Gingerbread and Beef

This morning we headed down to Shannon Hopkins' flat for some holiday baking. The Jones family was down from Orkney, and they make a gingerbread house every year at Christmas. We made the dough last night and refrigerated it. By the time we arrived, Samuel had the blueprints drawn up and ready to go. The only complication?
The Joneses had brought a MASSIVE rib roast that needed to be cooked as well. So we had to juggle racks of building materials around pots of vegetables in the oven, with one eye always on that roast, patiently waiting its turn. Andrew explained to me that they'd been saving this roast for about seven months, as it was part of the half-cow they purchased from their neighbor in the spring.
In the end, the cookies got baked and the roast had its turn. The gingerbread house went up, along with my addition: an out-house around the back. Then we feasted, first on meat, then on the house. They had a great rule for the kids: if you eat a sweet, you have to eat the gingerbread underneath it too!
We do have a few pictures, I'll see if I can get them up tomorrow.

Random Pics

I've been meaning to take some of the pictures off my camera phone and put them up here, but keep forgetting. Anyway, here they are, some are quite old. One is a fireplace built out of organic vegetables from our weekly delivery. Another is yours truly dressed as Edgar Allen Poe for a recent fancy dress party. Finally, there's a shot from the blues jam that happens every week across the street - some American visitors of our teammates were making a guest appearance with a friend of mine who's a regular at the jams.

Winter Wonderland

Took the girls to the Winter Wonderland today at Hyde Park, to celebrate the last day of school before the holiday break. They saw Father Christmas, and Andi told him she wants a reindeer for Christmas! It was bitter cold so we didn't stay too long. They watched people ice skating for a while, and said they want to try it sometime, so I think we might make that an activity for one of their days off.

Climbing Christmas Dinner

Last night was my last climbing wall session of the year. There was a dinner planned for members of the climbing club, and about 10 of us braved the freezing temperatures for 2 hrs of climbing before heading off to dinner.
Freezing, you ask? At an indoor rock wall? Yes, it was about 32 F last night, thanks to the architects who decided to put netting instead of windows along the top of the three glass walls that surround the climbing surface. It's basically a covered outdoor wall, even though it's almost entirely enclosed.
Anyway, after some good climbing, we headed off to the local Indian restaurant for vegetarian starters and good spicy chicken and rice to warm us up. I connected really well with another climber who has kids, and we talked for a while about being dads. Before we knew it, midnight arrived and the restaurant chucked us out; but a good time was had by all, and I finally feel like after a year of climbing and not really meeting anyone, I'm getting to connect to some of the other guys at the wall.

Shelter Art Show

Thursday night was the opening of the Shelter art exhibition at St Michael’s church. Shelter was conceived as a way to bring together our artist friends from the market and help raise money for the cold weather shelter we’re involved in. Artists submitted pieces on the theme of shelter (some stuck closer to the theme than others). They will donate a portion of each sale to the cold weather shelter.
We had been running around like crazy for the last week picking up art, fixing lights at the appropriate angle, and hanging pieces. It was great fun and hard work, culminating in our opening night.
A good number of people came to the opening, mostly friends and invitees of the artists. Somer and Kathy kept the mulled wine flowing all night, which helped compensate for the cold in the building (it was warmer outside than it was inside, as St. Michael’s can't afford to turn on the heat).
So why did we do something like this? Aside from the obvious answer that it takes money to run the cold weather shelter, and this is one way to raise money, there's a bigger picture. Our vision for bringing people close to God who wouldn't ordinarily set foot in a traditional church means that we look for ways to include them in projects that are close to God's heart. God loves art, he loves artists, and he loves the weak and needy in Camden. This show brings those things together, and does it in a beautiful building that has been used to worship God for over 100 years. We want to help people experience God as they rub shoulders with his people and participate in his mission to shelter the homeless. And we hope that they have helped us better to know the shelter that God provides us as they've expressed the theme in their paintings, photographs, and sculptures.

Candles

Tonight after dinner we finished a project we had started last night. We have been burning lots of candles to brighten up the apartment during the long dark hours, and we had a few that had burned out their wick but left a lot of wax. So, I made candles with the girls. We started last night, using scraps of wool yarn for wicks, but I discovered later that wool does not burn very well. So we started over tonight with cotton wicks, which work quite well. Here are two of the finished products.

Thanksgiving

Yes, I know it's a week late, but our Thanksgiving was so much fun, it's taken us all weekend to recover, and I'm just now getting around to blogging about it. So, our second Thanksgiving in Camden looked like this:
Somer's parents were here for a visit, so they walked the girls to school in the AM. We decided to get them out of school early so they could participate in the rest of the day with us, so at noon we all walked over to the school and got them. Then it was off to lunch at our favorite cheap place: McDonalds. I think six of us ate for about £15, which I'm pretty sure you can't even do in America anymore. Then it was off to:
Regents Park Turkey Bowl I
At 2 o'clock, we kicked off a game of American football with about 10 other guys (half of whom had never played before). It was incredible fun - people were laughing, diving in the mud, catching touchdown passes. It was great to see so many spectators as well. It didn't hurt that my team won by 6 touchdowns.
We capped the evening off with Turkey dinner at our place for 18. Having our friends celebrate with us was really special, and added to the feeling of being thankful, since we are so grateful for their friendship.

Theft of the root vegetables

I never realized how many different kinds of root vegetables there are. Americans generally eat two kinds: potatoes and carrots; and radishes if you're really adventurous. We've been getting an assortment of veggies delivered to our house each week, mostly because it's cheaper than buying them at the store. As it's getting cold, most of them have been roots of various types: potatoes and carrots, of course, but also swede, beetroot, celery root, parsnip. The swede and celery root both looked like old deflated basketballs that had been left buried for a while.

