Preparing for Christmas

Christmas Day falls on a Sunday this year, which always means that the first Sunday of Advent actually falls in November. I've just spent a week in Sweden, where lighting advent candles is a popular tradition and families were lighting their first candle this past weekend.

Another way that we can prepare our hearts for Christmas is by reflecting afresh on the Bible accounts of the very first Christmas, and reminding ourselves of how God's love prompted Him to send His very own Son to be born and live among us on earth.

In recent months, I've been writing 36 simple Bible reading guides for young people to help them  spend personal time with God. One of those booklets challenges you, as an individual or as a whole family together, to read your Bible at least fourteen times during this month leading up to Christmas. You can download your copy of the booklet and start preparing for Christmas by clicking any of the links below.

Click here to download the English booklet.

Pincha aquí para descargar el libro en español.

Clique ici para télécharger le livre en français.

A bit of a setback

Things were progressing so well yesterday. I had finished preparing my Swedish powerpoint (for teaching in a seminar next weekend) and other documents that I needed for the leadership meetings in Sweden, and I was successfully transferring everything to my iPad.  Because travelling with hand baggage only was half the price of paying for check in luggage, I had decided to leave my computer at home, and take the much lighter iPad with me instead. (I originally bought the iPad for when I'm travelling and teaching in Africa.)

For some reason, getting the bluetooth keyboard to work with the iPad was causing me problems, and I was struggling with sorting that out when disaster struck. It all happened so fast, that I'm not quite sure how it happened. Whether my arthritic thumbs let me down, as they sometimes do, and my grip wasn't as strong as I thought, or whether I hadn't properly sealed the iPad safely back in its case…. it suddenly slipped out of the case and crashed to the floor - the tile floor, as we have here in southern Spain. It must have landed on its corner and, sure enough, the glass had shattered, causing lots of little powdery crystals and a bit of a spiderweb crack in the top corner. I could have cried! Although my iPad is four years old, it was like new, as I've always been so careful and protective with it.

The good news is that it still works, but I don't want to depend on it for Sweden next week, in case it cracks further or stops working during my trip. This means I'm having to completely re-think my packing, as I'll now need to take my laptop with me - which takes up more space and more weight in my little carry on suitcase. Fortunately, my friend in Sweden had already offered to lend me an extra winter jumper when I'm there, as temperatures are much lower in Sweden than Spain, and winter woolies take up a lot of space in your baggage.

As for my poor little iPad, I'll need to look into having the glass replaced when I'm back in Scotland for Christmas.

Buba's birthday

It's Buba's birthday today; she's two years old. Buba is my neighbour's dog, a rather unusual English Setter cross. When she first came as a tiny puppy, she really did look exactly like an English Setter. I had an Irish Setter when I was a teenager, and looked after my dancing teacher's English Setter for a brief time, so it was easy to recognise that Buba had the shape and markings of a setter. Her father was of unknown breed, though, and as she grew to adulthood she developed a different body and face shape from a setter; she reminded me a lot of the drawings of Timmy, the dog in Enid Blyton's Famous Five books that I read as a child in the 1960s.

At first it was quite amusing to see this terrier-type head and thick wavy coat on a setter's body. People often stop me in the park and comment on what a cute and unusual looking dog she is. Small children say she's like a "peluche" (a fluffy toy) and want to hug her. Because of her markings, some ask if she's part Dalmatian. We've often wondered what kind of dog the father was, and it was only recently that I encountered a rather likely candidate when I met a man with a "pastor catalán" (Catalunyan Shepherd dog, a breed from the Barcelona region of Spain.) It had the same body shape and coat texture as Buba, but without the setter markings.

