Home Comforts -- Number One: Feeding

In 2014, when we come home on furlough, what I am most looking forward to is a good feed.

“But didn’t you already cover that in number five?!” the masses cry. In one important sense, yes. But what Amanda and I both crave this year is the infinitely more satisfying sustenance of the word of God.

Church work, whether at home or abroad, can be hugely demanding on body, mind and soul. Church ministry that God blesses will inevitably involve people – and we all know how much less complicated this life would be were it not for people.

Having not yet been involved in full-time Christian ministry in a Western setting, I can’t speak to those circumstances. But I know enough about our Western psyches, particularly in Britain, where seeking the help of another is often seen as a sign of weakness and, depending on the circumstances, somewhat ill-mannered. Not so here in Bolivia. People, refreshingly, have no qualms about coming to us as missionaries in their hour of need and asking for our assistance. At times the sacrifices are material. But sacrifices of time and energy are required in greater measure.

And spiritually, we are in ‘giving mode’ for most of the week. A lot of my weeks are taken up with preparing sermons. Amanda disciples a couple of young women whom she meets with every week. She is also heavily involved in running the youth group, where I also lend a hand. And though I'm far from comfortable with the idea, I’ve sort of become the unofficial music director at church. So when Sunday, the day when most of us receive a ‘good feed’, comes around, we are always doing the feeding ourselves, in some capacity. It has been our joy and our privilege to have been at the front line in the Lord’s work here. But, boy, do we need a break.

We need to come back here in early 2015 with renewed energies and a renewed imbuing of the word of God in our lives, or we simply will not be able to go on. So we’re tremendously excited about what the Lord has lined up for us in the year ahead. I’m immensely looking forward to the daily instruction of men who rightly divide the word of truth at Cornhill Scotland. Amanda is equally thrilled to have the opportunity to delve deeper into Scripture via her Certificate in Christian Studies with St John’s, Nottingham. So many of the deep friendships I alluded to yesterday are tremendous channels for mutual encouragement along the narrow way. And, though we will look to get involved in church where possible, we’re naturally looking forward to those Sundays (and midweek meetings, of course) when we can be enriched by the ministry of others.

Meanwhile, back in Bolivia, there’s a potentially positive upshot to all of this too. The missionary presence here will be drastically reduced next year, with the Lord having called our fellow workers Kenny & Claudia Holt back to Scotland. In many respects, the coming year will be a case of ‘sink or swim’ for our church. Missionary dependence, so often the default mode here, will not be an option. Yet what an opportunity for growth and maturity in the local church. Regular readers will know we have been greatly encouraged by several developments in the past few months. We see great potential in several young men and women here. So, while we, as missionaries, certainly expect to continue in the ministry of ‘feeding’ upon our return, how wonderful it would be to be nourished with a little bit more regularity by our dear brothers and sisters here in Trinidad.

Therefore, as prayerful as we know you will be for Amanda and I in 2014, please uphold our dear brothers and sisters at El Jireh church in your daily petitions.

Home Comforts -- Number Two: Friends & Family

April 2013: a rare glimpse of relatives.

As I sat down to prepare this little countdown, it didn’t take me long to realise that the higher up the chart I was climbing, the less Bolivia-specific were my hankerings. And ex-pats the world over will certainly identify with this entry.

Without wishing to seek credit for our decision to come here (we see it as simply having obeyed the Great Commission), there is no getting away from the fact that great sacrifices are involved when you set off for far away lands. And the greatest of these is the emotional wrench of leaving behind loved ones.

Without a doubt, technology has eased the pain somewhat, even within the past decade. When I first came here back in 2000, I mostly relied on AOL Instant Messenger for meaningful ‘conversations’ with family, though occasionally we would treat ourselves to a long-distance phone call. These, however, required no small expense, and the time-delay was so pronounced that it was possible to read a small novel between each exchange.

