Growing up...

Well, despite the warning given to me by a cat breeder - that Teddi looks like a pedigree Siberian cat and might keep growing until he is five years old - Gabriela is growing up so fast now, that it no longer looks as if her furry friend is growing to be as big as she is! Here's the latest buddy picture, taken this week, and we'll take another photo in July when Gabriela turns thirteen.

Seeing Seville

This time last year, a friend and I were able to visit Granada and Córdoba, two of the main cities in this region of southern Spain. Since then, top of my "must see" list has been the city of Sevilla, which is actually the capital of our province of Andalucía. 

Some months ago, the dad of one of the young people in our church youth group appeared unexpectedly at a church prayer meeting and, at 49 years of age, ended up committing his life to the Lord. It's been amazing to see how much he's changed over the past weeks: a real testimony to the life transforming power of God.  When he approached us recently to say that he'd like to take us out for a thank-you lunch, we were surprised when he suggested combining that lunch with a trip to Seville; it's more than a 200 km drive from Málaga. But we were thrilled at the idea, and so that's how we found ourselves taking an unexpected trip to Seville this weekend.

Despite drizzling rain throughout the day, it was fun to walk through the narrow streets of old Sevilla, to see the horse drawn carriages, the cathedral with its famous "Giralda" tower, the impressive Plaza de España, and a host of other palaces and pavillions. Sevilla has hosted a number of world expositions over the years - one as far back as 1929 and another as recently as 1992 (a King's Kids team from Scotland went there for outreach on their way  to Morocco that year.) Perhaps the most fun part of the day was when we fed the pigeons in the Parque Maria Luisa. Unlike other pigeons, which are content to peck around your feet, these ones were bold enough to sit on our arms and shoulders and even our heads in their bid to get some corn from us!

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Za'atar in Spain... a taste of Jordan

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One of the things I enjoy about travelling to other countries is trying out the local food and drink - tasting things that are new and different to what we have at home. When possible, I try to bring a "taste" of my foreign destination to those who stayed at home while I was on my trip. So when I got back to Spain yesterday (after rather a long trip, which involved sitting up all night in Gatwick airport!) I had fun giving my housemates  a taste of Jordan.

Gabriela had recently read a Narnia book at school (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe) and there's a part where one of the characters is tempted by some Turkish Delight. We don't have Turkish Delight in Spain, and she didn't know it was something that really existed. So I had bought some Lokum (Turkish Delight) at a market stall in Amman. I had also brought back some tiny sugared aniseed sweets, and some of those sticky Middle Eastern pastries, full of pistachios, honey and sesame. The thing that turned out to be the biggest hit in my household, however, was the healthy stuff: the bag of za'atar that I had brought with me.

Eyebrows were raised when I first showed them the za'atar, because it looked rather like a bag of grass cuttings! Za'atar is a blend of ground, dried herbs - such as thyme, marjoram, oregano, sumac, cumin, and coriander - mixed with toasted sesame seeds, sometimes with caraway seeds or fennel seeds and salt. It's considered to be a health food because it is so high in anti-oxidants. You can use it in cooking, sprinkle it in hummus or pizza, or you can mix it with a little olive oil to make it spreadable. While we were staying in Jerash, little slices of bread with za'atar were served as an accompaniment to every meal. When we were shopping at the market in Amman, we stopped at a stall where a man was making warm pitta bread, toasted with garlic and cheese.

So this was what my household had for supper last night. I spread crushed garlic and za'atar on flatbread (you can also use Mexican tortillas), sprinkled it with a little cheese, and toasted it in a frying pan, like you see the man doing in the picture. It was not only healthy, but was also a big hit: Ada, Gabriela and Nicole all enjoyed it. I have to confess that one of Ada's za'atar breads was given a Peruvian twist by adding some hot spicy sauce made with rocoto (South American chilli peppers!) which made for an interesting fusion of Middle Eastern and South American cuisine. Ada's now asking when I'm going to the Middle East again, so that I can bring back a bigger bag of za'atar next time.

Stones on the altar

Our time in Jordan is almost over. Some of our team will be travelling on to Israel today, while the rest of us will begin heading home to Hong Kong, Brazil, Switzerland, Spain... and all the other nations we come from. One day during our time here, we walked from the hotel to a nearby field where there was an ancient well. It was in this part of the world that the Lord spoke to various people of the Bible as they paused by a well. From there, we looked out over the hillside and took time to pray for the nations of the Middle East. We proclaimed words from Isaiah 19 vs 23 - 25, which talk about some of God's promises for the nations in this part of the world. We were reminded that when Abraham and other Old Testament patriarchs entered new territory, they usually dug a well and built an altar. As we worshipped and proclaimed God's character in this region, each one of us, from the youngest to the oldest, took a stone and added it to a pile - just as Jacob or Joshua had built altars of stones thousands of years ago. In this way, we were proclaiming that God is Lord over all the earth, and we were praying, "Your Kingdom come" for these nations of the Middle East.

Meeting Mohammed...

We were blessed with beautiful sunny weather for visiting the ancient ruins this afternoon in the city of Jerash (or Gerasa, as it was known in days of antiquity.) After walking around the ruins of ancient temples and amphitheatres, we stopped at a little market area where local people were selling hand made crafts and souvenirs. I hadn't changed a lot of money into Jordanian dinars, as I planned only to buy a few postcards and a fridge magnet. 

After I'd already made my purchases, I was approached by a teenage boy, who invited me to come over and visit his stall. I went with him to admire his handiwork (he was using coloured sand to make artistic creations in small glass bottles) but I explained to him that I didn't have much money left and wasn't planning to buy anything else today. Nonetheless, he pleaded with me to stay and drink a cup of tea with him. He was just seventeen years old, and I think he was keen to practise his English.

