You won’t relent until You have it all…

one of the first things i want to do once i am settled in Americaland is buy a copy of this song ‘You won’t relent’ by Jesus Culture – i find the lyrics and the singing of it so powerfully haunting and it just resonates s completely with my soul in terms of catching a glimpse of how God sees me. i am reminded of this passage from 2 Corinthians 2.14-15 which says, ‘For Christ’s Love compels us, because we are convinced that One died for all, and therefore all died. And He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for Him who died for them and was raised again.’ Especially the phrase, ‘Christ’s Love compels us’ which if you don’t understand the context seems to carry the message of ‘You have to do this thing’ but once you catch a glimpse of God’s great all-encompassing Love for you it quickly becomes something closer to, ‘I can’t not do this for God, everything in me just pulls towards this’…

You won’t relent – performed by Jesus Culture

You won’t relent until You have it all,
My heart is Yours [4x]

I’ll set You as a seal upon my heart
as a seal upon my arm
For there is love that is as strong as death
Jealousy, demanding as the grave
And many waters cannot quench this love

You won’t relent until You, have it all
My heart is Yours
You won’t relent until You, have it all
My heart is Yours
Come be the fire inside of me
Come be the flame upon my heart
Come be the fire inside of me
Until You and I are One [2x]

I don’t want to talk about You
Like You’re not in the room
I want to look right at You
I want to sing right to You [3x]

You won’t relent until You have it all,
My heart is Yours [4x]

I’ll set You as a seal upon my heart
as a seal upon my arm
For there is love that is as strong as death
Jealousy demanding as the grave
And many waters cannot quench this love

Come be the fire inside of me
Come be the flame upon my heart
Come be the fire inside of me
Until You and I are One [2x]

how to make this man cry at an airport.

i don’t cry a lot. not because i don’t want to, i just don’t. i have spent many prayers through the years asking God to make me cry more and for the most part He doesn’t. there was a moment on a bench outside of a Simple Way retreat last year where the tears came and my wife was around to witness it and it was short and very much linked to God and worship and just being still and knowing. the time before that i remember was the second time i watched the Passion of the Christ when i was by myself in the little Knysna cinema while promoting New Song fest – i had been around a bunch of people i knew the first time i watched it and so the tears didn’t come but for some reason there by myself, just taking in the sacrifice of Jesus… instant water action… i think that was something like ten years since my previous cry – not that i haven’t felt sad or really sad or moved or even broken inside for various reasons at other times during that time period, but it just never culminated in a lot of crying…

back to this morning and my beautiful wife Valerie [tbV] is about to board a plane by herself [well with other people] to head for Americaland for a conference in Philly before heading to Oakland, California where i will meet up with her later if all goes according to plan… likely to be gone for two to four weeks before i see her again and no that is not what made me cry. we were sitting at the Spur [no!] with her family [not that either] and suddenly she does her little magic trick where she lifts up her hands from her lap and her wedding ring is missing. oh wait, she doesn’t have a trick like that? not good. chaos reigns supreme – everyone searches the Spur and i am sent down to look at the ticket desk where there is no chance it is and bags are searched and eventually we just sit and wait for our food and are very sad. we figure the best chance is that it came off in the pool where we are staying. we managed to get Yuliswa, the house cleaner, on the phone and she look in our room and has just cleaned our on suite bathroom – nothing – so we say our goodbyes and i head to go search the car and then gun it home to see if i can search the pool before her flight leaves- we are running very fine…

ring not in car. car has 40km of petrol left it in and i have about an hour and ten minutes so time to get home, search for ten minutes and get back in time before she boards… after driving 60km/h [ish] all the way home re-interpreting a few road laws on the way i dive into the pool fully partially clothed and search the whole bottom of the pool and check the creepy filter – nothing! head up to the bedroom and pull off all the covers and look behind the bed – nothing. do a quick sweep under Val’s side of the bed and come up with her wedding ring [which is actually her engagement ring which we replaced after the big engagement ring steal/loss of three weeks after arriving at the Simple Way] in my hand…

[surreal moment of realisation that i have the ring and much happiness and joy and then suddenly snap out of it with a moment of]

