Still washing zip lock bags...

Yesterday evening I laughed at myself as I realised I was busy washing up a zip lock bag to reuse for probably the hundredth time. In fact it was one that I had brought back from Uganda in the container! I did only bring the ones that were in pretty good shape, not the cloudy, sticky ones...

But even though I chuckled, I can't see any reason to stop reusing them. One thing I did put my foot down about, years ago, was the habit of my very first housemate in the missionary life, a 60-something American lady called Doris, who insisted that we wash clingfilm (plastic foodwrap) to reuse it. This is almost impossible - when you put it in the sink it goes into a tight thin stuck-together string, and then you have to tease it out into a square again, somehow scrub it, and then stick it up on the tiles to dry. When it has dried it never has its same useful stretchy tension anyway. What a pain! I vowed that after I stopped living with Doris I would never do that again, ever.

I am wondering what other "missionary" habits I have not yet lost. I keep teabags on a little dish in case I might reuse them - although often they end up just being thrown away. I tear the many letters from the children's schools into quarters and use the backs for my shopping lists. I keep every plastic tub and ice cream box to use as storage containers. I still clip the picture side off cards we receive, and recycle them to write notes to people on, or to make new birthday cards with. Recycling was invented by missionaries, after all.

On a different note, one habit I think I might never lose is when out of the corner of my eye I catch sight of a shadow moving or a bit of dust blowing. I still always look quickly again, poised, in case it is a cockroach. But here, thank goodness, it never is. (The ones that came over in our container didn't survive, it seems!)

The Heart of the Matter

Still addicted to reading books about or set in Africa... A few weeks ago I roared through "Chasing the Devil," Tim Butcher's book about Sierra Leone and Liberia - where he describes his recent journey on foot through these two countries following the route taken by author and MI5 spy Graham Greene in the 1940s. Like his book on the Congo, it is evocative and very readable, bringing in in a very interesting way the history of these West African countries as well as their current situation and beautiful descriptions of the people, country and culture.

This put me in mind of reading Graham Greene's own novel set in West Africa, "The Heart of the Matter," drawing on his experiences in Sierra Leone. I had read the book years ago when I was in a Graham Greene phase, probably in my teens. All I remembered from that reading (some years before I ever went to Africa) was Greene's description of the overpowering heat and humidity, such that whenever he touched his wife or shook hands with someone, sweat sprang out of their skin. And the conflictedness of the main character, Scobie.

It was such a pleasure to read it again now. Partly just such a joy to read a well-written, carefully crafted book after rushing through a pretty rubbishy one before it (NOT Tim Butcher's!) But also this book has interesting themes and a background I could relate to to some extent, although set in truly colonial Africa.

In brief, the main character, Scobie, is a police officer whose marriage to Louise has long deteriorated into a relationship of pity and some guilt on one side (Scobie's) and dissatisfaction and continual complaining on the other. Eventually Scobie finds a way to send his wife to South Africa, to escape the heat and loneliness, and his failure to be promoted in the colony. When she has gone, he falls in love with a young widow, Helen, and has an affair with her. This is also largely motivated by pity for her, and his belief that he has to make her happy. This relationship begins to look a lot like his unhappy relationship with his wife. Then, just when Scobie has made a promise never to abandon Helen (in spite of his better judgment) Louise sends a telegram that she is on her way back by ship, having realised she should never have left him. There is also Wilson, who watches Scobie, and loves Louise. Everyone except Scobie soon identifies him as a British spy.

Scobie has a deep Catholic faith, but this mainly consists of a conviction that he has to be honest with God, that God surely pities the young and helpless, but that he will punish the unrepentant. Scobie comes to believe that by his adultery and then inability to make either his wife or his mistress anything but miserable he is also making God miserable. Eventually he decides that the only way to set them all free from the despair he has inflicted on them in spite of his earnest desire to make them happy, is to commit suicide. He believes that suicide will doom him to damnation, but he sees it as a self sacrifice to set everyone else including God free from the consequences of his sins.

The introduction to the book comments that this shows Scobie's terrible pride. It shows to me how little he understood his faith. But, there is incredible power in Greene's description of Scobie taking communion when he has decided to continue in the path of adultery, feeling overwhelmed by his hypocrisy and by the damnation he is certain he is eating and drinking on himself - but the most powerful part to me was the image of how as he took the bread and wine it was as if he was punching the already bleeding Christ in the face.

