This is Snoopy. I saw him up there in the sky a few weeks ago in Tirana, the captial of Albania!

an open road

I've been here for a month or even more now. I have settled into my apartment in the northern city of Shkodra. It was old and dirty and broken - but I'm getting to know it well and I like it - it's home. When the fuse blows I know to run down to one floor below where there is a metal box that I can pry open with my key and flip the fuse. I know that after I flush the toilet, I let it fill up and then lift the top and rearrange the mechanisms so it doesn't keep over flowing! I know to unplug the water heater when I have a shower so there isn't electric current charging round the bathroom!

But I'm glad that all those sort of things aren't mattering so much anymore... I want to have a house that people will enjoy coming to - where kids will have games to play or crafts to make. I need some creative ideas! I've been out for hot chocolate with a friend from church - I'm settling in with local believers at a church that is alive and full of love and servant hearts. It's like I'm ready to start living creatively in this town.

God has good plans for those who are open to His purposes. God has kind intentions to people of this world, to people in this neighbourhood and I'm so fortunate to find myself landed in small community of believers who feel the same. They want to live for others - live beyond their own small worlds. They have been an example I have needed to see. I am settling in and God is beginning to give me his joy and strength here - I'm beginning to forget myself!

life is beautiful, life is curious

I was in the village the other day - down in Sheqeras in the south. I know it's poor and problematic in so many ways - but I like it so much, and it really is beeutiful. Life is like I imagined it to be back in my granny and grandpa's time on the Isle of Lewis, north western Scotland. There are carts and horses, always children and men and women walking up and down the dirt roads in and out of their own and their neighbours houses. I stayed with an Albanian girl and her mother at their house over night and had to go and fetch milk from the neighbours house before dinner. I walked along their coulorful flower lined path that led up to a sweet farm house. In the outhouse barn a lady was milking the cow, there was a little puppy chasing chickens in a chicken coupe that was outside in the yard alongside the haystacks. The young daughter in law invited me in the house and showed me her new clothes from Italy that her uncle sent over. They were all old friends. And afterwards we meanderd home. I thought to myself that this picture of life really is beautiful.

We travelled back the high mountain roads to Tirana. We got into a very small foogon that was heavy laden with a big barrel and all sorts of other curious contraptions. So Margaret and I squeezed in to the front with the driver and we whirled along - the driver told us he could get to Tirana in 3 hours and Margaret said - oh take your time we are in no hurry. It wasn't long before we stopped for coffee and the driver began filling up big bottles of water and putting them under the car. We carried on - and half an hour later stopped again - this time the whole front seat was lifted and the water poured out over the mottor below our seats. Turned out that the motor needed cooling down every 30 minutes and the car could go no higher than 50 kilometers and hour. We chugged up the high hills with heat and steam rising beside our seats! One stop I decided to look under our seats and saw a motor steaming hot with pipes and clothes and a big sponge on top of it and the water flowing on to the motor from the hose pipe the driver was splashing around! Along the way when it was really struggling the driver shouted "Janie, Janie!" to his wife and she took out this contraption and hosed in water to the engine while we were driving! Gosh - life really is curious! Took us 7 hours to get to Tirana but we enjoyed all the stops along the way - talked to the kids selling hazelnuts up on the top of the hills, enjoyed the fish swimming around in tanks at the foot of natural springs, we sat and looked out on a lake, ate at a cafe stop, almost burst out laughing so many times seeing the driver make a pile of metal and bolts work to its maximum. He worked hard! Once the junk pile wouldn't even start - so we rolled backwards down the hill as he hot-wired his own car! Little did we know what we were getting into at the road at the end of Sheqeras. Life is curious. There was a man in the back with Janie - and his young son. It turned out that he was visiting his wife who has a tumor. She is in the hospital in Tirana - awaiting an operation that they had no means of paying for. Margaret handed him the money as he jumped out the car, saying all the goodbye greetings. Margaret doesn't give out money like that - but no doubt God prompted it. Life is curious and good. Praise God for his care in everything.

