A Happy Christmas

The thing I have enjoyed most about Christmas this year has been being with my family. All my three brothers with my sisters-in-law and their children, gathered at my parents' in Devon, our family home since I was 18. Great fun, if a little bit crazy. Probably what I missed the most Christmassing in Uganda...

But as well as that, I have loved...

Driving down a tiny country lane on Christmas morning to an ancient stone church stuffed to the brim with people young and old, for a short, child-friendly service, with carols, a simple talk and a candle stuck in an orange for each child to take away, and sweets given out at the door on the way out... driving back past sheep-filled fields and waving at a few people out walking their dogs...

Coming home to the log fire, and being all cosy and warm inside, then venturing out for a blast of fresh air, only to return to the fireside...

(my Dad and my oldest brother, Nigel)

A traditional English Christmas lunch, including turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, bread sauce, roast potatoes, carrots, brussels sprouts, Christmas pudding, raspberries and meringue, mince pies, cheese and biscuits, ending with coffee and a selection of truffles, Turkish Delight, nuts and raisins, and of course a chocolate orange... 

 A tree stacked with presents, not particularly for me (!) but for all the family...

 Seeing all the cousins together 

... the freedom to drink alcohol  (only little and often, as the doctor ordered, right?) - especially red wine, gin and tonic, sweet sherry, Baileys...

Down time with my family...

Watching the Queen's speech - an annual event at 3.00 pm  on BBC 1 - and loving hearing her give a truly Christian message about Jesus coming into our lives at Christmas, about the need to forgive one another and help and support one another, it was really good...

And tomorrow we still have to fit in our Christmas hike on Dartmoor, carol singing around the piano, our annual game of charades... still a lot more fun to come!

I have also thought a lot about our friends in Uganda and wondered how all the families there have been, and whether they have had enough gas to cook on, and whether they killed their turkeys in time - and fed them enough first -, and hoping and praying that, even though far from home and extended family, and even in the heat  and sunshine, they have been able to know the tingling excitement of remembering the Baby born in the stable all those years ago... 

Welcome all wonders in one sight!
Eternity shut in a span.
Summer in winter, Day in night,
Heaven in earth, and God in man.
Great little one whose all-embracing birth
Brings earth to heaven, stoops heaven to earth.
                                    Richard Crashaw, 1613-1649

I hope this post doesn't serve to make those far from home homesick, but rather to pass on from my experience the encouragement that there will be traditional, home Christmases in the future for you too! And that the tradition, and the luxury, of a family Christmas (especially when it is laid on by a Mum and Dad!) is all the more lovely when one has missed it for a few years. And also the caveat that I have had to search for the meaning of Christmas, to cling to the story of the stable and all it held, all the more in the midst of the food and drink, talking, planning, reuniting and game-playing... And without the meaning (by my observation), it all seems so empty, extravagant, and, even, reckless... 

Happy Christmas everyone! 

Much Talking about Uganda...

Today Dan and I had the chance to share with a group of fifteen or so young people who are going out to Uganda for a short term "gap year" experience, teaching in schools and working alongside Crosslinks mission partners in Kabale.

They were having their Orientation at a big old chilly conference centre in Norfolk, and so we were able to combine this speaking engagement with a few days staying with some good friends in their home near Norwich (they were in Uganda for several years and we spent a lot of time with them.) A few days of holiday bliss for Alex playing and laughing non-stop with his mate Mattie, and Abby with her friend Sienna, and so lovely for us to spend hours chatting and eating with Andy and Rosie. Conversation ranged around moving back to England, Uganda friends and happenings, Zimbabwe (as they also lived in Zim before Uganda), families, jobs, money, the cold and dark, shopping, church, Christmas... It was all great fun and so good to be with people who know us in both our contexts and have made the adjustment about a year ahead of us but are still dealing with some of it themselves. A lovely bonus was that Rosie's cousin Lizzie whom we also knew well from Uganda was there too, visiting from Uganda for Christmas. All nine of us sleeping in a small three-bedroom cottage - it was fun, and cosy! And the talking was therapeutic, as well as all the laughter. A very welcome, relaxing few days.

Speaking to the team going out to Uganda in January was also a lot of fun. Describing the greetings, hand-shaking, food, family life, roads, appropriate dress, church, and traditional religion, and telling some of our store of stories, brought it all back again so vividly. It was great to feel that our experience was helping prepare other people to go out there. I hope we get the opportunity to do it again.

Now looking forward to Christmas in Devon... 

 

Hope

On Sunday morning we had to set out for church at 6.30 am. We were on our way to one of our last link church visits, to St Peters in Harold Wood. This church incidentally was the one I worshipped at for the three years before I first went to Zambia back in 1992, so this was my original main sending church. They gave me a big commissioning in church back then, and my home group had a great party. But in the nineteen years since those farewells, several of the older, prayerful people who were interested in Africa and in me have died, and most of the younger people who I really knew have moved on to other jobs and churches. But there are a handful of people I still know well including the leaders of my home group, and it was lovely to see them again. And I experienced the same bitter-sweet feelings of the sadness of ending a long-standing relationship, of perhaps never seeing some of these people again (since it is pretty far away from Gloucester), but also the relief of putting aside everything that goes with being on support  - the guilt feelings of splashing out on a pastry with that cup of coffee at La Patisserie (again), the self-doubt when writing the monthly prayer-letter - have I done enough this month to justify all the money people have given out of their own pockets to support me? But it was real pleasure to catch up with old friends at St Peters, and as always, we left feeling so pleased we had made it, and so thankful for the warmth and prayer and kindness of people.

Anyway, we set out early that morning, in the dark, having had to scrape the ice off the windscreen and warm up the car before we got in, all feeling still sleepy and cold and over-bundled in hats and scarves in the car. Half an hour later it was still dark and the roads were empty, and the bare trees were looming from the road-sides, stripped branches with twigs for crooked fingers poking out, and black clouds were moving ragged against the dark sky, and I thought about what it would be like if we knew that it was never going to get light, if there was no thought that the sunrise was coming. I imagined myself in some apocalyptic world, like in the movie "The Road", where it was never going to get properly light again. And I thought how horrifying it would be, and how hopeless. In fact I don't think I could go on, if I didn't know the light was coming.

Gradually, thankfully, the sky lightened at the edges, the clouds stood out more starkly against the pale, the silhouetted trees looked less scarey, and at last, directly ahead of us, the intensely bright, orange-rind rim of the Sun slipped up above a hillside, and light poured into all the sky.

Jesus being born into the world 2000 years ago was like the sun rising after years of darkness.