Anyway, this morning we woke to a phone call from the company that delivers the box to say that after they had delivered it, someone stole it - somebody else in our building also gets a box and had called them. Hope they enjoy - maybe they'll know better than us what to do with all those roots.

A night in

Tonight I'm experiencing something I rarely have since moving here. I'm having a night in. Somer's down at 55 with a few other women for the first night of their knitting club, and I've just put the girls to bed. Pretty strange feeling, actually. Not sure what I'll do...maybe a little Family Guy. Or maybe something a bit more productive.

Weekend - Art and the Heath

We went to Hampstead Heath yesterday for a leaf-hunt. The girls collected leaves from different kinds of trees, and we brought them back to do rubbings, which we made into a leaf book. Andi says that I should also write about our lunch: we went to a burger place on the way up there. Below are a few pics. Today I'm meeting with an artist about an art show we're putting on in December. We're trying to gather local artists to sell some of their works to benefit the cold weather shelter in Camden, and this guy is willing to help us.

Conga Police

I was down at the market today, having a jacket potato from the potato guys (true, that's not their real name, but that's what I call them. They're two young guys trying to make a go of it by selling potatoes with anything you could want on top: sausages, chili, mushrooms, tuna, coleslaw, whatever). Anyway, I was chatting to them and

eating my lunch, when this appeared in front of me:

Quite strange, actually. I think it was some sort of publicity appearance for the local news. Something about putting more officers on the streets. I suppose I have mixed feelings about the whole thing. I certainly feel safer when I'm walking the girls home from school and there's a pair of officers nearby; but at the same time, I don't see how the council could possibly ever put enough officers around to curb the drug trade and the disorderly weekend behavior. They just end up pushing the dealers to different areas or making them wait until the officers go off duty. Maybe their hope is to simply push undesirable behavior into areas and times when most people who aren't involved in such things wouldn't be around. Which is an interesting way of looking at policing that I'd never thought about. Instead of trying to 'catch the bad guys' - you just hold them at bay long enough for ordinary people to finish their business, then you let them roam free.

But who knows? I just live here, and probably the police are doing a whole lot more than I realize. In any case, I certainly appreciate having them around; they've got a tough job, no matter how many of them there are.

Turn Left, or Fly

We live smack in the middle of two supermarkets. OK, that didn't sound right - we don't actually live inside the supermarkets; let's try that again: Our flat is equidistant from the two local supermarkets. One is a four minute walk to the left. The other is a four minute walk to the right. For some reason, we always go to the one to the right. Probably because the store is a little bit nicer, more spacious, a little better quality meats, etc.

Why am I rambling thus? Because our regular supermarket has closed down for the week while they renovate it. So what was my initial reaction? It wasn't "Oh well, I guess we'll shop at the other store". It was "Oh no, what are we going to do? Maybe we should go on vacation until they finish the work".

As it happens, the week coincides with half-term, so the girls are out of school, and we could in theory go away. But that's not the point. Sometimes we are able to look at a problem and see the easiest and most obvious solution (in this case Turn Left!); while other times we tend to fixate on a particular solution that may be complicated, costly, and a bit irrational (I actually started to look for cheap flights to Prague...but we couldn't find any).

Jesus is Risen

This time last year, our 'team' in Camden consisted of Somer, Me, and the girls. We were sitting on the floor, eating meals off our suitcases, and feeling very much alone.

Tonight, one year on, eight of us gathered in our home to worship God. Two more couples - one English, one American - and a young Englishman joined us. We have been in the middle of planning the course of our ministry here in Camden, and making time to worship Jesus was a natural extension of that. We were asked to prepare for the meetings by reading through the book of Acts, and I noticed just how many times the message of the early church focussed on the resurrection of Jesus. "Jesus is Risen" is the main cry of his people - one that still shapes all of life for us.

Love's Object

Saw a really great film given to me by one of my friends who lives in Romania. I don't even know what it's called - it was a documentary of Jacques Derrida. This American film crew basically followed Derrida around for a bit, filming lectures, a visit to Mandela's prison cell, and a surprisingly large number of meals (Derrida eats toast with butter and jam, microwaved eggplant, prawn crisps with champaign, and some other random things).
Anyway, the great bit was when the director asks him to talk about love. First he rants about how that's not a question, he can't possibly say anything about love, and that they should think of a question to ask him. But then he says this (I'm paraphrasing):
The question, when you love someone, is 'Do you love them as a person, or do you love something about them?' Because if you love them as a person, as a singular entity, then that love is permanent, whereas when you love them for something - this is much more temporary. The question is, do you love someone or something? And then he says that the reason most people stop loving someone is because they have loved something about that person, and that thing has changed.
I shared these thoughts today with some guys at a breakfast down in Waterloo, and then told the story of Hosea from the Bible. God asks Hosea to marry a prostitute, and after she runs off, God tells Hosea to buy her back again. Then God says "This is how I love my people".

Surprise Party

Somer's birthday was yesterday. Last year, we spent her birthday moving to London from the States, so I wanted to give her a better day this year. We did the usual family stuff - girls and I made breakfast, we opened presents in the afternoon after the girls got home from school (oh yeah, it was also the first day of school yesterday), and we went to dinner at a BBQ restaurant. But what Somer didn't know was that I had also arranged to have our friends waiting in our flat when we got home! The good old surprise party.
It went really well - I only had to lie to her once all day (I got a phone call from the bakery that made her gourmet cupcakes, asking when I was coming to pick them up). The last person left at quarter past midnight - quite a party for someone who doesn't like to stay up late.

