Wedding Reception

Last night we attended the wedding reception of one of Somer's friends from the mums & tots group. Somer went to her hen party last month - you can read about her experience here. It was about normal for a wedding reception, except that they had already had the wedding a couple weeks ago in the Dominican Republic. They did one of those beach-side weddings. Since the wedding had already happened, they had lots of pictures - it was really quite beautiful. We only knew the bride and one other woman there, so we just kind of hung around and talked to our children. Not the most exciting evening of our time here, but still good.

In Search of the Spiritual

Newsweek article on the rise of spirituality in the USA. Pretty good article. What do you think?

Church on the Corner

This past Sunday we spent the morning worshiping with the folk at Church on the Corner. It was very clear from the first that we were in a place with other people who love Jesus, and that they were there because they wanted to encounter God and respond to him in worship together. We felt very much at home - probably more so than in any other church we've visited since we've been here; even though I had to ask someone if the church was even open when we first arrived (first time in my life for that one). I felt free to express myself physically during the singing and join in the discussion during the sermon, and the fact that they had drinks on the tables during the service made the morning for Andi and Jodie. We sat around at tables, café style.
I chatted with the pastor afterwards, and he described wanting to be a place where non-churchy people could come and not be completely turned off by the atmosphere. Very close to our own hearts - maybe that's why we felt so comfy there. Anyway, I know it's not all about me and my comfort, but we were blessed by our time there. Thanks to Mark and Peter and others who welcomed us so well. Hope this isn't the last we see of you.

Word Verification

I've added Word Verification to all comments. I've started getting spam comments with links to unknown sites. Hopefully the extra step of having to read a word and re-enter it before posting a comment will aleviate this problem...we'll see. Hope this extra step doesn't deter you from commenting, but let me know if you find it to be a hassle.

Violent Reality

Last night I watched Balls of Steel on Channel 4. Ok, I'll admit that there were at least three things I could have been doing instead, the most sensible of which would have been to go to bed. But instead I watched, horrified, as people performed all sorts of crazy stunts, including jumping on the back of strangers, and timing to see how long they could stay on, just like it was a rodeo.
The worst, though, and the reason I'm bothering you with this at all, is that there was a segment in which two men purposely injured themselves with tools, just to see how much pain each tool caused. I've been wondering for a while how long it was going to take before someone combined our society's thirst for "reality" with the alluring power of violence. Maybe this isn't the first instance of a show like this, but it's the first I've seen. The two "stunts" I saw were just insane. First, they tried to see how much pain it caused when one guy used a belt sander on the other's naked back-side. He barely touched his butt when he screamed with pain...it started bleeding almost immediately. But then, the guy came back for more, and had him sand his butt a second time!! He rated it a 9 out of 10 in terms of pain. Then, the same guy put his hand on a block of wood, and his "friend" hammered a nail into the space of skin between his thumb and forefinger. Then they showed a close-up as he pulled the nail out of the wood and through his hand - again, blood came out immediately. He rated this 10 out of 10.
Just a little picture of the world we live in. I don't think this is indicative of the state of British culture as a whole (Channel 4's website has a forum, and from what I've seen, almost all comments on the show are negative). But there are some people who want to see this. Any thoughts on how the good news of Jesus speaks into this setting?

Andi's trip to the Hospital

Well, we're continuing to learn useful things for our planned long-term move to London. Yesterday we learned more about how the NHS works. I'll allay the fears of my parents by saying that Andi is fine...so read the story with a light heart:
On Tuesday, Andi was playing at the beach, jumping up and landing on her back-side in a shallow pool of water. One time, she didn't get her feet out from under her, and ended up smashing her foot underneath her. She cried, and limped around for the rest of the day. She continued to complain about it off and on for the rest of the week, so when we got back to London I called the doctor.
Since the doctor was himself on holiday and in any case couldn't do anything more than look externally at the foot, the receptionist told me to take Andi to Accident & Emergency at the local hospital. We walked in, they took Andi's name and address, and a 15 second explanation of what had happened. The nurse looked quickly at Andi's foot, and then we waited for 45 minutes. A doctor came, glanced at Andi's foot, and handed me a piece of paper and said, "Follow the signs to X-ray". We waited for another half hour at X-ray, then for 5 minutes while the film developed. They handed me the film and sent us back to A&E.
I handed over the films and sat down to wait again. Another couple minutes, and the doctor walked over. "The foot is fine, nothing's broken. Probably just a strain. Give her some pain-killer if she complains about it more."