I SHOULD GET THIS TO THE AIRPORT…

a drive of indeterminable speed later and getting the sister to phone the airport to get the call for Veleni Andersen [i have the piece of paper to prove it] to start happening and arrive and park and run and see information guy and get pointed to security entrance and look for my wife and see as the lift door opens and there she is and will the security lady let me through [no!] and will she let her through [no!] and so she takes the ring and gives it to her [did i mention i carried it in my mouth for most of the drive – would have been super bummed if i’d swallowed it but was also scared it would get stuck on my finger and was in a bit of a hurrylike] and then she eventually lets Val come through and kiss me and…

i cried! and it was great cos she did too and we were both busy hugging so much that she couldn’t really see but it was the really big difference between a horrible two days of flight to Joburg – Washington – Philadelphia and an amazing happy tear-filled i-am-loved-by-my-crazy-speedster-husband flight to Joburg – Washington – Philadelphia. what a way to send your wife off.

almost wish i’d planned it. but no.

and so yay what a good cry. and thankful to God and Bron and info man and security lady and all the people on the roads who for the most part got out of the way and let me past really quite nicely.

the simple away

Wow! 19 months flew by, just like… well 570 days, really.

June last year, after about four months of weekly Skype calls with our present and to be future bossman Darin Petersen, the beautiful Val [tbV] and i arrived in Kensington, Philadelphia, Americaland to live and work at the Simple Way non-profit as part of the first batch of an internship program [which was later upgraded to a residency program when they saw our skills, or something]…

[a fun fact is that i was born and raised in an area called Kensington in Johannesburg, South Africa, the country and so in one sense it was a return to my roots but not really]

We joined Erica [aka Amy Winehouse meets activism], Aaron Condo…n [aka Monkman, master, my lord] and Beth [aka Beth or the Doodler, or quite possible milkwoman, altho we never called her that] who was doing a shorter three month internship and we became known as ‘The Village People’ [the house we stayed in was called the Village House, we did the YMCA a lot less than you would probably imagine]. The first internationals to be invited to be part of the program, so quite a bit of a risk really. Shane Claiborne and his new bride Katie Jo lived a few houses down the road, Darin and his wife Meeghan and their kids Just Ice [as i called him, because i wanted to give him a little space] and Madix… and then a handful more people who lived in other places but worked with us in the office… and later Sueihn Lee and Dan Brearley were added as Erica, Aaron and Beth [twice] moved on…

This is the passage that indirectly got me there, that i had been wrestling with when i chanced upon Shane’s book, ‘The Irresistible Revolution’ 6 years before, which resonated with a lot of my struggles with how church looked like now compared to then – ‘They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.’

and tonite we fly out… season over… back to South Africa to hang out with friends and family and watch some live cricket dressed as a Hobbit and hopefully get some hockeying and improv in and meet my new nephew Joshua and get to see if i was telling lies about South Africa mayonnaise for the last 19 months and have some braais and my mom’s secret birthday dessert she makes for me once a year and possibly pool party and hopefully get my dreads touched up and get some rest and relaxation and reflection and more…

before a new season begins. which will be with the same boss, different no-profit [Relational Tithe, or as it is about to be more commonly known Common Change] but the absolute same task of following Jesus [or trying to] and seeking to be a part of His kingdom growing here as it is in heaven.

and so the big question i guess, as we enter one of those reflectful times of both the end of a life season and the end of a calendar year [sorry Mayans, the Romans were right!] is how was the time? Good, bad or ugly? A combination of all, perhaps? Was the way simple?

i guess you will have to take me out for coffee [or a rack of Spur Ribs with extra basting] when we get home and you can ask that in person…

i can tell you it wasn’t easy. well, not all the time, some parts were really easy. Val and i love Kensington. we absolutely love Philly. we love so many of the people we got to meet and hang out and do life with.

i can tell you we would definitely make the same decision to do it all again – good, bad and ugly.

but it is time to go. and so later today i think we will.

i do still very much love Jesus and am hungry to see His kingdom come.

after years and years of loving Him [or trying to] and serving Him [ditto] i have found that His way, although simple in concept, is very rarely simple when you actually try to actively live it out. [fortunately He never leaves you to do it alone…]

so a new year, a new location, a new mission…
but still the continuing overall theme of ‘Love God, Love people… and all the rest is commentary!

