So as many peeps will know I had my first interview for perspective, post uni, jobs this week. I was terrified about it… It was my first proper interview…what was there not to be terrified about?! What I later found out was, the thing that was most terrifying was how different a job and a place could be in real life compared to how it read on paper….

Lex xxx

Hey guys, again I realise it’s been a while since i last wrote something….. what can I say? Haven’t  had any real time in the last few weeks to pause and write what God has been challenging me about even though I have wanted to. So better late than never, hey?!

I wonder if you have either watched the musical/film “Rent”, or heard any of the songs from the soundtrack? Well I haven’t actually watched it, but there is one song that comes  right at the beginning of the musical called “seasons of love”. This song kinda sums up the idea that the musical is the story of one year in the life of a group of friends; and as my life right now has been revolving around a year and what I can do and learn in a year this song has really spoken volumes to me.

I’m gonna share the lyrics with you and then talk about what this song has taught me……

525,600 minutes! 525,000 journeys to plan. 525,600 minutes – how can you measure
the life of a woman or man?

….So they are the lyrics to a rather freaking amazing song!! And this song has spoken to me so much over the last few months. At the beginning of this summer term I started to think about how I would deam my gap year a success, what would make me believe that my year in Weston has been beneficial and at the end of the day worth doing! Some tough questions to ponder over….

Looking back to the first post of this blog, back in November which seems ages ago and just like yesterday all in one go, I spoke about how tough things were and how hard life was at that point.  I talked about how I thought I’d realised that youthwork was all about sowing seeds and not watching them grow, but then actually coming round to the idea that I didn’t understand this at all. I spoke of how easy things would be if just one young person acted as if they understood why I was doing what I was. I listed all of these things that would make my life and my job easier…. and I never once spoke of the thing that was most important to my year. Never once talked about the thing that is  most important in life, the very source and sustainer of life itself. Never once considered love.

When I started my year in Weston I wasn’t stupid enough to think that I would conclude this year was good one if I got a good number of kids to come along to chucrh, converted a few to Christ, made hundreds of new friends, felt like the popular new chick and ultimately found my future husband…..but did I kinda want that to happen anyway?!? Of course I did!!! And so by November when I started this blog and none of that was happening did i feel like I was failing?! Hell yeah!!!

So what had to change was me, what had to change were my ideals, what radically needed to be taken and shaken so hard that things turned upside down was my idea that “something” needed to happen to make a year a “success”. What I desperately needed to learn was that nothing matters apart from love, what makes a life full is how full of love it is, what makes a life a success is the depth of the love in that life. And so slowly, shakily, uncertainly over the last few months I have started to focus more on love and less on everything else.

So how is this new philosophy going?! Everyday is a hard lesson in trying to let go of more of the old way of thinking and picking up more of the new. Everyday is a battle realising that nothing else matters other than love. I honestly believe that understanding how you are loved, why you are loved is the most simple yet complx thing in the world; the easiest but the hardest thing to grasp…..but it is always, always worth trying!! And so I do; day in, day out.

So ignoring everything else, forgetting all of the other standards to measure by. Have I had the best year of my life? Yes. Would I change any single part of my past year? Not a chance! And, ultimately, has this year been a success? Not a doubt in my mind!! And why am I so sure of all of these things?? Because I know, I know, that I love and am loved by those who I have met this year. The kind of love that makes your heart pound, makes your throat tight and makes your eyes swim when you think about it for too long. The kind of love that gives you a huge lump in your throat because you know it will stay with you for life, and without it you wouldn’t be half the person it has made you in to.

So to sum all this up for you I’m gonna finish with one other quote from Moulin Rouge. “The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.”  I challenge you to drop all the other measures that the world holds up, I challenge you to take the simple measure that we have the perfect example of in Christ and use it to help you in filling your life with love!! I encourage you to dare to believe just how loved you are by so many people (If you’re reading this, have stuck this far with me in this blog, then I can tell you pretty safely that I love you more than you will probably know!!) . I dare you to tell the people that you love about it, shout it from the roof tops if that’s what it takes to get them to see and believe they are loved!!

Someone very wise told me recently (when I had briefly forgotten my new philosophy for a few wobbly moments) that they loved me because of me and not because of my job or what I do. My very simple prayer for you today is that someone would let you know this. That we would all drop the worldly measures of jobs, status, merits and awards and just believe that we are loved for who we are and not what we do.

