Merry Christmas (or Happy Christmas, if you’re British) and
Happy New Year – it’s been a while.
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| We had a snow day last week: 4 inches means that the town shuts down! |
The last time I sat here in Coffee #1 tapping an update into
my laptop, the Christmas lights hadn’t yet gone up in Wellington and there was
still the seemingly unending question of how long I’d actually be in the
country. Since then, immigration moved
itself forward, resulting in a sudden flight back to the States where I spent
the month of December walking through the visa application process with the
team, meeting with people in the churches, and teaching and leading for this
and that. The suitcase stayed perpetually
packed; I wasn’t sure of the return date until about the 20th,
meaning that I needed to be ready to go at any point. In the end, I rang in the New Year somewhere
over the Atlantic, as the flight touched down at Heathrow on New Year’s
morning.
The absence of updates hasn’t been due to negligence or
busyness. It’s that it’s been a pretty
inarticulate (nearly) two months. I’m
thankful that God speaks about the coming “seasons” before they arrive; his
intimations and prophetic direction become “light to my path” when walking
through those “seasons” when they come.
In this case, God had spoken about challenge and testing coming as well
as a rearranging of fundamental aspects of ‘who I am’, if you’ll allow me to
say it in such a psychologically self-aware way.
Sure enough, that “season” arrived in full force during the
past two months. I spent a lot of time
dialoguing with God but knew trying to write much would have been like taking
you off the footpaths here into some bramble-infested, muddy thicket- maybe an
interesting exploration, but an unhelpful way to experience the countryside. There’s no point in trying to summarize now
except to say that I’m know there’s plenty in me that’s shifting and changing –
I’m sure it will be voiced in due time.
I’m back now, observing Wellington from a drafty corner of
the coffee shop, grasping my teacup with both hands in an attempt to soak up as
much warmth as physically possible. It’s
been a “warm” few days, but these followed a week of the most snow that the
Southwest has seen for a couple of years, and my toes, fingers, and nose still
feel perpetually numb. Still, winter
seems to be starting to lift: sunrise is a little earlier than 7:30 now, and
it’s not pitch black at 4:15 in the afternoon anymore.
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| John preparing to enjoy his first cream tea... |
Our final team member will join us this Saturday: Marie has
finished her work contract and moves to Taunton this weekend. The rest of the team- Tahmi, Jim, and John –
have all been here for nearly a month now.
Doing essentially all of life with people is certainly a shift for me,
but it’s a good one. The past few weeks
have allowed everyone to begin to find their feet, and there’s now a sense of
momentum in forming connections and reaching out into the town- more on that
later. In the middle of that, though,
there’s plenty of time for all sorts of things…for example,
- Eating at Gregg’s.
John generally orders at least one pasty per day. Jim isn’t far behind on total number of
orders.
- Learning the ‘Thriller’ dance. Everyone learned it, actually, including the
kids and Kim. And yes, it was performed
in public.
- Playing games. Many
varieties. Every day, if Viv and Jev
have anything to do with it. Bananagrams
is my new favorite. (I’ve won every time except once.) I do not like Kemps.
(I’d rather not talk about how many times I’ve won that one.)
- Quoting ‘Nacho Libre’ and/or holding general conversations
in an accent akin to that of Jack Black.
This only involves the other three, as I don’t even remember the film.
- Exploring...footpaths; Taunton town centre; pubs; landmarks,
if we can get there. We’ve gotten used
to John vaulting over fences and doing backflips off walls along the way. Simultaneously, Tahmi’s attention is usually
on one of the thousands of “cute”, well-groomed dogs out for a walk with their
owners while I focus my energies on getting to the current destination as fast
as my legs will carry me- anything to avoid the cold rain. And Jim unyieldingly keeps his own unhurried pace-
although that could be due to the fact that he’s usually carrying a backpack
full of items I’ve handed him.
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| Team 'bonding': guess how Claudia feels about wool socks that have been stuffed into wellies for a few days... |
Really, it’s not all fun and games, and I’ll share about
that in due course. But in the middle of
all that God is doing in me, I’m(almost always) glad to be surrounded by people
to who love to enjoy life. Laughter is
medicine, as the proverb says, and resting in enjoying God, others, and this
season seems to be as significant a part of what God is doing here as each
focused, “purposeful” block of time.