So we chatted for a bit while I drank tea and asked him to show me how he made the wonderful coloured pictures in the bottles. I watched while he quickly and skilfully poured different colours of sand into the bottle and used a long pointed instrument to fashion the shapes of camels, horses and mountains. He told me that his name was Moh'med and that he had a desire to travel and to study overseas when he finishes high school.

Once his work of art was finished, he asked me if I would like to try making one too. Well, art wasn't exactly my best subject at school, but I was enjoying chatting with this young man and so I agreed to give it a try. Needless to say, my masterpiece grew a lot more slowly than his had done, and my efforts to draw a camel in the sand were only just recognisable, as you can see from the photo. While I was still working on fashioning the mountains, Moh'med spoke in Arabic to an older man who was obviously the stall owner,  and I could see that this man was saying yes to him. Moh'med had asked if he could give me my handiwork as a gift, and he added my name to the inside of the bottle before wrapping it up for me.

Before we said goodbye, I asked this young man if I could pray for him and for his future. He said yes, and I was able to ask God to be with him, to lead him into all truth, and to help him realise his dreams of travelling and studying business, so that he could be a man of influence in his nation. I thanked him for being so open and hospitable to foreigners and encouraged him always to pursue excellence and to use his skills to bless the lives of others. 

It was rather a special moment. When we went to visit the ruins this afternoon, I never imagined that I would have the opportunity to get to know and to pray with a Jordanian teenager. Perhaps you could join me in praying that God will bless Moh'med and that he will have other opportunities in his life to discover the true and living God.

Jerash in Jordan

Things are going well with our international leadership team meetings here in Jordan. Sadly, two of our African members had their visas refused at the airport and were put on the next planes back to Togo and Tanzania. Our representatives from India and Nepal were also unable to get visas for the trip. So we're a smaller ILT group than usual, but we have some invited guests - intercessors and young leaders - with us, and the meetings have been going well. This afternoon, we'll be taking a break from meetings and will be going to visit the famous ruins here in Jerash, where we are staying. They are considered to be the best preserved Roman ruins outside of Italy. It's been cold and rainy most of the week, but there's a blue sky today and so we're hoping for dry weather during our visit of the city.

Phoning from London...

Well, I'm on my way... but it's not particularly straightforward to get from Spain to Jordan - at least, not from Malaga to Amman. There were no direct flights, and so I had to choose whether to fly via Madrid, Rome or London. But my flight from Malaga would always have arrived after the Jordan flight had already left... and so an overnight stopover was the only option. I chose London (EasyJet's airfares seeming to be my best deal) and so now I'm overnighting at a YWAM centre in Clapham, and will be heading back to the airport again bright and early tomorrow morning. The positive side of being in the UK was that I was able to phone my parents on my British mobile phone and speak to my Dad in the hospital. How encouraging it was to hear him say that he's feeling much better, even though progress is very slow with his physiotherapy (his legs feel like jelly, and so learning to walk is quite a challenge) and with learning to eat again (he still feels pain and nausea at times.) But he seemed to be in good spirits and it was nice to hear his voice. Here's a photo that Mum took in the hospital of Dad with my brother and my niece.

On the road again...

It happens every time! I get out my suitcase, ready to pack for the next trip, and immediately a stowaway climbs into it. Sometimes it's Tamba or Tobi, but usually it's Teddi, as in the picture here. This time my trip will be to the Middle East: I'm spending a week in Jordan for the annual meetings of the KKI international leadership team. I'm a little later than usual with my packing, as we've had a busy social schedule over the past week for birthdays and other special occasions... but my preparations for the ILT are finished now and my case is almost packed for heading to the airport early tomorrow morning. Thanks for your prayers during this trip and the time of leadership meetings in Jordan.

Sweet Spanish and English lessons....

Last week (see previous post) we were thinking about skill sharing as a way of being generous during Lent. Yesterday I had another chance to see this in action, as I spent an evening with two friends - one from Germany and one from Peru. Our newest team member, Anja, has been in Spain for less than three weeks, and is keen to start learning as much Spanish as possible; I've been trying to help out a little here and there. Meanwhile, Ada (whom I live with) wants to keep improving her English whenever she can. Ada also wanted to learn how to make a delicious German-style apple cake that Anja had made last week, and so we decided to combine all of this skill-sharing into one evening together. Armed with our eggs, flour, sugar and quark, we headed to Anja's house for a time of English lessons, Spanish lessons and baking lessons! Anja learned new Spanish words, and Ada learned new English words, while I facilitated the translation... and Ada and I learned how to transform our big golden apples into big slices of delicious cake.

Sieving flour, peeling apples, kneading pastry, whisking egg whites...... These were among the vocabulary words that were learned in English and Spanish. We worked hard, and we laughed a lot. Despite a background of thirty years in teaching languages, including teaching English as a foreign language, I had somehow never come across the fact that "kitchen" and "chicken" are two words that can easily be confused by foreigners. We laughed when Ada asked if the apples were in the chicken.... but Anja (who lived in Australia and taught English to foreign missionaries before moving to Spain) told us that many of her students had the same difficulty with those two words. I discovered that, "Is the chicken in the kitchen?" is a particularly difficult tongue twister for speakers of some other languages.

Soon the sliced apples were arranged on the pastry and the fluffy filling was poured on top. The baking lesson was over, but we had another hour of English and Spanish learning while we waited for the cake to bake in the oven. At last it was done, and we can all testify that it was delicious. It's Ada's birthday this weekend (same day as my brother's) and she plans to make the cake again when she has some South American friends round for dinner. We hope to have these Spanish-English encounters on a regular basis.... but we won't always bake at the same time, as we want to make sure that the language lessons aren't always so fattening!