And finally my prayer is that we would all view this next year as a “success” simply beacuse it 525,600 minutes full of love. 525,600 minutes of love shared and love expressed.

Lex xx

Hi, in case you’ve forgotten who I am…I’m lex… remember me??

I realise it has been an absurdly long time since I last posted… well over three months!! And as always, all I can say is that it’s been because of time and the lack of it that I haven’t been updating. It’s not that I haven’t had anything to blog about, because God has continued to challenge, stretch and teach me over the last few months as much as he ever has done…but I’ve just been so busy as we have entered this summer term that stopping to reflect on what I have been learning and writing it all down for you has proved impossible.

What I though I’d share with you all today though, and I feel its appropriate, is my end of year review that I completed for Careforce recently. It sums up my thoughts and feelings about this year, which I’d have done on here anyway, but this way I can save a little bit of time and use the same thing twice!!

What have been some of the highlights of your year?

Some of the biggest highlights this year have been the variety of trips that I have been able to accompany the young people on. These trips are fantastic because it’s a real chance to build relationships with the children in a really fun and relaxed way, while doing some amazing things; and also it’s great to be able to take the young people out of Weston (which can become quite oppressive to them) and give them the chance to see other parts of the country. Another highlight for me has been the opportunity to preach on three occasions at the all age services on a Sunday. This has given me a massive confidence boost and will also come in a lot of use for the future. It has also been a lot of fun too, to try my hand at something new and find out that I’m not too bad at it!!

Tell us about one person you have met this year who has been a real encouragement or inspiration to you.

The person who has encouraged and inspired me the most this year is Libbi Beckwith, who is one of the other full time youthworkers at the project. We are very similar and get on very well, so it has been awesome to develop quite a close friendship with her over the year; and so in times of homesickness and loneliness she’s been a great encouragement to me, and it’s been lovely to have someone who I see a lot that is so close to me. But other than being good friends we also work really well together as colleagues in a team. She has also inspired me because she is so passionate about youthwork and so loves what she does, that on those bad days when work is tough and you don’t really feel like you want to work with yet another child she’s there with unwavering enthusiasm and energy that is contagious, and before you know it you’re as excited as she is again to be working with such amazing kids.

What have been some of the most difficult things you have faced during your year?

Moving away from a very large, very lively church with a lot of young people in it; to a church which has about 50 people on a good day was very hard to start with and that probably above everything else took the most getting used to. Also moving from a place where I had done a lot of work with young people who were very churched, who had a very good level of biblical understanding; to a project where the children I work with have no church background and no basic understanding was hard. It was a very steep learning curve to understand how to pitch my teaching and conversations at the right level for them. Also homesickness and loneliness was more of an issue sometimes than I thought it would be. I have always been very self sufficient and someone who quite likes their own company; in spite of that though I found that being completely separated from everyone back home, moving to a new place where I knew no one and had to make completely new friends hard.

Describe how God has brought you through such times.

How has God been changing you during your time as a volunteer?

I feel like I have grown up a lot over this year, when I first moved to Weston I was not only naive in my outlook on life but on the way I conducted my youthwork. I thought that as much as someone didn’t know about God all they needed was to play some silly games with a friendly youthworker, be told that God loved them and hear the gospel message in a simple way and that would be it. But that isn’t true, there are some people, some young people, that are just not ready yet and you can play your games and tell them the gospel until you’re blue in the face and they still won’t be ready to take that step. And that’s a hard lesson to learn, but it’s a vital lesson to learn in youthwork or you will totally drive yourself in to the ground after six months! God has changed the way I view my work as well, he has moved my perspectives from focusing on what I am doing, what I can do in my strength and ultimately where I am going wrong to look at it from a more outward perspective. That it’s about what I can do In God’s strength, how God can do works through me and how if people don’t respond to something that I deliver it isn’t about me and where I’m failing and what I haven’t done, it may just be the case that those people aren’t ready yet. God has done immeasurable work on my confidence this year, so much so that the way I prepare things, teach and deliver and generally interact with young people is almost unrecognisable from ten months ago.

What new interests, gifts or skills have you discovered this year?

