Crashes, call centres and cathedrals...

If you're trying to reach me by email at the moment, you've no doubt been met by an ominous silence. My computer crashed at the beginning of December and is still in hospital in a "coma." It looks as if it will only be sorted out sometime next week, and so I might not be able to have email access again until then.

When the crash happened, I phoned the manufacturer's customer helpline to report the "death" and find out what needed to be done. These call centres are seldom in the UK, and so you spend half your time spelling out names and addresses, because you find yourself speaking with foreigners who don't understand your accent and you don't understand theirs! I was passed from person to person and, after I was put on to the fifth person, I began to realise that everyone I'd spoken to had a South African accent (Indian, Xhosa, Afrikaans or whatever.) When the sixth person asked for my address, and wasn't able to call it up automatically when I gave her my postcode, I finally said, "You're not in the UK, are you?"

"No," she answered, "We're in Cape Town!"  How bizarre: to sit in the UK with a broken computer, and to end up speaking about it with technicians in South Africa! The last lady told me that it was warm and sunny in Cape Town, so that made me very conscious of being back here in the winter half of the world.

Anyway, the winter weather hasn't stopped us reaching out to the people of Glasgow. We've just finished our FireStarters discipleship and outreach weekend for December. The theme this time was, "Passion," and the young people were challenged to consider what motivates them and what are the ways that God would possibly want them to make a difference in their world.

During the weekend, the eight teams of young people were involved in a variety of different kinds of outreach. Some teams ran clubs and Christmas parties for local children; some ran a drop in centre for the youth; one team went out to serve practically by washing windows and doing odd jobs for the elderly and infirm. Another team held a ceilidh (pronounced "kayley" and, in case you're not familiar with what it is, it's a kind of party with Scottish dancing.) Young people from local church youth groups were invited to come to the ceilidh and bring their non-Christian friends with them. So it was another positive and fruitful weekend, as we approach the Christmas season.

When Hogmanay (New Year's Eve) comes, some of the older teens and young adults are going to be out in Glasgow city centre, giving out free bottles of water to the revellers who are already drinking other beverages (!!) and waiting to bring in the New Year. The bottles will bear the logo of "Hope '08" - a Christian outreach initiative that will be happening in towns, villages and cities throughout the UK in 2008. The water distribution will be followed by a special worship and commissioning service in Glasgow Cathedral. (When I was in England, last week, I was able to attend a gathering in Birmingham Cathedral to pray for some of their initiatives for Hope '08.) FireStarters is very involved in the Hope '08 plans for the city of Glasgow and, as well as all kinds of things throughout the year, there will also be a special outreach initiative next July.

That's all for now. There will only be more news from me once my computer is restored to life again!

From nation to nation...

When God spoke to me earlier this year about leaving South Africa, He reminded me that He'd previously given me many Bible verses about being called "to the nations." Little did I expect just how many nations I would go to in the course of the next few months. Since May this year, I've been in eleven countries (South Africa, Hong Kong, Madagascar, Malawi, Spain, Canada, USA, Norway, Switzerland, Scotland and England.) In fact, it's actually thirteen countries if you count the fact that I had airport stopovers in Zimbabwe and in Germany!

After being in Norway and Switzerland earlier this month, last weekend I was one of the guest speakers at the "Women of the Word" convention - a Christian ladies' conference which was held at a hotel in the Scottish borders. Then I took a flight down to England, where I'll be speaking every day this week in a PCYM (Principles in Child and Youth Ministry) training course.

Words, Watching and Waiting

The waiting theme continues. This week, God reminded me that He’d spoken to me earlier in the year through Micah chapter 7 verse 7, which says, “And so I will watch for the Lord; I will wait confidently for the God of my salvation.”

Last week, I was having lunch with an old friend who had been a student on one of our YWAM training courses in Paisley, and she asked me, “Have you ever done a word study on the word wait?” A “word study” is a skill that we sometimes teach the students in our child and youth ministry schools, and in the pre-school teachers’ training course. Our goal is to help students build their ministry with young people firmly upon the Word of God, and so we teach them several different ways of studying the Bible for themselves. A word study, or topical study, involves finding out the original Greek or Hebrew meanings of words that are used in the Bible text.

Well, I hadn’t in fact done a word study on waiting, and so I decided to follow her suggestion and begin that Bible study this week. The two words used here in Micah 7:7 (watching and waiting) are the Hebrew verbs tsâphâh and yâchal. Both of them express the idea of trusting God completely and waiting patiently and expectantly for Him to speak or act. But it was interesting to note that the Hebrew dictionary also defined tsâphâh as, to lean forward, to peer into the distance, to look up or to keep watch.