But the darkness is still here in many ways. And today, hearing the news, looking back at the events of 2011, it feels as though this year the darkness was as grim and perhaps hopeless as it has ever been. So many natural disasters, tsunamis and floods, financial recession returning for a "double dip", leaders losing popularity, an Arab Spring bringing with it persecution of Christians, rising prices all over the world, cuts and riots in England, no power in Uganda, Zimbabwe still suffering under the grip of evil... But knowing that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, and knowing that he is coming again, is the promise of the Sunrise that will certainly come, and is the promise that gives us hope and enables us to keep going, even at the end of 2011.

Nativity in art

Since my last post I have been trying to find an image which I seem to remember, but can't find, of a manger with the light pouring onto it as if it is the focal point of all of earth and heaven. In hunting for it I realised how much I was enjoying all the multitude of interpretations of the nativity scene, and I thought I would put a few here for you also to enjoy. If you know another amazing one which you love, tell me about it! I'm afraid my comments are not those of an art critic - I probably should read up about these paintings - but I am just airing my reactions to them. 

I love this one (by Duccio) because of the tiny ox and ass peeking over. But more because of the ranks of angels, gazing down, gazing up to God, and having a chat about what they are seeing. 

 I like Chagall's because the cross is also there, and you can almost feel Mary's heart hurting.

 Rembrandt's shows the atmosphere of the stable so well - if it was a stable - although it definitely looks like a Dutch barn here - which is to be expected. But I love how the light glows out from Jesus and how the faces are all turned on him, and the atmosphere is hushed.

 I love this style of Rennaissance painting, with the beautiful city in the background. I love the angels on the roof of the stable. This painting seems full of peace to me. Everyone seems to be waiting quietly for events to unfold.

This one was (apparently) painted by Gari Melchers, in 1891. It conveys the exhaustion of both Mary and Joseph, but especially Mary. It is a much more human telling of the story, but the mystery is retained in the light emanating from the baby.

You just do not find many African depictions of the Nativity, apart from the beautiful wooden and stone carved sets. This one is by a British artist called Brian Whelan, painted "in a Uganda setting." Spot the crowned crane, fish eagle, palms, and geckos. I do like it.

Um, this one I included because of its strangeness, to me at least. Can anyone enlighten me?

Advent in England...

As I read friends' thoughts as Christmas in Uganda approaches, I remember how I always found it strange to be in a hot place for Christmas, even after eighteen years of it (bar the ones when I went back to England). Christmas, in the psyche of northern-hemisphere westerners, is cold, and dark, and involves frost or snow, log fires, pretty lights, and hot drinks. The imagery of the Light coming into the darkness feels vivid and apt. No doubt about that. So to prepare for Christmas in bright hot sunshine was always weird, and to go swimming on Christmas Day was weird, and to eat a hot roast turkey lunch with as many of the trimmings as we could manage to drum up from Shoprite, Uchumi, and packages from home, was also definitely weird. Photos of us standing by the Christmas tree in summer clothes never seemed right.

On the other hand, because the externals felt all wrong, and because we didn't have our families around, and because we knew parcels and cards might not arrive on time, if at all, we really made the most of what we did have. We made an effort to decorate our houses, to have a tree No Matter What, to get together with friends and neighbours, to sing carols, to have children's parties, gift exchanges, do a nativity ourselves if we had to, and we made it work. As Kris said in her recent post, we had to think about the real reason for Christmas because we weren't really being distracted from it by anything else, unless it was our own efforts to reproduce the western trappings!

Here, I suppose I kind of expected Christmas to be laid out on a plate. Here it would be celebrated in the way I was used to, I wouldn't have to make it happen by getting together with the other mums and saying, "What shall we do to make Christmas Chrismassy?"

Here yes there is a lot of talk about Christmas. Yes it is cold and dark (!) and the town centres and some houses are bedecked with beautiful lights. The children have carol services coming up at both their schools, and Christmas Fairs and Abby had a "Jingle Ball".

But, I am struck, and a bit depressed, by how secular all the hype is. Here you do not ever walk into a supermarket and hear carols being played. The shops are loud with pop music, but nothing remotely carolly. The television is wall to wall with ads for Christmas shopping, but they mainly revolve around half-price sofas, and half-price alcohol. It seems as though the most fun anyone is expecting to have this Christmas is to sit on their new amazing sofa drinking and watching television! I have not heard a single mention of Jesus or of anything meaningful behind Christmas on television so far.

Today Abigail and I went clothes shopping, because apart from her uniform we had not bought the poor cold girl any winter clothes since we arrived! Gloucester High Street was awash with people doing their Christmas shopping, all shoulders sloping down towards bulging bags. But looking around at the faces, I saw that nobody looked remotely happy. They more looked determined, and grim.

Even me (to use a Ugandan phrase) - a few days ago, when I realised that this new job is more time consuming than I had anticipated, I was fretting about when I would manage to get all our Christmas shopping done and cards written. Then I pulled myself up short, because I saw that I was no better than anyone else - making Christmas all about those things. What about, how was I going to find time to meditate on the birth of the Saviour? And to be honest, I have not done that. I have been really taken up with the new job, and with getting the children through all their end of term activities. I want to spend time thinking about Jesus coming into the world but I have been distracted from it. I have not had time for it. And so far, nothing much has called my attention to that omission.

Tomorrow we are going back again to the local Baptist Church, which Abby and Alex have declared their favourite, and which we also like - hopefully God will push and pull my heart and spirit back on track. Hopefully I will feel His peace which I need, and His joy which I long for, and the rest of Advent will be a turning towards Him, away from the world, away from the worry and the material demands. The baby in the manger will be from now on the focal point, the anchor I will cling to. In Him, in the Saviour he grew up to be, is my source of hope. That is my prayer tonight, a bit late but not too late, half way through our first Advent in England.

Ostriches!

On a lighter note, today Abby had a schoolfriend, Charlotte, over for the day. We went to a favourite place of ours outside Gloucester, Over Farm, which is a huge farm with a beautiful farm shop, as well as a collection of exotic and not-so-exotic animals which you can feed with packets of animal nuts bought in the shop. They have ponies, donkeys, sheep of course and goats, pigs, a buffalo, and... ostriches. The ostriches have managed to hatch a baby this year, which is quite an achievement here. It was a lovely sunny cold December day, and great to be outdoors. And to warm up with hot chocolate afterwards!

All work and no play...

So I have been working at my new job as Librarian for the Westminster Theological College, for three weeks now. It is more like being a virtual librarian than a real one, in that, the libraries I have to manage and order books for are in nine study centres all over the UK. So I don't actually see the books - I have to order them for the nine centres, who are all at different stages of acquiring the required books (so there are some scary spreadsheets involved, including the master-plan and then multiple stages of record- keeping. Once books have been ordered they have to be entered on the online catalogue system - which I don't know how to do yet. Bar codes and Dewey numbers have to be printed and sent out by post to the nine different centres for them to stick onto the books when they arrive. Once books have been paid for there is a monthly tracking record to be produced, which I also don't know how to do yet.... Part of it is that the old librarian is too busy (hence handing on the job) to spend enough time with me to show me - although he has spent a lot of time with me -, so we are doing it in stages, and I am doing my best to keep up with what I do know how to do. But meanwhile, the directors of the nine Hubs (teaching centres) are emailing me about particular books the catalogue says they have, which they don't have, books which they do have which don't appear on the system, books which have the wrong barcodes on, barcodes which are peeling off, barcode scanners which are not working... Heeeeelp!!!

