the illegal car dealership i run.

well, not really, but i think the permanent ADT guard who lives in a little wooden hut across from my buddy Dunc’s house where i stay may be suspecting that’s what i do…

purely for the number of different cars of all shapes and sizes that he has seen me drive into 2 Smithers Road over the last two months…

i am always friendly and i always wave at him [or hims, because i think there are a bunch of them] which is probably what they look for in terms of suspicious people trying to look unsuspiciousful…

from Val’s folks to my friend Linda, from my buddy Ross to Beth’s mom, and then of course both Dunc and Megs cars [who i live with, Dunc and Megs i mean, the cars stay outside!] and a lift from my mom and my buddy Rob and Reegs and Mandy  and i imagine i have possibly left someone out, it has been insanely beautiful to see and experience the generosity of friends and family.

[thank you all so very deeply!]

i call it the church being the church – some people see church as that meeting that happens at that place on that day… i tend to see it as a friend saying, “I’m going overseas for three weeks, please feel free to use my car” or as two separate friends buying tickets to the cricket for tbV and me, or my buddy refusing to let me pay for a movie, or countless drinks and meals and one friend lending me his hockey stick and another friend giving me his Meltz voucher so i can buy a hoodie…

i do also see church as that meeting which can happen at that place on that day [and am grateful for some amazing experiences of church and especially worship i got to have while i was here] but it can never stay there. if what happens in that place never spills out into everyday life, then it’s a joke and a mockery and a fake [and pretty much a spitting into the face of God]

but one of the highlights of being home has been reconnecting with people who really ‘get’ what this church thing is about [or more importantly who] and meeting some new inspiring people that are on the verge of doing amazing incredible practical things for the gospel which are often the surest sign of the Love of God…

i am so hopeful for church. God’s people doing God’s stuff lavishly… keep on church… keep on!

a kiss before dying

my cousin Laura died two days ago.

she was 30. recently married. then cancer reared its ugly head. absolute tragedy.

just before she went into hospital i did get to send her an email and let her know that i loved her and was praying for her and her family and hoping for a miracle from God [which sadly never happened, not how i was hoping anyways]

so it was really sad, but there was also a strong sense of love and support of friends and family surrounding her in the months leading up to her death.

last nite i went onto facebook and saw message after message, from a whole variety of unlinked friends of mine across the country, mourning the death of Burry Stander, aged 25, a South African olympian mountain biker who was killed on Thursday while training after being hit by a minibus taxi

i didn’t know Burry, but a lot of my friends clearly did [either personally or just as fans and supporters]

i doubt any of them got to send him an email before he died.

for the most part, we just don’t know when we are going to die. or when those around us are.

FUNERALS

i have a love hate relationship with funerals.

i know they happen because someone died and so they are meant to be times of sadness, but for the most part i have enjoyed the ones i have been to… when they have been celebrations of the person’s life, rather than simply testaments to the fact that someone has died. i especially love the open mic. time when it happens when friends and family are invited to come forward and share a story about the person they love who has passed on.

but i am also always pretty bummed that the one person who really should be hearing the stories is not officially around to hear them. so one of my big dreams in life [and i guess some might think it’s a pretty sick one] is to come back to life once my funeral has started [open casket] and be able to eavesdrop on what people are saying [and let’s be honest to be able to shout “that’s a load of crap” if someone gets up and starts eulogising me who never had much good to say about me when i was alive. [with dreams like that, maybe it’s a good thing i don’t sleep more?]

the point of today’s scribing is this – how much more amazing would it be if we got to tell people just how much we love them and how much they mean to us, while they are still around to appreciate it?

i want to invite you, to challenge you, to do that! just for one person [for now at least and then maybe someone else tomorrow or next week] who you really care for and who maybe you haven’t told recently [or at all] how much you love them.

but i also want you to share with me who you do it to [i want to hear relationship so not the person’s name but simply a label of friend, family member, work colleague, girlfriend… whoever they are to you] and i want you to pass this challenge on to three other people [and i want to know their names] to encourage them to do the same…

so decide on one person in your life who you want to encourage [verbally, by email, by handwritten note, carrier pigeon?] and three people who you want to send this challenge on and in the comments section of this blog write it down like this:

encourage: my cousin
challenge: Ted, Bill, Napoleon

and then go and do it.

with friends like these, who needs enemas?

okay, so that title doesn’t apply AT ALL here, in fact it the opposite of applies, but it was likely to draw a lot more readers than ‘i like my friends’ and look, there you are so hi!

