Saturday Post -- 25/08/12

We are now back in Trinidad, having returned from our little adventure in Santa Cruz and, while we don’t wish to go into any real detail, the main development has been that the Lord has answered with a clear and unequivocal “no” with regard to the issues we shared in this blog back in May.

While it would be nice to report that our response has been consistently along the lines of Job 1:21, that obviously hasn’t been the full picture. Tears have been shed, questions pointedly asked of God.

But, for the most part, we can again confirm that God’s grace has been sufficient for the day. Though the answer was not what we had sought, we were at least glad to return home with confirmation, nonetheless, of the Lord’s will for us in the immediate future, following months of uncertainty. And while such a situation has been known to destroy marriages, we rejoice in the knowledge that our relationship has never been stronger. Amanda and I each have the privilege of getting to wake up each day next to our best friend; coupled with our shared faith, we have firm foundations for moving forward.

Above all, I have learnt that children really are a gift from God, far moreso than I had previously comprehended. In our case, he has chosen to withhold this particular blessing, but we have no doubt that greater ends are in mind.

The other big development of the past weeks has been welcoming Amanda’s youngest sister, Joanne, to Bolivia. And it’s a good job she decided to come for just shy of three weeks, for due to our circumstances, she spent two of those in Santa Cruz with Amanda. We’ve done our best, therefore, to show her the Beni’s various cultural highlights in the space of just a few days, while giving her a flavour of our work here.

While Amanda has taken some time off to be with her sister, I was back in the classrooms this week, with the intermediate English class coming to an end. I am hoping to get the basic class started by mid-September. I also had the privilege of teaching some really lively R.E. classes, where we touched on the cross, coming, as we are, to the end of John’s gospel.

Meanwhile, several of us in the church are looking into ways we can help to take the ministry of the church forward, particularly when it comes to making disciples. To prepare ourselves for this process, we’re reading books on the subject. I’ve just started studying ‘Healthy Christians Make Healthy Churches’ by John H. Oak, a megachurch pastor in Seoul (30,000 members and counting). The ‘megachurch’ label tends to bring out fairly polarised responses from people, but the refreshing thing about Oak’s approach is that his focus has never been on numerical gains but intensive discipleship among his congregation – the numbers, then, are simply the fruit of having taken such a Great Commission-inspired approach. I’m only just getting into it (it’s a Spanish version, which certainly adds to the reading time), but I like what I’m reading so far. 

A view of our house from the front, taken earlier this week.

Elsewhere, the puppies are growing quickly, though due to vaccinations etc., they probably have at least another two or three weeks in our care before we begin to allocate them to responsible owners. And round at our plot of land, the builders are putting in place the floor/ceiling in order to begin work on the upper floor. As we walk around the work as it currently stands, we can’t help but feel that God has so much more in store for us here in Trinidad, both as missionaries and as a family.

Prayer

• For Joanne’s return to Canada. She leaves Trinidad tonight at 6pm, flying to Santa Cruz. From there, she has a flight to Panama leaving at 2am (!), and is scheduled to finally arrive in Toronto on Sunday evening.
• For our re-adjustment back to life in Trinidad.

Praise

• For God’s help in bringing us to an acceptance of His will in recent days.
• For the privilege of having family visit in the person of Joanne over the past few weeks.

¡Que Dios les bendiga!

Craig & Amanda 

Saturday Post -- 25/12/12

We are now back in Trinidad, having returned from our little adventure in Santa Cruz and, while we don’t wish to go into any real detail, the main development has been that the Lord has answered with a clear and unequivocal “no” with regard to the issues we shared in this blog back in May.

While it would be nice to report that our response has been consistently along the lines of Job 1:21, that obviously hasn’t been the full picture. Tears have been shed, questions pointedly asked of God.

But, for the most part, we can again confirm that God’s grace has been sufficient for the day. Though the answer was not what we had sought, we were at least glad to return home with confirmation, nonetheless, of the Lord’s will for us in the immediate future, following months of uncertainty. And while such a situation has been known to destroy marriages, we rejoice in the knowledge that our relationship has never been stronger. Amanda and I each have the privilege of getting to wake up each day next to our best friend; coupled with our shared faith, we have firm foundations for moving forward.

Above all, I have learnt that children really are a gift from God, far moreso than I had previously comprehended. In our case, he has chosen to withhold this particular blessing, but we have no doubt that greater ends are in mind.

