Poured Out

I remember studying Ruth for a semester in Hebrew at Multnomah.  It was a great time of learning.  Somehow over the past years I have never had opportunity to preach Ruth.  I’m excited to be able to preach at least a small part of a Ruth series this Sunday in Guildford.  Next week is clear for a family break, but then I leave the following Sunday for a week of teaching in Scotland and Germany.  I’ll give more details at some point, but for now I need to finalise my notes for Tilsley College and get them printed today as I can’t deal with them next week.

We will go silent for a few days, but that is because of the family break . . . more details to follow (the children still don’t know about it).

Friday evening I am off to Reading for the UCL Christian Union weekend away.  I’m looking forward to the weekend as it is always good to get around students for times like that.  Before that I have an all day meeting in London tomorrow.  This is a meeting of representatives from various organisations representing different aspects of local assembly work and ministry in the UK.  Please pray for this important meeting to go well.  I will then be getting the train home in order to get my car and head to Reading.  I may come up with a more creative travel plan before tomorrow morning.  So as well as pulling things together for tomorrow and the weekend, I am just finishing off marking some very delayed projects from the course I taught in Sri Lanka a year ago!

Yes, we have found our first lost item!! Mariah’s coat was indeed at music class so now she can be warm for the winter!  Hooray!  We are thankful.  Still haven’t found the horse curriculum book, but stay tuned.  We are hopeful it will turn up.

Today was an awesome day of homeschooling. I’ll give you a little peek into some of what filled our day . . . We read about battles in the Old Testament and read a bit about the story of Ruth too.  Aliyah’s new math book arrived by post just before math time and she was thrilled.  She says her favorite subject is math.  As she did today, she often does extra pages just because she wants to.  For geography this week we are studying the former USSR countries.  Each week we listen to a catchy song over and over to help us memorize the countries and then we color in maps – probably the girls’ favorite part of the day.  In history we are finishing up studying the Vikings.  The girls begged for extra reading today so we could move on to our next book which is a story about Eric the Red and Leif the Lucky.  Hannah and Aliyah both did spelling tests (Hannah learned that “library” is a really hard word!) Mariah did her fifteenth lesson in her 100 Easy Lesson book (reading), and did some work on “long” and “short” in her math book.  And we learned how to order beer and wine in Italian which the girls thought was hilarious (that’s where the cds brought us up to today!).  Yeah, I know – real practical for the kids.  Anyway, I have to say, the more we homeschool, the more I love it.  Of course we have our days where everything is difficult and everyone is grumpy.  But on good days like today, I say thank you Lord for the privilege of teaching my children.

Well, in the grand scheme of things, we could’ve lost something worse, but this is still frustrating.  We have lost Mariah’s winter coat.  Yeah, I know.  We should be able to keep track of stuff like this!  We have racked our brains and tried to think where we could’ve possibly left it.  We still have one more place to check tomorrow (music class).  We have also lost something else that is not too important, really, but to us it is – the girls’ horse curriculum book.  It seems to have vanished into thin air.  Like with the coat, we have looked everywhere!  God knows where it is and we are asking him to help us find it.  In the past couple days we’ve lost – and found! – several things after praying about them. (my wallet and Joel’s spare crib sheet) As Hannah said to me tonight, “Prayer works!”  So, will you pray with us about these two little things?

More significantly, there are people all over our world who are truly lost and who need to be found by the Good Shepherd.  I was reminded of this when we read these great verses this morning that tied into a devotional story that I read to the kids.

1 Peter 2:24 He personally carried our sins in his body on the cross so that we can be dead to sin and live for what is right. By his wounds you are healed.  25 Once you were like sheep who wandered away (LOST!). But now you have turned to your Shepherd, the Guardian of your souls. (FOUND!)

Pray that tonight, all over the world, many lost people will return to their Shepherd who loves them and wants to give them new life.

Yesterday I was able to preach at Oakhall in the morning.  I am happy to preach anywhere (almost), but there is something special about being able to preach to your home church.  Now for a quieter week.  I have a meeting in London today connected with Langham Preaching, the usual Bible study on Wednesday evening and then I preach in two churches next Sunday.  So this week there’ll be the preparation you would expect, plus quite a bit of emailing in connection with Cor Deo (among other things).  Melanie has managed to keep her schedule fairly clear and hopes to have some good days of homeschooling without too much else pressuring the week.

The last two days have been a glorious experience!  Four different coffee shops and two restaurants offered the backdrop for two days of very significant conversation.  On Wednesday Ron and I spent the day discussing details of the Cor Deo training program, charting a largely non-traditional approach to a biblically mentored study and ministry program that deeply excites us both.  Then after enjoying the weekly Bible study on Wednesday evening, we got some sleep before heading into London yesterday.  In London we met up with Mike, the third board member, to consider the wider issues of preparing to launch Cor Deo: communicating the vision to others, recognizing the practical and funding challenges that lie ahead, anticipating the possibilities and delighting in the privilege of responding to God’s heart together with a heart for God.

It’s official, Cor Deo is now launched!  If you would like to know more about Cor Deo so you can pray with us, help out in some way, or perhaps consider participating – please send me an email or comment on here or on facebook.

Yesterday I took the children for a nature walk.  They really enjoyed this last week, the weather was good, so we decided to do another.  It also gives Melanie an hour to herself at the end of a long week of homeschooling.  So I took the children to a place where I often go to work in my car.  We began by deciding that a quiet walk would allow us to see and hear more than a typical noisy walk!  They were amazingly quiet, until the end.

First of all we saw two deer about twenty yards away.  That was impressive.  Then we walked along the beautiful woodland path, enjoy the sights and sounds, not least the sun streaming through the trees.  Mariah exclaimed in a loud whisper, “This is the best nature walk ever!”  Two minutes later she exclaimed, “This is the worst nature walk ever!”  Why the change? As we were walking down a slope toward a slightly better worn trail, Aliyah started crying in a panicky sort of way.  I rushed back to her.  “There’s a bee in my hair!”  She cried.  I couldn’t see anything, but she kept crying and thrashing around.  I held her still and started searching.  Then right before my eyes emerged a head, then a body.  It was honestly at least 1.5 inches long and very yellow.  The wing span was huge too.  We later identified it from web pictures as almost certainly a European Hornet.  What a beast!

Unfortunately in its concern at finding an exit from this strange plant, it stung Aliyah on the head above her ear.  Thankfully I don’t think it discharged as much venom as it could have (apparently they bite too).  Obviously Aliyah was in pain and crying, so we headed back to the car.  Back in her seat, with tears on her cheek but not crying quite as much, Aliyah showed one of her top qualities – “I’m glad it stung me and not Mariah.”  She has no idea how deep those words sank into my heart.  A deeply Christ-like quality in a girl of six.  Made me want to give Aliyah another hug.  Made me want to worship Christ!

Thankfully painkillers have done the job and Aliyah was fine a few hours later.  Thankfully the sting of sin was taken and we can be “fine” for eternity.

[Editorial note - It could have been a queen wasp rather than a hornet . . . they look similar.  The length was at least 1.5 inches.  Ah well, ouch either way!]

Is now on the site -click here

It’s nice not to be rushing out of the door early this morning.  I feel for people who have to commute long distances every day for work.  The last three days I’ve been at London School of Theology.  I’ve been sitting in on the orientation for new research students.  The point of this is that I will be supervising MTh students, so I wanted to know what orientation they get and what they expect of their supervisors.  It was actually a very enjoyable three days.  It was good to meet most of the faculty at LST as well.  Last night we also had the Getting More study in Romans 1, which meant a late night.  Next on the agenda is another Sunday in Chippenham – looking forward to that!