A strange kind of 'flu has been going around, knocking people out for four or five days at a time. Nicole, Gabriela and I all had it over the weekend, making us feel rather sorry for ourselves, and very thankful that we could make a roaring fire in the fireplace. I have to confess that we turn into scavengers at this time of year.... taking advantage of every opportunity to add to our stock of firewood - or leña, as it's called in Spanish. So it was a nice blessing when the town council decided to cut down some straggly little trees in the park in front of our house. Ada and I headed out there this afternoon with a saw and secateurs to cut off all the leafy branches and salvage a huge pile of thicker stems for our woodpile.
We felt quite worn out after chopping trees for an hour or more, so it was a nice bonus when our neighbours then came to throw out some old broken chairs. We promptly scooped them up and added them to our plunder. A chair's not quite as easy to chop up as a bush; all you can do is unscrew the arms and then feed the rest of it into the fire a little at a time. It always looks a bit dramatic at first - and the fire gives off an incredible heat - but within an hour it has settled down into a nice blaze that keeps the thicker logs burning throughout the evening. We're enjoying our fireplace on these chilly winter evenings (but thankful that the sunny afternoons make it pleasant work for us to gather or chop wood outdoors.)
Our coaching workshop is drawing to a close and the trainees have had lots of opportunities to work in small groups, practising the skills that they have been learning this week. We were fortunate to have sunny weather for most of the week, which meant that the groups could work outdoors. Today the torrential rain - so typical of January in Malaga - started up, forcing us all to stay indoors for the final day. As they go from here, each of these trainees will practise their developing skills by beginning to coach other missionaries in their part of their world.
Everyone has arrived now and we're already in the second day of our intensive coaching workshop. The trainees have been learning how to help other people grow and be more effective by asking them great questions that help them process their options and decisions. Among the trainees are a couple of people that I knew when I worked in Cape Town, and a couple of others that I've worked with since returning to Europe.
Sadly, one of the trainees had to leave us this morning; a lady who had come all the way from Thailand for the seminar got news that her Mum had died and she had to make plans to travel back and be with family in Canada. This means that I'll be helping out more in the workshop, making up the numbers where the trainees need to do practice activities in groups of three.
Today sees the start of another intensive coaching seminar here in Malaga, so we're heading back and forward to the airport five or six times today to pick up the fifteen trainees from all over Europe. We're thankful that this week's weather forecast is dry and sunny, as this means that we will be able to eat some of the meals and hold some of the workshop practice sessions outdoors. It'll be a pretty full schedule - beginning at 9 am every day and only finishing in the evening.
Meanwhile, back at home, Ada baked me a cake today. My house mates had been baking pumpkin roll (sort of a Swiss-roll-shaped pumpkin cake with cream cheese filling) for Thanksgiving and Christmas. I wasn't in Spain for either of those, and so she wanted to bake one for me to say that it's good to have me home again.
During the two weeks I've been back in Spain, my Dad has had two changes of hospital in Scotland. First he was moved to a rehab unit at the hospital in Falkirk, which seemed like a good and encouraging move. Unfortunately, he became quite ill with an infection and had to be moved back to the larger hospital in Larbert again. He's not really able to feed himself yet, and so it's hard to see that staff often simply leave some food in front of him, but don't stay to help him reach it or eat it. So it just gets cold and then they come and take it away again. It also seems like they're trying to reduce his pain medication so that he can be moved back to Falkirk again, but this means that he's experiencing more pain now and doesn't get a good night's sleep. I can only imagine how hard it must be to be totally dependent on the system and on the kind attentions of others.... and to feel that somehow the system is failing you at your point of need. I pray for a lessening of my Dad's pain, for compassionate staff who will help him with his food, and for decisions to be made that will put or keep him in the hospital that is best suited to his particular needs at this point in his recovery.
They say that you can't teach an old dog new tricks, and I think that's true unless your dog happens to be a border collie. As I discovered with my Kylie, collies are so clever that they thoroughly enjoy learning new things, even when puppyhood is a distant memory. This week, however, I'm trying to find out if you can teach old cats new tricks! Somewhere along the line, although my cats have a round-the-clock supply of dry pet food, I began giving them a sachet of moist cat food at breakfast time. The result of this habit over the years has been that all three cats come into my bedroom very early in the morning and either purr or miaow and march around on the bed to wake me up and make me aware that it's time for me to get out of bed and go downstairs to give them breakfast. As no one has been giving them this customary breakfast over the past ten weeks that I spent in Scotland, I decided that this was the ideal time for them to learn new habits. Despite their indignant miaowing while I'm preparing my morning coffee, I'm not giving them their "meaty chunks in gravy" at breakfast time any more, but am making them wait until some other time later in the day - sometimes at lunchtime or sometimes at bedtime. It seems to be working and I'm slowly seeing them change their habit and their expectation.
It made me think, though, about how we as human beings are also creatures of habit. Sometimes we've had our set ways of doing things for a whole lifetime and it can be really costly for us to embark upon transformation. We've got stuck in our old ways of thinking, speaking and acting, and it can be difficult to change these - especially as we get older in life. But knowing and following God is a continuous learning curve; He is constantly showing us attitudes and habits that need to be adjusted in order for us to become more like Jesus. This morning in my personal time with God, I was reading in Acts chapter 13. Speaking about King David, it says that he was a man who was pleasing to God and who was always willing to do what God wanted. My prayer for 2012 is that I would be just as willing to obey God in every situation, even when that means embracing change and breaking with my old ways of thinking and acting.
What "new tricks" is God challenging you to embrace in this new year?
Please note that future updates about my Dad's progress will be on my parents' blog: (click here to go there)
Thanks so much to those who have been praying over the past two or three months.
