A voice from the backseat

Why couldn't he just go to sleep? Why did he have to pay attention? Why did he have to ask all those questions and make those comments?

We were driving on the M6, travelling back to Stockport from visiting Andreas in Oxford, and wanted to make it back for Match of the Day. Jane was with us. gently directing us with comments like “After 800 yards, cross the roundabout, second exit” or “After 400 yards keep right”. Not once had she said the dreaded words “Turn around when possible”. For those who are wondering, Jane is the name of the voice in our SatNav. She is very patient and almost always correct (Just found out we can download John Cleese to the SatNav. Should be a good laugh, but is it worth spending £ 6?).

We of course know the way from Oxford to Stockport by now, but you can relax much more when you know you will be told what way to go all the time. Without Jane I get lost all the time, loosing time, arriving late and getting frustrated and angry with my self. Listening to Jane gets me where I ought to go and usually on time. This trip, though, was different than any previous trip with Jane.

We have updated the SatNav and one of the new “services” is that you on the screen constantly can see how fast your are going and also how fast you are allowed to go. It is very discreet, just placed on the bottom line, below the digital map, which takes up most of the screen. It also warns you with a clear beeping sound and flashing signal when you are approaching a speed camera, giving you time to lower your speed, should that be advisable. If that had been all, everything would have been fine, but there was more.

Not only does it tell you the speed you are going. If you stay above that limit for a while (this is what is called speeding, but staying above the limit sounds nicer!) it regularly sends out a discreet, but distinct signal of three soft bleeps for as long as you are above the limit.
You have to understand that in the UK you are only allowed to travel at 110 km/h on the motorways. This makes perfect sense during the day, when most of them are totally cluttered with traffic, but in the evening, when there are fewer cars, it seems a waste of space not to go just that little bit faster, nothing dangerous, just around 130.

Well, there we were, on the motorway, in the evening, trying to make it home for Match of the Day, and so we (or I) stayed above the limit most of the time. The SatNav sent out its reminder that I was going too fast, but I knew what I was doing and had convinced my self it was not really wrong. I am sure the police wouldn't even bother to stop me for going at this speed, it is only sensible when there is no real traffic. This was the time Lukas appeared on the scene. It was too dark to read and apparently he was not tired enough to sleep, so he leaned forward to look at the SatNav, his attention maybe drawn by the bleeps. “You are only supposed to go 110 here, Dad!”. How do you reply to that? I could of course say I know; that at this time of the day there is nothing really wrong in breaking the speed limit and that it is generally accepted that you do it, but I also knew that argument could be used to justify almost any “minor” deviation from what is right and what is the law. Instead I lowered the speed for a while and then, hoping he had gone to sleep, increased it again. He didn't sleep! “Dad.......!”

This little story is not about driving a car on the motorway. It is about discipleship, community and accountability. Can you see it? God has given us 2 things to help us live out our Christian life: The Holy Spirit and a community. Through reading the Bible and listening to the proclamation of the word, we have a pretty good idea of what is right and wrong, of how we should live our lives, but God did not give us a rule book, he gave us a living relationship in 2 dimensions. A relationship with the Holy Spirit, living in us, guiding us to all truth, sounding the “bleeps” when we are heading the wrong way, or to guide us in the direction where he needs us. This is fantastic and it really works. One thing about living in the dimension of the Spirit is that you have your personal SatNav built into your life. “John is not feeling well, go an encourage him”, “You shouldn't have said that, go to Mary and apologise”, “Fred is open to the gospel just now, go and share it with him”, “Lay your hands on Martin and pray for him”, but also “You are going too fast, slow down” or “This is not right!”. It is brilliant, it is so different from just trying to live “by the book” (although of course that is exactly what the Spirit helps you to do!) by the sheer use of power and self-discipline.

Thing is, though, that the Holy Spirit is discreet. When we go too fast, he sends out distinct, but discreet bleeps, and sometimes at least I just choose to ignore him, arguing why whatever I am doing is not so wrong, or why I don't really need to do what he is guiding me to just now.
Enter the other relationship! God did not only place the Holy Spirit in us, he meant for us to be placed in a community of believers, of fellow travellers, and for us to make ourselves accountable to each other. This is the other dimension of relationships God has given us. For practical reasons it has to be a community within the community – a small group of believers, may just one other person – someone we meet with regularly and who holds us accountable, just like Lukas on the backseat! It is not a matter of controlling us, giving us bad consciousness, or trying to make us do things we do not want to do. It is all about helping us not just listen to the Spirit, but living by the Spirit. Helping us to do and become what we really want to, but sometimes struggle with. In the words of Bill Hull: “Without this relational dimension, everything that follows is weakened” (Choose the Life).