So today our girl is two years old. I can hardly believe that I've been walking this dog twice a day for almost two years now. Her owner, my neighbour Matilde, calls me Buba's "segunda mami" and is extremely thankful for my help in exercising this largish dog. (Her other dog is a chihuahua-pekinese cross.) But I'm thankful too, because walking with Buba every day has given me the exercise that I was no longer getting since my arthritis pain prevented me from doing sports and dance on a regular basis. So Buba has been a "godsend" in many ways. I've had all the fun of walking a dog, without the responsibility of having to find dog sitters when I travel, and I'm getting regular exercise to keep my joints and muscles moving over the winter months.

Feliz cumpleaños,  Buba. Te quiero.

From Spain to Sweden

Nearly three months since I got home from Africa, and now it's time for another trip. This time, however, I'm not heading south to tropical climate, but heading north to the chill of Scandinavia. I'm spending next week in Sweden for several days of meetings with the KKI European leadership team, and I'll also be teaching a seminar for parents and youth workers on the topic of understanding human development: how to relate age appropriately and understand how to disciple children and teenagers at different ages and stages of their lives.

This coming Sunday, I'll fly from Malaga to Gothenburg, where my friends will meet me and take me to their home in Borås. The KKI meetings will be held at the home of my friend, Ingela, and her family. Ingela, who is the national leader for KKI Sweden, was a student on one of the first child and youth ministry schools that I led - way back in 1991 in Scotland. Later we led a European PCYM together in 2009. More recently, she was my early morning swimming partner during the two months we spent in West Africa for the Fortify leadership workshop. I know her husband and five children from King's Kids, and one of our sons even came to do LDC in Malaga recently. When the KKI-ELT meetings finish on Friday, I'll stay on for the weekend seminar, which will be held in their local church setting in Borås. Then I'll fly back down to Malaga the following Sunday.

This week, in getting ready for my trip, I've finished preparing my powerpoint in Swedish, and have also been putting the finishing touches to some of the Bible reading devotional booklets that I was working on this autumn. This is also a week of overseas coaching for me, as I connect with the KKI leader in Madagascar, as well as beginning coaching with two new clients - ladies from Costa Rica and Peru who are trainees in the Spanish language FOCOS coach training programme.

The recent good news about Teddi's health means that it's easy again for my neighbour to look after the cats while I'm gone. She'll only need to check on their food and water, now that Teddi doesn't need to be given daily thyroid medication any more. In fact, she'll only need to check on them for five days, as some other friends are staying the last weekend of November in my house, before driving a removal van all the way up to Germany to their new home there.

Thanks for your prayers during my trip to Sweden. God bless you.

Black cat tales...

It was at this time of year, back in 2008, that I was adopted by Tamba, that golden eyed, velvety soft, little cat that I encountered in the streets of Alhaurin. I never imagined that she would be with me for seven years and that she would introduce me to the adventure of raising a lively litter of little black kittens. She hovered around our doorstep for several months and it was only at the end of February that I finally took her into the house… and just in time, as she produced a litter of four kittens that very night.

Tamba's gone now, but two of the kittens, Teddi and Tobi are still with me. I can hardly believe that they're seven years old and are beginning to get some grey hairs - evidence of their growing into the season of being "senior" cats. Tamba must have been only around nine years old when she died, not a long life for a cat, but at least the last seven years of her life were good ones.

Until recently, it was looking as if Teddi would not outlive his mother's nine years, having been diagnosed this year with an over active thyroid gland and failing kidney function. But in an unexpected turn of events, he's made a sudden and seemingly miraculous improvement. (See post below this one.) Perhaps Tobi and Teddi will both live longer than Tamba after all.

The mystery of the miracle moggie

If you've read any of my previous posts about my trick-performing, furry friend, Teddi, you'll know that we've been on a bit of a medical roller coaster this year. In May, he was diagnosed with an over-active thyroid and the beginnings of kidney failure. In August, he lost his appetite, lost two kilos in weight, and had some liver troubles as a result. Then, amidst all the drama, he suddenly came back with a perfectly normal thyroid reading, albeit with a continuing slight deterioration in his kidney function.
See blog posts from 25th May, 29th June, and 22nd September for more about all that.