Nowadays, of course, we can make free phone calls to family and friends via Skype – indeed, a highlight of our week is a Skype date with our respective parents. Facebook is the other web development which has boosted our interactions with loved ones immeasurably, giving us a window into friends’ lives (or, at least, the bits they want you to see!) and enabling us to engage in written conversation instantaneously. In appreciating these tools, our admiration for the missionaries of the pre-internet age has only grown.

But for as long as God permits us all time on this here planet, no matter the great advances which are surely around the corner, there will never be a substitute for face-to-face interactions with our fellow men. In particular, watching significant developments in our loved ones’ lives from afar has been a stretch. Over the last four years we’ve missed several weddings and the infancy of many friends’ children. We had a two-week stop in Canada on our way down here in January 2010, during which time we touched base with one of Amanda’s university roommates, who had just gotten engaged. She and her husband are now expecting their third child! My grandfather’s death was a tough time to be away from home too.

For all the japery of the previous post, this is, in fact, the biggest strain at Christmas time – I just thought I’d save my thoughts on the topic for a single blog entry. Number one is coming up on Friday – forgive me for missing out on the top spot!

Home Comforts -- Number Three: Christmas

"More turkey? Surely you can't be serious?"

It was 13 years ago, but I still remember the first time like it were yesterday. A thunderstorm raging outside, as Bing Crosby did his best to get a word in edgeways. Gifts wrapped in snow scenes exchanged by people dressed in ever-dampening T-shirts and shorts. Every mouthful of turkey requiring its very own serviette, just to attend to the attendant sweat on one’s brow.

You can try all you like – and we missionaries certainly gave it our best shot that year – but Christmas in Bolivia just doesn’t feel quite right. And yet, we never really learn. Every year we’ve gone that extra mile to make things feel as homely as possible – watching the YouTube video of the Queen’s message, importing a turkey from Cochabamba, having someone play the role of a borderline-racist grandparent at the dinner table (OK, I made that last one up) – but when all you want for Christmas is to spend the day in a walk-in freezer, there’s only so far these efforts can take you.

The big problem, of course, is that Christmas celebrations vary wildly from country to country – and, indeed, from family to family. Here in Bolivia, Christmas is definitely in the top-ten of Important Annual Holidays (though they’ve yet to write a series of blog entries about it), but it is relatively small potatoes in comparison with the really big festival here, Carnaval, which in December lurks tantalisingly just around the corner.

Not that a stripped-down version of Christmas is such a bad thing, certainly not for the missionary crowd. Being leaner and meaner definitely keeps the true significance of the season from becoming obscured.

But, like it or not, Christmas and its assorted non-religious traditions become so instilled in us from birth, that a foreign version can only disappoint.

In Bolivia, the major difference (and one which is common to many other countries) is that Christmas is marked at midnight on the 24^th, with a huge meal served and the family staying up till around 6 in the morning. So this year, when your 3-year-old kamikazes into your bedroom, slaps you in the face and demands that presents be opened at 4 o’clock in the morning, the Bolivians will already be celebrating.

Over the years we’ve slowly learned the lesson of 2010, our first Christmas here. Deary-me, was that brutal. We reckoned that, as missionaries, it would be a pleasant gesture to invite some other families in the church, for what turned out not so much to be a Christmas dinner as a buffet for a small army. Still, there was plenty of turkey to go around. I was only just steeling myself for round two at the buffet table (naturally, I also had my eye on a spare packet of serviettes) when a bunch of the Bolivian guys declared that they were going out for a game of football. Did these people just not get it? “A game of football?!”, I seethed, “Why, the whole point of Christmas Day is to slowly but surely resemble a human football!” My pleas fell on deaf ears. I hear the goalie had a particularly accomplished afternoon.

So I am in no small way excited at the prospect of not one but two Christmases in Scotland over the coming year. I feel that after three Christmases abroad, it’s the least we’re due. Watchnight services. Cranberry sauce. It’s A Wonderful Life repeats. Zero humidity. Elderly xenophobia. I’ll save the football for Boxing Day, thank you very much.

