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Courtesy of Asbo Jesus as ever.  Actually this one’s been up a few days, but I keep coming back and reading it again, it also links in pretty well with this post and this quote from Facing the Mountain (great people, well deserve a double hyperlink!);

I guess what I’m really coming to in this is the question posed by Casper in the book Jim & Casper Go To Church (a great read!). Casper an atheist posed the question after a church visit “Is this what Jesus told you guys to do?”. As I’ve been thinking on this I’ve come to realise that so much of what Christians think of as church and normal Christian behaviour is actually a long way from what Jesus told us to do.

So true in so many ways. 

I was watching myself run the errands the other morning and thinking, you know to the casual observer this stuff might seem totally weird or even exotic, and yet to us it’s normal life as we know it…

Spring has arrived here in San Francisco.  How do I know?  Well, for starters, last week the temperature was eight degrees in the middle of the day, dropping to three at bedtime.  This week, our car thermometer was registering thirty four and a half by the afternoon.  Our house is littered with cast-off layers of clothing which we can’t imagine ourselves ever wearing again.  Sleep is periodically disturbed by the drone of passing mosquitoes bringing with them the dual certainties that putting the light on is a waste of time since you’ll never find the thing, and in the morning you’ll have a new selection of bites.  And the hens have started laying again.  We don’t have hens (yet; I have threatened a couple of times), but my family from the hamlet have a selection which freely roam the smallholding, so I received a sack of eggs as a present this week.  Far more than we could possibly get through even if we did start living on omelettes, so I parcelled most of them up, and my first errand of the day was to cycle around the city and deliver egg-packets to a few folk. 

My second errand was to go to the cleaning shop.  These are little places, often a garage or front room in someone’s house, lined with sturdy shelves, upon which sit a selection of barrels.  You bring your own bottles, and your friendly cleaning-shop-keeper sticks a funnel in the top and refills your coke bottle with bleach, fabric softener or toilet cleaner to suit your needs.  Hence the lurid yellow is floor cleaner, and the lurid pink is washing up liquid;

My first reaction to this system was predictably European public information campaign on the dangers of putting brightly coloured poison into fizzy drink containers.  Ironically, it’s now I have a kid that I find I’ve softened my stance.  Why?  Because even if my cleaning fluids were in boringly opaque brown bottles labelled poison in seven European languages including Braille, personally I would still keep them well out of his reach and teach him not to eat or drink anything he finds lying around without asking permission first. 

So the only real difference I can see is that the cleaning shops provide employment for local people, and save a mountain of plastic from being made into landfill.  Actually it makes me wonder a bit whether we Europeans haven’t abdicated responsibility for bringing our own kids up by trying to make it everyone else’s problem to keep them safe, but anyway, moving swiftly on before the hate-mail arrives.  So then there was just time to do some faffing around on the internet trying to prepare some stuff for Scouts, before collecting Joni, inventing a quick lunch out of leftover chicken, chick-peas, rice and chips… add a couple of onions, and give thanks to the folk who gave us curry powder to bring back with us, it covers a multitude of sins leftovers.  And next thing we knew we were off out to the hamlet bringing kiddo and his mum back to San Francisco with us (no eggs today!)  As for those hens, at the moment we’re watching The Good Life on DVD, so if I threatened Martin with buying a pig, he might even decide that he’s got off lightly if I showed up with a few hens instead. 

Many years ago when I was young, free and single and living in my flat in Baldock, our hair-brained local council, trying to encourage recycling, offered all house-holders in our area a plastic garden composter.  Then, a few weeks later, they came round and delivered everyone a brown plastic wheelie bin, so that the council could take away our green waste i.e. the stuff that we were already putting in the composter… see what I mean?  (And today, the same council who had so much money to throw around that they could duplicate their recycling schemes, still doesn’t manage to include cardboard or plastics in their doorstep recycling collection, but we digress).  Loony councils apart, that compost bin was a simple and effective piece of kit, and since composting isn’t a very culturally Argentinean thing to do, I’m unlikely to find anything similar around here, so I made one, out of an old plastic drum, the like of which litter many builders yards in Argentina.  Clean it up a bit, attack with junior hacksaw, and voila! 