Character is developed in community. A small, Spirit-filled community of believers, submitting to each other, holding each other accountable, supporting and affirming each other, and where transformation is the goal – of the individual, of the community, of the Church, of the neighbourhood, of society. It cannot happen without the power of the Spirit working in and through us, it will not happen without living in communities of submission and accountability.

Looking back over my own life I can easily recognise that the times when God has worked most in and through my life, was when there were people around me who held me accountable. When living in community, whether organised or spontaneous, when I did not only live the life, but shared the life. I also clearly see that when I did not live in both of these relational dimensions my spiritual life suffered and my fruitfulness in ministry was limited.

Just imagine what would happen if we all committed us to live in both dimensions. Imagine what would happen to churches who “find themselves nearly comatose spiritually, numbed by years of religious activity without transformation”, if they instead made these two dimensions their priority. Imagine what impact we would have on people and communities around us! Is this what Jesus meant when he taught us to pray “Your Kingdom Come”?

Is it just a dream or could it be reality? Is it “pie in the sky” or God's preferred future?

What would it take to make it come true?

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3 Schools in 12 months

Lukas did ask we did not post the pictures below, but I am sure many readers of this blog would want to see them – and I don't think Lukas reads the blog, so maybe he never will find out!
Tuesday this week Lukas started in his 3rd school in 12 months! He began last school year at ISL in Riga, in November it was St. John's Primary School in Stockport and this week Priestnall Secondary School, quite a lot of changes for such a young man, but as you would expect, he has handled it extremely well.

Priestnall is a huge school of more than 1000 pupils less than 10 minutes walk from where we live. It has a very good reputation and hope, and expect, he will just fine there. Unfortunately no one had informed us that on the first day of school it commences 9:50 and not 8:50, so Lukas arrived an hour early! The good thing about that is that he had been worried of how he would find the right class room, now he had loads of time to do it in!

Today he stayed after school for trials for the football team. Apart from different exercises, they also played a match on a real size pitch (probably the first time he has tried that). The game ended 1-0, with Lukas scoring the goal direct from a free kick just out side the box! He was asked to come back tomorrow, where there will be 21 boys competing for the 16 places on the school team.

Apart from football there are the less important stuff as different lessons. According to the limited information we have been able to draw out of him everything is fine there too. So far no homework, something which would have been very unlikely at ISL!

Anyway, the main reason for this post was to show him in his new school uniform. He does look smart doesn't he? The poor guy has to wear uniform more than we do now, but since everyone else also have to do it, it is not so bad. We will keep you informed how he gets on as time goes by.

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Snapshots from a holiday

The car was packed, the tent checked, the pitch had been booked – everything was as usual and it was time to set off on our annual camping holiday. Well, everything was not quite as usual. We were setting of from Manchester and the destination was not Venice, but Sandford in the south of England. We were not looking at driving a 2-3000 km, but just a quick trip of around 400 – also that should be a piece of cake and it almost was. It did take us a bit longer than expected due to congestion on the motorway, but otherwise everything went as planned and we found the camp site without any problem.

Usually when we have been driving down in Europe it gets warmer and warmer almost for every kilometer, this year it got more and more grey; and also more and more wet! Fortunately we by now are fairly experienced in putting up the tent, but this time we probably did it quicker than ever, in between showers, stepping around in the mud and getting both dirty and cold. It was not the last time we looked at each other and said: It is not like Venice!

The first couple of days the weather did not improve a lot. It did not rain, but it was grey and not very warm – at night it was actually cold and we had to sleep with several layers of clothes not to freeze too much. It took Lisbeth 20 years before she convinced me we should try and go camping, and I have loved it ever since. What I especially love is the relaxed and unhurried atmosphere on a camping site, that you can just sit and read, hang out at the pool, play a bit of football, sit and read some more – in other words not having to do anything, not plan anything, but just relax. That works well when it the sun is shining and it is warm, but not really when it is cloudy and cold, so we had to be active and explore things to do.

Sunday we were not all that active. The main complex of the camping site included several places to watch television, and since there were no less than 2 live football games, and since one was Manchester United vs. Manchester City and the other one Liverpool vs. Chelsea........ After tea it was time to be a bit active, so we set of in the car to explore Pool and Bournemouth, which was just a few miles from the camp site. We ended up at the pier in Bournemouth where we managed to travel 40 years in a matter of minutes!

Walking down from the car park we heard music, as in Brass band music. Could it be? Yes, it was one of the local Salvation Army corps conducting an open air. They were of course in full uniform, hats and caps and no less than 3 flags at the back, 2 of them carried by children. There were some people standing around listening. We arrived towards the end, just in time to hear the band play a hymn tune, followed by the Songsters singing to play back (including singing). It was then announced that the meeting was coming to an end and as always we would finish with “The Day Thou Us Gavest” or something like that. As the band played the introduction the three flags suddenly came to the front and stood in front of the group for the entire song. We could see one was the Singing Company flag and the other the YP Band flag, although we could see neither a Singing Company or a YP Band. The last words from what probably was the Sergent Major “If you have a song sheet, could you please hand it in to one of the Salvationists”.

