Dan's Offerings

Since Somer's in Ireland until tomorrow, I thought I'd try my hand at a few food-related thoughts, just in case any of you are missing her on her blog.
Monday night we had grilled lamb steaks with rosemary from the garden, Somer's garlic mashed potatoes a'la Dan (i.e. throw some garlic salt in with cooked potatoes and smash them with a wire wisk - clearly the wrong tool for the job, as I discovered after bending the handle), and carrot sticks straight from the bag. Andi and I also shared our first large tomato from the garden - we've been getting cherry tomatoes for a while, but this is the first from the larger variety. It was tasty.
Tuesday was leftovers, but I did make some new peas. The recipe? Buy frozen peas, open the bag and chow down. If you must heat them, throw them in a pot and let them steam as the frost melts and then evaporates.
Tuesday evening before dinner the girls came with me to the younger Hub. The talk was on Jacob and Esau, so we had Pot o' Noodles while I talked about how Esau despised God's promises and sold his birthright for a bowl of soup. They thought it was hysterical that I used the word "soup" - or else they thought I said "soup" in a funny way. I couldn't really tell. Whenever I said "soup" there would be a few seconds of laughter and several other people would say "soup".
The recipe for Pot o' Noodles? If you're that desperate I can't help you.
Somer will be back tomorrow evening, so look for her again on Thursday. Tomorrow is coffee morning/lunch hour at the centre, so the girls will be with me for that.

And Even Three

I realized those last two stories give an unrealistically rosey picture of life/ministry here. So let me give you a third to temper the other two.

Also on Tuesday, I was out with Emma doing doors. I met the first "cultural creative" person I've talked to here in Dagenham. He answered the door, tattooed on both arms, lip and eyebrow pierced, blue hair. He agreed to do the survey. Basically, he's not religious at all. The only thing he believes in is himself. Has no desire to go to church, and there's nothing that really would make him want to go. He was a really nice guy - told us he's a musician, writes songs for bands. "And yet I'm still here in Dagenham," he remarked. Near the end of the conversation, he said something like "Well, I don't exactly look like someone who would believe [in Jesus], do I?" Emma said something about "you should see some of my friends." And I remained silent. It was a perfect invitation into his life and the nature of faith and walking in the way of Jesus as a counter-cultural lifestyle, and I said nothing. Couldn't think of what to say.

Two Stories

On Tuesday Julian received a phone call from one of our friends at the center.
"Julian, I've decided I don't need the Bible you gave me. I'm giving the whole Christianity thing up."
We were scheduled to visit later in the day, so he said we should still come by. Turns out he and his long-term companion had an argument that morning. "I went back five years in my relationship with her," he said. "If I can go back five years in just a few minutes with her, then why should I bother with the Christian thing, because I can go back just as easily on that too."
I was feeling a bit bold that day (who knows, maybe lots of you were praying that day and the Spirit was moving). So I said "You know, I don't think you are the same as you were five years ago." He replied "You didn't know me five years ago, how can you say that?" "Well, I don't think something like this argument would have bothered you this much five years ago." He continued: "Well, it's just that I've been changing so much lately, and now here I am off the path, in the same brambles again, struggling to get out of them." I stuck my grinning face about six inches from his - "And five years ago, would you have been struggling to get out of those brambles?" "Well, no. You've got me there."
We went on to talk about how it's the very people who go straying off the path that Jesus came to seek and save. Since we were supposed to be talking about the parables of Jesus, I paraphrased the story of the shepherd who has 99 sheep in the pen and one out in the brambles. He is passionate about the one who is in the brambles, and when he finds it, he brings it back and there's a massive party in God's house.
He said he was glad we had come, and that we should come back next week to resume our regular study of the parables.

Tuesday night was the last night for Dan, one of the regular staff at the Hub. He has finished the gap-year scheme with LCM. So we took him out for a celebration afterwards. One of the guys who attends the Hub regularly was hanging around after it closed, talking to us while we closed up. We invited him to come with us. Initially I felt like it was a bit awkward. I had been looking forward to having a good laugh with Dan and felt like having this other guy with us was kind of holding us back. In the end, though, we had a really good time. He started asking us what it's like for us to pray. Then we started talking about what happens when you die (sort of brought up by the death of my grandmother a few weeks ago and the questions Andi asked afterwards). I would have loved to be a detached observer at our table - here's a guy who doesn't want to have anything to do with the church, sitting in a pub with six followers of Jesus, asking us questions about our faith. Beautiful.