foogons, apartments and internet cafe's

My friend Catherine emailed the other day asking for more news of what life is like out here for me - she said it all seemed to be jumping on foogons (the minibuses that take you anywhere you want to go!) looking for apartments in the hot sun and being in the internet cafe's! That's quite funny and not too far off the truth! It's early days yet. I've been doing some reading about Albania - practicing my language everyday with people I meet - and there are always people here - its a bustling place, people are out and about - children, adults, old people altogether, walking, talking, going about their businesses. I've made friends with a family down the road from me - Maria and her four children. They love Jesus and talk about him all the time. I went round to theirs for lunch last sunday after church and they laughed at me because I didn't know when the right time to go or stay was - so ended up wandering in and out of the house while they did their work - like washing the floor or hanging up the laundry. I asked them - "oh, is it time for you to sleep?" Thinking I could find out when they wanted to have their rest, and then I would leave - and they laughed saying "do you want to sleep!" and began making a bed for me to sleep in! I decided I would wish them well and go home. They were lovely! I have made friends with Vera and her two children, today I went to tell them I am going to move to Shkodra. I sat out with them on their veranda and drank turkish coffee with them while it rained and rained outside. It was really nice. I think we will stay friends and I can phone and see how they are all doing. I gave Vera a little card with the verse Isaiah 41:10. She seemed to treasure it. So all in all - life is made rich by the beginnings of relationships here and otherwise looking for apartments - going in and out of Tirana on foogons and getting to internet cafes to set up a good way of keeping in touch with people back home. I just sent out my first prayer letter - and realised the font is different on different computers - so it won't come out all nice and in place as the original - but a bit all over the place! Oh well - as the Muslims say - "only allah is perfect!"

In Albania to Stay

I'm sitting in the Stephen Centre - a foreign, christian cafe/restraunt in Tirana. It's air conditioned, has the flags of the world hanging up between the walls, it even has a framed art deco photo that used to be in my old Birmingham home. I've got my traditional diet coke with ice, a notebook and pen and a million thoughts.

I just met a poor gypsy family; snotty nosed kids just wearing underpants and tatty tee-shirts, a father and mother pushing a plastic pushchair for their little one and all pleading with their eyes for nje cind lek - about 2pence. 'Me fal, me fal' I say as I walk past 'forgive me, forgive me' and when I look back to say goodbye the mother let go of my arm and looked back with a wide and sparkling smile. Some people here are very poor, not all, but some. I'm not going to start speaking about Albanian culture because over the years I've come nowhere close to earning that right - but there is undoubtedly poverty here - not accross the board - but it is alive and kicking in Albania.

After Anna and Catherine left (see "Firefly Week" below) I began my second week in Albania. It was heartaching to see them go and I realised how I missed my family, other friends and life 'back home'. The reality of being in a foreign country and culture had been slowly dawning on me while Anna and Catherine were with me, but the day they left it fell upon me like a ton of bricks.

The day they left - early in the morning, I hugged them goodbye outside the airport at 3.20am before jumping back in the taxi that would take me down the bumpy Bathore Road to Margarets house. I slept for 3 hours before Margaret, Judith and I began to prepare for travelling up north in the Landrover to Shkodra to look for houses to live in.

We will go up as a small team to set up a nesting base for WEC and its new workers (me being one of them) Margaret, a Scottish lady who has been a WEC missionary in Albania for 13 years will coordinate this new phase for WEC Albania and Judith a Singaporean lady who has been a WEC missionary in Albania for 8 years will work alongside Margaret while further developing her Albanian language. I will have the main focus of intensive language learning for my first year. The team's vision is to see Albania and Albanians affected by Christ and His character - seeing the light and life of Jesus reach into Albania and made alive.

My hearts vision is the same - but at the forefront is a concern for children at risk. All that we do will have these things in mind and I will work hard at learning the language and trust God with all He will open up before me in the year to come. I believe He will open up fruitful relationships aswell as opening my heart and mind to the reality of the country and people of Albania. I want to see the best that I can in Albania but I know I will see the difficult and the wrong too, and I want to - but in an informed and compassionate way. I have much to trust God for - and it's the reason I am here.

So... we arrived in Shkodra. It was hot, lots of apartment blocks, some old parts of the town with worn out beautiful buildings, old style stores still in use - book shops and bakeries. In the more modern part - small food shops and cafes all wall to wall along the wide streets with tall apartment blocks. Sonya and Albani met us with smiles and hugs. They are a young Albanian Christian couple who belong to a church that although they don't know us have taken it upon themselves to welcome and help us come to Shkodra. It is amazing how much friendship they are extending and we feel very blessed. Sonya is 24, tall and beautiful and very smart and warm hearted. She loves Jesus and wants to live for him, seeing him expressed in peoples lives. I took to her straight away, it was a great help seeing as I missed Anna and Catherine so very much that day.

We began walking - hoping to meet the arranged contacts, and as we waited in a park a young lad peddled up - his name was Noah, pronounced No-ae-ah. He had been cycling around all day to help us find a house. He had soft, gentle eyes, must have been about 15 years old, loved Jesus and wanted to help and serve without a second thought - it was in his nature. Soon he was leading us to our first viewing. It was off the main road, down a potholed street, up to an old communist style appartment block and painted above the entrance in pale pink paint was GERMANY - must have been there for the football. Up we climbed, and I felt so alone. We steped in through a steel door and there were two rooms filled with furniture - old chairs and a bed, some bunkbeds and a table. There was a bathroom with a hole in the floor and a kitchen with a walled sink that was crumblimg. It was small and compact - I looked for a balcony and the view was other appartment blocks. The family who owned it spoke strongly about all it's benifits and I began to try and imagine myself living there. As I walked back down the stairs my legs began to shake, weak beneath me. I looked steadily forward, put on a brave face but when we were weaving in and out of market stalls going single file, my heart ached and I cried out to Jesus, for Him to hold me and take care of me. I felt His strong, loving and reassuring hand with me and silently I let my tears fall.