Home Comforts -- Number Four: The BBC

The stars of Gardeners' Question Time

Let’s face it, when it comes to television, the BBC is increasingly losing the argument as regards its worth to the licence-fee payer. There is still great programming to be found – better than most stuff you’ll find in the UK – but Lord Reith’s three-pronged founding principles of educating, informing and entertaining have long since been abandoned in favour of making cheap reality shows, blitzing ITV1 in the ratings, and running said mauling as a headline on the ‘news’ website the next morning.

The TV licence agreement is up for renewal in 2016 and, if Cameron & Co. are still in charge by then, further cuts are surely in the pipeline. And yet, this would be a great shame. Because the ‘TV licence’ is in itself something of a misnomer. Indeed, a significant chunk of the TV licence is spent on the last division of the BBC where the Reithian principles are proudly upheld: BBC Radio.

I subscribe to a podcast from BBC Radio 4 called ‘Documentary of the Week’ – hardly requires much of an explanation, but given the wealth of factual output on Radio 4, choosing the week’s ‘winner’ is surely a tall task. Over the last few weeks, I’ve enjoyed programmes covering topics as many and varied as C.S. Lewis, the Gettysburg Address, a survey on the way we use our time, and a history of the computer password. That’s right, a history of the computer password. And every last one of them has been utterly fascinating. Yet this is merely the tip of the iceberg. Tune your UK car radio to Radio 4 and, depending on the hour, you might get a comedy show, a play, an in-depth news programme (which, unlike its television counterparts, doesn’t talk to its listeners like 3-year-olds), ‘Gardeners' Question Time’ or, of course, the shipping news. On what other radio station in the world can you hope to find such variety?

Then, if you’re a sports obsessive like me, you have 5 Live, which covers most major events in the UK and abroad, with the aid of an intrepid army of commentators, whose words could paint a thousand pictures. These guys can describe the ebb and flow of a tennis rally shot-for-shot in real time and fill 90 minutes of a one-sided Formula 1 race with wit and authority. They even sometimes make cricket sound exciting.

Oh, and, as a wise man once put it, do you like good music? The Beeb has five stations covering pretty much era or genre you could shake a baton at. And that’s not to mention the high quality of programming on offer on the BBC’s network on local stations throughout the UK.

I have relatives in the US whose first move in the morning, after getting the kettle on, is to go straight to the Radio 4 website and listen to the Today programme. The poor internet here forbids me such a luxury. But such is the esteem in which the BBC is held by expats – and, indeed, armies of non-Brits. Moving abroad only reminds one all the more forcibly that there is no broadcaster in the world that comes close to matching its variety, objectivity and authority. I am very much looking forward to having Auntie back.

Home Comforts -- Number Five: Food & Drink

Fuhgedaboudit.

Ask the average expat what they most miss about home and, chances are, they’ll be drooling all over you within 30 seconds. At the same time, if they retain sufficient power over their bodily functions, you might be able to pick up strange utterings like “Irn-Bru” or “maple syrup” or “Irn-Bru bars”.

“Oh, here we go again,” I hear you cry, “another whinge about living in a place where the sun shines for more than two weeks of the year!” But this goes beyond Bolivia. Food is self-evidently a big part of what ‘home’ represents for us as human beings. And, as far as Bolivia’s concerned, this very blog has paid ready testament over the years to the world-beating quality of the steak in this corner of the world.

Beyond the steak, however, the range is somewhat limited. Red meat dominates and everything – everything – is served with fried rice. Indeed, Amanda’s first dish here went down in local infamy when she made the fatal oversight of neglecting to serve a side of rice with her pasta. For Bolivians, only two food groups exist: ‘high-carb’ or ‘very high-carb’. High time, then, that we at last returned to Scotland…where it’s potatoes with everything!

Hmmm. What we do have in the West, though, is ready access to a sufficiently wide range of cuisines. We’ve uncovered a few half-decent Asian restaurants in the bigger cities of Bolivia, but that’s about it. And worst of all, no Italian. So if you’re looking for me in about three weeks’ time, chances are you’ll find me at Sarti’s on Bath Street, doing my best Tony Soprano impersonation. After all, if you’re going to live according to the Bolivian food groups, you might as well make it tasty while you’re at it.