One way to make your mark [in the ongoing journey of the andersons]

So yesterday i wrote a post sharing a deeper glimpse into the future life, work and ministry of the andersons over here – we will be joining a non-profit called Relational Tithe with a working platform called Common Change which, in a very big nutshell, gathers resources from a group of people and then uses them to meet advocated needs from people within the group.

It is a very exciting project and both Valerie and myself are super amped for it. Neither of us are huge fans of the whole asking people money in support thing [although i have less of a problem when it comes to spending other peoples’ money on something i really believe in, it’s just the asking that is generally awkward] but this looks like it is the way this thing has to go – we will be committing to an 18 month period and so it will be a closed ask [as opposed to “support us for the next ten or twenty years”] which makes us feel a little more comfortable as well.

I shared yesterday that Common Change is in line for a matching grant which means that if people pledge donations of up to $1000 then Giving of Life will match whatever is donated up to and including that $1000. Currently Common Change is sitting on $225 and so has $775 to go. The deal has just been sweetened for us by Common change committing to using the $1000 extra they get [if reached] towards our plane tickets and this is where you come in.

This is a way that you can make a donation towards a really great project [the money raised will go towards admin and site hosting costs to ensure that 100% of the tithed money from the groups continues to go towards the needs being met] and also contribute towards our flights back here [mid Feb] and the start of our next journey.

So if you are able to donate $5 or $10 or even $50 or $100, every little bit helps a lot and it will take a whole bunch of people donating a small amount to reach the $1000 pretty easily – if you would like to do that then head here and add your bit. If you don’t have money to donate [or even if you do] there is also a space on that page to vote and the top three receive some kind of bonus [if you sign up via Facebook and Twitter you get two extra votes which you can use – voting is free and i don’t think puts you on any spam lists]

thank you for your time and interest and possible donation or vote… every little bit counts…

[if you want to be more personally involved in our journey then drop me an email at brettfish@hotmail.com and let me know how you would like to be involved]

actually it IS the end of the world [as we know it]

as depicted so well in my previous post by Stephan Pastis of Pearls Before Swine cartoon fame, R.E.M. had something when they came up with their hit song that 73% of people know the two words “Leonard Bernstein” [but is it pronounced Steen or Styn? another mystery] to – It’s the end of the world as we know it.

with Australia and Americaland being on different days for a huge portion of any 24 hour period, it was always going to be a bit of a feat for the Apocalypse to arrive on precisely one calendar day only and presumably by the time your Australian friend stopped replying to your frenetic “are we there yet?” “are we there yet?” “are we there yet?” messages, you probably wouldn’t even have time to reach for your closest can of beans.

and so, no, the world hasn’t ended.

but it has ended as we know it. in fact it does that every day. unless there was some way for it to be completely frozen in every possible manner of time, energy and space, the day we wake up to is not the day we left behind. the world has changed. and more importantly our world has changed.

the question we have to ask ourselves [well maybe ‘have’ is a strong word cos i imagine most people don’t] is, ‘Is the world a better place today because of how i lived yesterday?’ and the more relevant question of ‘Will the world be a better place tomorrow because of how i choose to live today?’

this is a question of selflessness, service and Love vs. ego, pride and selfishness

it’s a question of community, congregation and fellowship vs. individualism, materialism and consumption

and it is a question of how am i involved in reaching out to those who are marginalised and lonely, considered by the world to be ‘the least of these’?

Jesus seemed to have a very strong opinion on that… and so if you call yourself a Jesus follower, this is quite probably something you should take note of:

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

“He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

[Matthew 25.31-46]

i guess, the question is, as far as you are concerned… it is the end of the world, as you know it. do you feel fine?

thank you. [and you and you!]

so as tbV and i are nearing the end of our time here at the Simple Way in Philadelphia, Americaland, we have had to focus a lot on looking forwards at the exciting times and opportunities that lie ahead, but i also want to be mindful of taking some time to look back – there is a lot to be grateful for…

there is a saying that ‘God owns the cattle on a thousand hills’ but i would go one further and add that for the most part He seems to have placed that cattle in other peoples possession and without a bunch of generous people coming on board, we would have really struggled to make it here as relatively easy as we did.

