Poured Out

NOTE: Lots of new posts today.  Scroll down a little for new photos.

I am thankful to report the party went really well! Around 100 kids came and 80 adults, a large number not from our church. Many people said how much fun they had and expressed gratitude that we had organized an event like this. A friend that I hadn’t seen for a long time came with her two kids and she’s coming over tomorrow too so you can pray for good conversation about the Lord. One of our elders gave a short talk on the prodigal son which many people talked through, but pray for some seeds to fall on open hearts. Oh, yes, the puppet song went fine too. We sent home a letter in each goody bag explaining the different activities for kids that we have at church and included a short gospel explanation about why we had a “light” party. Again, pray that those seeds would fall on good soil. We also invited everyone to a cafe event we are having at church this Sunday. During the past week, many people have been invited to this special event that will replace our normal service. So pray for lots of non-believers to come and open their hearts to the Lord. It is so exciting to be able to share the gospel with people. Prayer is a huge key in the effectiveness of the message.

Peter is safely at his retreat and probably speaking as I write this. On the homefront, everyone is asleep, but Mariah is coughing. We have noticed that when she eats sugar, she gets a cough. It is amazing how this keeps happening. Ah, well, she enjoyed all the party sweets! I am hoping for a peaceful night.

Some “light” verses for you from 1 Thessalonians 5: “But you, brethren, are not in darkness, that the day (of the Lord) would overtake you like a thief; for you are all sons of light and sons of day. We are not of night nor of darkness; so then let us not sleep as others do, but let us be alert and sober. . . . But since we are of the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet, the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us.

The children and I are about to leave for our church’s “Light Party.” I wanted to put a post on here yesterday, asking for prayer . . . better late than never. Maybe a few people will read this and pray. Pray for many people to come, for all to run smoothly, for protection from Satanic attack (remember what day today is), and for Jesus’ Light to be shared with all who come! I will be helping perform a puppet rendition of “This Little Light of Mine” so you can pray that I won’t mess up! High pressure, you know!

I will report how it went when we get home tonight.

Enjoy the snow pictures below!

Snug as bugs in a rug! Camping in the living room

What a shock!  We woke up to a white world.

Shall we kick it?

Our little snow angel!

Hannah, laying in the soft, white bushes.

Fall colour with snow, just to prove it really is October!

Our persevering Aliyah worked hard to create Frosty!

Today I am driving up to Shropshire to lead the CU houseparty for Leicester Uni’s Christian Union.  I am speaking four times in main sessions and twice in workshops – all on the gospel of Mark.  Please pray for a significant and worthwhile weekend of ministry.  Thanks.

It’s been a great week, and now I’m home.  Nothing exciting to say about the journey home.  Two flights, a too-short layover in Doha (too short because I was really enjoying the study I was doing while waiting there), an early morning arrival at Gatwick and home on the train.  So nothing exciting, but grateful to be back.  I took the children out for a few hours this morning to give Melanie some down time.  So tomorrow I have a morning sermon and an evening seminar.  It’s busy season, but it’s also a blessing to be involved in these things.  Thanks for praying for us this week.

In the past missionary heroes packed their coffins and headed to their death.  Either they’d die soon, or after many tough years on the other side of the world.  It’s easy to criticize missionaries in the past, but let’s not forget what they did with the gospel.  Now to today.  I taught all day and then this evening was picked up by a Swedish missionary working at another Theological Seminary here in town.  He decided from my picture that I looked young enough to be picked up on his scooter.  Not what I was expecting, but it was a fun mini-adventure for this non-hero of modern missions.  Riding on the back of a scooter in Sri Lanka is not the same as it would be in England or the US, but it was enjoyable nonetheless.  We had a good evening together, enjoying Sri Lankan food (including ochra – a first time for me), and fellowship.  It is so encouraging to meet others committed to training and equipping people so the church is built up.  The need is great for training, but I thank God for the good things that are being done in these two institutions here in Sri Lanka.  So now it’s late.  I need to grade some daily assignments, get some sleep and then enjoy another six teaching sessions tomorrow.  Thanks for praying for me here and my Mead-team at home . . . it will be great to see them all again in a couple of days!

Well, sometimes what you think will happen doesn’t.  I realize I last wrote when Peter had just left and it appeared that all the kids were sick.  Everybody slept through the night fine that night and Sunday, they announced they all felt fine and begged me to go to church.  I was a little leary, but they were bouncing off the walls, so we went.  They’ve been fine ever since. Thanks for praying!!  I was expecting a week of dealing with sick children by myself but it’s been nothing like that.   We’ve had a week full of socializing, actually.  The girls went to a friend’s house Monday and made scones and raked leaves.  It was nice to be able to go out grocery shopping with Joel and the girls had a lot more fun than if they had been with me!  Yesterday, we went to our homeschool club.  It was our turn to present a country and so we did the USA.  As part of the afternoon, the two older girls sang, “Home on the Range” and “Yankee Doodle” to give a little American flavour!  We did a Thanksgiving craft and ate chocoloate chip cookies – what could be more American than that!  Then today the two older girls went to another lady’s house and had a wonderful time with her while I took the younger two to Open House.  Today a friend and I mimed a song with puppets (This Little Light of Mine) to advertise the Light Party coming up at our church on Oct. 31st.  Please pray for many children to come to this and for hearts to be touched with the Light of the Gospel.