But I am now at the stage of feeling that I understand the stages of what I have to do, and I know I can do them. But there is this sizeable backlog of small issues, books which are missing and have to be replaced, books which were ordered a year ago, paid for and never arrived, problems which need solving, and I just don't see how I can do it all in 7 - 10 hours a week.

On the other hand, I love the organisation, it is pretty cool - all the study centres have lectures on Monday and Tuesday evenings, some recorded on dvds, and some given via live skype links with the lecturer, who might be in Canada, north of England, London... There are also some "live" lectures and there are also seminars via skype where the lecturer appears as a huge head on the screen and can see all the students, and he speaks to them by name - it is really space-age - like Star Trek as someone put it.

Before the evening sessions begin, there is lovely worship and prayer. The college came out of New Wine which is a charismatic Anglican movement, and so that is the genre of the whole set-up. My colleagues are lovely people who are kind and helpful, and I really enjoy being with them.

I am thankful to God for this job. We needed me to have an income. And in the current climate, jobs are not easy to come by. I feel that it is God-given. And there are all these really good things about it.

But it is stretching me, which is probably good for me. I haven't been stretched in this way, to doing something new and challenging, that I am actually being paid for and with responsibility attached, - with a lot of people depending on me to sort this all out, and get it right, fast - for a long time.

But I have been feeling pretty stressed about it, to the extent that I have been waking up in the early hours feeling tense, tearful, wondering if I have made a mistake... Yet rationally I know I'll be OK, and that I can do it, and once I have got to grips with all the elements of the job I am pretty convinced I will love it. And every single day, when I come back from work I feel completely fine and sure that it is going to be great. But the next morning I wake up a nervous wreck again.

So this nervousness might be my anxiety working over-time, it might be thyroid related, - or it might be that with all the changes and uncertainties we have gone through in the last five months I am more strung out than I realised. Or it might be spiritual.

Anyway, I would appreciate your prayers for me as I deal with this, and as I learn the last few bits I need to learn - and that I'll be able to get the book order I am working on done in time for the new module which is starting soon!!
 

Grey skies...

This morning we woke up to rain lashing on the windows. The sky had a grey lid on it, with trailing edges allowing in a faint gleam of pale light. The wind was buffeting around the house, yanking the remaining orangey-brown leaves off our apple tree and discarding them onto the sodden grass below. No biking to school today...

This is the weather that people meant when they said, "Moving back to England? But the weather is so awful..."

Today I wore my brand new (!!) long black belted coat, feeling a bit glam. But, as I walked along the pavement to where I was meeting a friend, the wind blew my hair straight upwards in a hilarious cloud around my head. You know, when you walk into the wind, it blows your hair back off your face, and you feel all strong and pioneer-like and as if it is making you beautiful. But when you walk with the wind behind you, it blows your hair forward so that a) you can't see where you're going, and b) you look like an idiot.  The wind always seems to be blowing from behind me... (And of course I do have the wrong sort of hair for it.)

It got dark at four-thirty today, and we drove home from school in the drizzle, under the street lights.

I remember many of my ex-pat friends in Uganda talking about missing the seasons. Well, I've got the seasons, all right.

I am not sure I love the seasons. My problem is, I just want to be comfortable. A friend noticed that in me when I was a student. He said I was like a cat who just wanted to find somewhere to be comfortable and sleep all day. I think there is some truth in that. I do like a challenge, but not too hard of a challenge. I don't like change. I hate having to do things that makes me nervous, - but not so much that I turn them down - I just usually find myself muttering at some point "I really wish I wasn't doing this." And, to the point here, I do not like being cold...

On the other hand, I do like getting out all my woolly jumpers and scarves and wrapping up warm. I love sitting by a cosy fire - who doesn't. I love the current trend for everything knitted. And I like the feeling of putting away t-shirts and flip-flops, letting those clothes have a rest for the winter, and wearing something different.

But I lived without the four-season cycle for so many years, I must have long lost that sense of the year passing through a beautiful and predictable cycle. When I went to Zambia in 1992, the year was utterly divided into two - October to April, it rained every day for about twenty minutes. May to September, it never rained. Not once, ever. Zimbabwe also had two seasons, hot and wet (summer), cold and dry (winter). But it did vary much more and could be wet for days at a time. Uganda I found so random - whilst there were gradual progressions from warmer to hotter, windy to still, rainy to dry, it was never really predictable. I concluded that when it rained "it is the wet season" and when it didn't rain "it is the dry season", or after two weeks of no rain, "now it is a drought."

I don't know how long it will take me to come to love the turning of the seasons here, but I imagine I will be pretty happy when spring comes! I do love spring, I think it might be my favourite.  

Two things...

Two things I am having fun with back here in England...

1. The Local Library!
I am SO relishing being a member of the Longlevens Library (part of Gloucestershire Libraries). I signed up our whole family a few weeks ago. On receiving our four cards I asked how many books I could borrow at a time, and the answer was twenty! "Which means,"she added, "you could technically leave here with eighty books today." A speculative gleam came into my eyes... Hmm, wish I'd brought a bigger bag...

I love that feeling of having a pile of books beside my bed which are all waiting to be read. Books that I might not have actually bought but am happy to have a go at. And the Library has audiobooks which we've borrowed for some of our long car journeys to our churches.

2. Coupons!
I am new to the whole world of coupons... and am rapidly becoming the Coupon Queen. I have signed up to something called "Groupon" which sends a daily email with coupons for everything from haircuts to toys to hotel stays. So far I've only paid up for a half-price haircut and highlights - but it was something I really needed... I am learning fast. When we wanted to go out for a meal for Thanksgiving (since we failed to manage to plan a special meal at home...) I looked up the restaurant we had in mind, online, and found "Ten Pounds Off" vouchers for that particular restaurant - score! Dan took the children to see the new Tintin movie with two free children's tickets - earned in Tesco reward points (Tesco being the supermarket I use where you gain reward points when you spend money.) I'm really enjoying finding all these "bargains" - but aware you can spend money to "save" money so it may not be such a good thing...