The other big development of the past weeks has been welcoming Amanda’s youngest sister, Joanne, to Bolivia. And it’s a good job she decided to come for just shy of three weeks, for due to our circumstances, she spent two of those in Santa Cruz with Amanda. We’ve done our best, therefore, to show her the Beni’s various cultural highlights in the space of just a few days, while giving her a flavour of our work here.

While Amanda has taken some time off to be with her sister, I was back in the classrooms this week, with the intermediate English class coming to an end. I am hoping to get the basic class started by mid-September. I also had the privilege of teaching some really lively R.E. classes, where we touched on the cross, coming, as we are, to the end of John’s gospel.

Meanwhile, several of us in the church are looking into ways we can help to take the ministry of the church forward, particularly when it comes to making disciples. To prepare ourselves for this process, we’re reading books on the subject. I’ve just started studying ‘Healthy Christians Make Healthy Churches’ by John H. Oak, a megachurch pastor in Seoul (30,000 members and counting). The ‘megachurch’ label tends to bring out fairly polarised responses from people, but the refreshing thing about Oak’s approach is that his focus has never been on numerical gains but intensive discipleship among his congregation – the numbers, then, are simply the fruit of having taken such a Great Commission-inspired approach. I’m only just getting into it (it’s a Spanish version, which certainly adds to the reading time), but I like what I’m reading so far. 

A view of our house from the front, taken earlier this week.

Elsewhere, the puppies are growing quickly, though due to vaccinations etc., they probably have at least another two or three weeks in our care before we begin to allocate them to responsible owners. And round at our plot of land, the builders are putting in place the floor/ceiling in order to begin work on the upper floor. As we walk around the work as it currently stands, we can’t help but feel that God has so much more in store for us here in Trinidad, both as missionaries and as a family.

Prayer

• For Joanne’s return to Canada. She leaves Trinidad tonight at 6pm, flying to Santa Cruz. From there, she has a flight to Panama leaving at 2am (!), and is scheduled to finally arrive in Toronto on Sunday evening.
• For our re-adjustment back to life in Trinidad.

Praise

• For God’s help in bringing us to an acceptance of His will in recent days.
• For the privilege of having family visit in the person of Joanne over the past few weeks.

¡Que Dios les bendiga!

Craig & Amanda 

Saturday Post -- 25/12/12

We are now back in Trinidad, having returned from our little adventure in Santa Cruz and, while we don’t wish to go into any real detail, the main development has been that the Lord has answered with a clear and unequivocal “no” with regard to the issues we shared in this blog back in May.

While it would be nice to report that our response has been consistently along the lines of Job 1:21, that obviously hasn’t been the full picture. Tears have been shed, questions pointedly asked of God.

But, for the most part, we can again confirm that God’s grace has been sufficient for the day. Though the answer was not what we had sought, we were at least glad to return home with confirmation, nonetheless, of the Lord’s will for us in the immediate future, following months of uncertainty. And while such a situation has been known to destroy marriages, we rejoice in the knowledge that our relationship has never been stronger. Amanda and I each have the privilege of getting to wake up each day next to our best friend; coupled with our shared faith, we have firm foundations for moving forward.

Above all, I have learnt that children really are a gift from God, far moreso than I had previously comprehended. In our case, he has chosen to withhold this particular blessing, but we have no doubt that greater ends are in mind.

The other big development of the past weeks has been welcoming Amanda’s youngest sister, Joanne, to Bolivia. And it’s a good job she decided to come for just shy of three weeks, for due to our circumstances, she spent two of those in Santa Cruz with Amanda. We’ve done our best, therefore, to show her the Beni’s various cultural highlights in the space of just a few days, while giving her a flavour of our work here.

While Amanda has taken some time off to be with her sister, I was back in the classrooms this week, with the intermediate English class coming to an end. I am hoping to get the basic class started by mid-September. I also had the privilege of teaching some really lively R.E. classes, where we touched on the cross, coming, as we are, to the end of John’s gospel.