One telling thing about the book is how relationships with Africans are virtually non-existent. Scobie is described as feeling great affection for the local people, but he has no actual friendships with any of them except possibly his house boy Ali. That was no doubt true of the ex-pat community then. The smallness and claustrophobia, range of quirks and incestuousness of the ex-pat world is recognisable and conveyed very well - the goldfish bowl syndrome as we know it.

Greene makes the heat and the corrupted, down-at-heel atmosphere of the West African port city very real for the reader, but he rarely describes or uses a landscape explicitly, to the extent that the book could really have been set anywhere where there is a closed group of people, unhappy for various reasons and dependant on one another. There are frequent references to the vultures, cockroaches and rats living around the humans. One of my favourite sentences in the book describes a group of vultures gathered around a dead chicken, their old men's necks stooped over, their wings sticking out like broken umbrellas.

True, it is not a cheery read, but, it is fascinating and I loved it. Highly recommended.

I never wanted a dog...

If you know me well, you probably know I never wanted a dog... In fact I was adamantly opposed to having a dog. I don't much like the way they smell, the way they bark, the way they jump up at people, the way they drool, the way you have to clean up their poop, the stink when someone steps in their poop... I could be polite with other people's dogs, and I quite liked some of them, but that was probably as far as it went. (sorry all my dog-owning friends...)

But for years my family has been badly wanting a dog. Our home on the campus in Mukono wasn't really suitable for a dog as the gardens were all open and we would have had to keep it inside or tie it up a lot.  But in a weak moment one day soon after we had made the decision to move back from Uganda to England, I was heard to say, "OK, when we move to England we can have a dog."

Well, the very day we arrived in England, literally, Abby asked "Right, when are we getting the dog?!" But as we were facing a marathon of weekends away visiting churches, from September to January, I protested, validly, that there was no way we could have a dog while we were travelling around the country. But then January came... and again the pressure was on. But at that point, the thought of coping with a dog was enough to send me into a flat panic, and I more or less begged the family for a few more months' grace.

I also challenged Dan about the financial side, as some friends with dogs seem to spend a lot of money on them, and you hear about pet insurance, vet insurance, vet bills, clipping, etc etc. and we are not exactly flush this year, certainly until Dan starts his full time job. But Dan was insistent that we wouldn't need to spend all that much money on it. I started to ask around anyone I knew who had dogs, and it did seem true that there are differing styles of dog ownership and that it didn't need to cost very much.

Meanwhile Dan had noticed the very sweet friendly little dog that belonged to friends of ours, and had made enquiries about it, and had been in touch with the breeder! She had a two year old that she was wanting to find a good home for, as it had grown a bit too big to show, and she wanted him to go to a family who would give him a loving home. So a couple of weeks ago I finally agreed to go and visit the dog, at least, and have a look at him.

Well, it was just like when I went to scope out the hamster for Abigail in the pet shop in Kampala. Those two little bright eyes looked up into mine, and I was hooked. Resistance was futile.

This dog was so sweet and gentle, and the fringe over his eyes so appealing. He lay on the floor between us all while we chatted so quietly. I thought, If we have to have a dog, we couldn't do much better than this. He was pretty much perfect.

Well, having been won over by Sammy the dog, I still tried but couldn't persuade the family to wait until the summer holidays to get him, so the Easter holidays it was. The children didn't want to keep his name as they thought Sammy was a bit boring, so we decided to change it to Frodo.

So on Sunday we collected him from his rather teary owner, and he became part of our family.

In the space of a few days, he has completely won me over. He does smell a bit and we have already washed him once, and flea-powdered him once. He doesn't bark at all, he doesn't jump up, and he loves just sitting on the floor between us listening when we talk. He howls when Abigail plays the piano. He sneaks into Alex's room and steals his soft toys to play with. He walks really well on the lead and loves outings. He eats dried dog food once a day. He is ALMOST house trained, not quite... And above all, he is adorable.