However, Alex is getting a bit frustrated with our scrimping ways. "Mum," he said, "Why does everything we do have to be with a voucher? It's cheating!" (He is also fed up with second-hand everything and so I make sure I tell him whenever I buy something brand new... which admittedly isn't very often!) Much as he'd like us to be able to buy everything he wants, he is really good about not having all the stuff that others have. I expected a lot more complaining. But I think he realises (perhaps subconsciously at this point) that he wouldn't exchange his Ugandan childhood for all the Wii's and X-boxes a different life might have given him.

Family

I am thinking back to a time BA (Before Africa) when I was one of a group of about fifteen twenty-somethings staying in a youth hostel in the Lake District, on an Orientation week preparing us to go out to live and work in different parts of Africa. It was such a fun group of people, and we were all excited about what lay ahead. I remember my stomach was full, constantly, of those good kind of butterflies, the pre-Christmas kind. (My good friend Linda Carpenter was also in that group.) We were under the kind and avuncular instruction of various AEF elders like Robin and Val Wells, a lovely lady called Juliet, and a less aunt-like, more scary headmistress-like, Dorothy.  In amongst the Bible Studies, learn-how-to-cook-with-pumpkin sessions, eat-your-first-mealie-meal sessions (left me with a leaden gut for days...), and cultural insights and discussions, the issue of leaving family behind came up, and somebody reassured us with Jesus' words in Mark 10:29: "I tell you the truth, no-one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much, in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields - and with them, persecution), and in the age to come, eternal life."

I must admit, as I threw myself into my new, fascinating life in Zambia, well-looked after by new Zambian friends who were used to having young western short-termers around, helped out and often fed by older long-term missionaries, hanging out with other newbies in the evenings, I didn't really miss my family all that much. At Christmas I did, and once in a while I would have a pang, but not really. I loved their visits and it was very hard saying goodbye when they left again. But I do think especially in the case of short-termers, it is much harder on the family left behind, missing a family member who has always been around, than on the one out on the mission field having a fantastic new exciting experience.

When I went to work in Zimbabwe, I was newly engaged to Dan and probably thought more about missing him than my family!

It was when our children came along, and then when my three brothers started having their children, that I began to wish more that I could be nearer my family. I felt sorry that my babies were so far away from their adoring grandparents, and sorry that I was depriving them both of each other. As more and more time went by, I began to wish that I could see my family more. The list of gatherings I was missing grew longer: various baptisms and dedications, parties, and Christmas get-togethers, and the desire to be able to participate in all these grew stronger. I was fortunate that my parents and at different times my brothers did come out to visit, they all came at different stages along the way. But by the last two or three years of living in Uganda, wanting to be nearer my family became a major reason for feeling ready to leave.

One friend in Uganda warned me, "Being nearer family may not turn out to be all its cracked up to be!"

 But I am writing this post partly to say how much I am enjoying my family right now! I live roughly a two hour drive from my parents and from all my three brothers. So it isn't as though we hang out at weekends all the time, or feel any pressure to do so. But already this autumn I have been able to go to my new niece Lucia's baptism, Aunt Elisabeth's 75th birthday bash, to visit Mark and co in their new home in Guildford twice, visit Nigel and family and stay overnight, to spend a week at my parents' in August and a few weekends since then while doing our Devon church visits, to meet them at a shopping mall half-way between Gloucester and their home for a Christmas shopping day.... Also they came and stayed for a weekend to look after Abby and Alex while Dan and I went on a retreat in October. I have loved it all.

All my family have also offered us financial help during these months, for which we are so grateful.

I have less contact with my brothers by skype now, but it feels normal and good to see them once in a while, and for it not to be the once-in-two years visit or whatever it used to be. It feels good, and right. I love how Abby and Alex love their relations even though they have lived far away from them all their lives. Is that just inborn into us?  

I do bear witness, though, that God gave me family while I lived in Africa. The close community at UCU especially was like family, I had sisters and brothers, mothers and fathers there, and my children had them too. And just a few in Kampala as well. Since you are mainly who are reading this blog (because I haven't told many other people about it!) let me say here that your friendships were supportive and sustaining, and I frequently miss being able to wander up the mud path to one of your houses or other for a coffee, brownie, chat, vent, prayer, moan-and-groan fest, movie-night, game-night (!), Tae Bo session (OK not so much after Louise left...), movie-borrowing, egg-borrowing... Thank you for being my family as well, and the fulfilment of God's promise in Mark 10:29. And, keep being that for each other!  

Harriet Nalugo

I saw on facebook today the terribly sad news that Harriet Nalugo died yesterday. She was assistant class teacher in earlier years for both Abigail and Alex at Ambrosoli, and was a friend to them ever since. She exchanged emails with them a few times.

Harriet was fun, vivacious, bright, and smart. She was one of those teachers the children always wanted to invite to their birthday parties, and she always came, arriving on the back of a boda boda, legs sticking out, smart high heels dangling jauntily down. She had left Ambrosoli a few years ago to work in another school, but would visit her former school fairly often, so we still saw her from time to time. I was really pleased that she happened to be at Ambrosoli one day not long before we left, so that I was able to say goodbye.

Unbelievable to see that she has died. It has brought our Ugandan life suddenly close to me again. I wish I could be there to mourn with others who knew her.

Does God really take the brightest and the best? Today it surely seems like it.

From Cathedral to Kabutwitwi Local Church...

Reading through my last post, about Gloucester Cathedral, I remembered a piece I wrote a couple of years ago at UCU in Jason Mehl's Creative Writing class, - although it was a memory, not fiction - on being in a service in another cathedral and suddenly being transported back in my mind to the tiny mud-brick church I worshipped in when I lived in Zambia. I thought I might include it here, as this is after all about processing my present and past, comparing the life I live in England with the myriad African images with which my brain is stuffed!

So here it is...

"My hands rest each side of me, fingertips feeling the smooth mahogany pew. I am in the chancel of Exeter Cathedral, with two of my family and just a few well-dressed others. We are sitting smartly, upright, politely spaced apart, waiting for the service to begin. The air is cool and bright, light pouring in from the clear tall windows and reflecting off the pale golden-grey stonework which soars up above. Looking down through gaps in the ornate screen, through the length of the cathedral you can see tourists wandering, and on out through the distant arched west door, a framed glimpse of the green grass scattered with people in miniature sitting in the sunshine, tiny pigeons pecking about, a dog running. The pew is smooth and hard, and the pew ends are beautifully carved, and the wood gives off a scent of sweet polish, but behind it is the peppery hint of aged hymn books. Soft organ music is playing, mellow breathy chords flowing and melding. You can hear the tourists whisper to each other, their murmurs are amplified somehow and rise through the music until a verger approaches them gesturing towards the chancel.

Then you hear rustling of robes, the brushing of soft footsteps on ancient stones, and the choir enters the nave. Quiet still faces above gathered white cloth. The organ crescendos and the boys begin to sing, pure notes which cut the air. A broad ray of sunlight just then flows in through the windows, dust motes flickering, golden. It is all beautiful, controlled, choreographed, beautiful, and holy.