Meanwhile, several of us in the church are looking into ways we can help to take the ministry of the church forward, particularly when it comes to making disciples. To prepare ourselves for this process, we’re reading books on the subject. I’ve just started studying ‘Healthy Christians Make Healthy Churches’ by John H. Oak, a megachurch pastor in Seoul (30,000 members and counting). The ‘megachurch’ label tends to bring out fairly polarised responses from people, but the refreshing thing about Oak’s approach is that his focus has never been on numerical gains but intensive discipleship among his congregation – the numbers, then, are simply the fruit of having taken such a Great Commission-inspired approach. I’m only just getting into it (it’s a Spanish version, which certainly adds to the reading time), but I like what I’m reading so far. 

A view of our house from the front, taken earlier this week.

Elsewhere, the puppies are growing quickly, though due to vaccinations etc., they probably have at least another two or three weeks in our care before we begin to allocate them to responsible owners. And round at our plot of land, the builders are putting in place the floor/ceiling in order to begin work on the upper floor. As we walk around the work as it currently stands, we can’t help but feel that God has so much more in store for us here in Trinidad, both as missionaries and as a family.

Prayer

• For Joanne’s return to Canada. She leaves Trinidad tonight at 6pm, flying to Santa Cruz. From there, she has a flight to Panama leaving at 2am (!), and is scheduled to finally arrive in Toronto on Sunday evening.
• For our re-adjustment back to life in Trinidad.

Praise

• For God’s help in bringing us to an acceptance of His will in recent days.
• For the privilege of having family visit in the person of Joanne over the past few weeks.

¡Que Dios les bendiga!

Craig & Amanda 

London 2012: A Final Analysis

"Look on the bright side, Harry, at least we
didn't have to pay to watch this garbage."

A supreme irony of Sunday night’s closing ceremony and the hostile reaction it provoked is that a predominating theme over the previous fortnight had been a refreshing change of attitude that the Olympics had brought to Britain. Gone was the sniping. Gone the cynicism. Gone the incessant moaning for which we are world-famous. Only for three hours of lazy cover acts masquerading as musicians to re-awaken the sleeping whinger in all of us again.

A shame that proceedings had to end on such a bum note, but what had come before had been so vital, so joyous, so life-affirming, that not even a show this bad could hope to overshadow it (The Guardian’s closing ceremony blogger summed things up perfectly as he quipped, "Just think: two weeks ago the world thought we were rubbish at sport and great at music")

Mr Bean: a bit naff by now at home, beloved worldwide
(believe me, the Bolivians loved it!). A smart move.

Then again, there were times on the evening of Friday the 27^th of August that I wondered if the sport, let alone the closing ceremony, could produce anything to rival the spectacle of Danny Boyle’s already-legendary curtain-raiser, particularly the spine-tingling combination of sight and sound as England’s ‘dark satanic mills’, forging those world-famous rings, rose to the soundtrack of Underworld’s And I Will Kiss and the beat of a thousand drummers. Boyle, who has always had a finger on the pulse of UK youth culture, was the only director capable of launching a Games whose motto was “Inspire a Generation”.

Hearts stop as one (not least at Ladbrokes).

And, as it happened, the most inspired move of the night was eschewing tradition and giving that very generation the privilege of lighting the Olympic cauldron, comprising a petal for each of the 204 competing countries. The bookies must have fainted in sheer ecstasy.

Beach volleyball: partisanship very much optional.

Pleasingly, those athletes who happened to come from one of the 203 non-British states were given the warmest of welcomes. Thousands of miles from London, I only had ESPN Latin America to rely on, but unless they were experiencing technical difficulties with their sound, it was abundantly clear to me that the foreign competitors were cheered to the rafters, with near-capacity crowds (full-houses prevented only by the IOC members’ indulgent self-service) at every venue.

Now here's an athlete who truly brings the world together. Women love
to see the back of him. And I can think of a fair few men who will too.

That legends were in their midst, and re-writing their own history at that, only added to the fervour. Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt in particular ensured that Beijing was simply an episode of a greater story (though I still feel the Jamaican could have seen off yet another record by going hammer-and-tongs for the line in the 200m).

The girl from the Steel City showed nerves of just that to take the
heptathlon gold.

But no Olympics is complete without home nation success – it just so happens that it’s of particular convenience to me and my compatriots this time. Chris Hoy, like the above mentioned, reaffirmed his place in history, contributing his fair share to the Massacre at the Velodrome. Mo Farah reduced the unflappable Brendan Foster in the BBC commentary box to blithers – twice. In Jessica Ennis, the Royal Family’s latest addition may finally have met her match in the Nation’s Sweetheart stakes. And did I shrug my shoulders in apathy as oor Andy mugged the greatest man to ever swing a racquet on Centre Court, in a sport I didn’t think should even have been included? Not exactly.