The next place was much nicer - in an older part of town near the mountains with many fruit trees in the yard and very close to where Sonya and Albani lives. I was asked to make a decision and though it didn't fill my heart with joy I figured that no place in Albania would immediately be all I dream of, so I decided yes. We waited in a cafe for the next hour or so and them I had to go back to sign documents for renting the apartment. It was decided that Sonya, Noah and I would go to do this. As we stood outside gathering ourselves together to go a strong whirling wind began to rumble, blowing rubbish and dust up in circles in the air and the skies were are a darkening blue-grey. As we pushed the two bikes along the road the rain pelted down and down and down! Thunder cracked and lightling lit up the sky and torrents of rain fell. Sonya hurried along worriedly, I just was amazed and hurried and laughed as did Noah. He kept exclaiming "oh - wha!" as they do here and he would duck his head down, glance over to me and grin widely! It was the best I had felt all day!

It turned out that the contract for the house was not at all legal - so we couldn't accept it. We ate spagetti at Sonya and Albans house and 8 hours later got back into the Land Rover for the journey back south. It felt like the first day of my new Albanian life. I got home and was exhausted, missed my friends, missed my family and fell of to sleep and to sleep.

The following days have introduced Bible studies and fellowship times with Margaret and Judith, sitting on the steps with the mother and daughter who live below Margarets house, talking to a young gypsy boy who sells cassttes at the end of the road where I get the bus to Tirana. I'm often jumping on and off the fugon minibuses to get to Tirana to do emails or any other town work that needs doing. I was at church yesterday with a bus load of people from Bathore who go to a church near by. I'm meeting people, talking with them, finding my feet, enjoying Albania. Margaret, Judith and I are all praying about the move to Shkodra, the right timing of it, the right house. We wonder if it will be a three story villa - where each of us with have a level to ourselves. I really like that idea. God knows what is best and what is perfect and what fits in with His plans - and that is what we are asking Him for. I do have great expectations of all that is ahead. God has me here for a reason. To Shkodra and to the North!

Firefly Week

We had a great adventure...
(as soon as I can work out how to put photos on - I will)

After arriving into Tirana we were picked up by Margaret Reid, the long term WEC missionary here and bought into the centre where Margaret had some people to meet. We were sent out for our first Tirana experience when Margaret asked us to go to do the shopping in the market - melons, olives, bread, local cheese, onions, tomatoes and the like were all on the list - and the market was alive with sights, sounds and smells and friendly vendors interested in foreigners. It was hot outside and bustling. Anna and Catherine loved it and we made our way round getting lots of good and tastey natual foods. From the start Anna and Catherine opened their hearts to Albania - natural travellers indeed!

By the time we got to Margerets house - tired and hot and dusty but content and excited and happy, we arranged where we would sleep and dropped off to the the sounds of Albania's night - this night it was drums beating for a wedding, dogs barking at each other and hundreds of crickets singing their song while a muslim dirge occasionally rang out. It was as though we were lying in a bed in Africa - the heat and the mosquitos to add to the effect! Was a good introduction to a foreign land.

The next morning a bit bedraggled we set of bright and early and got on a fugon to Korce. We flew round the high mountains in a spacious minibus - two young lads travelling back and forth from Italy kept us entertained along with the speed along driver who stopped at a cafe for a soup and coffee break. It was lovely - there was a soft flowing river, a gentle breeze in the warm air and a nice cappacino with cream on top to enjoy. We stopped again at a natural spring and filled up our water bottles with the most refreshing water to be found. The driver took us to the very doorstep of where we needed to go.

We arrived a Dorcus International, a Dutch Christian humanitarian project that so kindly offered us accomodation - but meanwhile it had to be cleaned out as it was a shed like place that had just been flooded! After a coffee we ended up helping out the lady cleaning and began to form a nice friendship with her - Lirika. Catherine had a picture for her - of God wanting to pour out his love upon her as gold, knowing that she had lost a lot in her past. The next morning while talking with her again it turned out to be so true - she had lost her husband many years ago - leaving her to struggle through life in many ways. (Here's a picture of the sitting room area of our sweet shed - very makeshift but became affectionalty familiar in the short space of time we were there - the good company made it home!)


