Saturday Post -- 17/12/16

Amanda and I are still in something of a state of shock after getting word on Thursday afternoon, four weeks before we were due to touch down in Heathrow, that our UK visitor visa submission for Sam was unsuccessful. 

The official dealing with the case wrote extensive feedback as to the basis of the refusal. This was most helpful in essentially understanding what our submission had lacked in terms of evidence, but pretty galling too, as the information we had referred to in our initial submission on the UK's website had been vague to say the least. We believe we have more than enough evidence to back up our case, and we would have sent it in the first place if it had been asked of us.

In all of this, God has given us a real provision: namely, Danny, a former employee of the Spanish consulate in La Paz, who moved to Trinidad with his wife -- an employee at Fundación Totaí -- and baby son earlier this year. We were able to meet with Danny on Thursday evening to assess the situation. He was a little taken aback by the refusal, but suggested we re-submit, and gave us a little more insight into what consular staff are looking for. Thanks to Danny, we have a new strategy, which will hopefully make the application a lot more watertight; I guess you could call him our Esther (Esther 4:14), though he's a big lad, so probably not to his face.

We immediately set about looking for a new appointment in La Paz, hoping to get one for Monday morning, which would allow us time to get our evidence together, while being early enough to hopefully have the visa arrive before our departure date from Bolivia (if not, we could at least make a date-change to the outbound flight at no cost). We were indeed able to source this, and so, we'll be making another 24 hour visit to that great city. 

And as you can imagine, the last 36 hours, but for about four hours' sleep on Thursday evening, have been taken up almost exclusively with assembling this new case; we're now armed to the teeth with letters that seem to touch all the bases. 

And yet, in those rare moments when our minds are otherwise unoccupied, we do wonder to ourselves why this is happened, and what on earth is going to happen next. Particularly if, as we can no longer rule out, this re-submission is similarly unsuccessful.

Maybe we were too presumptuous, but in our minds, this was all pretty straightforward: Scotland in January and February, Canada till mid-May (with our flights already booked for that), with a visit to friends and relatives in the US while in North America. About 20 speaking engagements with churches were already in place. In other words, we were mentally and emotionally prepared for this home assignment period. 

But above all, we were mentally and emotionally prepared -- nay, ecstatic! -- regarding the prospect of time away from our life and ministry in Trinidad. As has probably been evident reading between the lines here these past few weeks, we are close to burn-out, if not there already. We have had several searching conversations as a couple in recent weeks, about the general direction of our work here, and particularly a need for establishing more robust boundaries between our professional and personal lives. Just last week, we resolved to re-prioritise prayer while away from here, in order to better seek and understand God's will for our lives and ministry -- we would be particularly helped in this regard by the low-cost childcare services on offer from Grandparents Inc. So, if the resubmission doesn't cut the mustard, where do we go from here? 

This, and many more questions, are now at the forefront of our thinking. But, in reality, we are powerless, and paralysed by the fact that this is not in our hands, and all in God's. Correction: for 'paralysed', read 'liberated'.

Like so many others, we have known setbacks over the years. Or, as we increasingly prefer to call them, 'setbacks'. Chief among these, undoubtedly, was our infertility diagnosis a few years back. Yet if not for that, we almost certainly would never have met our intrepid, cheeky, and beautiful son, who has been a source of joy beyond comprehension. 

I am reminded, at this point, of a nugget of a sermon illustration (as it would happen, one that also touches on visa problems) of Romans 8:28 from Tim Keller:

I remember one day getting up, trying to explain this passage, and saying to them, “Listen, friends, do you know why I’m here? I’m glad I’m here. You’re glad I’m here. I’m glad I’m here. It has worked out beautifully. It’s because at the very end of my seminary career I decided to become a Presbyterian. That’s why I could go to a Presbyterian church. Do you know why I decided to be Presbyterian?

Because I fell under the influence of a particular teacher my last semester at seminary. Do you know why I fell under that man’s influence? He came from England after having tremendous visa problems (and probably wasn’t going to get there until the following year). At the last minute somebody cut through the red tape. He came, and I fell under his influence. Do you know why the red tape was cut? The dean of my seminary was on his knees praying about how we were going to get this guy over here when Mike Ford, Gerald Ford’s son, walked in and asked him what he was praying for. Mike Ford was a student at the seminary at that time.

Do you know why Mike Ford was able to cut the red tape? Because his father was the president. Do you know why his father was the president? Because Nixon had resigned. Do you know why Nixon resigned? Because of the Watergate scandal. Do you know why there was a Watergate scandal? Because one day a guard noticed in the Watergate building a particular door ajar that should have been closed.