These twin ideas of looking up and also peering into the distance suggested to me that really trusting God sometimes also includes waiting for things that can’t yet be seen - and keeping on looking up to the Lord during that waiting time. I don’t know if you’ve ever had to wait for a train or bus, or perhaps for a person who was coming to pick you up at the airport. I guess it’s a lot easier to wait for that bus or person if you can already see them coming a little further up the road. The waiting is more open ended if you have to “peer into the distance” and can’t yet see them coming. It probably requires more trust, as you need to believe, for example, that the person has remembered to come and pick you up as they promised they would.

For some reason, it made me also think about growing tomatoes in my garden in Cape Town – a process that would usually begin around this time of year. Waiting for the fruit to be ready is a lot easier when you can actually see the tomatoes getting a little bit bigger and a little bit riper every day. The waiting’s a bit more uncertain when you can’t yet see any blossoms or any sign of the fruit that will come. Sometimes one or more of the plants would just wither away and never come to anything at all. It struck me that waiting confidently for God, or for God’s timing, involves believing that He will be true to His word; that He will not be like a person who forgets to pick you up, or like a tomato plant that fails to bear fruit. Because we know the unfailing character of God – that He is totally faithful in every situation and circumstance - we can wait with confidence, knowing that He is already “on His way” with the things that we can’t yet see.

I have been astounded to see how much favour there is and how many doors God seems to be opening for me here in Scotland at the moment. When He spoke to me earlier this year through a verse that said, “Look to the rock from which you were hewn and the quarry from which you were cut,” I knew that He was speaking about my returning to some sort of ministry roots and origins… and that this would also include being back in my home country of Scotland for a season. But somehow I never expected that He would be giving me quite so many ministry opportunities during my time here. I’ve had the privilege in recent weeks of speaking at a number of church services and ladies’ meetings, as well as linking in with some youth ministry initiatives that I was involved with in the past, before moving to South Africa.

And so there’s been a real sense of fulfilment during these weeks: a sense that “waiting” is not about hanging around doing nothing, but is about being faithful and obedient to God in every season and situation - whether that place He’s put you in is your permanent home or a place that you’ll be in for only a few weeks, months or years. Thanks for praying with me as I continue “waiting” and enjoying the things that God has for me during this time. I pray that you’ll also know clearly which doors He’s opening for you in this season of your life.

Waiting

In recent weeks, my times of personal Bible reading have been full of verses about waiting. Last week, it was the story where God tells Jehoshaphat to simply, "take up position and wait." Before that, it was the well known verse in Isaiah that says, "Those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength." And at other times it has been Bible stories about various people who received promises from God, but had to wait quite a while for those words to be fulfilled.

So, if you come up to me at church this week and ask me what I'm doing these days, there's a good chance that my answer will be, "I'm waiting." As I already sensed earlier this year, it seems that God feels there's no rush to confirm the details of the next steps He has for me, but wants me to be able to enjoy and draw the most from this transition season of waiting. My friends' picture of the bow and arrow (see post from 14 September) has been a constant encouragement in this time of having pulled back from the old, but not yet launched forward into the new.

During this waiting season, it's been great to have time to type up new teachings and prepare slide presentations for them. I'm teaching at a number of different church services and women's meetings this month. Last Sunday, I also had the privilege of leading intercession (about children, youth and Halloween!) at a Sunday morning service, and next Sunday I'll be speaking at an evening service in Falkirk.

Waiting seasons are also great times to catch up with old friends, and this week I'm getting together for meals with friends from Glasgow, Paisley and Falkirk. Give me a call if you'd also like to get together for coffee sometime this month.

Bear with me

I'm back in Europe yet again, having just been on holiday for two weeks with my parents. We were on a tour of New England and Canada to see the beautiful colours of the autumn foliage. One day, as I was looking out the bus window and admiring the flame red leaves, it struck me that all this beauty was only possible because these leaves were dying. We visited a farm where they make maple syrup, and the farmer told us that the brilliant red leaves are a sign of sugar production caused by the biting cold weather. Sometimes in our lives, we encounter painful situations that feel like a death; it's our choice whether such things bring out bitterness or bring out sweetness in us. My prayer for my own life is that the difficult and challenging seasons will be times when I can willingly "die to self," so that other people can see the beauty of the Lord in my life.

I'll be in Scotland for all of October, and a number of things are in my diary for the coming weeks: I'm speaking at a few women's meetings and church services, as well as connecting with various friends and ministry leaders here. There will also be a couple of "special events" at my home church, which is celebrating its bicentenary this year.