As an outsider, it felt extremely impersonal. Nobody said more than three sentences to us, and we were just kind of shunted around. I was also surprised at how little interest the doctor actually took in Andi's foot before ordering an X-ray. I suppose he couldn't really tell whether there was anything wrong without the X-ray, but it just seemed like he was taking my word for it that there was something wrong with her foot. When we left, there was no paper-work to sign, nothing to confirm our identity, and really no trace of who we were, except that they took my word for it when I gave our address. It felt really strange.

Back from Holiday

We're back from our holiday on the Kent coast. The LCM house we stayed in was nice, but fairly small. There wasn't really anywhere for the girls to play. Our DVD player wouldn't connect to the TV there, so we couldn't watch the videos we brought either. We ended up coming home a day early because the weather was poor and we didn't want to have to rush around this morning trying to clean up everything and be out of the house by 10 am. I never thought I'd say this, but we actually got a little sun burn here in England. There was a nice beach about an hour's drive from us. When the tide went out, there was probably 300 or 400 yards of exposed sand. The girls really enjoyed it. I'll try to get pics up soon.

Off for a week

I'll be without internet access for a week, as we'll be on holiday in Kent. Somer's parents and sister will be with us as well.
As for my haircut, I'll post pictures when we get back. To be honest, I think it makes me look quite girly - the woman used a blow-dryer on my hair, and it came out quite poofy and a bit round. Anyway, you'll see the pics soon enough.

Last Hub 'til October

We are having some building work done to the center, so tonight's was the last Hub until October. I'm kind of sad about it. Tonight I had a really good time talking to some of the guys about why I'm in England, and what the state of religion is like in their country. But at the same time, I'm really looking forward to the break.
Oh, and the talk at the younger Hub went o.k. - I think I played a bit too much of the Friends episode, and the kids got bored. They engaged a little bit with what I was talking about in terms of all relationships having some sort of parameters, but it could have done with a little less Joey and Chandler. Oh well...at least I enjoyed it.

Tomorrow I'm going to Toni & Guy's Hairdressing Academy to get a £5 haircut by a student...should be fun. I'll try to post a picture afterwards.

Friends

Tonight at the younger hub we'll be watching an episode of Friends. It's the one where Chandler crosses the line. Julian is pretty set on doing the Ten Commandments with the younger Hub group. I'm more ambivalent, but if we are going to do them, I want to make sure that we set the context right. Hence Friends.
Every relationship has certain "rules" that define the terms of that relationship. Most times we don't think about those rules. For example, it's appropriate to slap your teammate's backside after he scores a goal, but it's not appropriate to slap your boss's backside, no matter how great a job she's done. In the case of tonight's episode, Chandler has broken the golden rule of friendship - you don't kiss your best friend's girlfriend.
The Ten Commandments are God's way of defining expectations in his relationship with Israel. It's key that he begins Exodus 20 by saying "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage." It's in the context of this love relationship, in which God has brought freedom to Israel, that he gives the commandments.

I'll let you know how the talk does.

Many visitors

Have come and gone this past week. Monday we said goodbye to Rian - a good friend and reminder of home. At the same time, Rebecca arrived from Ireland. She's been doing an 8-month apprenticeship in Ireland with WHM. After meeting her at the train station, my car wouldn't start, so we had to walk home. Yesterday (Wednesday) two more apprentices arrived from Ireland - Chrissy and Jennifer. It's fun to meet them face-to-face, because they were some of the last people I helped recruit in my former role at the mission - though I never met them in person. Somer's sister Amber also arrived yesterday. So there are now 8 of us in our tiny house, and we're loving it.

As for other stuff happening: I took the car to Ichthus to have it fixed yesterday, and I'm picking it up tomorrow - it needed a new alternator and exhaust. The younger Hub has been open all this week during the day - we're having the guys do some graffiti, and tomorrow we're watching Prince of Egypt (don't ask - the guys are really excited about it, I don't understand).