december 2010: having alerted the church where i worked almost a year previously as to my intentions, i resigned after 6 years at the Stellenbosch Vineyard church and Val and i were obedient to what i had strongly felt God telling us in terms of waiting on Him for the next move… for Val is was a huger step of faith in a sense as she had not heard from God but had to trust that i had. So we started 2011 with not too much money and relatively no income.

waiting on God for the next steps can be a daunting thing, especially when you have no income and it is not as if expenses have dried up – we still were renting an apartment and paying for petrol [that’s gas for you Americaners] and trying to eat on occasion. Val was finishing her Masters thesis and apart from some tiny TheatreSports show income [altho to be honest, petrol to the show usually exceeded money from the show so that was never likely to send us overseas] and then later some dictation work we did, there was not a lot coming in. i was salaried for January and then nothing.

and when you start writing lists of people to thank, you will always leave out some key people, but there are some names i do want to mention that stand out and trust that if you did not get a mention it is just because it is early morning as i type this and for a minute you slipped my mind – we are completely grateful for anyone and everyone who helped in various ways.

Tim van de Venter is one who comes to mind who ‘randomly’ during one of the months we didn’t have salary, called us up and told us God had told him to pay a month of our rent. That was the only time that happened in a couple of months of not having rent and it turned out it was the one time e really needed it. i do remember a specific time [and think there were more] of needing to pay something on the Friday and knowing we didn’t have enough in the bank and going online when i got home to find someone had mysteriously deposited just what we needed in our account.

my friend and ex youth guy Steve Legendwood and his wife Anne totally blew us away with a gift from London that far exceeded ‘hey, here’s a nice little gift’ proportions, at a time when we really needed to buy air tickets to get over to Americaland.

one of the faceless [to me, i’m pretty sure he has a face] recipients of the weekly ‘Thort for the Week’ messages i used to send out weekly, a man named William Bates,  suddenly appeared out of nowhere and decided to start blessing Val and i with R500 in our bank account every month for a year [and i am pretty sure that year ended a while back, while the support didn’t]

shortly after we got here, an old family friend who i had not seen for probably ten years or so, Lisa Pieterse and her husband Jacques, started sponsoring Val and myself a generous amount per month to be used specifically for date night money, which was an incredible way to give us a gift [as we were able to use it solely for that without feeling guilty or as if we should be spending it elsewhere] and so it was really great when we got to host them between midnight and i think 4am one night as they had a Philly stopover on the airport and catch up and meet them for the first time.

my buddy Duncan and his wife Megs and young son Connor ‘What’s that?’ Houston [of the clan Houston] who invited me and Val into their home for the last week or ten days before we left South Africa [despite my housesitting reputation of setting off pretty much every single alarm in any house i have ever housesat and, sure enough, at something like 1am the one morning…] and have just been crazy generous in a lot of other ways as recently as lending the money [that we have coming in from tax back home but don’t have yet] to be able to buy a ticket so i can fly home and once again daring to have us stay with them once more.

our friend Naomi Brooks from Scotland but really Stellenbosch and now Scotland again, who has been uberly generous in all kinds of ways and manners since we have known her, but particularly for opening her flat to us before we left and then keeping us supplied with cards and letters and chocolate stash and gifts while we have been here – there are still not many things that beat receiving fun mail in the post that you can hold [and eat!]

and then those who i lovingly refer to as ‘My Top Deck crew’ and my, there are a lot of you… a few years ago i was awakened to the horrors of ‘Americaland chocolate’ in the form of something called Hershey’s [which is not chocolate – i hate to use the word ‘vomit’ so i cannot tell you what i honestly think of it, but it is bad] and while there are some saving graces in products like Dove and Ghirardelli [and the free ball they give you every time you visit a Lindt shop!] that do exist over here, nothing Tops the Deck and at times the generous donations from friends and family back home have really lifted me emotionally and given me strength to face another day, moment or challenge. after years of research back home it was shown that melted Top Deck, accompanied on occasion by melted Smartie Eggs, is at the top of the chocolate food chain. for some reason ‘left in the sun’ [and drunk from the bag] beats out ‘nuked in nukrowave’ in quality of taste and experience, but both are great. so THANK YOU – you know who yous are.