As a result of this apparently miraculous healing of his thyroid, we're now in our seventh week of not giving Teddi his daily pills, although I've continued to put his kidney supplement in his food every day. Despite being off his meds, Teddi has shown no thyroid symptoms at all, but appears to be as soft and fluffy as he was eighteen months ago, before the thyroid problems began. However, not wanting to be negligent and fail to give him medication if he really needs it (hyperthyroidism left untreated can eventually cause congestive heart failure and other major health problems), I followed the vet's advice and took him in last week to re-do the blood tests for his thyroid and also for his kidneys.

The results came back today and, sure enough, his thyroid reading is still completely normal: just 29, which is well within the normal T4 thyroid range of 19 - 50. It's really true that he no longer needs to take those little pink pills every day. This is not only good news for Teddi (cats with hyperthyroidism typically only survive the condition for a year or so) but also makes life considerably simpler for me. My own decisions about ministry travel are much less complicated if I don't need to worry about finding someone who's willing to give a cat medication during my absence.

We didn't only do Teddi's thyroid test last week, but decided to re-do his kidney function test as well. We had caught his kidney insufficiency before it was too advanced (he has no symptoms yet) and have been giving him a phosphate binder to protect his kidneys. The vet said that, if there's no sign of more rapid deterioration, it wouldn't really be a problem for Teddi to go without the kidney medicine if I was travelling for a week or so. This too would simplify life when I travel; it would mean that my neighbour just needed to pop in to check on the cats' dry food and water while I was gone, and not need to mess around with mixing kidney powder into a serving of wet food. Much easier!

Well, this is where things get really amazing for my miracle boy. His kidneys were only deteriorating very slowly over the past six months; each blood test was only slightly worse than the previous one, which was a hopeful sign that Teddi could possibly live another couple of years without any loss of quality of life. Today's results, like the thyroid test, showed something that the vet had never seen before: his kidney function seems to have improved just a little (his urea level is only slightly elevated and his creatinine level is back within the normal range.) I've to start giving him his kidney supplement only once a day now, instead of twice.

Although I'd read online that kidney failure caused by injury (poison, for example) is potentially reversible if caught and treated in time, statistics show, and the vet confirmed, that normal chronic kidney deterioration rarely improves with treatment in the way that liver function can improve and repair itself. So all three vets that have seen Teddi (it's a practice with three lady vets) are pretty amazed at these blood test results. None of them have ever known a cat to recover from hyperthyroidism or renal insufficiency; in fact, they've told me it's unheard of. 

So now my Teddi is not only famous for performing tricks on his YouTube channel, but also for making a miraculous recovery from two life-threatening health conditions. No one has an explanation for it - other than the fact that he was well prayed for over the past months, both by people who were with him in Spain, and people who were with me in Africa. So it's a medical mystery, but I'm enjoying having my boy back to (almost) normal, and very thankful to the Lord for this apparently miracle moggie.

Teddi's only main challenge in life now, is that his little sister, Tobi, keeps hissing at him and pouncing on him every now and then. She's only half his size, so it's a bit weird to see him being bullied by her. The vet says it's just the changing dynamic since Tamba's death earlier in the year (Tamba and Tobi used to lie together half the day) and that Tobi will eventually adjust and grow out of it. Teddi, in the meantime, seems to be set for a season of better health, and I'm daring to hope that I'm going to have him for longer than we recently thought.

On being an olive tree...

I've been reading some of the Bible psalms this past week in my morning times with the Lord. At the weekend, I got as far as Psalm 52. Much of the psalm is a reproach to a lying enemy, but right at the end, vs 8 - 9, there are two verses about the psalmist himself, and he begins by describing himself like an olive tree. There are various points in the psalms where the writer compares the righteous to trees - perhaps because of the stability and longevity that trees represent. Palm trees, cedars of Lebanon, trees planted by streams of water… and in this case, an olive tree.