That afternoon and night we wandered around Korce - cafes, finding postcards, visiting the big othodox church. A couple of old men showed us around the grand building with many icons of saints and apostles and with joyful blessings upon us wished us farewell as we left - one reaching out finally to Catherine pouring out upon her the blessing of finding a beautiful and good husband - Catherine making fine efforts at her language understanding in returned blessed him back by saying "and to you too"! One of the best things of that day was finding a wonderful sweet shop with cakes and baklava like we had never seen before - we took our time picking out cakes before finding a park where people all milled around, the old men playing backgammon, cards and dominoes and others sitting around catching up on the days gossip. In the heat we talked and prayed for Albania. Tierd out we found a restraunt called The Danub, though it was empty it looked very posh and we dined with the best of steaks and finest fruity Albania Merlot wine and a delightful young waiter who seemed trainned to serve royalty! And all of this to the background of 1980's love songs!

The best of all the marvels of that day was walking home late at night down the large dusty road, past great concrete arches that we could not work out what they were there for, and looking out upon the dimly lit bushes and trees that ran on the sides of the road Catherine exclaimed - "look!" and for the first time atleast for Anna and I we saw the buzzing light of a firefly. It was like a fairly from a storybook, then there were two - we were transfixed! It was so much fun. We stayed on the look out all the way home seeing new ones occasionally aswell as searching out the milkyway and bright stars spread out accross the Albanian night sky.

There is much more to write about - the trip to the village Sheqeras - our drivers to the rescue that drove us along the road that would have taken us from morning to night otherwise, meeting Dite a lovely Albanian older lady who treated us like daughters in her simple home, finding a church called Church of the Hebrew Carpenter - a small fellowship of christian opera singers who sing hymns at the top of their voices and then ate ice cream and fruit with us entertaining us with conversation and song! Also the night time ritual of the whole of the town gathering to walk up and down the roads of the town or city - talking and laughing, catching up. Kids in the park with their families till all hours at night and the finding of a wonderful lit up and musical fountain surrounded by a cafe that sells divine hot chocolate. Travelling up north and welcomed into a christian lady's home to be fed great food and sweet coffee and the three of us laughing uncontrollably because of the heat and all the funny things of the week - and there were many. Thankfully she had three daughter all the same age as us and she loved us for it! There is much to tell. Albania offered us the best of itself and Anna and Catherine saw it in the best of lights with open hearts and tender souls. I miss them lots. They entertained me no end!

Mary's Thoughts

I am having a sleepless night. I shouldn't be. It's almost by choice - and a foolish one as my day is busy and full tomorrow starting with injections at the doctors at 9am... I go to Albania in a week - that's my validation for not being able to sleep - but I don't reckon its so simple. I have thoughts to work through - lots of my own thoughts that I don't want to deal with, so with a water bottle to drink from at my desk and the light from the computer the only light in the room I face an avenue to finding some answers, I give myself a reason to be awake at 2am and I start to write and update this blog which I havn't written in for weeks.

I've looked back at "expectations" and read what Mary wrote - I jotted down a few things hoping they would speak to me or make me think, and they have. My house mates Anna and Catherine and Anna's boyfriend Owen were talking tonight about God's leading and leadership in church and ministry - and how it is often a narrow road - and a surrenderd one to Gods choices. So Mary's question of "God - should I expect you to call me out to great things?" rang a chord, and I feel like I have an answer. I think the question in itself is good. If you are really willing to do what God wants you to do - then he will lead you into great things - and they are great things by God's standards - quite often contrary to what we hold up as great. The only reason we love beauty and art and friendship and justice and anything good is because of the Spirit of God or the image of God. That's what I think. So to give God your will, so he can give you his will is the only starting point to anything of greatness in Gods eyes - cause he will have a good and perfect will, and he will have good works already ordained for you to do. Jesus was all about his fathers business - and if thats what we're looking to be sold out for - then yeah God will call you into great, great things - by his great, great standards. Which probably means servanthood, sacrafice, meekness, faith that stretches you, hurts that hurt you, love that melts you, joy that is great, family/friends that are wonderful and difficult and wonderful, burdens for people that are heartbreaking, seeing the world as it is that can almost crush you, seeing the beauty of life and loving every minute, seeing people come to know God, seeing God win, seeing the goodness of God in the land of the living.

Is that the calling of God upon us - isn't that what we are about - isn't that what we are walking or climbing towards when we seek after Gods will for our lives. To me that makes the whole world the place of God kingdom and our hearts and minds unlimited in their avenues to be expressive of God. I think that although we can do so many different jobs and live so many different lives I think if we truely desire Gods will for our lives and ask him for this - not once or twice but by the very act of being alive, it it is what we are living for - God will give us a vision and a heart that follow his own, and we will want to walk down that narrow way - no matter what the cost.