Fleet Street

Last Thursday one of my journalist friends invited me on a guided tour of the pubs of Fleet Street. Her boss, the editor of a popular weekly magazine, was taking a group from pub to pub, telling stories of journalistic feats from days gone by. Fleet Street, if you don't know, was home to many British newspapers until very recently.
We stopped at one pub in the shadow of St. Bride's church, the location of the first printing press in Britain back in 1500. It's known as the journalists' church, and interestingly enough, is also the church where the parents of America's first European-born child were wed, in 1587.
Some of our discussion centered around the fact that Fleet Street grew up where it did (just outside the western gates of the old city of London) because of the concentration of religious establishments in that location. When mass printing first came to England, the main users of the printing press were monks, printing material for priests and other religious scholars. Over the years, newspapers sprang up around the same location, making use of the monks' technology and the proximity of the king's revenue service, which had to stamp each piece of printed material.

Family Visit

My folks have been visiting for the past week from the States (hence the relative silence on my end). We had a really fun time - went to Brighton for a day, visited the London zoo, did a canal boat ride, and played Spades and Settlers of Catan every evening. My brothers joined our regular Saturday football crowd for a game in Regents Park, and I took them to the gym for a bit of rock climbing. A really good week, quite relaxing for me, and good to reconnect.

India v England

So I attended my first cricket match today - the last day of the 5-day Test Match between India and England. Competition-wise it wasn't the greatest day. India had managed a record 665 runs in their first innings, and England started the day needing 440 runs to win. They never really looked like they were going to get close. After losing their first two batsmen in the morning session, they looked certain to be playing for a draw (for non-cricket fans, if England can manage to not get all of their batsmen out during the day, they will draw the match, even though they have fewer runs than India).
Enjoyment-wise, though, it was a fantastic day. I took my dad who is visiting from the States, and we went with Stu and Ben from the bar across the street. The weather was gorgeous, intermittent clouds and sun, with a light breeze. We sat back with our snacks and had a great time. Now if only England can put on a better showing for the Twenty20 International series in South Africa next month.

Facebook and other ways to distance ourselves from people we're close to

So, I recently joined Facebook, mostly because all my friends are doing it. It's funny how, even after almost 30 years of life, the phrase "Everone else is doing it" still carries a lot of weight.

Anyway, I noticed upon joining that there are over 800,000 people in the "London" network. That's 10% of the population of the entire city on Facebook. Now I'll grant that some of those people probably don't live in London, but it's still an impressive number of people connecting in a virtual network that is centered around geographic proximity. Kind of strange, huh? I communicated today with a friend who lives above me (he appointed me 'Chief Spiritual Advisor' to the 55 group on Facebook). You can 'poke' people, give them gifts, everything.

Now I'll also admit that I have taken to e-mailing my wife at times, even when she's sitting right next to me. And I am known to wake up in the morning, grunt 'check your e-mail' and then roll over.

Harry Potter

Somer and I went to get the last installment of the Harry Potter series last night. The local Waterstones opened at 12:01 AM, and we arrived at 11:45 to find a line of about 200 people. By the time midnight rolled around, there were 400 people in line. We waited about an hour, and finally we were ushered into the store by a wand toting clerk. In the meantime, we had witnessed a fight between rival youth gangs, chatted with the people in line around us, kept a band that had just played a show in a local venue from cutting in line in front of us, and endured countless claims of "Harry Potter dies" from drunken young adults. Interesting night, but by the time we got home, only Somer had it in her to read the first chapter, I ended up waiting until the next morning to crack open the book.

Independence Day...revisited

Friday night we got together with two other American couples who are working with churches here in London. The pastor of the American Church in London hosted, and as he's already posted on his blog about the evening (more eloquently than I could), I'll send you over there to read about it: Psalm 68:6

Concert to end slavery

Last night, as part of our ongoing work to highlight the problems of slavery and human trafficking, we helped film some footage for Concert To End Slavery. Clicking on the link will take you to their site, where you can view the trailer. We organized a mock pub-crawl, simulating our experiences last month distributing the posters and beer mats.

Movie

Somer and I took the girls to a movie yesterday. A friend of ours had tickets to an advance screening, but it was a kids movie, so she asked if we wanted to go. The girls had a really good time and enjoyed the movie. They had face painting and balloon art in the lobby before the movie started.

Greenbelt

My co-worker and good friend Jeremy is presenting at this year's Greenbelt Festival in Cheltenham. He's leading a time of worshiping Jesus with Indian music and forms. It should be really good. We're hoping to go this year, at least for part of the time. Trying to get Somer to go camping...that'll be interesting.

300

Hey, so I logged in to make my next post, and discovered that I've posted 299 times...so this is 300! Do a little happy dance with me.....c'mon, you know you want to.

There, didn't that feel good? You're smiling now, aren't you?