The funniest thing is that he has latched onto me as his favourite "master" - the only one who was remotely reluctant to have him. He loves me! He yelps when I leave the house, and follows me round all the time. And I love it. I just love the attention! At last, somebody who doesn't answer me back or disagree with me about anything. But on the other hand, he doesn't do the washing up...

Grus grus

Any guesses what grus grus means?! Definitely doesn't sound like a bird, but, it is.

On Saturday we went to a bird sanctuary at Slimbridge just outside Gloucester, now called the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust, and we took out a family membership for the year. It is a long-running project to preserve and in some cases revive both the wetland environment and the birdlife that goes with it. They have flocks of flamingos, swans, zillions of ducks, including some rare endangered ones, in a series of lakes and ponds with wooden boardwalks around them. There are also three lovely otters, and a collection of frogs, toads and newts in an aquarium area. There are voles and adorable miniature harvest mice that have very natural but enclosed environments, so that you can see them nesting and scurrying about up and down reeds and even burrowing.  

Many of the birds are ringed and pinioned so that they stay and breed, but there are also many that fly in, as it is a protected environment, and either stay or pass through.

One of the most interesting projects there is the reintroduction of grus grus (in the picture) - the Common Crane. They are a similar size and like a less flamboyant version of the Crested Crane in Uganda. Apparently they used to be found all over England's and Europe's waterways, but they had become extinct. One reason was that they are delicious and were served at human feasts. At Slimbridge the wardens are succeeding in breeding and rearing them and setting them free in various parts of England.





In order to persuade the chicks to behave like grown-up cranes, and not to identify with the human wardens, the wardens have to dress up as cranes, and use a wooden painted crane head to show the chicks how to forage and peck up seeds. Fabulous.

Frodo

This is our much longed-for dog, a 2 yr old Tibetan Terrier, called Frodo. So far he has been good, gentle and sweet...

Choosing your metaphors...

A few times in my life, usually when something difficult has been happening, I have had a metaphor or a story pop into my head which interprets for me what is happening. The narrative (to make this sound trendier) can be powerful as a way of understanding and therefore dealing with something real that is happening in one's life.

So to give one soppy example, when I was first in love with Dan and he was leaving England to go back to the US to finish his studies, and we didn't know when we would see each other next, but I was so sad to say goodbye, I had a large pink rose blossom in a little jar on my desk, that we had picked together, and when Dan had gone I pressed the blossom between two heavy books, and I thought to myself that just as I would be able to take the pressed flower out in a few weeks and it would be beautiful forever, so our relationship was being put away for a period of time, but we could come back to it at some as of then unknown time in the future and it would have been preserved in all its beauty. That image helped me in moving on with life in the meantime and finishing my own MA studies.

A couple of months ago, when I was feeling quite discouraged about being so anxious and feeling that it was the result probably of some years of stress and tiredness, an unwelcome image came to me that I was lying on the ground, a broken stick. But soon after that I was reading 2 Corinthians, the passage about having the treasure of God's blessings in jars of clay. I realised that God was showing me I was not useless and hopeless like a broken stick, but rather I was just a slightly worn out clay jar, which he was still using, and could still fix up and beautify for his purposes. That made me feel so much better!

And this weekend, I had a disagreement with someone, which threatened to revive the horrible old anxiety, and at first I felt as though there was a deep round pit full of water which I had been rescued from, but now I had been pushed back into it. But then this morning in church I saw a picture that rather than being back down in that hole, I was like a child who has been pushed over in the playground, but who can get up and brush themselves off and carry on. The metaphor makes all the difference. One story makes me feel defeated and hopeless, the other makes me able to get up and move on. And it makes a real emotional difference to me. The physical feeling of a heavy rock in my stomach melted away. Why are these pictures so powerful? And, where do they come from?

I remember years ago a speaker talking about how God wants us to be, yes of course humble, but also sitting on the throne with him, confident in him, able to sit up straight and to act and make a difference. Satan on the other hand wants us to be cowering on the floor, feeling afraid, doubtful, and useless.

I think these images are spiritual, and the ones that make me able to function and move forward are from God, whilst the ones that make me feel useless, broken, or lacking in confidence and certainty, are not.