We have no idea what is happening right now. I have reluctantly just had to wake up my wife, in order to lend a hand with said offspring so I can finish this; like me, she is struggling with sleep right now, perplexed as to exactly what is going on. What more can we do? What about Canada? Will Sam ever meet his relatives? How do we avoid burn-out now? 

Yet, with apologies to Donald Rumsfeld, this is a known unknown. We have been here before, and we now have the perspective to see the purpose of past 'setbacks'. There is a purpose in this, for God's glory, and for our good. We are nowhere near understanding, but we strive with every fibre of our being to trust. It is the safest place; it is the scariest place; it is exactly where God wants us, and all who have been called according to his purpose.

Prayer

• I think I've already made myself perfectly clear as to the main issue!
• For a straightforward visit to La Paz, a city that isn't nearly as much fun as it used to be.
• We must continue to work on the assumption that we are leaving Trinidad for five months at the end of December, so we appreciate your continued prayers for God's help in tackling the mountain of tasks before us.

Praise

• We prayed for an answer, and now we have it. We give thanks for it, and for future answers to this question, which, in ways we cannot now understand, are the best ones.

¡Que Dios les bendiga!

Craig & Amanda

A Fond Backward Glance

As I have considered (and usually delayed) our re-entry into the blogosphere over these past few weeks, I imagined it would simply be a case of picking up where we left off. And so, poring over our last entry written back in late 2013, I’m not half amused to read a not-so-solemn promise that we’d be posting irregularly on the furlough phenomenon during 2014.

Well, it’s the thought that counts, is it not?

It’s not quite the case that we’ve been too busy to write; probably just that the blog is very much part of our Bolivia routine, and we never quite found a way to fit it in to things here in Scotland and in Canada. Home assignment, indeed, has been a true eye-opener, and I have no doubt that we could, in future, put pen to paper on the joys and sorrows of an extended period away from Bolivia. It is as important a time in the life and work of overseas Christian workers as that on the field, and just as we have done with the blog these past five years, we would be keen to give those on the outside looking in a better appreciation of what missionaries go through when they come home.

But that book deal will have to wait for another day. For now, as something of a dipping of the toe back in these waters, I (Craig) shall offer some thoughts specific to my own experience of these past thirteen months.

The world is more beautiful than I remembered

The Ring of Steall

In the end, I didn’t exactly spend ‘a decent chunk of my Saturdays…on top of hills’, as I’d been promising myself back in December 2013. In that regard, I’d fatally overlooked two important realities of home assignment: a tight budget, and the eye-watering cost of fuel (which, inevitably, is only now beating a steady retreat).

Still, the year abounded with those moments of connection with the natural world which will forever remain seared on my consciousness. I’ll think back on the view over the wilderness of Rannoch Moor on that improbably sun-drenched April morning during our conquest of the West Highland Way. Or contemplating my tee shot at the 10^th on Royal Dornoch’s Struie Course, as the sun caught the higher peaks of the Dornoch Firth. Or the lesson in humility and smallness that is Alaska’s Tracy Arm Fjord (particularly enjoyable from the private corner I managed to find on a 1,400-capacity cruise liner). Or the afternoon spent in the company of humpback whales on the same trip. Or the pleasure in conquering ten Munros. Or December’s surprising – yet welcome – opportunity to drive to a last-minute church date in Kyle of Lochalsh, and happily consent to being dumbstruck by Buchaille Etive Mor one last time.

We will be going back to the natural beauty of the Beni region in due course, but my goodness, it has been a joy to re-connect with the inclines and declines of the North.

And the world has come to Scotland

My lunch routine while attending Cornhill Scotland usually involved a two-minute toddle from its Bath Street headquarters to the Sainsbury’s Central on Buchanan Street. The backing noise was almost always a constant murmur of foreign tongues. Prolonged absences like ours tend to accentuate trends, and there is no doubt that Glasgow in particular has never seen such ethnic diversity as it does today. Yes, that brings its own challenges – but, oh, what tremendous opportunities! Should the Lord bring us back to Scotland in the years ahead, our days of ministry to the nations would be anything but over.

Ministry is in our veins

And wherever we’d end up, we’re pretty certain that we’ve now passed a ‘point of no return’ when it comes to our 9-to-5.

A further affirmation of this took place in early July. For years, Amanda had waxed lyrical to me about those endless summers she, her family and friends would spend at a place called ‘Guelph Bible Camp’, effectively demanding that I join her in camp counselling work in the event of us ever being back in Canada for the summer. Inevitably, once our rough plans for 2014 were in place, those pleas re-surfaced, and I agreed, albeit reluctantly – by this time in Bolivia, I was exhausted, desperate to come home and get a bit of R&R, and most definitely not seeking out new ministry opportunities.