I have discovered a passion and emerging gift for preaching (it’s nearly there, I need a few more practices and a lot more prayer and I won’t be half bad) and I’m so glad that I have been given the opportunity to explore this gift and passion this year. I have also learnt that I am much more arty than I ever thought before. I have always had a bit of artistic flair, but this year with the responsibility of organising craft for all the groups I have learnt so much more, been able to experiment much more and found a real love and passion that I never knew was there!

 Please comment on the support you received locally, from Careforce and from home.

I have had a lot of support from home. Coming from a church where many people go out on mission and various things, it wasn’t a surprise to people back home when they found out that I was going on a short term mission. So I was and have been covered in prayer by my home church and people constantly are letting me know that they are thinking of me and keeping me and the work I am doing in prayer. Many people from my home church have kept up to date with my blog too and have enjoyed reading what God has been doing in my life this year. I have found Careforce very supportive as well. Thankfully, while there were no problems this year, I know that if there had been I could have confidently got in contact with any of the Careforce staff and things would have been sorted out really quickly. While I only made it to one of the conferences, the one I did attend was amazing and invaluable to the year. The conference is also such a different idea to any other gap years I know about, it’s a really good thing. Also the idea of area groups is a really good one; although mine didn’t really work this year because of us being so far way from each other, me being the only one that drove and having different days off to everyone else; I’m sure it is a real support to loads of volunteers.
 What advice would you give to next year’s volunteers about prayer, time off, friendships etc.?

Before I moved to Weston having quiet time and putting time aside to read my bible and pray was always an issue, but when I moved down here it started to happen without me even noticing it because it became a necessity to my work, for me to be close in my relationship with God and not to be running on empty spiritually. So my advice would be; if you have quiet times already then great, carry them on! If you don’t set time aside everyday and it doesn’t come naturally when you start then strive to have that time because it is so vital to your year! When I moved down to Weston someone very wise said to me “guard your days off” and basically that is my advice to volunteers next year too! It’s easy to feel guilty on a day off if you feel like you’re not going out and doing things and making the most of that time off, but I learnt very quickly that if my mind and body needed it then literally doing nothing all day was nothing to feel guilty about. You work hard on your year and having a day just to crash and regroup is really important, time off needs to be kept completely as time for you and time about what you need. If there’s any advice that I can give to next year’s volunteers is that friendships are really important!! Don’t be scared to get friendly with people just because you’re in your placement for a year. Friendships and relationships both working and personally are really important to making sure you’re not falling apart and feeling totally isolated. So my advice would be to take any opportunity you are given to meet new people or to socialise with people from your placement, because only then are friendships really going to form and deepen.

In a couple of sentences how would you sum up your Careforce experience?

One thing that springs to mind above everything else is “too short”!! It is amazing how quickly the time goes and it’s quite sad when you get to this point and realise how fleeting the year has been. When I look back over this year I can see that God had been completely preparing this place for me before I got here and it’s amazing to see how things have worked out this year. If I was told I would spend my gap year here in Weston a few years ago I wouldn’t believe it because it is completely the opposite of a place that I thought I’d want to spend this year; but now at the end of this year I can see that this has been 100% the right place for me and I have had the best year of my life and wouldn’t change it for anything!

So there we go! That, at the moment, is some of my thoughts and feelings about the amazing year I have had!! I will most certainly post some more before i officialy leave Weston as I’m sure I will have some more things to say between now and the end of July.

(oh and I promise to never leave it more than three months between posts again!!)

Lex xx

So, today’s post has been in my mind since last week… I have really wanted to write it cos it’s always fun to have an Epiphany of sorts and let people know about what you’ve learnt. But also cos I think that there is something to be learnt for us all in what has been going around my little spiky head. But I have been delayed in posting cos, as always, I’ve been uber busy!! So without further a do…

I don’t know if you’ve watched the film calendar girls, if you haven’t then DO because it’s amazing!! It is one of my favourite films, it tells such an awesome story of hope and friendship in a really gentle and funny way.

I always love how something that you have seen, read or heard can come back and teach you something new even if it’s the hundredth time you’ve experienced it. Maybe that’s why I love movies so much, cos every time I watch one I’m learning something new; and why I have some books that i read over and over, because something new jumps out and grabs my mind with each fresh reading; or why there are certain albums I will always come back to, because when I hear a certain song things make sense on a deeper level. So when I watched Calendar girls again last week, I wasn’t surprised that there was something that I grasped in a new way.