Then I read "sheer receptivity, utter dependance and radical reliance" - Mannings words on childlike relationship to God and His great power and mercy and love, and the great cost paid to follow with our very lives has a great balance in the fullness of God in return. Expectations - there is no call from God to be utterly dependant unless He is utterly dependable. The expectations that God has on us - are fully in relation to His capacity to be all that he has said he is. There is no cross to bear - but for the joy set before it. Following Jesus is our greatest call, and he knows the will of the father - and the father is God himself who has the whole world in his hands - he has great things in store for those surrendered to him. And that's obedience, and I wouldn't even dare to begin to write of Gods love that we can recieve and know so little about.

Then I read Mary's recent post - about "as it should be" and although things seem unsettled in big and small ways in personal life and in the world at large - I feel glad that the struggle is there - that there is no peace when it comes to strife and injustice and hurt and loss, and there is hope although at times only a thread, hope in God and the differnce he can make - and even if it is just in a small way - through the capactiy of a christian wanting to see God bring life and healing and taking a step towards being like Jesus and reaching out - then it's worth the struggle. It's cool that God has allowed the world to be seen and the hurt to be felt, it's cool that he is sharing his heart. I pray for his spirit to be alive in me - to mold my heart and mind and use my life for his will.

And all these things are not nicely tied up in the end - not in this blog - not in this life! And I should be in bed sleeping, and I havn't spent proper time in prayer or in reading the Bible for days even weeks. And I've know grace anyway - and I feel free, but my old self comes creeping in and I know I'm in my own strength right now and I want the comfort of other things - I need water from the eternal well and I find myself a thirsty but don't drink, I need the bread of life and I find myself hungry and empty but I don't eat. It's not Albania and thoughts of the new life, the narrow road there - it's my need keeping me awake - and I've still not prayed. I must and I will. Mary your thoughts have let me find grounding for my own thoughts - and I've meandered through - and I've found a space to speak the truth of me, so bless you for all your insights and writings and struggles and thoughts! Goodnight - I hope I'm off to pray before a long awaited sleep.

Here and Sheqeras

Well, I've chosen a day to write which isn't a warm, gentle breeze kind of day in the metaphorical world - more of a ... mmm... still, greying evening, with hints of light pink clouds. I've had some brill times of closeness in these last few days to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit but sinking into the joy is a wonder of how I'll manage with the changes ahead of me. I'm no longer going to be living in Tirana, Albania's capital - but instead I will find my first year in the foreign land in a south eastern village called Sheqeras. I'll fetch my own water and live the Albanian village life. I'll be immersed, no gentle easing into a pioneer type existance - but head first dive in. And that makes me excited, and that makes me wonder how things will be. I am so glad to be in Gods leading and in living the life He has called me into - but I am so human in my emotional response to change - and feel myself at a loss in certain realities. I'm looking around me, looking for solid ground. It's not being afraid of whats ahead - but trying to find standing in the here and now. The wait is on, the questions find themselves in my sleeping dreams.

I'm putting off getting preperations in place - piling on my desk is requirements of writing a will, filing for residency in Albania, sorting out my taxes, prayer letters, contacting people, seeing people before I leave - its far enough away to not seem real - 2 months away. I'm working at Bridge House again, back at Bond Street after 3 months away, time is going to fly and I'm just going to have to do these things and then say good bye. I hope for good times in these days - but find I tread water at times not swim with direction - and today I just want to dive under and find treasures to take away everything from my mind. I shall sign off - addios!

Isle of Lewis

I've been up in the islands of Scotland for the last 2 weeks - visiting churches and schools speaking about Albania and missions and my testimony. It's been challenging and great - spoke at 22 meetings altogether. There are lots of people that will now be praying for me as I go out in the middle of July. The Isle of Lewis is my home really - my dad is from there - but as we grew up all over the place I've never lived there - so was a gift to be able to speak accross the island and be known. Life is so full, and daily bringing its own growth and choices - I'm grateful, know a faithful God, and still live with myself and all my weakness. Gotta keep fighting to stay afloat and live in fullness. Don't think I'll ever get round the mystery of being alive and journeying to heaven - gotta keep on making this life count - and it's only in looking to Jesus and finding my way close to Him in the midst of it all. Keep on looking to be overwhelmed by His love, for both myself and others.

Noah and Jacob

My beautiful nephews. I will miss them when I go to Albania. I wish I knew them better even now.,I don't live near them, so don't see them as much as I would love to. Noah is amazing. He loves talking, learning about everything, achieving everything - he'll face a challenge and come out the winner! Jacob is beautiful. So calm, so sullen, loves him Mum, loves his food. I remember them first born. It's such a priveledge to be related to children. God's wonder and miracles are magnified in these little ones - so complete and full as individuals - they will just keep on growing up. Love these boys - want to know them well.

Expectations?

Any advice for me on my expectation thoughts in the blog below?
Is it too abstract?