A nation rejoices as the King of Centre Court gets a Rogering
on his own lawn.

(Medal tables still grate with me, but the raw data is impressive on this count: compared with our table-topping US friends, we took about two-thirds of their total golds despite having one-fifth of their population – and that’s not to mention the runners-up! Playing at home certainly does the trick.)

It didn’t take long after London’s successful bid seven years ago for realism to well and truly set in – 24 hours, in fact, as Islamist terrorists wreaked havoc with the London transport network on the 7^th of July, taking 52 civilian lives in the process. A couple of years down the line, the world economic crisis hit home and as we watched Beijing in all its ostentatious glory, it became clear that London could not hope to win on such terms.

Trying Really Hard: soooo 2008! 

Instead, something wonderful happened, something which, if anything, would give the world an Olympics truer to its founding principles and London’s own avowed aim, since the bid process, of inspiring youth. As a nation, we have rightly been accused in the past of relying on our past ‘achievements’ – repulsive to the hundreds of millions who suffered under the Empire – to engender respect. The realities of austerity actually freed us to infuse the Games with a spirit of good humour, humility and healthy lashings of self-deprecation, and it appears the watching world has, to a great extent, been won over.

The true heroes of London.

Before coming out to Bolivia, I had a ringside seat to the dramas of British youth culture, working as an English teacher in two secondary schools, while living in a particularly benefit-hungry corner of Glasgow. As we set off for the mission field, absent family and friends would be mourned, but as for the materialistic, something-for-nothing attitude that was increasingly setting in…well, we were glad to see the back of that.

What has happened in London over those ‘happy and glorious’ 17 days has gone some way to restoring my faith in Britain’s ability to see past ourselves and our often trivial needs. 70,000 men and women from all backgrounds took two weeks off their work, travelled to London and paid their own way in one of the world’s most eye-wateringly expensive cities just to give the world a proper welcome – and that’s not to mention the 220,000 who were turned away due to lack of space. The biggest cheer of last night was reserved not for the athletes but for the ordinary Britons who made it all possible. Maybe, just maybe, in more than just an athletic sense, we can indeed inspire a generation.

Saturday Post -- 11/08/12

By popular demand, the latest from puppy world...

...and from our plot of land, where, the shell of our house is slowly but surely taking shape.

I write on Friday evening from Trinidad, where I've put in a shift this week at the Foundation, but we're still dealing with some issues in Santa Cruz, for which reason, Amanda has had to base herself there. More details in the coming weeks, but by all means keep the prayers coming. Thankfully, she's not alone as her sister, Joanne, arrived in the wee small hours of Tuesday morning at the start of a three-week visit. I'm heading through on the bus tonight to catch up with my wife and sister-in-law.

We'll also have the chance to belatedly mark my birthday as, today, my third decade officially came to a close. While sad not to have Amanda around, I was able to somewhat make up for it by having a small celebration with colleagues from work this morning after our usual daily devotional time, with the help of a couple of boxes of salteñas (Bolivian breakfast pastries).

At work, I had the usual R.E. and English classes to teach, with the English class reaching the end of the Biblical Application lessons. As part of the lesson, we translated a 'sinner's prayer' together and my own prayer is obviously that, after months of stimulating discussions, the students take those words to heart. Furthermore, thanks to the recent generous gift from Strathaven Evangelical Church for the Foundation's Education ministry, I've begun the planning process for next year in earnest, when we hope to significantly extend the reach of our Community Classes, for example, by taking the classes into other neighbourhoods. It's fair to say that I've never had so many material resources at my disposal -- scary, in a way, but there's great potential there.

I have a bus to catch. Some prayer points to close...

Prayer

• For the English students as they ponder the Biblical teaching of the past few months.
• For wisdom as I begin to allocate resources for next year.

Praise

• For safety on our travels so far between Trinidad and Santa Cruz.
• For the Lord's goodness to, and patience with, me over the past 30 years.

¡Que Dios les bendiga!

Craig & Amanda

Update

No blog post this weekend as we've both had a few things to attend to in Santa Cruz. Appreciate your prayers -- won't go into details, but the Holy Spirit will take care of that (Romans 8:26-27).