The cost of gold

Ever wonder what it takes to make a gold ring? Last night I discovered that the process of extracting 10 grams of gold from the earth produces on average 3 tons of toxic waste, including chemicals like mercury and cyanide. To give you an idea, my wedding band weighs 8 grams...so that's 4,800 pounds of toxic waste to make my ring.
I was at a gathering of entrepreneurs at a small pub on the Thames. One of the presenters at the evening was Greg Valerio from Cred Jewellery. They have managed to produce one of the world's only ethical lines of gold and platinum jewellery. They are able to trace the gold they sell directly back to the mine that produced it, and can demonstrate that all parties involved - miners, the environment, and the craftsmen - have been treated in a just and equitable way. They are working to implement practices that would allow them to sell fairly traded diamonds as well (currently they sell conflict-free diamonds, mostly from Canada, but these are still not fairly traded).
Just to give one example of the inequity in the diamond trade, Greg told of a diamond miner in Africa who mined an 8-carat red diamond. He was paid $2000 for the diamond. When that diamond was sold in New York later that year, it fetched a price of $200,000,000. Now, $2000 may be more than enough to live on for an entire year in his country, but is it really equitable that the miner only received .001% of the final sales value of his product?
So what am I, a church-planter, doing at an entrepreneurial gather, and why am I going on and on about fine jewelery? Well, I was at the gathering for the sake of meeting people who are starting new initiatives, hoping to get ideas, make connections...all in an effort to clarify the vision for new churches here. And as for ethical jewelery, I care about it because God cares. God hates it when people destroy his planet. He hates it when the poor are exploited and patronized by the rich. And he hates it when global economic structures that maintain poverty go unchallenged. We shouldn't merely sit back and wish children weren't forced to work in mines, we should do something about it. Cred is doing something about it.

The cost of living...

While it might cost you an arm and a leg to live in New York City, you'll have to throw in your nose and a pair of ears if you want to survive in London. That's according to the most recent cost of living report from Mercer Human Resources. Well, not really - they simply say that London is the second most expensive city in the world for expats, behind Moscow. Glad to know that, though it still doesn't help me afford that $7 cup of iced coffee.
I've got to get back to helping my daughter learn to add using counting stones, mostly so that when she grows up she'll be able to know how much she can't afford to live in London!!

Waffles

It's waffle morning at our house! One of our friends said she had never had a waffle before, so we decided to rectify the situation. Somer made a huge batch, and we were expecting several friends. A couple texted to say they weren't feeling well, but the one who had never had one before still came. We had multiple toppings: strawberries, powdered sugar, maple syrup. Awesome.

Camden Green Festival

The Camden Green Fair was today at Regents Park. We took the girls after church and met up with our teammates. The girls rode the planet-friendly go carts (i.e. carts that were pulled by humans) and we watched a sheep get sheered at the local city farm exhibit. The weather's been really nice the last few days, and it's amazing to see how many people turn out to sit in the park and soak in a few rays.

Jesus is Lord

I spoke today at the afternoon service at Bethel in Dagenham. When we were here two years ago we helped out at Bethel; it was a nice return for us. Everyone was excited to see the girls and how much they had grown. We arrived in time for the usual pre-service lunch: fish 'n' chips.
I shared about our life and ministry, and spoke from Romans 10:9 about the centrality of the claim 'Jesus is Lord' to the Christian faith.
I'm workin' on a sore throat, so I'm going to cut this post short and go to bed.

Mind Body Spirit Festival

The Mind Body Spirit Festival opened today in Victoria. Some friends had a booth, so I went to see what they were up to, and to check out the rest of the festival.
They were giving "Life Readings" - small quotes from the Bible in a big bowl. People would come and pick out one of the cards, and then they'd have someone read the quote to them and talk about what it might mean for their life.
There was another group of Jesus followers there, called Dekhomai. They had lots of interesting things, including giving free foot massages (yeck...and yet also pretty cool). There was a stack of cards called The Jesus Deck, from which visitors could pick a card. Each card displays a picture of an event in the life/ministry of Jesus, and visitors were encouraged to think about how that particular story might impact their life.
When I told the rest of my team about it, they suggested that we think about using the Jesus Deck. It's surprisingly well-done: think artist on an acid trip reading the gospels and you'd be pretty close to the artwork for each card (Satan tempting Jesus is bright pink and has well-cut pecs, for example) Seems like a really cool way to get people thinking about Jesus in the context of their own life life.
I also wandered around to other stalls - picked up some info on Reiki healing, as I have a friend who does it - and watched as someone sat two inches from a massive gong while having it struck repeatedly (gong therapy, apparently).

Day Off?

Today I had the day off, since I worked the weekend. I had it all planned out. I was going to visit the garden center for a few things, do a little trimming on my bonsai, maybe read or blog a bit.
But instead of all that, I washed the windows.

All day.

Washing windows.

I managed to get hold of a squeegee from the bar across the street, which helped. The insides weren't so bad, but to do the outsides I had to open the windows all the way and lean out with one hand. Somer preferred to not be around while I hung out the window.

Not the 'day off' I had in mind.

Weekend Roundup

The distribution on Saturday went really well. Most places were more than happy to take the materials. I was really surprised...I expected to get more 'no's than we got.
The service at Church on the Corner went really well on Sunday. We didn't have musicians, so we did more of a meditative worship time. We included "minute of silence", which the girls love, before the children left for their class. The sermon was about Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and it just so happened that the two-year lectionary we use as a team had Matthew 10:24-33 as one of the readings for Sunday. The passage begins by saying that a disciple is not above his master, which fit really well with the theme. So we read the passage a few times and allowed it to lead us as we went through times of confession and prayer for the persecuted church. Good stuff.
Sunday ended with a few hours at "Ain't Nothin' But" jazz cafe to watch a friend play in a jam session. It was incredible. My friend is an awesome guitarist, and they had the craziest drummer - he reminded us of 'scat-cat' from the Aristocats.

Day of Prayer

One Wednesday a month our team spends the day in prayer. We also fast to make room in our lives for prayer (you'd be surprised how much of your day is consumed by preparing, eating, and cleaning up food), and to connect our bodies to the sense of urgent need we feel for God.

We spent the morning yesterday at our house, and had a really great time. One of the specific things we prayed about is how to be involved in working for justice in Camden. To guide our praying, we read through several passages of the Bible where God demonstrates his love for justice and declares freedom to the oppressed. Isaiah 61, Luke 4, James 1. Awesome stuff.