Seems like reading about potential for so much - transformation of world, living in community, the kingdom of heaven... well expectation should be high - right? I want to be running into the radical of the simple faith and living out the reality, being like Jesus - in joy and suffering and relationships too.(I'm one who could be highly idealistic...I don't think that's bad, I want to be.)

I believe in what I wrote though about "no expectations" (I wouldn't die on a hill for it however..!), and I think it is a certain way of life, but I sure don't want it to be a self protection that is limiting. I think I've got some wisdom there - but I wonder if there is any insightful ones who can see "yeah - that's good", or "well.... not too sure about that...."

Expectaions

I'm learning about not having expectations.

I used to live that way - in regard to travelling to new places. I found myself in that wide open space of no expectaions. It didn't mean that I would not recognise wonder or when something was likable or unlikable, nor was I without emotion. I would go to new places literally with no expectations of what I would see or feel or what I would gain - and with wide open eyes and an adventurous heart I had so much curiosity and enjoyment of everything I found. Not having expectations - meant that the possibilities were endless, unthought of, unlimited.

I can't say that it's been the same with life - and with friendships - these things are truely intricate! So tied up in experiences, emotions, hearts, minds. There is so much potential to be affected in good and bad ways through relationships, through family, through friends. It's near impossible to not begin to have expectations - of either being hurt or being cared for. That journey of building expectations began as a baby. My array of expectations of others have gone from innate, high ideals, shattered and all the other varrying degrees over the years. In more recent times as I gradually once again grew in daring to be known, loving and being loved - somehow with that acheivement came a flood, a return of expectations, hopes and high ideals. And again such potential for dissapointment!

Dissapointment is not bad. It's life - it's even valid. There is no one who has all as they would wish - it's not up to us to have all we want and the perfect life for our own sakes. No one has that place on this earth. God alone has that right. No one is exempt from dissapointment, and dissapointment is not bad - it's valid, it's reality. We should learn to accept it, but that does not mean we are without passion or right desires or acheivement and without fight for what we want and believe in. Ideals are good - but not at the cost selfishness and the perfect world for me, how I imagine things should be or what I think is best. Me is not the aim. We as individuals cannot provide or obtain what is perfect for us. Gifts to our lives come from outwith ourselves. We cannot create our perfect world, where people are as we desire them to be, or where verything is in its place, and all is right with the world. I don't believe we should be so tied to our own expectations. At least I am learning that. It's not reality. But that does not mean we should not love, nor does it mean that we wont be enriched by others.

I am learning to trust the Good Shepherd as he leads me in everything, and as He is my provider not only in some area's but now in all areas (as actually He always has been) I find though that I am full of my own expectations. I imagine how God will provide, I ask for things and hope. I want to loose my expectations. I just want to recieve as God would provide, and trust him to do that. Freely given, freely recieved. I recognise that as a way I want to live, I want to choose to live that way. Open hands - ready to recieve - not grasping, tightly holding on hands, keeping what I want, looking for what I imagine I need. It's the same in relationships. No more reaching, no more holding on, no more trying to keep - instead keeping open hearted, keeping on growing in the love that springs from my heart - from God, keep on giving - but have no expectations - only with open hands recieve and enjoy when freely given to. Life and friendships will always be surprising to me that way. And life has a freedom that is not seeking a perfect world for myself - instead life and relationships can be open and full of possibility or not... An added ingredient of course must be wisdom and insight. Ofcourse I need practicallity and to do my part in choosing what is right and good for my life. But can you see the fineline difference? I don't want to expect things to be as I think they should be.

But with God there is another kind of expectation, not in ways that we think God should work - for our own ideas and thoughts and hopes - but in His sovereignty, in His love. These are a granted, a given. There's no wavering, there is no remission. I just need to be open - I don't want to limit God's love or provision by demanding it be done in my way - for my hopes and gains - I probably would ask for much less than God would lavishly pour out upon me.

Lord Jesus - I'm learning again - not to expect the best, not to expect the worst - but in freedom to recieve and give. I hope I can live that way. I want to recieve that way. I'm learning to trust with abandon. I'm trusting in you. My expectations are in you, may they not be my own.

Blue Sky and Sunshine

Candidates orientation is now over - 2 intense months of great inspiration, further growth, a deeper impact of reaching the unreached peoples of the world with the message of Jesus and His great salvation, emotional growing up, challenging team dynamics, the best of people to meet. Loved making friends there with the other 9 candidates getting ready for moving out to new places, and loved hearing the depth of peoples journey into God. There were chapel times each morning (After house duties and breakfast. No sleeping in!) and they were so brilliant. People who had lived by faith for years - relying on God, living daily in His word, they brought jewels and gifts of Him for us to think on each morning.