as i said, there were more people and occasions than i can possibly remember – i just felt it important to highlight a few [and special mention must go to Dreadlocked Mike and formerly Emo Kev who took hours out to start off my dreadlocks a day or two before we flew over here, and my beautiful wife for setting that up] in terms of letting you all know how grateful and thankful we are for the provision of God’s cattle, whether directly from Him [and we had the sense of those times] or indirectly through people in many ways, shapes and forms – we literally, figuratively and metaphorically could not have done it without you.

we have met so many generous and loving people here as well and give much thankx to the friendships and encounters and experiences and hospitality God has placed in our paths and a special mention must go to our friend Jon Butcher, who within a week or so of knowing me had offered to buy me a new laptop in place of my ailing one and who introduced us to some really cool friends and had some great hanging out times.

we love and appreciate and thank God for you all and for the hundreds or maybe even thousands of you who have stayed in touch and been praying and taken time to find out how we are doing and those who have visited or skyped or written… thank you, thank you, thank YOU! we have felt extremely loved. and supported.

 

2013: there and back again!

so for friends back home there have been hints and allegations [a loose affiliation of millionaires and billionaires and baby] and subtle innuendos as to what might be pertaining to the future for the andersons after this year…

for those of you who have been following semi-closely, the beautiful Valerie [tbV] and i have been living, working and ministering with the Simple Way Christian non-profit organisation in Kensington, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Americaland since about June of last year and altho it has been one of the more difficult years of our lives it has also been a great year and an exciting one and one where we had no doubt at all that God had called us to be in this place at this time and so that really helped during some of the tougher times and so we will definitely look back at 2011/2012 as a good time of growth and challenge and hopefully transformation, for both us and also the Simple Way and the area of Kensington we lived in and all those we came into contact with.

“but what next?” i hear you ask. well i don’t, really, cos that would be creepy, but i am going to imagine someone asked it, so that i can give a little bit of a glimpse into the future that we are facing [sorry, Mayans! – yes, being cocky about the predicted end of the world is something anyone who is doubting it can feel free to do because if you’re wrong then who gets to rub it into your face? score!]

so our time here at the Simple Way runs until the end of the year – the office winds down around the 23rd of December and then we have just booked tickets South-Africawards for the 30th [arriving home 1 January 2012] where we will be for a month to a month and a half if all goes according to plan [which will include a trip to Durban to visit my sister Dawn and her husband Glen and our new nephew Joshua and also a bunch of our friends] and then sometime in February we will head back to americaland, but this time settling in Oakland, California where we will be working once more with our Simple Way boss, Darin Petersen, but with another non-profit called Relational Tithe [soon also to be known as ‘Common Change’] for around 18 months and beyond that we are trusting that God will direct once more…

when we are home i hope to be playing lots of TheatreSports, hopefully some hockey and drinking a whole lot of coffee with friends and family as we catch up and hang out and refresh and catch up and prepare for the next part of our exciting life journey together. [Val will be testing out the beaches and cocktails and making sure they continue to meet Cape Town’s high standards]

one of the obstacles we face is the task of finding finances to firstly return to americaland and then to be able to live here [in a somewhat different context to Kensington] for the eighteen months that follow. support-raising is not something either Val or i flock towards with open arms, but the work we are returning to is something that excites us in terms of the potential it has for life, community and church transformation, that we may have to be willing to swallow our pride and have some interesting conversations with some of you. neither of us like the idea of being tricked/manipulated into giving to even something that is a good cause and so i wanted to be up front with what will have to somehow be a part of this trip. so more of that to follow.

but mostly we are looking forward to people [not all of the people we want to see will be there – some are in the UK and Switzerland and Australia and a host of other places] and being able to tell stories and share a glimpse of what these last 18 months have meant to us and share some of the anticipation of what the next part of our journey will look like.

and probably in one of the strangest aspects of the whole trip, i, brett fish anderson, will be looking forward to mayonnaise, because no offence americaland, but you SUCK at making it…

much love and thrilled anticipation
brett fish anderson [brettfish@hotmail.com] and the beautiful Val [and of course No_bob]