Then in the afternoon we headed over to the team leader's house. Using the Lord's Prayer as a guide, we prayed for everyone we know in Camden, for our supporters back in the States, and for the other workers with our mission.

London Churches Football Tournament

The tournament today was amazing. I left our building at 8:30 with four others for the walk up to Regents' park. It was cloudy and cold, with occasional drizzle...perfect football weather. We started well, stealing a goal in our first match to win 1-0. From there, it started to go downhill. We were soundly beaten in the second game 2-0, and lost the next one 2-1, losing in the last minute on a mental lapse after playing a hard draw for most of the game. We pulled it back in the last one, though, dominating play and winning 1-0.
We finished 'league play' with six points, which was good enough for third place in our league and a spot in the runners-up knock-out phase.
We won our first knock-out match 1-0, again dominating play for most of the game. We continued to control play, and spent almost the entire length of our quarterfinal match in the opponents' half. We could not, however, manage to get the ball into the net. So it went to penalties, and we lost 3-2 on penalties.
Everyone had a great time...some of us (including the guy who missed the last penalty) were relieved to be finished. We were worn out and ready to head home. Thanks to Church on the Corner to putting this on. Well done, guys! And thanks to the gang from 55 for being such an awesome team.

The Greatest Gift

Yes, we know the greatest gift is the one you give, not the one you get...but this one that I received ranks right up there.
My parents got me a subscription to Jeroboam's Cheese Club for my birthday back in January. The latest installment of God's gift to our taste buds arrived on Thursday. A Blue, a Gruyere, and two soft goats cheeses. Two of them are made from unpasteurized milk, a delight that you my American readers may not have tasted, since all cheese sold in the US must be made with pasteurized milk.
My neighbor Paul is a big wine buff with a large cellar of Reds, so we'll be getting together sometime this weekend to share the delights of vineyard and dairy.

Network "Issues"

Yes, for those of you who check here regularly, I haven't posted much. We've been having 'network issues'. Which means there's a problem with the internet signal coming into our building. Councils have to be contacted, planning permission given, roads dug up, etc. etc. So I'm borrowing a friend's signal to update things. Sorry for the long silence.

Prayer Walking with Jodie

Today Jodie and I went for a prayer walk on the streets around our apartment. Our team has set aside one day a month for focussed prayer and fasting, and today is it. We met here in the morning for prayer together. Andi and Jodie helped lead the opening of our day, as we sang "Here I Am To Worship" and prayed for people we know, including their teachers and friends from school.
Then we split up for the afternoon, and Jodie and I were together. We ran into a friend who has recently given his life to Jesus, so we prayed for him as we walked. Also prayed for our friends in the market as we walked by their various stalls. Also asked Jesus to bring his reigning light in the midst of the darkness of the spiritualists and fortune tellers.
It was really fun doing it with Jodie, and I'm encouraged by the fact that today was the first prayer walk I've been on in a while that I've been able to focus and haven't felt light-headed (and that in spite of the heat and fasting). I'm thinking I'd like to include the girls in our prayer-walking in the future.
I asked Jodie what she liked most about the prayer walk: Seeing the Hello Kitty store, was her response.

London Sun

It has been amazingly warm here. We've had temperatures above 70 F and no clouds to speak of. Saturday football at Regents park was a bit hot as a result. I was beat after about 10 minutes of play. It probably didn't help that we only had 6 guys, so 3-on-3 was all we could muster.
The tone of Camden really changes when the weather is nice - lots of people out on the streets, no matter what time of day. Tons of people at Regents park - we took a walk there yesterday with the girls and it was hard to even find an empty bench or space under a tree to sit and rest.
We have been encouraged by a number of different people to make sure that we don't attempt too much in our first year, but to really take our first year as one of learning/listening. The change in season has reinforced that for me. The way the seasons affect the feel of the city is amazing - you'd assume that a city would carry on as usual, no matter what the weather, but it definitely changes things.

Home to Camden

We're back from our trip to Valencia, Spain. Actually, we've been back for a while, but our internet access has been non-existent since our return. It's back now, but I'm not sure for how long. Something about problems with the under-street network cables.
Anyway, thanks to all of you who were praying for our time outside of London. It was VERY refreshing. We stayed in a friend's apartment, which meant that the area was more Spanish than tourist, and that was nice. I did far less talking during that week than I ever do in even one day here. The girls and I played football and dug big holes on the beach. We visited an old monastery and a church/castle on a mountaintop overlooking the Mediterranean. It had a walk with the stations of the cross, which I did alone on Saturday of Easter week.
Our last few days there were colder and wetter than the weather here in London (we returned to 70+ degrees and bright sun) but it was still really good for us to be away and together as a family.

Silence

I won't be posting for the next two weeks. Check back after that to see what we've been up to.

Heard on the streets of Camden:

"I gave my life over. Did it about thirty minutes ago."

"To Jesus?"

"Yeah, to Jesus."

I just got home from buying a couple books (see the sidebar for my new reads). On the walk home, I ran into a guy who I haven't seen in quite a while. Last time I saw him was when I preached at Freedom House. He said he had just come from a friend's house, and about thirty minutes ago had decided to take the plunge and follow Jesus!
We chatted for a bit about how hard it's going to be to tell his friends. I prayed for him, and he asked me how it was going with keeping the house clean (I had shared in my sermon that one of the things I need forgiveness for is telling Somer I'll clean up and then not doing it).

And I thought nothing interesting was going to happen today.

