Saturday Post -- 08/06/2013

For a good number of reasons, I, Amanda, am typing the blog this morning. And I don’t know what to say…I think I shall start with bagels. I made bagels…finally. I said I would months and months ago and I don’t think too many people had faith in me…but I did, I believed. It was about a week and a half ago, and although Craig seemed to enjoy the end product he obviously didn’t think it special enough to include in last week’s blog. He asked me what he should include in the blog last weekend and I said, “My bagels” and then he didn’t. It was sad.

If anyone were to ask me what my favourite breakfast is, my answer would be Tim Horton’s sesame seed bagels with herb and garlic cream cheese (especially from the drive-thru) with a large green tea. The green tea offsets the quantity of calories in the amazing amount of cream cheese that Tim Horton’s applies to its bagels (in my mind it does anyway). I also grew up eating bagels for lunch…I disliked home made sandwiches for lunch because by the time lunchtime at school arrived the tomatoes and mayonnaise had soaked into the bread and made it soggy…and I couldn’t eat soggy sandwiches. I still can’t eat soggy sandwiches. So, my mom switched to bagels and cream cheese for lunch…and later we learned that sandwiches on bagels didn’t get soggy like normal bread, because of their chewiness. So, yummm…bagel sandwiches.

When I moved to Scotland we didn’t buy bagels as often because Craig told me they were more fattening than normal bread (not true -- well, kind of true -- the bagel itself is not more fattening, it’s the shocking amount of cream cheese that goes with it). But in Scotland, when I felt like it, I had the ability to buy bagels. There are no bagels in Trinidad. Three-and-a-half years I have lived here and I have not seen bagels. They might be available in Santa Cruz, but I have not seen or bought any. I have gone three-and-a-half years without bagels. Sometimes I look at the Philadelphia cream cheese in the speciality store sadly and think, “You’re just not worth it without bagels”. And then the Great British Bake Off taught me that bagel-making is not that hard. So last week, when there was time and I could be bothered, I made bagels.

I looked up two separate recipes online and made them both to compare and contrast, trying to find the recipe I liked the best -- and I think I have a pretty good idea of how I would go about making the bagels next time. I made a batch of cinnamon raisin and a batch of plain (although I egg-washed half the plain and added chopped garlic) and they were good. The cinnamon raisin ones were boiled for too long, but the taste was still good. And we had bagels and cream cheese and the next day we had bagel sandwiches. At one point I was so nostalgic for home I almost cried. And that’s my bagel-making story.

Okay, so after four paragraphs of bagels I’ll talk about some ministry related events -- I don’t know, maybe people find that more interesting.  Last Saturday was the Wii Night with the Youth Group. They had earned enough points to have a night playing Wii, so we set up two Wiis and a ping-pong table: one Wii had Mari Kart and Just Dance on it, which the kids lined up for, while the other one had a tournament with Wii Play mini-games which all the kids entered into.  They all seemed to have a good time. The next thing they can earn with another 5000 points is a “food party”. At the beginning we wanted to call it a pizza party, but then someone told us that the youth here don’t like pizza. Okay?!?! So, we said “food” and told them they could tell us what they wanted when they earned it. That’s going to be months away though -- it took them four months to earn their first 5,000 and we calculated they could do it in two. But we are having to deal with that lack of motivation that is inherent in adolescence. At 20,000 points, Craig and Elias (the church pastor) were going to get their heads shaved...never going to happen.

Tonight at Youth Group we’re starting a new series on worship, which Craig has organised. He’s also taking the first session on it -- the history of worship through the Bible -- and next week will be about worship nowadays and why we do what we do. That will be followed by small groups looking at 1 Samuel 15 and a worship night in early July full of various ways and activities in which we can worship God. Please be praying that the youth really understand that how we worship God is not culturally dependent, but it’s in our actions and in our obedience that transcends culture.

Today is really busy -- Saturdays always are. It is not helped by the fact that we have to water our garden every morning, which takes about 35-40 minutes, and no we don’t have a sprinkler. But there does seem to be growth, although I can’t tell if it is grass or weeds (this is why I shouldn’t be involved in things like this). And we have a mango tree now (and what I think might be two crab apple trees), however, we will have wait at least two years before there will be fruit... minimum. So I will still have to go to the fruit stall and buy mangos (when they are in season), but I shall refrain from buying crab apples as I do not know what to do with them (sigh). But before that, I have grocery shopping, kitchen organising, lunch, discipleship, Bible Explorers' Club and then Youth Group to deal with, so better get moving.

Prayer

• Craig as he speaks tonight at Youth Group on worship.
• Craig tomorrow morning as he visits another church to speak about and distribute more Emmaus distance-learning books.
• The kids in the youth group with whom we’re working, that they would take their faith seriously and grow to be strong men and women for Christ.
• For the family of our friends, Jerry and Georgina, who are mourning the recent loss of Jerry’s grandmother.