We were not approached by anyone and we did not make ourselves known, but set of for the park which lays between the pier and the town centre. As we entered the park we again heard music, different from the one before, but the tune sounded familiar. It was a worship song and when we came to middle of the park we could see a worship group up on the bandstand and a big banner telling us this was the local Vineyard church. Down on the path we were met by several people who were offering free cans of Pepsi and Seven-Up and when we accepted we also received a smart postcard with an invitation to the church. We stood around for a while and saw would have been church members talking to people, someone praying with another and everyone passing being offered free drinks. (I did get nervous I would loose my free can of Seven-Up when the worship group started singing “You give and take away”, but apparently it had nothing to do with the drinks. We even managed to exchange a Pepsi with a Coca Cola together with a comment we would expect “the real thing” at the Vineyard)

The two scenes were just so different and ages apart. We asked Lukas which of those two churches he would want to go to, if he had to choose. That was a no-brainer, and we wholeheartedly agreed with him. It was quite depressing and I shiver to think of having to attend such a corps. I am sure they are very nice people, but I just could not do it.

Monday we returned to Bournemouth pier, primarily to visit the Oceanarium. We spent a couple of hours looking at fish, sharks, giant turtles etc. Afterwards Lisbeth and Lukas took a ride on the merry-go-round, Lukas did a bit of surfing and we strolled up through the main street of Bournemouth and also had our only junk food of the week – lunch at KFC.

Tuesday we set of for a small village on the coast and spent the morning walking along the beach, Lisbeth and Lukas searching for fossils. We supplemented our home made sandwiches with the traditional chips and also had a quick look round the local market. On our way back to the car we stumbled over a second hand bookshop, which we just had to explore! I found a novel by Graham Greene. I have never read anything by him, but had decided this summer I would read on of his books and one of John le Carree, also a first. I had not found a Graham Greene book before leaving, but here there was one “The Human Factor” and just for £ 2. It was purchased immediately and read by the next day (highly recommendable).

The camp site had two pools, one outside and one inside. Already on the Saturday Lukas had been to the inside, but Monday or Tuesday (you are allowed to loose a bit of your memory when you are supposed to be 55!) we all spend quite a while there. I asked Lukas whether we should go out to the outside pool, and he agreed. We got out of the water, out through the door...and quickly turned around back into the heated pool area – it was just too cold to go outside!
The weather generally improved and we ended up having a couple of days with quite nice weather, which were spent relaxing at the camp site, reading, playing minigolf, visiting the stables and a bit of swimming and playing in the pool (still the inside one!).

The weekend was a so called Bank Holiday weekend, which means the Monday is a day of for most people. To avoid the expected traffic chaos, we packed the tent Thursday afternoon (well actually Lisbeth packed it while I went to play football with Lukas, who was not too pleased we were leaving a day early) and set of just before eight in the evening for home. We arrived in Stockport just after midnight and left all our stuff in the car and went straight to bed.

The rest of the holiday we spent at home, mowing the lawn, cleaning the car, cycling and relaxing in the garden. Monday Lisbeth and I cycled set of on a cycle trip and ended going all the way to our office and back again, just to find the right way. It is about 15 km each way, so quite an achievement, for us at least.

Tuesday it was back to work for Lisbeth and me, Lukas still had another week of holiday, but chose to go with us to the office the first day – he was bored and did not go next day! If you have read all this you must (or should) be bored as well. I am not sure whether I have managed to beat (in length that is) Zoe's holiday report, but I have given it a go. Long live the wafflers!

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Call of the search

Last time you heard from us we were just about to leave Stockport, on our way to pitch our tent in Dorset. Just in case someone was considering sending out a search party, thinking we had lost our way down there, not able to find our way home, we thought we better surface again. I began writing yesterday evening and got up early this morning with the the clear intention of posting an extensive report from the last 2 weeks.

Before starting writing I went for my daily jog. I do not go running, but I “blog jog” through my favourite blogs at least once a day. The authors lives on 3 different continents, but all have the one thing in common that I met them in Latvia. Only one (Charlie Chikankata) had updated their blog and so I ended up in the great blog Aivis have set up with recordings and news from Riga I corps. I had been there before, but never really had the time to listen to some of all the stuff there. I thought I would just listen to one of the testimonies, but that was so good, I just listened to another and then and another. I ended up listening to Dace preaching and Sarah's very good translation into English (So kind to think of us who are not quite fluent in Latvian).

Now the time has gone, I have to get Lukas up for his second day in Secondary School and so if you really wanted to hear news from the Andersen family I have to disappoint you, you will have to wait at least until tonight, but don't blame me, blame Riga I and Aivis for his great idea.

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