I don't mean that God wants us to feel self-confident or complacent or that we are perfect and can do no wrong. But the times when I know I have let God down, he doesn't make me feel like a broken stick. That picture is just not from God. I think he shows us how we have failed but how we can do so much better, how he still loves us even so. You come away from that encounter feeling humble but hopeful and determined, rather than like a failure and useless.

So I think we shouldn't be fooled by the images that pop into our heads. We should think about them and ask, is this story a Godly interpretation of what I am going through? Or is this a way of bringing me down and preventing me from living positively?

I love how pictures are used in the Bible powerfully. One of my favourites is the beginning of Psalm 40 where the writer says, "God lifted me out of the mud and mire, he set my feet upon a rock and put songs of praise in my mouth." That picture is how I want to be.

Two Great British Sporting Traditions - for the sake of my foreign friends...!

The last two weekends have held two famous annual British events, - ones which I have taken notice of at any rate. (There are plenty more such events which go right over my head, like the football and rugby championships, which I ignore if at all possible.)

Last Saturday it was "The Boat Race" - the annual race between Oxford and Cambridge University boat clubs, held along a stretch of the Thames in London. Thousands of people flock to the river to watch the Light Blues and the Dark Blues race by. But this year, an Australian anti-elitist protestor jumped into the river, into the path of the boats, and the boats had to stop lest his head be knocked off! The protestor was dragged out of the river grinning, and the race continued, only to be disrupted again as the two boats clashed and one Oxford oar broke. Starting up again, Cambridge won, but they probably shouldn't have; meanwhile the Oxford bow rower collapsed of exhaustion and had to be airlifted away from the finish line.

In my view, freedom of speech may be a universal right, but, those rowers had given the best part of the year of their lives to training for this one event, and I think that it is pretty hard on them to have the event ruined.

This Saturday was another famous event, the Grand National - which is probably the year's most prestigious horse race, held at Aintree Racecourse. The jumps are huge and quite dangerous.

Apparently this year, it was a photo finish, the race was won by a grey horse for the first time ever, and, two horses fell at the biggest jump, known as Bechers Brook, and died.

Many people think the race should either be banned, or that there should be more done to make it safer for the horses.

This may only be a small island, but we have plenty going on here... always something to write home about...

Good Friday thoughts

To be honest this Lent I haven't spent a lot of time thinking about Good Friday. And I haven't given anything up, in fact, I have been letting myself be quite self-indulgent, especially with the Dairy Milk Chocolate...

Usually in the past, a lot of my pre-Easter thinking has been wondering how Jesus felt about his upcoming death, how he could do it, what it took for him to accept that path and allow it to happen, how he anticipated the pain, and how he felt about the humiliation and nakedness, and whether knowing it would be just for one day helped (as in a woman anticipating labour). This year when I began to think about it at the start of this week, I realised I couldn't put my mind into that place this year. It was too hard. So then I thought, shall I mentally take this Easter off?, as I pretty much have done with Lent. But then I thought, maybe I don't need to put myself into Jesus' place, maybe that's the wrong thing to be doing anyway. Jesus didn't ever expect me to die in public for the whole world. (Well, probably not.)

So in church this morning at a lovely service we went to at Trinity Cheltenham, I decided just to be in front of the Cross and be thankful for it.

That is why when I looked at some images of the crucifixion this afternoon, I loved this one I have posted, because my eyes are immediately drawn to the women, almost throwing themselves on the foot of the Cross.

But really, thank goodness for the Resurrection! I'm looking forward to Sunday!

John V Taylor's Prayer Letters c 1946

A few days after our lunch with the Woodds, a thick brown envelope arrived in the post, with a bundle of letters and two photos in it - all dating from 1946 - 53! Joanna had very kindly sent us some copies of her father John Taylor's missionary letters, written as a CMS missionary to his supporters.

So many oh so familiar prayer requests, observations, descriptions... Even the way every letter opens: "I am very sorry this letter is late..." "A long time has passed since my last letter..."

Although obviously much has changed in Mukono in the last sixty years, and all the more so in the last ten, some issues just don't seem to go away... Here are just some all too familiar issues that Taylor asked for prayer for:

- Thanks for conversions, but sorrow that they are followed by dissent and suspicion among different Christian groups on and off campus.