Summer Friends

They have begun to arrive! Rian arrived Monday night at around 11. She visited the Hub with me on Tuesday, saw Fame with Somer on Wednesday, cancelled a trip to the museums on Thursday because of the bombings, and did family movie night with us on Saturday (we moved it from Friday in order to take her to Belgo on Friday night). We also went to Greenwich on Thursday while Somer was at Cafe Forever and the girls were having their last day of school before summer holiday. We bought their teacher a giant Sunflower to say "thanks". Tomorrow Rian and Summer leave for three days in Dublin. We have an early drive to the airport, and then it's just me and the girls until Wednesday evening.
In the midst of all this, stuff at Bethel has continued unabated - I'll update you more in the next post on that.
When Rian leaves, Rebecca arrives later that day. We're hoping to have some time to pray with Rebecca and dream God's dreams for this city and seek him for how we fit into those dreams. After that, Somer's sister arrives...followed shortly by her parents.

More London Incidents

Two weeks after the major bombings on the Tube and bus, there has been another series of incidents. These don't sound like they're nearly as big as two weeks ago, but several Tube lines have been closed. It sounds like packages exploded on a bus and a few trains, but there were few if any injuries. People reported a burning smell, and a couple people said they saw a man's backpack blow up. I was thinking that it sounded like a copy-cat thing, done to scare people more than anything else. Two minutes after I thought this, one of the news channels had an "anti-terror" expert on, who said the exact same thing. Anyway, just wanted everyone to know that all is well in our neck of London, and hopefully this will be resolved quickly with few people affected.

A proverb and a picture

Any fool can ask for advice,
but a wise person listens to friends.
A fool asks until the desired answer is given,
but a wise person is satisfied with good counsel.

So who do you think I am?

My boss Julian finally gave me the advice I wanted to hear: "Get the vinyl flooring and just put some foam sub-flooring underneath. Caulk the whole thing around the edges, and you're done." I got a remnant of vinyl for £7 (the guy wanted 15, then when I baulked at the price he came down to 10. I asked if he took credit - he didn't - and I said I'd give him the £7 in my wallet. I love bargaining). The foam was £15 per roll, and Somer suggested that we just forget the foam and lay the vinyl straight on the wood. Thinking her advice the best, I bought a tube of silicon and came home. Finished product is above. A few notes for the guys who did give good (though unheaded) advice: This vinyl stuff is not linoleum as I know it - it's actually soft on the bottom and very flexible...feels a lot like carpet with a soft, thin, plastic veneer on top. The moisture basically comes from the tub - splashing kids and a wonky shower head. I liked Jim's idea of painting the floor boards, but they were in such bad shape it wasn't an option. There is some old termite damage - a couple boards had been replaced, and the ones next to them had been generously eaten through, though not badly enough to warrant replacement. Pat's advice was good - but I don't know who to talk to at LCM right now - Andrew is no longer one of the ministry directors, and the three new directors haven't sorted out who is supervising whom. In any case, it would take longer than the day I had left in which to replace the floor - I neglected to mention that I had already ripped up the moldy carpet when I wrote the post. So, the floor is down, the bathroom smells nice (albeit a bit chemically right now) and I spent a day cutting and caulking. Surprisingly, the stuff stays put and lays quite flat. In the end, if the landlord doesn't like it, I'll just take it up before I leave and put the new piece of carpet down, and no harm done.
Thanks for your thoughts guys. And Pat...sorry to have not listed you specifically in my appeal for help. I did know you laid floors, but forgot it at the time I was writing.

Harry Potter

Sitting here at midnight listening to J K Rowling read a chapter from the newest instalment. I'm hooked! She's reading the account of Harry and co. as they explore the Weasley brothers' new shop. Very very cool.