I am newly back from Zambia, from worshipping in a small dimsy mud church, squashed on a low bench with hundreds of others squeezed in there, our knees pressed against the backs of the people in front of us, smelling each others sweat from the hot dusty walk, but all wearing our best cotton worn-out clothes. You looked out through roughly square holes for windows and could see bright green bush, vibrant blue sky, red mud houses with tawny thatched roofs. We sang low African hymns accompanied by home-made dried-grass shakers, a choir of thin brown ladies with bright scarves over their hair, swaying their hips and elbows in time to the music, to and fro. Beside me a grandmother, wrinkled skin stretched over high cheekbones, carried in a printed cloth on her back her sick daughter’s tiny baby. She used to sling the baby round to her front to suckle it only for comfort – no milk. It was dim in the church, the walls were mud with a low tin roof above, so hot, and in the front was a lumpy blackboard chalked with the numbers of people who had congregated  last week, how many had been late, what little money had been collected. The music was rhythmic, repetitive, beautiful. I felt so uplifted there.

I feel uplifted and holy in both settings. I am trying to understand why two such opposite sensory experiences can both overwhelm me with God. In the cathedral God is glorified in the perfection of  the architecture, the brilliance of the choral music, the talent of the  daily-rehearsed choir boys selected for the purity of their voices. The cathedral is kept polished, clean, light pours in, visitors show respect and reverence.

In Kabutwitwi local church, yes the dirt floor is swept, and so is the dusty ground outside. People come dressed in their best, even carrying their shoes on their heads to church and putting them on at the door, so as not to muddy them on the way. Although the building is simple and rough, the sheer brightness and colour of nature all about and of the printed clothes, and on the faces of all those who come and squeeze in there together, make the brown mud walls and floor and rough wooden benches irrelevant, out of sight.

I feel privileged to be a worshipper at Kabutwitwi, to share afterwards in the sour maize drink from an orange plastic beaker even though I can’t bear its taste. Equally but differently I feel privileged in the cathedral to share in the hundreds of years of history of perfection of worship.

Which does God prefer? I believe the externals which play upon my senses and stir my spirituality don’t mean much to Him, if anything at all. I am there, and so are the others, and that is what He is pleased about."

Remembrance Day

11th November is Remembrance Day in England, just like the American Veterans Day. For years this day has passed me by, living in Africa. But before, when I was a child, I remember it always being an important day. On the morning of 11th, there are ceremonies at war memorials all around the country, and usually, at 11.00 am, a two minute silence - in shops, schools, businesses, anywhere. Everybody buys a small paper poppy in the days before, and wears it in their lapels: the poppy became a symbol for the thousands who died in the battlefields of Europe - because after the war, nothing but poppies grew in those fields.  (The poppies are sold by the Royal British Legion, an organisation which provides care for war widows and any retired or disabled soldiers who need their help.)

So this year it was quite a throw-back for me to have a chance to participate in a grand Remembrance Day service with Abigail's school, in Gloucester Cathedral. There were traditional hymns, prayers of thankfulness for those who have given their lives in war to protect our country and freedom, prayers for those in combat zones now, prayers for peace in the world. Flags of various army, airforce and navy regiments were carried up and laid on the altar. A lone trumpeter played the Last Post from the very back of the cathedral, so that the solemn notes floated to us as if from a great distance.

I mainly just enjoyed soaking in the feeling of being in a service in the ancient stone Cathedral, the main body of which was built in Norman times, one thousand years ago. Over the intervening years portions have been added, stained glass windows, huge carved tombs, statues and inscriptions. But it is all truly old. Huge round pillars hold the massive building up, solid and circular, wider in girth than any tree. But the impression is of being in a huge spacious forest, stone branches fanning out and spreading to meet each other over our heads. The size and majesty, the feeling of strength, even indestructibility, in the stone, and the space and light, all speak of God, and give a sense of peace. If I need reassuring that "all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well," I will step inside Gloucester Cathedral for a few moments in my day, and be reminded.

 

A Tale of Two Fires

As you may know, Saturday was Guy Fawkes Night, or Bonfire Night, or, Fireworks Night. The night when we British celebrate how back in 1605 a man called Guy Fawkes attempted to blow up with dynamite the Houses of Parliament, and failed, and was killed and his friends hung drawn and quartered. Lovely. They wanted to kill King James I (of the King James Bible) and replace him with a Catholic king. Every Nov 5th, or the nearest Saturday to it, most towns and villages have a huge bonfire, accompanied by a fireworks display (to commemorate the dynamite). In the olden days, and still sometimes today, someone will make a stuffed effigy of Guy Fawkes (which is then called "the guy"), and walk it around the village asking for money - "a penny for the guy!" - and then the figure is put on top of the bonfire to burn. Hmm, lovely.

We used to have handheld wire sparklers which you lit and then whipped around in circles, scattering sparks and enscribing green spirals on the backs of your eyelids when you shut your eyes. You could also write your name in the air with them, and they smelled of rich metallic burning. Sometimes people carved pumpkins into Jack-o-Lanterns and carried them around with a light inside. Bonfire night was a night for mulled wine or hot cider, and hot dogs. It nearly always involved a muddy field, wellington boots,  - and the best part as a young child, staying up way after dark, trying not to lose Dad's hand in the crowds and darkness.

This year we were staying with my parents in Devon, and they took us to a perfect Fireworks Night with all the trimmings, muddy field, mulled wine and all. Sadly "glowsticks" have replaced the "dangerous" sparklers... The outstanding thing about this display was that the organisers had built a great wooden model of the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, and made the fire inside it - and a person dressed up as an Elizabethan Guy Fawkes ran down to it with a huge blazing torch and lit it up - and we all got to witness how it might have been if the plot had not been foiled all those years ago. I had to laugh at us British, all thoroughly enjoying the spectacle of our precious Houses of Parliament burning gloriously down, Big Ben blazing and finally keeling over. What a strange breed we are.      

The fireworks were brilliant, unlike the display I read about in Oban, where all 6,000 pounds worth of fireworks accidentally went off, all at once, in 50 seconds!! You can see it on youtube...

But, we were sobered to watch the television news when we got home later that evening, to see that there had been a huge crash on the motorway the night before, in a spot which Dan, Abby, Alex and I had driven right through on our way down to my parents, only five minutes prior to the accident. They called it the worst accident on the motorway in this generation. 37 vehicles were involved, many burning completely to nothing. Seven people died, and over 50 were injured. It was on the opposite carriageway to us, but even so, if we had driven past there just five minutes later we might have been involved, and we would have witnessed a huge fireball with six lorries jack-knifing across the road, and people running into the oncoming traffic to escape their burning vehicles.