All in all, it’s been a great week so far (headache-free for me too).  Being busy helps us not to miss Peter, although it will be great to have him back!

I have previously created confusion by starting posts from overseas with “I’m hot.”  I wouldn’t want to create any confusion here regarding how I feel or how I view myself (not the same adjective).  Anyway, it is hot here.  But I arrived in torrential rain.  After two uneventful flights (a couple of hours of sleep along the way), I landed in Sri Lanka in heavy rain.  So heavy that we stood for well over an hour at the conveyor belt before cases appeared on it.  Thankfully mine made it, although slightly wet.  Then we drove for a couple of hours through flooded streets to get to the Centre for Graduate Studies.  Very nice, new facility.  Thankfully my room has a/c in it, so I’ll be heading up in a minute.  Meanwhile sweat.  Today was day one of class – a great bunch of students, 13 in all.  They are all influential in a variety of settings, including a lot of church leaders.  We have four ladies in the group, you can work out the male numbers.  So last night dinner was brought up to my room for me.  They have no kitchen here so I’m living on Sri Lankan fast food all week.  I heated up my plate on noodles in the microwave and then tucked in (as we say in England).  It reminded me of dinner the night before (see Melanie’s post before this one) . . . tears!  Ah well, I was hungry so I ate it all, then ate some bread to diminish the power of the spice!  It was good food, and a little emotional release is probably healthy for me since I am both a man and an English one too (neither known for tears).  I’ll leave it there for now as I am being picked up for dinner by a missionary.  Please pray for tomorrow’s class time as we will be covering some very critical material (the nature of communication and principles of general hermeneutics).

Hannah’s had an earache since Tuesday, also with flu-like symptoms.  We finally got her started on antibiotics today.  We’ve been giving her painkillers every four hours for 5 days now, poor thing.  This afternoon, Mariah started complaining about her ear too.  And tonight Aliyah started crying and saying her head and throat hurt.  Peter and I have both been feeling like we’re coming down with something too.  Joel just cried out a few minutes ago, so hopefully he’s not coming down with it too.  Pray for healing for us and that we will handle the situation with grace and patience.  Peter left tonight for Sri Lanka so I am on my own – pray for energy.  And pray for him not to get the virus.
Despite the illness, today’s been a really great day actually.  The children have been so sweet and funny and loving to each other.  Aliyah made Hannah a get-well card and voluntarily swept the floor for me and did the dishes.  Mariah spent ages this morning listening to music and stories on cds.  Peter commented that she’s becoming like a little juke-box, seemingly obsessed with changing cds!  She came upstairs and showed me a cd cover of Umberto Tozzi and said, “May I ask if he’s English?”    Hannah spent a long time snuggled in our bed, reading to Joel, finding all the pictures of “orseys” (horses).  They are such sweet children and I am so thankful for them.

Now for the “tears” part of this post.  Get ready.  A friend very kindly gave each of the girls a special plant this summer.  Hannah’s was a sweet pepper plant, or so we thought.  It yielded 6 tiny orange peppers.  I almost put them in the soup I made tonight.  Good thing I didn’t.  I put one pepper at each of our places at the dinner table.  Don’t ask me why, but I suggested we all take a bite of our pepper together.  We raised them and toasted, “to health!” and then all took a bite.  Well, Hannah, Aliyah and I did.  The others were a little hesitant (spot the non-vegetable lovers in our family!).  Those of us that took bites immediately spit out the pepper and grasped for our water.  Aliyah’s whole face turned bright red and tears started coming out of our mouths.  Ohhhhh, I guess they were HOT peppers!  We all laughed and laughed, especially at how red Aliyah had gone and the shocked look on everyone’s faces.  Hannah commented later that it was the best family dinner we’d had in a long time!

I realize I haven’t posted for a long time and I’ll try not to make this too long . . . but on the headache front, things are still not so good.  I have been very discouraged about how frequently I am still getting the migraines.  We are currently still exploring different ways to deal with the situation.  (Long story of course)  In the past few days, I have found what I highly suspect may be a huge underlying cause.  It would be so great if there WAS an underlying cause (it’s probably a combo of several) so I am hoping – again, that this may be it.  Would you please pray for me, for wisdom to know how to proceed from here, which treatment to choose, etc..  I will share more specifics soon when we can do some more research, see a doctor, and choose a course of action.

Since I have been writing this post, Joely-boy has woken up crying so it seems he has probably joined the rest of the family in being ill.

Here’s a synopsis of the week ahead for me so that you can be praying with us during this trip.  I leave on Saturday evening from Heathrow airport, flying with Qatar Airways via Doha to Colombo in Sri Lanka (two six-hour flights).  I will be staying in and teaching at the Centre for Graduate Studies in the capital city.  The course is in Expository Hermeneutics for the MDiv (Master of Divinity) class.  We will have 30 sessions over five days.  As well as teaching I will have some grading to do each day, and hopefully some informal times to interact with the students.  After their final test on Friday, I will hopefully be able to grade the tests quickly and then head to the airport to come home (arriving Saturday morning at Gatwick).

Please pray for the students to really grasp the teaching in this critical subject – it will influence everything they do in personal Bible study, as well as preparation for preaching and other ministries.  Please pray for me to sleep well and be able to teach effectively.  Please pray for safety as this is not the safest destination in the world.  Please pray for Melanie and the children at home for these seven days.  Thank you!