Praise

• For bagels!
• For how well Elizabeth and Grecia’s Mom (see last week's post) seems to be doing post-caesarean.
• For a successful Wii Night.

¡Que Dios les bendiga!

Craig & Amanda

Saturday Post -- 25/05/13

Must say, I fancy me one of these.

Now don’t get me wrong, actually owning a house for the first time in our lives has been terrific so far. Having the freedom to install our own appliances, decide on which shade of garish pink works best for the kitchen, and leave crayon-marks on the wall without worrying if we’ll get our deposit back – yes, it’s been wonderful.

But my goodness, is it not just a wee bit terrifying – and I'm not just talking about the wall colours. For the first time in our lives we find ourselves in the position where any problem we come across, no matter how great or small, is very much ours to deal with, and cannot simply be fobbed off to the landlord.

Like any new house, we’ve had a few bedding-in issues here and there, but none more headache-inducing than the garden. It’s not the biggest you’ll come across down here, but it does nonetheless constitute the majority of our plot of land. And so far, our efforts to grow it, and then get on top of it, have exposed us for the total horticultural philistines that we are.

Initially, our plot was simply mud, but not mud of any real quality – the kind of industrial stuff which is simply used to fill in empty spaces. Indeed, having been required to raise the height of our land quite considerably before building on it, we had needed a lot of it. Realising that this wouldn’t yield any growth, and frustrated with the chronic mess it made when combined with the rain here, we opted to buy some proper soil or ‘black earth’ as they call it down here.

Well, back in early April, with the help over a couple of weeks of a couple of strapping young ’uns from the church youth group, we were able to cover the entire plot in black earth, allowing greater potential for growth. Except that rainy season was having itself one last almighty burst before exiting the stage for 2013, meaning that when everything finally dried out, we had ourselves a collection of compacted mud-rocks, rather than proper soil. The only growth to speak of was an ever-increasing array of weeds springing up through the cracks. And so, the garden quickly became a problem which, if it weren’t put in its place once and for all, was only going to become an even greater irritation and threat to our sanity and peace of mind. Sort of like Nigel Farage.

Now, if I’m honest, the thought of getting to grips with my own garden was something that rather excited me as we had prepared to move home. What greater satisfaction, after all, than the sweet sting of sweat in one’s eyes after a hard day of working the land. This was no mere chore – this was my calling as a man! Grrrr!

The novelty soon wore off, though, as, a couple of weeks ago, one Monday – effectively our one-day weekend – I spent the day weeding only one part of the land, picking up severe thigh strain in the process, and realising that managing to get any real growth out of this thing at all would probably require me to put in a shift every Monday for the next year. And that I just wasn’t prepared for.

So we did what any sane person of my generation would do – we got someone else to do it. Well, we at least looked into it. Last weekend we were visited by a professional gardener who has grown, and maintains, gardens in some of Trinidad’s swankier homes. He gave me a little tour of his greatest hits as a sweetener before hitting me with a quote which was several furlongs beyond what we could afford (an unfortunate upshot of being lighter of skin here is the assumption that we are walking ATMs; actually, it’s a stereotype with more than a little truth in it in this society, but one that doesn’t really apply to missionaries living by faith). We didn't get back in touch with him.

It was at this point that I remembered that the husband of a woman who does a little cleaning for us now and again is himself a gardener. He was otherwise occupied, but put us in touch with a friend of his (whose daughter, it turned out, is heavily involved in FT’s basketball programme), who promptly came round to the house to offer his own services. Perhaps with a greater understanding of our financial realities as missionaries, he gave us a far more manageable quote.

And I can say with thankfulness that I am looking out on a garden which is in a far healthier state than it was a few days ago and is ready for grass to be sown and grown. My head feels a lot better. As do my thighs.

Prayer

• The garden is not the only issue relating to ‘land’ we’ve been dealing with over the past week. Out of the blue, the possibility has arisen of selling the two extra plots we own. Please pray that we might be able to be finally be rid of these soon.
• Pray for Craig this weekend as he prepares to preach on Nehemiah 5 tomorrow morning at church. 

Praise

• We still haven’t made a final decision with regard to what we’ll be up to during our furlough year but, as Craig mentioned on Facebook yesterday, we have booked our tickets for our return to the UK in mid-December. We’re excited to be able to come ‘home’ in time for Christmas. Give thanks for a date to look forward to and an extremely good deal on the tickets.
• Give thanks, too, for the Lord’s help to Amanda last weekend, who was feeling increasingly under-the-weather as Saturday wore on, but was able to fulfil all her teaching duties nonetheless, her input much appreciated by all concerned.
• Give thanks for Craig's English class, with more newcomers arriving this week to learn English and read the Bible in the process.

¡Que Dios les bendiga!

Craig & Amanda