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.