We felt so thankful to God for protecting us, for allowing us to be ready to leave only twenty minutes later than our scheduled time, rather than thirty. For keeping us safe on these roads as He did in Uganda.

I can't help comparing this accident with the many that we witnessed, or saw the debris of, in Uganda. In this accident, only seven people died, compared to the forty-seven who died in a bus crash in Mabira Forest during our first week in Uganda. Here the road was closed from Friday until Sunday evening, while the police and forensic experts dismantled the wreckage and tried to find out the causes. There will be an investigation lasting several months, they say, and probably after that an "enquiry." There was no suggestion of "These things happen... such is life". On the contrary, something will have to change, somebody will almost certainly be blamed, and sacked, and there will almost certainly be a new law introduced. Here there were no photographs in the papers of dead bodies (unlike the coverage of a crash on the Owen Falls Dam also when we first arrived in Uganda, where the front page of the newspaper had a photograph of a distraught young mother, who happened to be a UCU student, watching her dead baby being dragged out of the river on a hook.)

In the west, death is unacceptable - unless the deceased is very elderly and has lived a good and fulfilled life. In the west we think we can control life and death. In the west we know everything has a material cause and explanation, and therefore we feel we can prevent a disaster from repeating itself. But I am not convinced our attitudes are correct. Who knows why we left home last Friday evening at 6.50 instead of 7.00? And why the family of four who died were not supernaturally hastened on their way as we might think we were? In our rational way of thinking, we tend to ignore that there is also a layer of mystery, of divine control, of divine reasoning which we will probably never understand.  We may be able to avert road deaths in more effective ways (which is a good thing), and to prevent what we regard as unnecessary deaths more and more as time goes on (which is also a good thing), but we should not forget that it is God who is sovereign over life and death. People will die and we will not understand why. It is not wholly in our hands, much as we think it is or should be. Whilst the African fatalism and therefore failure to bring change, for example in the area of road safety, does seem to be wrong, and even lax, yet the acceptance of God's sovereignty and of the inevitability of death shows a deeper understanding of life and death, and of our reliance on God than we with all our controlling ways tend to have.  

But I must admit I am glad to live now in a country where fatalities are not normally paraded on the cover of newspapers. I appreciate that respect towards the dead and their families which is important in this culture. (I was shocked that the body of Gadaffi was counted as an exception and I bought the only paper that day which did not show his blood-covered corpse.)

So Saturday was a day to remember God's protection of the Protestant monarchy and parliament four hundred years ago (although I doubt many of our fellow- revellers were considering God's part in it!), and of the Button family 24 hours ago, and to contemplate how little I understand really any of it, or how and why God acts,  - but perhaps I don't need to, perhaps I just need to Trust Him More...

Let the games begin...

Yesterday was a full and colourful day. I feel as though the integration of my different worlds is beginning. Do you remember those diagrams where three circles of different colours are superimposed so that the middle, curvy triangle section is a combination of all three colours. It has felt to me as if the circles in my life have been almost completely separate, with the overlapping triangle in the middle a tiny dot. But I can see now how the integrated middle section can and will grow bigger and bigger, as the separate sections, almost untouched by each other before, slowly but surely overlap more and more. I am still thinking through why this integration is so important. I know it is making me feel better. Maybe partly just not having to explain everything to everyone. But more than that it is going to help me in making the transition from my missionary life in Africa without having just to put it behind me, as something that happened before and is not happening now... I have been operating with two main circles of bright and vibrant yellow and red: Uganda life with its friends, English life with family and friends - and for the sake of the diagram illustration, the new life in Gloucester as a, so far, rather pale blue.

Yesterday the three circles began to creep over each other.

In the morning I was surprised in my kitchen by the bubbly Skype ringing tone: Peace Kwikiriza, skyping in from the Foundations Studies office!  I loved just looking at her beaming face. We asked about each other's children, about work, she commented on things in our house she could see, so then I tried to show her round our house by webcam... Then two other of the  tutors came along and crammed their faces into the frame as well - Kevin Kezabu and Faith, and then Dan arrived - and we were five faces just laughing into the camera, chatting. "Did you know I had a baby boy?" "When are you coming to see us?" "How are the Abigails?" It was like being beamed back into UCU for twenty minutes. Or having friends from Uganda drop right into our kitchen.

Soon after that a school friend of mine came for lunch. Jo and I used to sit together on the school bus when we were thirteen years old, ride our ponies together, go trying on crazy clothes in the shops, and our families went on all kinds of trips together. She is the first of my old friends (of the red circle) to come to our new house (in the blue circle), and also, to say, "Can I see some pictures of Uganda?" (red blue yellow!!!!) As you can imagine I could hardly contain myself.

In the evening we had our first new Gloucester friends in for a meal - and... drum roll... our first game of Settlers since leaving Uganda! As one friend has already pointed out, you can see in the picture below only one unfamiliar element... everything else down to the cake tin is as it always was. So fun.

 
Colin and Chris were missionary doctors in Bangladesh, Chris is an obstetrician and does fistula surgeries, and has been in touch with Jean Chamberlain in the past about her work. Colin now teaches part time at Redcliffe.

I think I can see it all beginning to come together.

Saying goodbye to the Mother Ship...

Last Monday we made our last trip to the Crosslinks office, in Lewisham in East London.

I joined Crosslinks (an Anglican evangelical mission agency) in 1996. Since then there have been many changes, including almost all new personnel and new leadership, new ethos and new fundraising methods... but the office is still in a rambling old grey stone Victorian house in a somewhat grotty, but developing part of London. For the past fifteen years, whenever I have been in England,  I have had to make the trek at least once to "251" as it is affectionately known (or was at least by my first Regional Co-ordinator, Moira who first interviewed me). "251" always made me think of it as a spy centre...

Lewisham is not the easiest place to get to, involving a couple of train rides and then a hike along about a mile of pavement, past an Aladdin's Den junk shop/antique market, several "greasy spoon" cafes, and the Lewisham College. As we made this kind of pilgrimage last Monday morning, something inside me was mourning loudly the fact that this was the last time we would be doing this.

We were going there for our day of debrief, mainly with Jo Sayer, the HR person, who is also an old friend of ours. Dan and I got to know Jo as a fellow student at All Nations Christian College, the other main mission training college in England ("other" because our allegiance now is with the "first" missions training college, Redcliffe College in Gloucester, where Dan will be working...) Jo went out as a Crosslinks mission partner to Tanzania at the same time as we went to Zimbabwe. For the last four or five years she has been working in the Crosslinks office which has been lovely for us as she is our main contact person in the mission.

We were asked to show our powerpoint during the staff morning prayers, and then we spent some hours talking to Jo about leaving the mission field, followed by lunch in the next door Turkish restaurant, followed by meetings with the finance person to tie up loose ends, and with the Church Mission Team about our church visits and links.