I know, more than anyone, that sometimes I have the habit of being a pessimist. Sometimes I’m really just not in the mood to be positive about this stupidly messed up world, and my equally stupidly messed up life. And this can really cause problems, I know there are days when the bad mood is bigger than me, when you start to let a bad mood, or a bad day, or a bad week, or a bad patch define who you are and dictate your behaviour then something needs to be done. When feeling rubbish gets in the way of more important, every day things, that are easy to replace then something needs to be done. When eating properly goes out the window and sleeping isn’t that important anymore and you turn to something earthly that will never help instead of turning to the power and presence of God through his word and prayer; then alarm bells should be going off and a few lessons need to be taken in positivity.

A very wise friend of mine (thanks mummy Hanz) has always said that it is a daily choice to be positive. To wake up every day and not let the crap in, choose to say no to bad moods and seek to find the positive in any situation. I told her that I don’t think I have that much power over my moods, and if I wake up feeling rubbish then I have no choice but to go with it. I honestly thought that we personally didn’t really have a choice over what we felt. Until now. Suddenly I am increasingly aware that she might just be right….

So back to what this has to do with calender girls and the title of today’s blog. I’m not give away the story, incase anyone hasn’t seen it, but I will just talk about one bit where someone is explaining why sunflowers are their favourite flowers. They say:

“I don’t think there is anything that more trumpets life. … Wherever light is, no matter how weak, these flowers will find and follow it. And that is such an admirable thing. And such a lesson in life.”

Like I said, I have watched this film countless times before, but this quote leapt out at me like it never had before and has really made sense to me in so  many ways. (Not only that but the realisation that maybe Big G is trying to tell me something, because he seems to have launched a double attack with  Hanz and Helen Mirren!!!)

So, in light of this, what have I learnt. I know that turning my life around and learning to be positive isn’t gonna be easy, I know it’s going to take practice. Breaking habits is always hard. But I do have that understanding and desire there now, to learn to live my life as a sunflower…

Seeking light, hope, goodness, God in any situation that comes along. Choosing to find and follow that light so I can shine for my Father in Heaven. Learning not to let my sights fall to the floor where I can’t see the light and thus not grow or move or learn. Finally grasping and really understanding on every level that it’s ok to be positive, that it’s safe to have hope  and believe in a better mood and a better day because in the end we do have an eternal hope to look forward to and be positive about.

So, I pray that you all would join me in my new journey towards positivity. That you would all live like sunflowers; seeking and searching for the light, wherever it may be.

Lex xx

Ok, first off, I know I’m a bad person!! I’m still alive, still here and yeah I know haven’t bloggedfor a month( a month exactly, would ya look at that!!). But honestly it doesn’t feel like that. As ever, time that I’m down here is just running away from me. Weeks go by like seconds and kinda squidge into each other and before I knew it, I’ve been back from Christmas over half a term!! I’ve been here 6 months, oh my gosh!! So yeah, a term and a half left… which scarily, as I was working out the other day, is a little under 20 weeks left here. My response to this “Say what now?!?” It feels like yesterday that I packed up my gubbins and trolleyed on down the A34, and now in like 19 weeks I’m gonna be doing the whole shebang in reverse!! I am so completely in the mindset of “Let’s make every second count and do all I can” now for my time left, cos I don’t want to waste any of my time here. Because, when all is said and done; In spite of all the ups and downs and the crazyness of things down here… I’m gonna miss this place so much when I’m gone!!

What I really wanna talk about though today, what the title of today’s blog is about, is how very very right so many people were about things!! Ok, so expand on this rather cryptic sentence…

In 2007 and the beginning of 2008, things weren’t so great. I was trying to work through grieving in “the right way”, I was working through issues that I felt like I was too young to have to deal withand that didn’t seem fair. I was confused about how my family dynamic had changed. I kept telling myself that any way I was choosing to deal with things was the wrong one and there was always gonna be a better way out there.  I was still very aware that there was a call on my life from God in to some form of ministry, but just at the point when that seemed to be the only sure thing in my life that got turned upside down as well. When my original gap year plans fell through I honestly didn’t know where to go or what to do. I was steadily doing worse and worse at school simply because I couldn’t be bothered to be there and didn’t see the point. I was bored of teachers telling me that I was going to do really well even if I didn’t work, I wanted them to see that I knew “me” better and that at the rate I was going I was going to do really badly because that’s what I deserved. It got to the point that this time last year, about 4 months until I was due to finish school forever, I came very close to jusr dropping out and giving up.