The top is at the bottom, so the worms and insects can do their stuff.  The bottom, now at the top, has been mostly cut across to make a lid, still attached at one side.  Compost is extracted through the flap at the bottom.  It has an added bonus that the dogs can no longer eat the compost heap, I’ve given up trying to explain to them that they’re not supposed to be vegetarians.

The garden’s doing really well at the moment, partly because the weather’s been cold so the weeds aren’t yet rampant.  I have four vegetable beds, like these… 

  

which between them are home to peas, radishes, lemons, parsley, laurel, oregano, mint, lavender, cabbage, lettuce, spinach, and beetroot.  I have one bed which is currently empty, which I tried a little stubble-burning trick on yesterday;

which seems to have worked quite well, apart from the bit where I scorched the wall, so that is now ready for some summer planting; tomatoes, peppers, not forgetting those chillies.

I’m not a great grower of flowers, mostly because they’re not (usually) edible, but I put these in under the kumquat bush;

and they’re doing really well, so I’m about to put a few more in around the orange tree. 

One thing and another meant it’s taken a while to persuade the juggernaut into motion post-UK trip, but most of the things we´re involved in seem now to be moving in the right sort of direction. 

I’ve reconnected with my little mate from the village who seems to be doing just fine, and together with school we´re working with mum to enable her to leave him at school without her for a couple of hours while I take her off to visit one of her siblings in the city.  We had the first go at that on Monday and it seemed to work out OK, so hopefully we´re good for a repeat again this week. 

The special school are still working on their idea to pay me for a few hours a week, except they haven’t any money (minor hitch), so they´re trying to persuade the provincial government ministry of something-or-another to take me on as an “auxiliary”.  The social worker seems to be fairly optimistic that we can pull this off, and she seems to be fairly sane (for a social worker anyway!) so I´m cautiously hopeful, although involving the government ministry of silly walks obviously adds another twenty-six layers of paperwork and bureaucracy (obviously). 

Homework support classes restarted in Quebracho Herrado, although the weather has been foul, so mostly no-one came.  Now they’re venturing out of the woodwork again, and actually a few child-free days meant that I was able to give some time to a couple of the adults who are doing their secondary certificates at night school.  This is a good government scheme designed to enable people who didn’t finish school to go back as mature students and follow a general curriculum geared to adults.  I was slightly concerned by the comment that “the English teacher says we don’t need to know the pronunciation because she’s only going to give us written tests…” but then I was hearted by “…but I want to learn the pronunciation otherwise it’s not any use to me…”  Just one of many examples of students who have a better grasp than their teachers regarding the purpose of education. 

We had a plan with a local English institute to start an advanced-level conversation group for high level students and language teachers.  For the moment this is on hold, as apparently the people were intimidated by the idea that we might expose their weaknesses, which I kind of thought was the point somehow… Personally I find myself wanting to ask “really guys, do you want to learn English, or is it just a game?”  Luckily Martin has a different take on things, so he’s going along to the institute in the capacity of unpaid assistant to work on building relationships and hopefully demonstrate that real live English people aren’t any more scary than real live anyone else… although in Martin´s case…?

The even-higher-than-usual level of disorganisation at Scouts caused me to throw my woggle out for a few days, but I think we´re making progress again now.  At the moment I’m trying to work towards the idea of planning a week ahead, so that by this Saturdays meeting we know what we’re doing next Saturday and therefore can send messages home with the kids with whatever they need to bring or do by the next week.  In England this would be so obvious that I wouldn’t even have to suggest it.  Here it’s a whole new concept, but I’m sure it’s got to be possible… surely…??

Meanwhile, I no longer have the house to myself, and one grubby, tired, bad-tempered went-to-bed-late-last-night-and-then-spent-this-afternoon-playing-in-the-mud-with-the-scouts child, needs attention and a bath.  But apparently there’s a bottle of wine breathing gently for his soon-to-be off-duty parents.  Cheers everyone. 

There have been a lot of things to think about this week, but I think we´re OK. 