Last week of shelter

One more week to go for the cold weather shelter. We've had close to 50 people staying at the shelter for various lengths of time. Some of them only stay for a few days, others for almost a month. Last month, we were able to find housing for almost half of those who stayed with us longer than three nights. Which is pretty exciting.
The response to the appeal for starter-pack items was overwhelming. We should have a good number of things left over to provide seed for packs for next year. Even though the shelter itself is about to finish, the advocacy work of helping find homes for people will continue for another month. So in theory we could use up everything that's been donated. Next year we're going to work on getting some companies and local civic organizations on board at the beginning to provide some of the items we need to buy new, like alarm clocks and electric kettles (for my American friends, an electric kettle is a basic household necessity, used to boil water for tea...people here can't imagine how we cope with having to boil water on the stove-top!!)

Pigeon on the Tube

There's this great scene in You've Got Mail where Kathleen Kelly describes a butterfly who got on the subway at 53rd St. and off again at 59th, "presumably to buy a hat from Bloomingdale's."
Last night I was on my way home from an appointment in North London when I saw a pigeon on the platform for the Northern Line at Euston station. I started thinking how cool it would be if the pigeon got on the train. Well, wouldn't you know it? When my train arrived and the doors opened, the little guy hopped right in front of me and got on the train. I just stood there staring at it with the woman next to me...neither of us were sure what to do. She decided to get on a different carriage; I didn't want to miss any of the action. What would the bird do next? I wondered.
When I got on, it scared the pigeon, who flew franticaly down the length of the carriage. People were scared and held up their arms to fend off the panicked bird. It got to the end of the car, fluttered around for a bit, and then flew out the other door before the driver closed the doors and drove off to the next station.

Football

The past two Saturdays I've been at football training. Yes, after a nearly ten-year absence from the football pitch, I am again breaking out the skills. I'm not sure my body is all that happy about it - it's a lot different playing as a soft 28-year-old than as an 18-year-old. You kind of have to pace yourself a bit more. But it does help that the guys I'm playing with have been even less active than me.
Basically, we've put together a team from guys I know over at 55, and entered into a tournament at the beginning of May. It's a one-day tournament sponsored by my friend Mark's church over in Islington. It should be really interesting. So far, our team looks decent. Plus, it's loads of fun.

Starter Pack Update

We've been overwhelmed with the response to our appeal for items for the starter packs. The Texas group brought lots of bedding items (things we were very low on) and we've had donations from a number of different sources. We've only given away 3 packs so far, but today I'm meeting the project coordinator to get him two more packs, and it looks like the rate of placement into housing from the shelter is on the rise. Also, there are a few people who have resettled into housing who didn't get packs, so it's looking like this week will see a number of packs delivered.

Texas Team

Last week we had a group of Texans come to Camden to pray over our city. We had a fun, encouraging, busy week (hence the silence over the past week). They prayed over the neighborhoods, schools, and shops in Camden Town. A few shopkeepers were eager to have their businesses prayed for and had members of the group pray with them.
We also had them help us with some of the neighborhood research we've been doing. When they weren't busy prayer-walking, they were talking to people on the streets, finding out what they like and dislike about Camden, what kinds of things they think the church ought to be doing here, etc.
For us, it was really nice to have people who were so encouraging and who could understand some of the things we've been experiencing over the past six months. It was also really helpful to have fresh sets of eyes and ears to help us understand Camden in a new way. Thanks for coming!

Waterloo

Yesterday I dropped into the Waterloo homeless center, run by one of my friends with London City Mission. I gave the morning talk and then had breakfast with the men. The talk was based on a conversation I had with one of the guys at 55. We had talked about civil war, and how people are so quick to find reasons to fight with each other. Even when we're really young, we try to pull other people down so that we can look better or feal better about ourselves. But Jesus introduces a different way of living, a way that isn't based on how good we are, how strong we are, who we can beat up, or even how bad we are. It's based on how much we're loved. This frees us from the daily burden of climbing the human ladder, dragging other people down so we can get closer to the top. That's why he could say "Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yolk upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in spirit, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yolk is easy and my burden is light."

Jet Powered Beetle

This is totally random, but I stumbled onto Ron Patrick's site today. My engineer friends ought to enjoy this one, plus anyone who's ever dreamed of sticking a jet engine out the back of their vehicle. Come to think of it, my London teammate Dan B might want to see if this guy can do anything for Lucille.

The People of the Abyss

Russell, one of the regulars down at Fifty-Five, dropped off a couple books for me to read yesterday. He's really into historical sociologies of London. One book he's currently reading is a history of crime in the city. Anyway, he lent me two books: The People of the Abyss by Jack London, and East End, which is a 400 year history of London.
I'm especially intersted in the Jack London book - Russell says it'll be a good intro for me, since it's coming from the perspective of an American investigating London. I'll have to add them to the "reading list" on the sidebar, since it's already out of date, but I'm lazy and that takes more work.

Start of Lent

With the start of Lent comes the beginning of our fast from alcohol (not really much of a "fast" I'll admit). Thursday I went down to Fifty-Five and hung out with regulars Russ and Tina. Ben and Dom were there (two of the bartenders who are doing the Thirst for Life). I had a fruit smoothie and a grapefruit juice. Kinda wish there'd be a campaign to give us cigarettes for lent, as that's the most unpleasant part of going to any bar...but only for another 4 months, as smoking will be banned in all bars and restaurants starting in July.

Pancake Day

Shrove Tuesday (or Pancake day) came and went and I forgot to post about it. Lots of people do pancakes here - though they're a bit different from the American version. Usually they are thinner, more like crepes. The most popular topping seems to be sugar and lemon juice. Sainsbury's sells ready-made pancake batter in a bottle.
Somer made ours the old-fashioned way. You can see the receipe and a picture here.