The other night it was raining, pouring down. I popped out briefly wrapped up in my cagoule anarak and got some Thai King Prawns in Chilli Sauce and rice from the Chineese takeaway. I came home, ate and watched Northern Exposure Episodes... it was fun - just being normal and everyday and very chilled out. I'm back home in Bond Street! And Birmingham too - brilliant seeing friends, being back at church, and being home with Anna and Catherine - my self-adopted family.

I'm going to Albania soon. Not till the middle of July. Sometimes feels like I'm wading through rivers to get there. I'll be pleased when I arrive, cause then all will make sense - I will be where I am meant to be. And I know I desire greatly to be there. I know I am meant to be here now thankfully too - but I'm being uprooted. I wish I was grown up, self contained, confident and brave enough not to feel insecure about that. I still want to be a part of my friends lives. I need to realise and believe that I am. I need to not look around me at what wont be my life for very much longer, although it will be for my friends - cause it's my life that I've got - and God's making it a tailor made best fit for me. I love Him - He's my constant clear bright blue sky and sunshine no matter what the weather. And it is bright out there - all the way to Albania!

How sweet it is to be loved by you...

I'm grateful. Today a group of us who just met each other last tuesday were all together in London. We travelled to visit a church which is being planted in a difficult part of London, it had been a central part of were major rioting took place in the 80's. Its a huge estate, multi cultural with various social problems - drug and gang related no doubt. The church was held in a portocabin type building, there was a sunday school and a small youth group and a service all taking place in the same space in different corners. It was freezing outside but so warm inside. The message preached was about Gideon taking an army of 300 against 120,000 and God equipping them and winning victory through them - all of God's doing through his chosen people. God does it today and in that warm building God was winning souls - and His presence and their servant hearts were tangible. Young teenagers who looked as though they would have no interest in sunday school were humbly listening to a middle aged lady reading from the Bible to them. Was awesome. Loved it - and there was homemade lemon cake with icing and hot coffee in the middle of the service too! Our little group made ourselves at home in the midst of them - we are going back in feburary to be with that church for a week - we are looking forward to it. Our group is all together as we are going through missionary candidates course to join WEC and each go out to different countries to actually be missionaries! Never thought this day would actually arrive! My thought and feeling through out the day was how sweet it was to be loved by God - how sweet it is to love him and I know he is taking me deeper in my bond with him and it truely feels so sweet to my life. I feel like I'm taking baby steps still - and one day I'll know what it actually feels like to win a mighty battle by the hand of the Lord - I'm so glad he is tenderly leading me to that place. He is God and there is no other.

Cafe times with Catherine

Today - I must update my blog. It has been over a month now since last writing. I have tons to talk about with my new ventures of life - living in a manor house, missions trainning, visions of Albania, gratefulness to God, desiring to be filled deeper with the Holy Spirit - and I will write of these things for sure - but all I want to write about briefly today is my friend Catherine.

You would love to meet her, and you will enjoy her thoughts and musings as she writes her blog - Station Road Oakly. I get the priveledge of being her Bond Street housemate. One of our favorite things to do is visit the CAFE Cafe. It is two seconds up the top of our street with "CAFE" painted bold and red upon its outside wall. It's not very big inside, and serves all the good traditions of an english cafe - hot bacon, egg or sausage sandwiches, big mugs of tea or coffee and other options I never really go for - all revolving around tastey english breakfasts. We sit in there when we can, and play backgammon! Catherine had this uncanny thing about always winning and leaving me with just one remaining piece to get into my side of the board. Always so close to winning I can never believe that she takes the victory so suddenly and easily and so often! That exciting moment breaks us out in loud laughter every time! But that is because she is Catherine and that is the fun we have in playing an old mans game such as backgammon! There is much to say about her, I am just pleased to know her and share life with her. And while I am away from my adopted home for these two months of missions training I will miss Catherine and those times and happily look forward to the rematches in the cafe with a mug of coffee where I win 10 games in a row!

Edmund loved turkish delight...

Edmund loved turkish delight and harboured his annoyances, selfishness and hurt inside. He became deceptive, traitorous and foolishly won over to an awful cold and unloving kingdom of the snow queen. But through Aslans plan and Edmunds good brother and sisters and through the journey that Edmund found himself on - he figured out what was good - and after escape, reconciliation and selflessness in battle, Edmund knew that it was possible to step into the big shoes of being a king - and being called Edmund the Just. That's cool, it's redemption, and I'm so glad of it.