arrived back home after a good 32 hours or so of travelling [if you exclude the New Jersey/New York trip we took with airforce Jon to get to the airport] from JFK to Dubai for eight hour layover then to Cape Town and having watched 8 movies [fist pump!] to be met by Val’s family [mine are away] and then as we were heading out of the airport bumped into my best friend from college days Mandy Hunt and her two girls and gifts of flowers for Val and a balloon and a gift bag which i later discovered had some slabs of chocolate and two full packs of bacon [it’s like she knows…]

then on to Dunc’s house. Duncan Houston in one of the very few people from school i am in any contact with at all and one of my best buddies – we have not stayed in crazy ongoing contact while i’ve been away but every now and then have connected on Skype or Messenger and caught up… but after settling in and Val heading upstairs not to actively not sleep we started chatting and spent a few hours catching up and discussing the mysteries of the Universe – including religion, politics, family, life and more…
‘
it was seriously like no time had passed and i think the best friendships in life are categorised by that. the ability to be able to step into a friendship that has had a 19 month face (and to some extent, contact) gap and just pick up where we left off.

Duncan and Megan have been beyond generous throughout our married lives and inviting us to live with them for the whole time we are back home [altho Dunc did say if we hit June then we might have to talk…] has been just one more gift of amazingness [to be fair, nodding at the chocolate cupboard while uttering the words ‘help yourself’ was maybe not the brightest of moves] and we are very much looking forward to the rest and rejuvenation this time is going to bring for us…

so yes, i am completely grateful for the friends that i have – my other best friend Rob Lloyd is coming over with his wife Nicky for lunch and looking forward to connect with my other best buddy Reegs on the weekend if not before… and then there is MJ who has been prepping my hobbit suit for the cricket on Friday – does it get any better than that?

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.

 

the games we play: part intro

my family and friends have always played a lot of games [except for my dad, he hates games with a passion, his favourite is sitting in the lounge reading his newspaper while the rest of the family plays trivial pursuit and shouting out all the answers, but that’s about the closest he gets]

but my mom and my sisters love games, and the large majority of friends in my and now our friend ship circles are games players to a certain extent – it is a great way to relax and vibe and hopefully chill together around a table with a bunch of mates…

growing up there was monopoly [only to be pulled out at sleepovers really cos tended to be an all nighter] and risk [which i played a crazy amount – we adapted a two player game and my friend ferdi and i played best of ten matches with one or two games almost daily at one point] and cluedo [‘clue’ to the americanese] and scrabble which were all good and fine and well and all…

but then we discovered Rage which is a special card deck game for up to ten players where you bid on how many tricks you are going to get and then try and get them… and life changed forever [especially at our church student house called ‘Highbury’ where we would play through the night on occasion, because after all, what is the difference between 1.15am and 1.45am?]

and then a good mate of mine introduced me to Settlers of Catan [or more accurately, the german version, called ‘Die Siedler von Catan’] and i had to trust his translations of all the german cards and wonder why he kept beating me, but then later we discovered the english version and it became a firm favourite.

what made it better was the expansion pack known as ‘cities and knights’ which added a whole lot of new dimensions to an already great game and the record for playing that stands at something crazy like seven and a half hours [largely due to one of the players – you know who you are deane – playing reeeeeeally slowly] and once we’d played that we rarely went back [except to introduce someone new to ‘settlers’]

after that came ‘carcassonne’ which i call ‘kucky sahn’ and which my friend coe [who hates it] calls ‘shaka khan’ which was a settlerish type game [in that the game board is not constant but created differently each game which is a huge part of the attraction] but one that took 45 minutes to an hour as opposed to 2 to 3 hours…

all that to say there are a LOT of games out there and a bunch of them are REALLY a lot of good fun – we have discovered a small bunch more and i will give some reviews of the newer ones we play so that if any of you are looking for a new game to try, you might find something here… and i would love to hear what your favourite games to play with a group of friends are…

the latest we have been playing, or are just about to, include Seven Wonders, Jambo, Flash Point [played for the first time last night] and Forbidden Island [yet to play, still in packaging] – reviews to follow…

for The Settlers of Catan click here

Taboo Topics: Adoption – meet Jane and Mike

My husband mike and I decided to start a family at the beginning of last year and so I went off contraception and we started trying. We assumed it would be quick and easy, because we have only heard stories of people falling pregnant quickly – even in the first or second month, and with no complications. And so the first month or two we weren’t worried, we enjoyed the excitement of getting ready to become a family and waiting to see whether or not my period would come. But after six months I started to feel down. I was seeing pregnant women and babies EVERYWHERE, friends who weren’t even sure if they wanted babies yet were falling pregnant, and we were waiting. And waiting. And waiting. I felt more pressure to get it right, more pressure to succeed, but I didn’t know how to do it any better. And so we would try and inevitably fail month after month. I couldn’t understand how God could allow me to struggle with this when he knew how much I wanted to be a mother and how Mike and I longed for a family. I had to do a lot of soul searching (why do I want to be a mother so bad? If I never fall pregnant will I still love God? Do I trust God with the plans for my life?), and often I would spend worship time at church crying, willing myself to believe the words people sang with abandon. God is faithful, He is true, He fulfills his promises, He gives and takes away. For the first time in my life I had to ask myself if I REALLY believed that.