Starter Packs

As some of you have probably heard, I'm helping coordinate starter packs for a local night shelter. The packs help people who move out of the shelter and into permanent housing by giving them the basic household items they need to make a good start in their new home.
So far we have items for about 3 packs, and I'm picking up more items in the next few days: a guy who's leaving the country and clearing out his house, a reject kitchen store is giving us two shelves of plates and mugs, and the Salvation Army recently closed a charity shop and has a few things to donate.

Thirst for Life

So I've decided to give up alcohol for Lent. Ben, one of the Bartenders at 55, asked me if I'd be willing to do it with him. It's part of this campaign called Thirst for Life, which aims to raise awareness of the problems of binge drinking in the UK. Because it's so unusual for a bartender to give up drinking (and ask one of his customers to do it too!), Ben has been asked to do a weekly update for the BBC about the experience. So starting next week, it'll be fruit smoothies and milkshakes for me at 55 until Easter.

England 1-0 Australia

Just finished watching the first of the three match CB One Day International series final between England and Australia. It was incredibly close...England won in the final over with three balls to spare. Very exciting play. Paul Collingwood was clearly the man of the match, scoring 120 not out, and hitting the winning run. Final tally was England 253-6 to Australia 252.

For those of you who wonder how in the world you can have a close game when teams score upwards of 250 runs, well, you'll just have to watch. But I will say this: Cricket is much more exciting than Baseball. Though the games take longer to play, there's no standing around, waiting for the guy to hit the ball, waiting for a team to score runs. Very rarely do you get an over without any runs scored (an over consists of six balls - how many times in baseball do you get a run scored every couple of pitches?).

And yes, I know my Aussie friend Doug will say that he's not very interested in ODI matches...it's Test Matches that really matter. Fair enough. His boys did destroy England in the Ashes test series. But still, it's nice to see England on top for a change.

Starter Packs Start

We're finally getting off the ground with our starter pack initiative. Last week I met with a board member for the Camden & City Churches Cold Weather Shelter, who gave us the go-ahead to work on the starter packs. We arranged over the weekend to use a basement room that's standing empty in the local Methodist church as our base of operations. We'll be picking up the keys and then collecting the first of our donated items early next week.
What are 'starter packs' you ask? Here's an excerpt from the literature:
Starter packs help people establish a route out of homelessness. Many new tenancies fail in the initial stages because of a lack of financial resources to provide the basic household items that turn a house into a home. By providing these essentials, starter packs can help eliminate the ‘revolving door’ experience of many homeless people.
We are starting with the bare minimums - kitchen items, cleaning supplies, and a few other things. In the future, we hope to follow the model of other groups who provide bedding, small kitchen appliances, drapes, etc.
I'm really excited about all this, but also feeling a bit overwhelmed with it all. If any of you have any experience or ideas for who I should talk to about getting used or donated new items, let me know.

Reading Changes

Thought I'd update you on the changes to my reading list. First, apologies for the lack of update in recent months...I've read many things, forgotten most of them...anyway, here's what's on the horizon for my eyes:
Watership Down was recommended by Jeff, an artist who is all over Camden. In addition to his own stall, Jeff's work is displayed at As Yet Unknown Gallery and helps set the tone for the newly opened RB Cafe. The book played a part in his latest series of works exploring Killer Bunnies.
Mayflower was recommended by one of my readers in response to my lack of knowledge of Thanksgiving. He actually sent me a copy - thanks!
Celtic Way of Evangelism is a combination of historical analysis of the movement of Celtic monks combined with present-day application. Our team is reading it as part of our ongoing exploration of appropriate models for the life of the church in Camden

55 for dinner tomorrow

Update: Dinner with 55 was really fun. The girls were a little shy, but came out of their shells by the end. It was great to spend some time with Shannon as well. She's helping organize a Saturday workshop in March around the concept of missional entrepreneurs (or something like that - sorry if I've totally missed the point, Shannon) - anyway, it sounds really interesting. She's in the process of looking for an apartment, so we had Somer pray for her since she has a special gift of prayer when it comes to those kinds of things.

Original post:
The guys of 55 will be over for dinner before they open the bar tomorrow. They should be over around 4:30. Can't wait.
Then, in what is probably a first for us, we'll be having a second dinner seating at a more normal time. Shannon is coming over. Shannon's been helping to connect various people in London who are exploring new ways of doing church. I'll fill you in on our meal later, if there's anything to report.

Birthday Party

We had my birthday party yesterday. The girls were very excited about the party, probably more than I was. They couldn't believe that we were thinking of having a party without playing "Pass the Parcel". We explained that this was a grown-up party, to which Jodie responded that it sounded like a very boring party, and she wondered how people would have fun if we didn't play games.We decided to do Pass the Parcel, and it ended up being lots of fun. We had a few friends over; and Somer and Kathy made sushi and little toasts. Instead of a cake, Somer made cupcakes. When it was all over, we took some extras across the street to the bartenders at Fifty-Five.

I'm On TV

I was having lunch with my team leader and a friend at a local Indian restaurant. The place had undergone major rennovations and just recently re-opened. While we were waiting for our food, I saw throught the kitchen door that a camera crew was filming the restaurant. The manager asked us if we'd be willing to let them film us while we ate. Always hungry for attention, we agreed.
It felt a little strange to have people filming our discussion about research in Camden and what a future church will look like. But then came the real fun: They asked to interview me. I have absolutely no idea what they were filming for...the questions surrounded my experience with the restaurant, the service and food, that type of thing. They told me to call back and they'd tell me when it was going to air. Doubtful anyone outside the UK will be able to see it, and even if you do live here, it could be showing on some tiny public-access cable station for all I know. But I'll let you know if I find out.