"No one would love me if they knew all the things I hide. My words fall to the floor as tears drip through the telephone line. And the hands I’ve seen raised to the sky not waving but drowning all this time. I'll try to build an ark that they need to float to you upon the crystal sea. Give me your hand to hold 'cause I can't stand to love alone, and love alone is not enough to hold us up we've got to touch your robe, so swing your robe down low, swing your robe down low. The prince of despair's been beaten but the loser still fights, death's on a long leash stealing my friends to the night. And everyone cries for the innocent, you say to love the guilty too. And I'm surrounded by suffering and sickness so I'm working tearing back the roof. And the pain of the world is a burden and it's my cross to bear, and I stumble under all the weight. I know you're Simon standing there and I know you're standing there."
~ Caedoms Call, "Love Alone"

No one would love Edmund, no one would love me, knowing all the things he and I hide. Yet in the end that's not really true. All that hidden stuff is seen - somewhat by those around and entirely by Jesus, and he still loves and he knows the way through it all. I'm on a pursuit of holiness - being set free from the haunting sins and self will that leads us nowhere,to nothing - orelse through mountain paths to icy kingdoms of entrapments. God, like Narnia's Aslan is to be feared but is so good, has the great plan of redemption and the ability to look us in the eye giving us courage and humility and a contrite heart. And our friends and family love us like Peter, Susan and Lucy - or Simon standing there - ready to help lift the burden of the cross. And the pain of the world is a burden - but it's our cross to bear. Us and our struggles, us and our burdens, and our great God over all who walks with us and tries to reach us, who leads us and fills our heart with passions and compassion - He will makes us kings and queens - cause we are already in his family, already his heir, and we are part of his great work of healing the broken and setting the captives free, and along the journey we become who we were always meant to be - the great sons and daughters of the King!

just a part of this big world

Took a walk - up along the road, past the chocolate factory, up to the christian bookstore, into a cafe. Sat and wrote - drank hot chocolate, took a walk to the park and stood by a little stream and thought through my questions.

I got that feeling of wanting to run away again, wanting to break every chord and connection I have with here - a place I might have some semblance of belonging. I know its cause I'm leaving soon, and I know its cause there can never be a perfect place of forever friendship, life and love. I crave that permenance, and get so dissapointed when I feel its not somthing real, and I don't understand why I feel my heart breaking a little. I'm afraid of loosing whatever I might have gained, recieved, given. I know I'll just miss my friends. I always do. Are we meant to care and feel this much? I do mostly think so.

I'm glad I get to work these things out in my own way, in my own thoughts and walks - cause until I do I just want to be gone, away, unseen and unknown. I'm glad God is there - to hear me and know me. These lonely days are just a part of this big world.

Bond Street Winter Days

I wish people could see how lovely my little home in Birmingham is. There are fairy lights around the front window - and the window itself is gorgeous. It has stain glass in the top frames and is divided up into an arch and long lengths of glass. In the sitting room we have cozy couches and a great old fire place that is always ablaze with burning coal and wood now that winter has come. My house mates have decided they want to bring the charm back into England - and that they do! It is a quaint victorian terraced house with charm and unique tastes of Catherine, Anna and I. There is often music on - whether eva cassidy or worship music, aim or jack johnson and a whole array of other sounds. I suppose the most wonderful of all is the loving friends that they are! And that makes a happy home.

I'm more and more excited about relating well to people - having an open heart to learn and recieve and ultimatly to love. I'm glad to choose relating to others as a primary purpose for being alive. So in thinking about running with God in His plans for life and living - in actually doing something fruitful in this sorrow filled and joy filled world - I'm just so confident that God will take care of my life. He's given me so much - and even if I have nothing for a short time (I'll never have nothing with all that I have recieved in this life already - family, friends, memories.)- I know I'll have Him, and His good provision that goes beyond what we imagine.

Returning to Albania

The Promised Land. I wonder how the people knew the land was promised to them - what faith spoke to their hearts that told them they would reach a place of milk and honey? I wonder too how I have held on to this imagination that I would be somehow connected to Albania? I've had it for so long now, and once again it is coming into sight. I'm speaking with the regional directors of WEC on Saterday - they will inform me of developments for a project being set up in Albania for children in crisis. Rainbows of Hope, the branch of WEC that are pioneers in the cause of kids at risk, have finally allowed Albania to be on the open list for places to work. If it is right and if the way is opened up - I get to be the one who goes first - to research kids at risk in Albania and pray in a team to set up a work, a project - a home. So saterday is important, and the next step in this seven year journey of mine. If all goes to plan I will be there in the middle of next year - just in time for my 30th birthday. It took its time - from dreams of an eight year old - to be somewhere that struggled, to be a part of it, to live a Jesus life there. It's okay it might take me till my 30th year to get there. I guess the boss of my life has long term plans. I'm hoping He does.

Another dream of this return is to get a four wheel drive and with two good friends - Anna and Catherine, to drive through England, France, Switzerland and Italy - all the way to Albania! What a great way to start the new venture. What a gift from God if it does all come about. I'll write all about it as it happens.

Hello Jenn

Hello Jenn,
How is life in Texas? How are the days going?
Hope you are well. I don't have any contact details - email or address.
Let me know how you are doing,
Hope family life and settling back in the glorious state is flowing well!
Love, Beth