Meanwhile Abby and Alex got to spend the day with a wonderful lady called Janet who specializes in Third Culture Kids (TCKs, Missionary Kids), who spent the day making timelines with them and talking through the whole moving to another culture issue with them. I believe the day was beneficial to them, and Alex especially really enjoyed the activities and conversation. But when I asked Abby afterwards how she had enjoyed it, her answer was, "Mum, I've told you before, Alex and me are not having any problems. It was just something for us to do while you were in your meetings." !

Leaving Crosslinks at the end of the day, saying goodbye to Jo, Chris, Giles, Alan, and others, felt a bit like walking off the end of a plank, or like being cut loose and sent off, to fend for myself. I felt as though it should have been heralded with a party and a cake, and speeches, Uganda style. But in fact it was all slightly anticlimactic. This was the end of an era for me (although we are still on Crosslinks support until the end of December and will be speaking at an orientation for them on Uganda customs and culture in December). Crosslinks has been a Mother Ship, my employer and my safety net during my years working in Zimbabwe and Uganda.

Honestly, there are some ways in which I am relieved to be finishing "the missionary life," and in particular living on missionary support, feeling so accountable to the churches and old ladies who give so kindly from their little, to enable us to live our amazing life serving God in Africa. But I am also realising how important the prayer support which accompanied that was, how privileged we were to have it. And how Crosslinks was there for us, if we needed them.

Dan and I appreciated how Crosslinks allowed us to function at UCU under the guidance of the university leadership and under the local church, as is their policy. We appreciated their hands-off-ness. It suited us to be able to find our niche, to say yes or no to all the various roles and work that we were asked to do by UCU as we felt was right, without having to pass everything through them. But we knew they were praying for us and would back us up at any time. We are also grateful for all their work on our behalf, finding us new churches and helping us raise our support levels when needed, sending out our prayer letters, handling our finances, and praying for us.

We would like to say a huge Thank You to Crosslinks. And maybe we will come back for the party and the cake another time!

Rollercoaster

I feel as though I have been whizzed around, up and over one of Six Flag's most enormous terrifying rollercoasters this past two weeks. And I hate rollercoasters. It has been good, stretching, scary, disappointing, cheering, relieving, difficult and comforting in turns. I am pretty exhausted now.

Too complicated to give all the details... But, it started on Monday morning two weeks ago when the Headmaster of Abigail's school phoned me, all unexpecting as I was, and asked me if I could cover for one of their Latin teachers who had fallen ill. Instant panic. At first I said no, and then I said yes. I felt unprepared, and yet, what an opportunity. This could turn into the job I need and have been praying for. But can I do it? Haven't taught Latin for about 20 years. Haven't taught in an English school ditto. But I know I can do it. OK, I'll do it. In I go to meet the Deputy Head, and Head of Classics. It is all agreed. Then, a phone call. In order to do any work with children here now, a thing called a CRB check is required (Criminal Records Bureau check ie police clearance) - so it looks as though it is all off. But no! They say I can still teach but with another adult in the room to cover the legal requirements! Help! This is worse! ... What if I am a disaster and Abigail's friends tell her that her Mum is a rubbish teacher? What am I going to wear?! OK, maybe you do not want to read all the predictable thoughts that proceeded to flow very freely, from that time on until the first teaching day arrived...

Needless to say, I found out that I could teach, but, I was surprised how informally the children behaved towards me, how talkative they were from the get-go, how often I had to quieten them down. Not teaching respectful, grateful, adult Ugandan students any more. It was hard work. But, it went OK.
After three lessons, I felt good about it and back on top of things.

In the midst of psyching myself up for all of this, I received another unexpected phone call - that I was being invited for an interview for a very interesting job that I had applied for a couple of weeks earlier. Instant panic again! Can I even do this job? What was I thinking? Whatever can I wear for the interview? This job was in a really smart school, much posher than Abigail's school. And the job was for an assistant chaplain - mainly doing pastoral work with children aged 4 - 18. I loved the idea of it. But really surprised they called me for the interview.

The interview was on Monday morning. But... between teaching on the Friday morning, and interviewing on Monday morning, Dan and I were booked to go to a retreat for returning missionaries, at a beautiful remote retreat centre, a five hour drive away! My parents were due to arrive on Friday lunchtime to take over care of Abby and Alex, and Dan and I were to drive off towards the southeast, to  a village called Battle, just near Hastings, as in, the Battle of...

Do you think I was in the right frame of mind for a retreat?? It was honestly the last thing I felt like that particular Friday of my life. I LOVE retreats, but this was not a good weekend! We got held up in terrible traffic on the way, took a detour, got lost, arrived late for supper, and I walked into the retreat centre virtually fuming.

However... the place was peaceful and comfortable, the people were kind, the bed was soft... and in the morning, I felt better. It was great to meet the other people who were all recently returned from China, India, Ghana and Malawi. All in the same stage of returnee-ism as we are - still trying to get settled, still in survival mode, still wondering if we should have left, still missing "home", still wondering what we are going to do next, still sorting out how to pay the gas bills, still a bit fragile. So it was lovely to just talk about all those things and realise that we are not cracking up, nor silly to be feeling fragile. We had thoughtful prayer times and a walk in the fields, and individual meetings with the leader/counsellor. God managed to beat his way through my layers of stress and carve out a space for some peace. For which I thank Him!

I talked with the counsellor at some length about my getting so nervous, and that was very interesting and helpful. I won't say any more about it. As I have read elsewhere - "I am not that kind of blogger"!

So... we drove back to Gloucester on Sunday night, and on Monday morning I screwed up my courage, saw Mum and Dad off, dressed up in my new smart dress, and set off for my interview. It went well I felt but... I didn't get the job. No need to go into details, but they ended up not making an appointment. They didn't seem to know quite what they wanted of the role, and they clearly did not want an evangelical in there trying to influence the children even though they had said they wanted an "evangelistic" person in the advertisement. Anyway, it was obviously not meant to be. It would have been lovely to have the job and income sorted out... So, it was disappointing but I think it would have been tough.

I am just about now coming down off the flurry and blur of all these events. I did Tae Bo for the first time on Tuesday morning! It was very strange not having Florence peeking out at me from the kitchen (Kris!) And having her say to me when I finished, "Ah you have really exercised. You have sweated. That is good exercise." Florence! I want her back.

I have an interview for another job next Tuesday. Before that, we are driving all the way to Kent for the weekend, to our church in a town there, preceded by lunch with an old college friend Nick and family, followed by overnight stay with my old prayer partner friend Deborah from my 20s, followed by our debrief day at Crosslinks in London, followed by a visit to us here in Gloucester with friends we knew well in Uganda, Rosie and Andy Sexton. Please if you are praying for us, pray for stamina. And pray I will find the peace again, and the joy in the reunions and friendships. Because mainly it feels as though I am just surviving.