Finder of Cool

How'd you like that for a job title? I'm a "Cool Finder", thank you very much. "Stand back everyone, I've found some cool." "No officer, I do not know how fast I was going, I was too busy finding the cool in this Porche." Sounds like the best job ever.
Well, I met a real live cool finder yesterday. At least, that's what he said he was. Then he explained that he works in fashion. He finds the latest "cool" here in London, and takes it to Spain, where he's from. So not quite as 'cool' as it sounded at first...but maybe.
Anyway, I met the cool finder at the climbing wall at my gym. It's been a great place to meet new people in Camden. It's very interesting how in certain circumstances I'm willing to put my life in the hands of a complete stranger. I climbed to the top of the wall on my first go yesterday, and all I knew was the cool finder's name. That's it. Didn't even know he mined London for the latest and greatest fashions until after he lowered me down. I'm sure there's some profound truth to be gleaned from that...
And on the flip-side, today I took the person I trust most in life for a taster session at the wall while the girls were in school. Somer did really well...she climbed to the top on her first two attempts, and didn't fall at all. She also did a great job belaying me, though I think that wore her arms out more than the climbing did.

Climbing Kiwis

Just returned from a great climbing session at Swiss Cottage Leisure Centre. Tuesday and Thursday evenings are open club nights...anyone can come, get paired up with someone, and climb away. Tonight I climbed with a New Zealander and a couple of his buddies - great guys. They invited me to climb with them tomorrow night somewhere else in London...I've gotta chat with Somer and see if it'll work.

London Wind

Wind gusts of 77 mph have been reported this afternoon at Heathrow airport in London. The BBC reports that Lords Cricket Ground, which is not too far from us, has lost its roof.
I had lunch this afternoon with my friend David from the market. On the way back I was planning to walk through the market and visit a few friends. However, due to the wind, most of the market was closed off to prevent people being injured by falling debris. Most of the market is a make-shift structure, with corrugated plastic roofing and recycled timbers.
On my way home, I saw the roof of another building being blown off, and realized that I stood in the path of the debris if I didn't move. So I moved to the top of the bridge over the canal and felt the wind as it wipped up spray from the canal 15 feet below.

Sad Update: A toddler was killed during the storm when the wind blew a brick wall over. I rode past the spot this morning on the bus on my way to a prayer meeting - a large section of wall had fallen, and police had roped off the area. It happened just a mile or two from our house...very sad.

Colts are goin' down!

That's right, it's time for Baltimore to exact a little revenge for the sneaky departure of the Colts to Indianapolis nearly two decades ago. Now, the fact that I was very young and have no recollection of that even is irrelevent. I heard my parents talk about it enough over the years that I remember it (even though I don't).
So anyway, Saturday night Baltimore plays Indianapolis, and I can't wait. I'm heading down to a sports bar in central London to watch the game. If any of my London-based readers (and I know there are two or three of you) want to join me, drop me a line and I'll give you the details.

Back to normal

Life is finally returning back to normal after the holidays. Some of it's good, but not all of it. Tuesday we said good-bye to Somer's sister, who had been here with us since Christmas day. We really enjoyed having her here, and we miss her now. We both got into Lost while she was here, though I missed an evening of viewing and fell helplessly behind...she was most of the way through season 2 when she left, and I was only wrapping up season 1.
Other marks of normality are the return of people we know. Things really empty out at Christmas, and so we're in the process of getting reconnected with friends. One of the guys I know at the market was in Turkey for a week, another went up to Wales, and a third was out in the country near Oxford. I'm hoping to see that last guy tonight...he's been holed up working on a new album with one of his bands, and is taking a few days off to come up for air.
Oh, and the other normal thing? After a couple days of sunshine, we're back to low-hanging cloud.

Updates

Thanks for the comments, Matt & Tim. The sermon at Freedom House went well. I spoke on John the Baptist, which is what they are focusing on this month. My favorite part was that John's message of baptism of repentance lays everyone low. He prepared the way for the coming of Jesus the king by putting everyone on the same level - religious, non-religious - everyone had to acknowledge their failings. And that repentance is made possible because forgiveness is freely offered. Jesus' came to make God's forgiveness a reality for all people, and John prepares the way by getting people ready to receive that forgiveness. So that was the heart of the message.

On another front, I've told the cold weather shelter guys that I'd be willing to help (along with the rest of my team) with coordinating starter packs for people who move off the streets into housing. I'm waiting for them to get back to me with details...but it looks like we could start working on it sometime next week. Will keep you posted.

Freedom House

I've been asked to preach on Sunday at Freedom House, a new church in Camden. The guy who normally preaches has just had a new addition to his family, so he's up to his elbows in diapers and night-feedings and all that other stuff that makes early parenting so great. A couple of my friends who don't normally go to church have said they'd like to come along (they promised to sit in the back and heckle me, which is always welcome). I'll try to post sermon content here before Sunday...I'm finding out what he wants me to preach on later today.

Cold Weather Shelter

I just returned from the breakfast shift at the Camden cold weather shelter. The shelter rotates between seven different sites in the borough, one each day of the week, and runs through March. We had a nice breakfast together with the shelter guests and chatted with them for about an hour.
One of the things I like about this shelter is that there is a person dedicated to helping guests sort out housing/job/healthcare needs. The idea is that guests will not use the shelter for more that 28 straight days, but will have found accomodation either in a council flat or in private accomodation shared with friends. It looks like I might be helping to coordinate welcome packs for people moving into more permanent accomodation. Once people move into their new home off the streets, they need things like a pot, a couple of plates, some forks, etc. I think I'll enjoy helping pull that together.