Before this time Mike and I had always talked about adopting, and after a year of trying for a baby the niggles in my brain (what about adoption?) became more persistent. We went to the gynaecologist to see that everything was all right and found out I have polycystic ovaries which means that we are not sure of when my egg is released and it is therefore harder to conceive because we do not know when I’m ovulating. This does not mean I can’t fall pregnant, but it does mean that it can take longer than normal. My gynae then gave us the option; keep trying naturally or go on medication to assist us. What a blow to my self-esteem! You keep thinking “what if I’m the reason we are not falling pregnant?” And then you find out – it is you, there is something wrong with your body. I felt so guilty, felt to blame in some part for the reason why we had ‘wasted’ a year trying for a baby. I had to come to terms with the fact that I could not control a hormonal imbalance in my body, and that it wasn’t my fault. That God loved me through this all, and that this was a blessing in disguise because by knowing what was wrong we could go ahead.

It was at this point that Mike reminded me again of our wish to adopt at some stage in life. We could keep trying and use medication to help, but if we were serious about adoption, why not go ahead with it now? We could try to conceive a sibling at a later stage because we now knew the obstacles we faced. And so, in March this year, we spent a weekend away talking, praying, crying (ok, that was mostly me) and setting aside all our doubts. We asked the questions that had been casting shadows in our minds: What if we don’t love them as much as a biological child? What if nature is stronger than nurture? What if our family or friends don’t support us? What if, what if, what if? But with every fear said in the open, peace descended and we realized that although a little bit of fear is good, we serve a God who can overcome every obstacle and redeem every situation. And so, petrified and excited, we made the decision to adopt.

And since that moment a lightness has fallen over me. I feel that the year of trying that we went through was a journey I had to take to grow in the knowledge of God and in trusting His ultimate plan for me. I believe that if we had adopted last year we would not have been given the baby God has in store for us, for they were not born yet! I believe that the pain I felt has been redeemed with hope, and I understand with a peace that transcends understanding that this is my journey. I am a mother, and my child is on its way. It’s just in someone else’s stomach. And I cannot wait to be a Mom. I absolutely love and adore my child. I don’t know what they look like or where they come from, but I cannot wait to find out who they are and to shower them with kisses and cuddles. And so, after finishing our screening through our adoption agency, we wait. And we get ready to start the next chapter in our lives together – Mom and Dad!

[Jane and Mike Hampton]

[To jump forward two years and hear some words from Jane and Mike since adopting, click here]

psalmthing to chew on: psalm 1

my good buddy rob lloyd just got me a new bible because my old one was literally falling apart and i like the idea of starting again in a sense – rediscovering old favourite passages, underlining new ones, breaking the bible in so to speak…

and as i sat and thought where to begin i decided to start with the psalms, and i don’t know that i will necessarily read one per day but i am going to start today and see how it goes and i thought it might be nice to bring other people with me, or maybe you were looking for a new place to read and want to read along with me – i am going to read a psalm and write a comment or a thought or reflection and would love it if you wanted to write yours in the comments below so together we can learn from what God is saying to us as we take this journey…

so today, starting with psalm 1, what jumps out at you? what don’t you understand? what has God whispered as you read it? what is one idea you just really enjoyed? i would love to hear what you got out of it…

this is a great psalm – first thing that jumped out at me was line 1 ‘blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked’ – and to be honest i think i always read that as ‘council’ as in meeting-place or gathering, instead of counsel which surely means ‘being advised/counselled by’ which changes it completely… complete tie-in to one of my favourite proverbs ‘wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses’ [27.6] or ‘they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear’ [2 Timothy 4.3] and a reminder that even though it might look strongly appealing to have yes-people around us, it will be a blessing and better life choice to not live life being advised/counselled by these people but rather people who will speak truth in love.

and then verse 3 which talks about being ‘planted by streams of water’ – the result being that whatever you do will prosper – echoes of being firmly rooted like in the story of the house built on the rock [Matthew 7.24] or the need to be in constant connection to the vine which is God [John 15] and how as a result the fruit will naturally happen – not so much by work or effort but by inviting God to work it through you as you stay holding on to Him.

so that’s a good start to this journey – the reminder that as a Christ follower my number one focus must be on being nourished by my Father in heaven and that i should look to surround myself with people [at least in terms of those who advise/bring counsel to me] who actively follow Christ and will unashamedly speak truth in love to me [even if sometimes that might be hard for me to receive]

[To continue to Psalm 2, click here]

[To return to the start of this series on Psalms as well as some other Bible things, click here]