Well, Guelph Bible Youth Camp 2014 turned out to be probably the most purposeful, life-affirming and purely enjoyable week of the year. Cornhill, of course, had been a wonderful experience, but Guelph was our first proper opportunity of the year to put that learning into practice and, above all, minister the word of God to young people who, delightfully, were hungry for it. If those special seven days were merely a foretaste of the next two or three years in Bolivia, then the 15^th of January could hardly come any sooner.

‘The darkness has not overcome it’

The lads and lassies of Cornhill Scotland

We are slowly but surely learning to beware drawing sweeping conclusions from afar. Occasionally during our time away from Bolivia, we have heard of developments on the field that concern us a little. At the same time, we are all too aware that a distance of over 6,000 miles prevents us from having a fuller appreciation of things in Trinidad. This stops us from getting too wound up about said matters.

A significant contributing factor to this mentality has been our experience of things the other way around. During our four years in Trinidad, all the information we needed about an ever-gathering spiritual gloom in the UK and Canada was just a click away. Chaplains were being thrown out of schools, governments were busily re-defining that which God has definitively delineated, and, most depressingly of all, the Church of Scotland was proving itself about as useful a protector of the Christian faith as a three-year-old child of a bag of chocolate buttons.

None of the above has been reversed, of course, and I suspect we westerners had better brace ourselves for ever more hostile conditions. But the benefit of this year for us has been to witness the lives and work of those who refuse to succumb, to hear of those outside-the-box thinkers who are speaking prophetically into the most surprising of situations, to witness a generation who have had to decide like never before where they stand, and who are choosing with pleasure to plant their feet in the ground marked ‘Solid Rock’: to see, if you will, the bigger picture.

Four years abroad pales in comparison to the four decades that a couple we know spent engaged in overseas Christian ministry; we had the pleasure of their company earlier this year. They, too, are concerned at the general direction of society, yet claim to have never witnessed such wholehearted commitment to the cause of Christ among students and young adults. If the group of young men and women I had the pleasure of studying alongside at Cornhill are anything to go by, their optimism is well justified.

No man is an island

With the Dove family in Ohio

Not exactly a revelation, this. We have never lacked in friendships in Trinidad, a most hospitable town, but the majority of these – by necessity, of course – have tended to require that we shoulder the burdens of others, rather than experience a more balanced ‘weight distribution’, if you like.  This is the experience of many involved in full-time Christian ministry. So it has been tremendously energising to be around friends and family who have made time for us, opened their homes to us, and prayed with us, granting us full permission to behave in as undignified a manner as the occasion will permit.

Thrillingly, some of these are people we did not even know this time last year, further proof in particular of the value of my time at Cornhill. Indeed, in a few cases, Amanda and I have had the pleasure of spending significant extra-curricular time with these students and (where applicable) their spouses.

Having lived abroad for many years, we do not expect to be able to maintain regular contact with all such individuals. But what an encouragement to know that the work in Bolivia will feature in the thoughts and prayers of so many more.

We have a great church family

This one really was a revelation. Having attended Shettleston New for almost two years before going to Bolivia, we knew this to be the case, but it has only been in the last year that we have realised how scant our evidence was for such a judgement.

Our experience of fellowship on a Sunday back then would typically revolve around a core group of friends in the church at a similar age and stage to ourselves. I would play bass with them in the church music group, then we would meet together for a chat in the coffee area post-service, with the banter train more often than not chuntering along to another venue as the afternoon progressed. We knew the names and faces of many others, but in most cases, that was as far as it went. Indeed, come to think of it, our midweek Bible study group was largely made up of the same people.

Fast-forward four years, and that friendship group (with whom we are still in regular contact) had moved on to various other fellowships around the city. Would we still feel at home at Shettleston New?

Any doubts were dispelled within minutes of our first entrance that December morning as, one after another, people welcomed us with the warmest of embraces. They had certainly not forgotten us, though our grasp of their names and faces had become tenuous at best.

Thirteen months later, I suspect things are not quite so one-sided, and it is here that Amanda has to take a lot of credit. She came here determined to dedicate much of her time during the week to supporting the work of the church; Wednesdays were spent helping the mother-and-toddlers ministry, and then serving lunches to the community, while on Friday mornings she made a point of attending ‘The New Place’, a time for tea, toast and a blether, which sees a number of visitors, but is mostly attended by members of the congregation.

As the year progressed, and as most of our weekends were filled with church engagements around the UK, Amanda’s midweek presence at Shettleston proved vitally important in maintaining contact with people we were unable to see on Sundays. But more importantly, our wider church family have gotten to know us much better than before in the process. And while we do not doubt the sincerity of their prayers for us in the past, the emotional connection between us has been considerably strengthened. They now have greater ownership of us and of our ministry, and we, to paraphrase Paul in his letter to the Philippians, have them in our hearts.