Pulling back - for moving forward

Today is the 15th. That means that, at midnight tonight, I'll have been back in Europe for exactly one month. Sometimes South Africa already seems long ago and far away... but, on the other hand, it is still the first thing in my thoughts when I wake up every morning and so that's a sign that it's still very much on my heart during this time of transition. On this date last year, I had just renewed my visa to stay longer in South Africa, and I didn't foresee at all the direction my life would take in the course of just twelve months.

Earlier this year, I was speaking with friends who had recently left the country where they had been missionaries for eleven years of their lives. They told me that God had comforted them with a picture of a bow and arrow: He told them that there’s a tension involved in pulling the arrow backwards, but this tension is necessary in order for the arrow to be propelled forwards towards the target again. Likewise, it’s never easy to move away from the place that you have made your home for so many years, but this "pulling back" is necessary in order for God to launch us forward into the new things that He has for us in the future.

Now that I’ve arrived back in Europe, I’m trusting that God will show me where my new home should be. At the moment, I feel kind of like Abraham (see Hebrews 11 vs 8) who was called to set out on a journey of faith, without actually knowing where he was going to end up! As in the picture of the bow and arrow, there’s a strange kind of "tension" involved in this season of pulling back from what used to be, but not yet totally moving forward into the new things that lie ahead.

When I was reading the Bible recently, God drew my attention to Psalm 90 vs 1: "Oh, Lord, You have always been our home." Or, as it says in another translation, "Lord, You have been our dwelling place throughout all generations." The Hebrew word used here for home is ma'on, which means a place to live, or a refuge, a place of safety. As I’ve recently been through the process of losing my "home" of the past decade, it’s interesting that one of the words God has spoken to me is that He will be relocating me in a "safe place." That’s one meaning of this word ma'on. I’ve been reflecting on the fact that, ultimately, our home isn’t a house; it isn’t a country; it isn’t even the safe place of relationships with people who love and trust us (although the latter is a very big part of it.) The bottom line is that God alone wants to be our real home and our place of safety. No matter how much our outward circumstances may change, God Himself is unchanging. He is yesterday, today and forever the same, and we can depend on Him in every situation.

We live in a world of instant messaging and video conferencing, a world where it’s possible for people to work together even if they live thousands of miles apart. Some of the work that I was doing in South Africa - my international commitments relating to the University and the PCYM training schools - can be done from anywhere that has an internet connection, and so I will continue to fulfil these responsibilities even when I am spending time in Scotland. However, I will also be in a process of asking God to confirm where I should actually live and invest in ongoing ministry in the years ahead. Thanks for your prayers.

Preparing for the Promise

My time in Spain has come to an end and I'm now back in Scotland again. While still in Spain, I was able to attend two more Sunday "gatherings" at my friends' home. The theme which emerged during these two weeks was about "redigging the wells." This was kind of interesting for me, as this story in Genesis 26 was one of the Bible passages which God had used at the beginning of this year to confirm the fact that I needed to "move on" from South Africa. I've checked on the internet for a map of the place where Isaac had to re-dig those wells (the valley of Gerar) and I saw that it was actually in a desert location - half way between Gaza and Beersheba. This was interesting, because I remembered that another passage God spoke through was in Exodus 15, when He said that we were going to be "crossing the Red Sea" and coming into a desert place.

I began to look at other Bible passages about people travelling in the desert, and I discovered that, first and foremost, the desert was a place where people had to really depend on God and draw close to Him. It was usually a time when they were "homeless" - living in tents and travelling from place to place. And the most encouraging thing about deserts is that they were never the end destination, but were always just a stepping stone to a place of promise. Isaac’s well-digging finished at Beersheba - the well of the promise - where God appeared to him and promised to bless him. Beersheba was also the place where God spoke promises to Hagar and Ishmael (when they lost their home with Abraham and Sarah.) It was the place that Elijah fled to when he was threatened by Jezebel - a place of strengthening and recommissioning, right there in the desert.

You sometimes hear Christians speaking of the "desert" as a hard, dry time when God seems far away. It really doesn’t have to be like that! While it’s true that the desert is a place where we don’t have our usual comforts and conveniences, a place where we’re feeling "homeless" and travelling into the unknown, it can also be a place where God comes close to us, where He proves His faithfulness in amazing ways and prepares us for the promises that lie ahead. I’m making the most of my personal journey "on the other side of the Red Sea" and enjoying my relationship with God during this season of transition.Thank you so much for your prayers. I pray that you too will know God’s presence and His faithfulness in whatever season of your life you may be passing through at the moment.