Now that I live in a region where olive trees are plentiful, it's interesting to reflect on the qualities of that particular kind of tree. It's a strong tree, not fragile or easily destroyed. It survives for a long time; some olive trees are known to be hundreds or even thousands of years old. Even when an olive tree is chopped down, it's not quickly destroyed. One of my neighbours, just last week, was telling me that the reason olive is so popular as firewood is because it's slow burning. In comparing himself to a thriving olive tree, the psalmist was no doubt thinking of that kind of strength and stability - survival potential amidst life's trials.

Olive wood is not only strong, it's also beautiful - sometimes chosen for wooden utensils because of the gnarled patterns it makes. God longs to produce beauty in our lives, even if we, like the olive tree, are not particularly big or impressive.
And then there's the fruit it produces: hundreds and thousands of little green olives - such abundance of fruitfulness!

Spain is the number one olive producer in the world, so it's not surprising I see so many olive trees when I'm out walking the dog or driving in the car. As in other olive-growing countries, about 90% of the olive crop goes into the production of olive oil, that staple of Mediterranean cuisine, and the most expensive of the oils you can buy in the supermarket. About 10% of the crop will become "table olives," so often given as a snack or an appetiser before meals in this part of the world.

It's interesting that table olives can be so expensive in some countries, while here they're so plentiful. In fact, sometimes it seems almost wasteful: when I'm out walking the dog on the mountain behind my house, we pass so many wild olive trees, laden with fruit that no one will ever eat. Often there are ripe olives scattered all over the ground, apparently wasted, and we trample them underfoot. (No one picks them the way people help themselves to the wild figs, because figs can be eaten and enjoyed right away, but olives need a long process of curing and fermentation, sometimes requiring months of soaking in brine. )

Buba poses in front of a small olive tree

For us as Christians, it can sometimes seem at times that the fruit of our lives is being wasted: no one saw or appreciated that choice we made to be patient, or to forgive instead of being resentful; no one benefits from the accumulated wisdom of our many hours of reading God's Word; no one is aware of our courage and perseverance when we face challenging circumstances in our personal or family life. It seems like wasted fruit, scattered on the ground and trampled underfoot. But the truth is that nothing is wasted in God's sight. He saw that choice to give a gentle reply instead of an angry retort. He was watching when we chose to believe the best, rather than judging someone. He wept with us when we kept trusting Him despite great personal pain that other people were oblivious to. Even when the fruit of our lives feels like those "wasted" wild olives, God is aware of every tiny detail of our godly choices, and the beauty coming from our lives brings great joy to His heart.

Yes, there are some Christians whose lives become available for "public consumption," but like those table olives or cold-pressed olive oil, it's usually after they've been through a long and gruelling time of preparation: their child was abducted, they came through a life-threatening illness, or they were put in prison for their faith. Unlike the "wasted fruit" on the mountain, those oil olives or table olives have been pressed and crushed, waiting through long seasons where they felt forgotten or were drowning as they struggled to keep their heads above water. It's understandable that many of us would be secretly relieved to be a "wild and wasted" olive tree instead of suffering through that long preparation process.

In fact, though, we're all  "in preparation" - whether our fruit is very public or whether it appears to be largely unseen. All of us make choices every day that determine what sort of person we will be and what sort of fruit we will bear for the kingdom of God. Whether we're positioned in a public place or on a relatively isolated mountain path, all of us are masters of our own outcome in this aspect: whether we will be a barren tree or a fruitful tree in the house of God.

So, in vs 8 - 9 of Psalm 52, amidst his own difficult circumstances, the writer, David, mentions some of the things that help him thrive/flourish like an olive tree:

• I will always trust in God's unfailing love
• I will praise you forever, God, for what you have done
• I will trust in your good name in the presence of your faithful people

All of us can do these things: 

• trusting in God's love and character (His good name)
• being thankful for what he's already done
• and hanging out with the right kind of people, who will have a positive influence on us

Whether our lives are public or relatively hidden, these things are keys to being like a fruitful olive tree in God's sight.