicker legs, or more muscle on the shoulders and arms. Still it remains what size robe. I like big robes. I thought I'll get an extra large. I don't need it except I do have rather long arms compared to the rest of me. Now since I can wear a medium an extra large is already two sizes too big. But then I had this thought! I can get more clothe for the same price! So I got a XXXL! Yes that is right I got a triple Xtra Large. "Why?, "you may ask. So let me tell you. More clothe for the same money. Now usually Decathlon has good quality brands that wear well but now almost a year on mine is looking quite tatty. I'm thinking they were not meant to live in. Or they were not meant to sleep in. But mine is better than an extra blanket on a cold night. And now you know why I have a big blue tatty robe that is hooded and triple x!

Me Off Springer

My eldest daughter, Emily and I. Isn't she wonderful!

Walking to Forge Dam

Today we walked to forge dam from our home. Lyssa, Daniel, Emily, Wendy, Bethany, my Father, and I set out from 13 Holland Place to meet up with my mum, Niels, Sylvia and her mother and aunt. We meet at the far end of Endcliffe Park near the end of Rustlings road. While we walked along on a sunny day when the wind wasn't too strong and the temperature was just slightly brisk for me. Although I only wore a fleece over my short sleeve breathable wicking novadry sport shirt. I always try and wear a base layer like that and then a fleece and after in my bag if I need it a Gore-tex outer shell. Along the way we stopped at the Shepherds wheel a 16th century mill for crafting knives and cutlery. There were lots of them along the Porter Valley from Hunters Bar to Forge Dam. Niels and Sylvia and obviously Sylvia's mother and Aunt are all from Belgium. And the mum and Aunt don't speak much English and we don't speak much Flemish. So it was an interesting trip with Niels translating all the local history along the walk. I wish we could have went further past Forge Dam unto the Peaks and Ringinglow. I love the water fall on the path. I like the end of the walk just before you come out on the edge of the Moors. Oh well another time.
Oh and as Iwas looking for links for you to see about my walk Sus came on and chatted with me a bit. She sent me the following link http://www.bobsmiley.com/

Please could I be turning into my Dad?!

At some point I walk down stairs and sort through the many supplement bottles to find "my cocktail" of vitamins, cod liver oil, and herbal supplements. Having downed these next internet radio from Belgium's Radio 1 (no online station is quite as good) is browsed on over to on the dining room family computer while I lay out the Dutch Bible (given to me by Willy Maesen), the English (New American Standard Bible) and the Dutch to English dictionary. Ready now to prepare some porridge oats with water from the kettle and some fruit (such as a banana), so I can think about what God has to say to me today. I'd like to say I do all this and then head out to the gym every day but with guests and other things the regular morning trip to the gym has taken a back seat. I'm sure I can get back in the habit there too. So add in showers or bathroom time, along with checking email and other online tasks and you have at least an hour of my life each day. Or so I hope around an hour to a half an hour of each day is filled with the aforementioned routine. I know my father's routine has been established now for more than 30 years. and I know some of the elements of the routine differ significantly. But there is enough similar I have hope I am becomeing like my Father!

Now if I could only become more like my Father in Heaven!

Are your thoughts broken?

My mind needs fixing! I think too negatively, too selfishly and too dishonestly. I'm glad God gives the remedy in Jesus. I couldn't even begin to turn my own mind around if it were not for Jesus. Why not read this bit of the bible in context.

Philippians 4 or if you prefer in dutch Filippenzen 4

8 And now, dear brothers and sisters, let me say one more thing as I close this letter.
Fix your thoughts on what is true and honorable and right. Think about things that are pure and lovely and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.

A person who has stayed in my home and who I have recently been chatting with online.
Many of you who know me may know this is my friend from the Land Down Under, Brooke Gorman. House guest and house sitter of the Bode family. She is a partner in crime participating among the family called the Sharrow Crowded House. We miss her. But we are glad for her adventures around the globe because we get to travel by proxy. Come back soon!

These two people have recently been talking to me.
If you chat with Matt or CC then you know who they are.
Seems they are done with "lessons" for a while and have some time. Actually I am done with a few lessons too so I guess we all sort of graduated about the same time. Glad we can reconnect.

Something wrong with the 007 image

I watched the last half of the World Is Not Enough a James Bond movie. Although I must confess I wanted to enjoy the movie; It really left me flat. A couple of reasons may be that I missed the first half, although I don't think so because I can come into a Bond usually at any point and I used to enjoy it. Another factor may have been that the last ten or 15 minutes of the movie were interrupted by the news and then after the news it was completed. Maybe the worst thing was the whole scene with John Clease and M looking for Bond at the end of the movie and sort of using a heat seeking infrared tracking device. You see a really hot body in bed that then gets even hotter and then you see a second body sort of crawl out from under the other. Where upon John Clease hits escape and blames the technology. I don't buy the whole womanizer, M is surprised and embarrassed ploy. I did think that there was more "cold blooded" killing on the part of Bond as well in this 007 movie. James Bond felt more hollow less man. I didn't want to be in his place. What is the world coming to when even his super great car was destroyed; And lastly there were these really far fetched fighting and helicopter saw disk things with the thugs who still can't hit any of the people who need to live to finish the movie,whose ineptness just brought it down to the comic value of the A team.

I was disappointed!
Or have they all been like this and I have just woke up enough to see it?

Beginning to Blog

Could be that no one will ever see these rambling of my less than consistent nor sane mind. Ever wonder about the line in wills and such legal documents that goes something like, "I, William Kenneth Bode, being of sane mind do on this the 4th day of March...." so on and so forth... What is the converse of that statement, "I, William Kenneth Bode, being of gross incompetence and complete off my nut on this who knows what the date is or even what planet I'm on..." And further more I just wonder who is sane when so many people who claim to be so are as far as I'm concerned quite a few bricks shy of a load.

So we, (the Queen can refer to herself in the third person plural so why can't I?) begin this road of trying to record thoughts, reflections, and musings for the digital posterity or maybe to maintain a good outlook. I must admit though it was my photos and a look back at those and some attempts to organize them that moved me to start a blog.

and they sit and wait after calling me to supper so I shall have to leave...

"York is only a few miles more up the road," Bill says to Matt who is always in the back seat making trouble. 

My heart on my cheek