- Finances: income for the college didn't go up for several years, although living costs went up by 60 %...

- Shortage of housing - five missionaries were on campus but there were only four available houses, and a sixth family was on the way...

- Malaria was prevalent among the students (he puts this down to the opening up of brick fields around the Mukono area).

- Resistance to new ideas... and dependance on the staff to solve all the students' problems...

Some things have improved for missionaries since those days though: for example, John Taylor writes that he and his wife were both sick with fever and jaundice for much of one term, in and out of hospital, and then he went down with blackwater fever, which he self treated by drinking quantities of soda bicarb.

Some other nice touches:

He writes about students and staff walking out into local villages to do outreach, sleeping on the mud floors of primary schools, playing football matches with the villagers followed by an evangelistic message, and even a blood donor scheme being run from "our great Mengo Hospital," collecting blood from the students on a fortnightly basis. Apparently the students were extremely reluctant to give their blood at first, after being challenged to do it in a sermon entitled "God and our bodies"given by the missionary doctor from Mengo. But Taylor describes how after a Monday of reflection, including a two hour discussion in the pastoralia class, and what he calls "the silent bombardment of the Spirit," 55 students agreed to give blood by the end of the day.

He describes the first buildings of the (now) Ordinands' Village as "four lovely little cottages and kitchens."

One amusing note: the African contractor who drew the plans for the new "Demonstration Hall" comprising of a domestic science room, a classroom and an office (I suppose this is Thelma Hall), wrote on the plan that this was to be the "Demons Training Hall". Simply too good to be true...!!

John Taylor comments on how strong the sense of unity and community was, in spite of, and he says partly strengthened by, the lack of resources, which brought students and staff together: the students were working together to grow food in the college gardens and even build the furniture for the college. Hmm I don't see our students growing their own food these days...

Well in some ways it sounds like a golden age for the college. Taylor sounds like a prayerful, thoughtful spiritual leader who was fatherly whilst making every effort not to be paternalistic, but more like a brother to the students and staff. But it also sounds as though the same misunderstandings, disappointments, frustrations and crossed wires occurred. I wish there were more details in the letter about things like their diet, and the pastimes of the missionaries when they were not at work, but, maybe there weren't many such times.

Reading these letters, I feel as though I have been in a time machine and gone back sixty years. It sounds as though Mukono was a special place back then,  - and I believe it still is now, a place where God is at work training and building up leaders for the church and for East Africa. John Taylor frequently refers to our Lord the Spirit working away in people's lives, the Spirit who is responsible for all the progress made and for all the good things that happened - and I know the same Spirit is there with all of you working in Mukono today. Hold onto that always.

Palms...

Back in England for Palm Sunday... Once again I feel underwhelmed by the palm crosses we are given in church here.

I know they are palm leaves picked in the Holy Land, dried and specially folded for us... and at least they are not the three inch ones that we had for a couple of years, but a decent size...

But, I much preferred in Uganda when we picked real four foot long palm leaves in our garden on our way to church, or were given them in church. I loved how the whole congregation was a green sea of waving branches during the Palm Sunday service.

To me, it brought one so much closer to the original scene, of Jesus being welcomed and waved gladly into Jerusalem by the Passover crowds.










The hoisting and vigorous swishing of hundreds of palm branches during each hymn just impelled one to grin and sing joyfully - how could you be solemn while all that was going on. It was so fun.

A fuzzy picture but it gives the impression I remember, ... and some familiar faces...

The joy and sweetness of the Palm Sunday worship is so poignant because the original welcoming crowds changed their minds by the end of the week and shouted for Jesus' death. So I just can't help wondering while singing "Ride on, ride on in Majesty" every year, whether by the end of the week I would also have been shouting, "Crucify him." Honestly, I am not a very brave person, so I fear that I might have joined in to save my own skin. But I hope not, because I feel as though my faith in Jesus and my gratitude to him is deeper than that.

Two images I enjoy of the first Palm Sunday:

I love icons, but don't really know much about them - I would love to learn about their symbolism one day. I know that that is Zacchaeus in the tree, and there are people laying down their cloaks in front of Jesus - but no real palm leaves in evidence - I guess the Russian artist didn't know what they looked like?