Getting there...

We have been in our new home for three weeks now, and we are still in the process of setting it up. We have only just got our bedroom sorted – I at last felt brave enough to buy a crisp white duvet cover – now we no longer have toddlers and no longer live in a country with bare floors and red dust… - and I think the room looks fresh and lovely. But we are still trying to work out the living room – fitting a well-known DAYBED in as well as a double futon (the only place for guests to sleep) and our new comfy sofa is just not working too well. There are several large book cases in there which we have not yet put books on, and we haven’t yet put up pictures in there. That room still looks frankly a mess, as does the hall, which has an empty bookcase strewn with wooden African objects, a light bulb, a pile of files… I don’t really know why it is all taking so long… We still don’t have internet but it should be installed on Tuesday. The waiting, and the mess, is driving me a bit crazy.

When I think of the wooden shacks we used to pass every day on our journey to school, perched high up on the mud banks beside the road, with just a curtain hanging in the doorway, and big-tummied toddlers being bathed in plastic basins outside the door, I have to wonder why we can justify spending several weeks getting comfortable in this home, moving our possessions round, wanting it all to look perfect, putting the right pictures in the right rooms… hunting round the second-hand furniture shops for just the right bookshelf… But I know from living on the UCU campus that there is a whole range of décor and number of possessions even from one Ugandan lecturer’s house to another, it is not purely a matter of the haves and the have-nots. It is partly a matter of choices and priorities. But the inequality and unfairness of it remains. And the truth is that we do not live in a shack on a mud bank, we live in a typical three-bedroomed, carpeted, English house. Why this should be, though, is a question all of us have doubtless asked at some point in our lives. Why was I born into a comfortably-off British family instead of to a woman in a refugee camp? No-one knows the answer do they? Predestination? God’s grace? Sheer luck? I don’t know, I am just grateful, and I know that I have to live the best way I can, live as I believe God wants me to live, in the life God has given me. And be thankful. As English people go, we are not rich nor are we particularly poor… (at this point…)

When we first arrived in Gloucester we heard a very good sermon in one of the local churches on John 1, about Jesus being the Word incarnate, and how we should strive to be incarnational Christians who witness to neighbours and friends here by being alongside them and being involved in their lives. We have since met a group of couples who do just that, befriending their neighbours and opening their homes to them, having a crowd of people over for breakfast on a Sunday morning, owning a big van that anyone can borrow, and so on. Through their example and friendship, several neighbours have become Christians already. Which is so encouraging to hear about in this very post-Christian society. We moved to England very aware that there is a desperate need here for Christian witness, for people to be willing to stand up for their faith and actually, practically, bear witness to Jesus by their lives and words. Christianity is seen as so out-dated and irrelevant here, and is almost seen as something to be trodden down if it raises its head. But we feel so encouraged by the friendly, out-going Christians we have met here in Gloucester, and by the warm churches we have gone into.

We definitely want to make an impression here for God's Kingdom. But at the moment we are still in the process of getting incarnated. We are still finding our feet and ordering our home, learning how to shop and cook with a whole different range of ingredients, fixing up phones and bill payments… Jesus himself took the full nine months in the womb, and thirty years in Nazareth, right? So maybe I shouldn’t get stressed about taking a couple more weeks… We are getting there.

Not in Kansas Any More...

 It has struck me over the last couple of days, that this housework business is not a temporary nuisance, to be borne for a short while. No, this is a day in day out, eternal mountain of jobs, varying from easy and vaguely interesting to tiring and down right boring. Like Sysiphus who has to push the great heavy boulder up the hill every night only for it to roll back down in the morning, so that he has to repeat the labour again and again never-endingly… It is not going away. What actually hit me today as I was standing in the bathroom pondering over our cornflower blue bath and sink, a relic of the sixties (and only mildly better than the avocado baths which followed in the seventies…), was that the blue sink and bath in question are never ever going to get clean, unless I clean it, and that the heap of clothes in the hamper are there for good unless I wash them, hang them out and iron them, that the kitchen floor is never going to get mopped – and yet it will continue to get dirtier and germier – unless I mop it (I or Dan of course who does do some of these things…) Making sure the children’s uniforms are washed and ironed regularly so they can go to school looking decent is my task and mine alone…

For the last eighteen years, I have had someone coming in to clean my house every weekday. I have, all my adult life, been able to say to myself, “Oh well, Florence/Martha/Judith will get that on Monday morning.” Not to say I have never wielded a mop or a broom, that I have never washed a dish or cleaned an oven – I have done so pretty often (!), but, on those days when it could wait, it definitely waited…

It is not so much that this is all rather annoying and takes rather a lot of my time which I could be using for other things… (agreed)… but it is, I am finding, a pressure. I HAVE to clean the kitchen floor before someone comes round! I HAVE to keep up with dishes or we will simply sink. At the moment our lives are still completely irregular, - out sofa-hunting one day, off to see old friends another, off to a meeting today -  but I am hoping that we will in the next short while manage to get into some kind of routine so that I find that I can fit in the jobs, and share them with the rest of my family, so that it just becomes part of normal life and not an issue…

Last Sunday we visited the second of our link churches. Again it was a warm and friendly experience. We had worked on our power point so that it flowed better and told a story rather than being a random set of photos, and a good crowd stayed after church to watch it, followed by a great discussion.

I was amazed going through our recent Uganda photos – but how could I have forgotten so soon? – how bright and incredible all the colours are  - the birds outrageously blue or scarlet or yellow, the sky so blue, the grass SO green, people’s clothing, the bougainvilleaea and the hibiscus, the market stalls covered in a rainbow of fruit, - all made more glowing by the intense sunlight. Here in England we are entering autumn, where the sun is lower in the sky (yes we have actually had a lot of sunshine…!), and the colours are gentle and muted, the trees already turning from green to tawny browns, golds and reds. We do have flowering bushes in our garden, and roses, pansies, sweet purple wood cyclamen and primroses, and the two big old apple trees which are dripping with large red and green fruit, but, it looks nothing like those vividly colourful photos of Uganda.

Sometimes we miss sitting on our verandah watching the birds pecking around in our crazy flowering trees and hopping around the pottery bird bath. Sometimes I see a movement in a tree here and think, Monkey? and then realise that never in this dispensation will a monkey be seen swinging and jumping through the trees in this garden. Sometimes a memory or a thought makes me flash back to Uganda and our home there, and I miss it so much it hurts.

But there are things I am also very relieved to have left behind, like the ants gathering on plates by the sink, and the cockroaches, the dust lurking on and under the bottom shelves of everything, and the heat, and the traffic. It is a mixture of relief and sadness. I badly want to see all my friends there (you who are reading this!), but I am loving meeting up again with even older friends here. Feeling kind of stretched between two worlds. Ah well, time to do the dishes…