Maintenance

On a couple levels today. First, on the house: Our bathroom reaks something aweful. One really shouldn't carpet one's bathroom if one doesn't like mold and nasty smells in one's house. If Jesus were here today, he would tell the pharisees that they were a carpeted bathroom with a pretty door - nice on the outside, but full of mildew, rot, and foul odors on the inside. In any case, I pulled up the carpet and have a fan blowing to try to dry out the floor-boards before I replace it. Rian arrives Monday, and we want it to be nice when she arrives. I'm debating between putting down more carpet (cheapest idea since we have a spare scrap in the shed that will fit), putting down linoleum on top of the carpet (the floor-boards are too uneven to just do linoleum) an actually tiling the floor. Basically, we're only in the house for another six months, so the carpet should stay moderately fresh until just about the time we're ready to leave...good for us, bad for the next occupant. Thanks to Larry, I know how to do tiling - and it would only cost about £30 for supplies - but I'd have to get my hands on a tile cutter, which would basically double the cost. Linoleum costs £10 for the two square meters I need, but again, I'd have to put it down on top of the carpet. Don't know how effective that'd be on preventing moisture build-up in the carpet. I'm hoping Jim or Larry or one of my other readers might have an idea...please let me know what you think is the best option.
Second, on the blog: if you notice, I've weeded out the side-bar and updated my reading list. Just to be clear, I don't have an advance copy of Harry Potter, it's arriving Saturday like everyone else's, and probably I won't actually start reading it until the following week, since Somer has dibs on it first. But I'm so excited about it I couldn't wait to get it up on the reading list. The other two books there are both really good - especially Gempf's book...but I would be a bit biased, since he's a Londoner.

Incense

My fellow LCMers are starting to think I'm a bit of a pyro. This past Tuesday at the Hub, we decided to take a break from our normal schedule of talks with the younger guys in response to last week's bombings in the city. I had the guys (and girl) write short prayers for the city on pieces of paper. I explained that the Bible gives the picture of prayers from God's people being sweet-smelling incense to him. So after writing their prayers, we went outside and - you guessed it! - burned the paper-prayers in a cauldron along with some incense. A few of them actually took it seriously and wrote prayers for mercy or peace. Many wrote prayers that basically said "God, please punish the guys who did this", although in more colorful language and with a few racial slurs mixed in for good measure. I wasn't sure whether to be uncomfortable with these prayers or not. Certainly David prayed in similar ways at times. It's just that usually the only prayer we let non-believers pray is the "sinner's prayer" - and when you start asking them to pray for other purposes, sometimes it gets messy.

Family Unity

It's been six months since we arrived here in London. I was remarking to Somer earlier today that I feel like our family has become very close. One of the great benefits of not knowing many people in the city is that we do most everything together - just the four of us. I feel like I know the girls better than I ever have (this may also be a result of them growing up). The things we look forward to are things we have planned to do together - family movie night, an afternoon in the park, preaching at city of peace, moms & tots, coffee morning, etc.
Those adventure movies that take a group of disparate people and force them into situations where they have to either get along or die are ringing true for us right now. Not that we hated each other before we got here, but there's something about being on this adventure together that has brought us closer. Probably the church could learn something from this.

Abraham Sacrificing Isaac

Unfinished work by The Hub. Emulsion paint on wood over a pencil traced projection of the original by Laurent de LaHire - 1650
Work was undertaken on Tuesday, 5th July. Projected completion is sometime this week. Several of the guys worked on this painting the entire evening.

London Bombings

There have been a number of explosions this morning in London. BBC quoted the Metropolitan Police Commissioner as saying there were six explosions on busses and London Underground trains. The Underground is completely shut down. I was supposed to be doing door-to-door today, but my co-worker is stuck in central London without a way out to Ilford. Somer is working at Café Forever this morning - closer to the center of London, but not in close proximity to the bombings. I'm looking forward to having her back home this afternoon. Not that you need me to keep you posted, given the flood of news coverage, but I will post an update once it becomes clearer what has happened. We are o.k. and praying for our city.

[Update] - Somer picked up the girls from school around 12:30 and they are all home safely. We just saw a news conference where the police and others clarified some details. It looks like there were a total of four bombs - three on Underground trains and one on a bus. They are saying at least 33 people were killed and a few hundred injured. Some train services outside the very center of the city are resuming, and it sounds like they are hoping to have restored more services tomorrow so that life can go on in the city. We are still having our kids clubs tonight at Ley Street, so I'm off to work in about an hour or so. I'll try to give one more update tonight on how the kids in our clubs are reacting.