All the time that this “season” of life was going on I was continuously being told by a huge variety of many people: “You wait and see, one day when your doing youthwork full time all of this will come in usefull. One day, you are going to be able to relate to a young person better than anyone else because of the horrible things that have happened.” And loads of other stuff along those lines. I kinda got a bit bored of hearing that in all the times I was really hurting that I was writing bible studies and talks for myself. I thought that maybe these people who kept telling me this were a little bit right, that maybe I could be able to use my “story” to make young people see that I wasn’t born fully formed as a youthworker but that it took some work getting here. I never imagined that in my first year of full time youthwork that I would see how right they were!!

In our groups there is a girl who is 16, her dad died about 2 years ago and she doesn’t have a clue what to do with any of the things she is feeling . She hasn’t been able to sleep properly in those 2 years, she’s doing badly at school because she is so tired and doesn’t really want to be there, she decided that she wanted to drop out in January but is still hanging on at school for the minute and she is reluctant to go and see the doctor or a counsellor because of a really bad counsellor her school sent her to. I din’t realise that I’d only have to “wait and see” a little while and that “one day” would be right now for me to come across a young person who I relate so deeply to. Every time I see her, my heart goes out to her that little bit more, willing her to just carry on going Even though it seems like the hardest thing in the world. 

When we were talking about thigson Monday it was so good to be able to share some of my experience with her. To show her that it’s not gonna be all bad forever, that it’s possible to come through this bad patch, and that I would be there for her supporting her whenever she wanted.

It felt odd, but Monday night was the first time that I honestly thanked God for all the poo from the last 3 years because I know, I know, that without it I would have been a young and naive youthworkerout of my depth struggling to find the right words; but with it I was a young youthwoker able to relate to a young person on a level that another worker couldn’t knowing the right things she wanted me to say.  

To sum up, I just ask that you would join me in praying for this girl. That she would really take the opportunities to open up to me and phil and accept the help we offer, and take this chance to deepen her relationship with God.

But also as an extra thing, pray for yourselves, that you would find the “desert flowers”. When all seems rubbish and you honestly can’t see what God is doing in a certain situation, keep your eyes open and your hope alive for the good thing to be at the centre to flip it all round and rearrange your perspectives. I pray that you would all “wait and see” and that “one day” you would find that flower in the desert.

Lex xx

So, I haven’t blogged for yonks I know. Well over a month, but as I wasn’t actually working for about half that time it isn’t so bad!!

I’ve been back In weston, post Christmas break nearly a month now (seriously where did that time go?!?) and it is as challenging, odd, fun and wonderful as ever.

The first reason for today’s title is a great big thank you!! When I came back to Milton Keynes for Christmas I felt so completely loved, valued and welcomed back. Especially with you gorgeous C4 guys. I thank you because of who you are, for welcoming me back in to the group, for being so fantastically fun!! C4 is a picture of what a good youthgroup should look like, I am proud to call so many of you close friends. Don’t EVER change, cos the big man is gonna do HUGE things with you guys!! But this Thank you extends further into the rest of SMB and out into MK. I am so blessed to have amazing friends and family, who remain the same even though I’m down here and you’re up there . Walking into SMB gives me that warm fuzzy feeling right from the toes of my knackered trainers to the spiky bits on top of my head because I know I am home. I know I’m among people who care about me…and yeah not only know my name, but know a whole bunch more too!! So Thank you  so very many times!

The title for this blog also speaks of things that have happened since I have been back down In Weston. Things that make me really see that I have by no means been wasting my time down here. On the first morning I was back after Christmas I was feeling awful, having driven back at 6am to make an 11am meeting. I was walking back from the meeting, half asleep and honestly in  my own world when I heard a “Hiya Lex!!”. I looked down and there was one of the girls from my year 3 class waving madly up at me. I waved back and asked her a bit about her Christmas holidays and then off she went on her way. I was amazed, partly because this girl in question is a compulsive liar and having realised that I don’t believe most of what she says anymore she doesn’t really speak to me anymore and I thought she didn’t actually like me!!  I was also amazed (probably stupidly so) that in a place I have only lived for a few months that I get noticed, that people know me and that they want to say Hi. Granted, most of the people that recognise me are under the age of 18, but regardless of that being noticed and known in a place where I don’t have a lot of friends is an awesome feeling and makes me feel that just maybe I’m having more of an impact here than I will ever see.

So i guess through today’s blog I’m giving a challenge of sorts. Be that someone to say Hi. At work, school, college, church, the shops, or just walking down the road if there is someone that you see a lot take that time to learn/remember their name and give them a “Hiya!” and a mad wave (or a high five as another of my young people did!). In doing so, in taking a second to give them a smile, you might just be the person to make their week. You might be the person to make them see that they are not as unknown and lonely as they thought.

Go on, I dare you!!

Lex xx

Don’t worry, I’m not going to do a blog about a rather tired old classic Christmas tune and how it has spoken to me about God. It just seemed an appropriate title for today’s blog.

Tomorrow, after our final Secret Agents club of the term, I will be making my way back up the A34…and I am SO excited about it!! I am so ready for a proper 2 week break; where I get to do no work; not have to go back early for a meeting; and really just spend time with all you lovely , lovely guys In MK.

So Tomorrow marks that I have been here in Weston a full term now. That is completely nuts!! It honestly seemed like yesterday that I  moved down here, and this whole surreal, challenging, wonderful year began!! But it wasn’t yesterday, it was three and a half months ago…and the time has just gone like that (imagine me clicking my fingers here)!! But, I guess, in another way, So much has happened that it could almost be longer than three and a half months. Lots of people have said to me “oh, you’re so grown up now” and at first I couldn’t see it at all. But I was talking to my Pastoral Carer on Saturday and I have started to see that perhaps I have had to grow up quite a bit in my time here. Simply because I had to to survive in a place like this! I guess I have seen, first hand, a little of what my young people have to do. Put childish ways aside to be able to cope with the harsh reality of life on this estate.  

I was thinking on Sunday about what can sum up this whole term. What has made this term a success? What has happened to make me want to come back in January? What has changed that has suddenly meant that I’m no longer feeling unfulfilled?

Cos while all those things are awesome, and I’m so glad that’s how I’m feeling now, I was confused as to if it was just a time thing. That being here three months is how long it takes for things to click and to properly fit in. Or if it something had actually happened to make things change.

And it hit me, on Sunday evening, that something really amazing had happened and I hadn’t even noticed….

If you cast your mind back to my blog about “the soul being healed by being with children”, I talked about a little girl in my year 3 class who had real anger issues and I went and talked to her when she’d legged it out of class. Well, since then, to my knowledge, Megan has carried on doing really well with controlling her temper and she has continued to be one of my favourite children to work with. Last Monday I told the class that it was the Secret Agents Christmas special on Saturday and that we really needed some more people to be in our nativity on Sunday too. Megan seemed interested, so I gave her all the details. However, working in Weston, you learn to take interest with a pinch of salt and expect no one to turn up even if they have been given all the details a hundred times!!

Megan did turn up on Saturday… she also turned up on Sunday.

She wasn’t already on our books, which means that in all the clubs we do she’d not been along to any.  Apart from the termly assemblies we do in her school, the church had not yet made contact with her. Megan has now, not only, come along to one of our clubs and seen the fun that we have; but she has been to a church service….probably for the first time in her life.

I thank God that I felt inexplicably prompted to tell the kids about the weekends activities (having never made any announcements about what we were doing at WCYP in Year 3 before) because if I hadn’t said anything Megan wouldn’t have made that step forward.

It makes me want to grin like a mad thing, jump about a bit,cry and endlessly just say “thank you” to God all at the same time when I think about it. Because of what I said, a completely unchurched child has come on to our radar and what’s more, has come to church!!

Because of this. All because of one, wonderful 8 year old girl my term has been a success. I can say without a doubt that through God’s strength, relying entirely on him, I have made a difference here.

And I can not wait to come back and make two more terms worth of difference!!

Thank you, Lord. Thank you for the shining light moments, for the gems, for the moments where it is so obvious that you are here in this estate and working in the kid’s lives. I pray for more of your strength, Lord, fill me up entirely…cos I have seen that things CAN change through you!!!

Lex xx