Thursday our friend and leader came to see us for a much-appreciated visit (all hail esteemed leader).  She and I and Joni went off to a children’s home a couple of hours away where we are preparing a placement for a short-term volunteer who I will be supervising when she arrives.  Here we met up with another team member, who we brought back to San Francisco with us for a couple of hours until he was off on the bus to Buenos Aires. 

Friday I had an appointment in Cordoba which involved leaving the house at six in the morning (the pain, the pain), so I left husband, son and our TL to each others´tender ministrations.  They were all still alive when I got back.  Meeting in Cordoba went well, probably should have done that months ago.  Couple of hours later and TL was also off on a bus to Buenos Aires to continue her rounds. 

Saturday Martin was off to the prison, later brought back with him our friend Miguel.  They didn´t manage to bring the car back as it had a flat battery, so Martin had to organise someone to pick him up to go and start the car.  Miguel left again, destination home-village some 50kms away.  Martin arrived back.  A different Miguel (it´s a common name, Michael) came by unexpectedly to collect some stuff that he had stored in our house, so we spent a happy hour taking mate, catching up and shifting furniture.  Another neighbour popped in; he was on his way to see someone else only they weren´t there so he came to hang out in our house for a bit.  Later in the evening, some friends called with a present for Joni for “Dia del niño” (children’s day) which is an (over commercialised) Argentinean tradition in August, except Joni had already gone to bed, so we put his present for him to find in the morning.  They´re good people, they’ve appointed themselves as aunt and uncle to our kid and he very much rates them. 

Sunday and I was on Sunday School duty, so we had to be on time to church (doesn’t always happen).  We picked up a chicken on the way home, as has become our tradition after church.  In the afternoon we called round to take mate with the afore-mentioned aunt and uncle characters, with a this-time awake Joni.  That took some persuading because he understood “going to say thank you” as meaning that we were going to give the present back to them, cue many tears and “no give the lorry back, I don´t want to come, Joni stay here…”  but having persuaded him into the car, and then out of it at the other end, he had a good time and even let adopted aunt play with the lorry with him on the table.  Daddy and Joni headed home where I later found them watching a ripped off Thomas the Tank engine DVD in Spanish that they´d picked up from our corner shop (DVD’s only come in one format around here, and that’s ripped off).  Meanwhile I went to catch up with the church treasurer who needed to give me money to take to Quebracho Herrado, while we are currently a month behind on the rent.  That turned into a neat opportunity to spend half an hour with someone I don’t often get chance to talk with, so we sat at her kitchen table and found out a bit more about each other. 

And here we are on the eve of a new week.  What will this one hold?

I found a bowl of chillies in the fridge… there seem to have been a fair few people coming through our house while we were away, and we are still discovering random items in strange places.  Maybe the chillies were bartered for my pizza tins which seem to have vanished off the face of the planet.

Never one for inspecting the teeth of gifted horses, and secure in five years´experience that there is no such thing as a hot chillie in Argentina, I blithely tossed one into the pasta sauce, and nearly blew the roof off the house.  When the fire-brigade had left, I did a little celebratory dance before the almighty at delivering this unexpected goldmine.  A couple of further experiments confirms that a third of a chillie is plenty for the two-and-a-half of us.  Hoping to tap into these riches for the future, I´ve extracted a load of seeds which are currently drying in a dish on top of my computer (along with some peppers and tomatoes).  Martin rolls his eyes at my mad gardening projects, but so far he hasn´t objected to eating the results, even the blow-the-roof-of-your-mouth-off pasta sauce… there´s true love for you. 

I turned up yesterday´s passage because I was trying to find the verse that I’d half memorized from a million years ago “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all”, which turned out to be verse 17 of 2 Corinthians 4, and having found it, I then read it in context, and discovered that the chapter begins with “Therefore, since through God’s mercy we have this ministry….” which was a good and timely reminder.
It´s been rather a bumpy landing, but we´re back in town.

Courtesy of Bible Gateway:

¹Therefore, since through God’s mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart. ²Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God. ³And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. ⁴The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. ⁵For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. ⁶For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness,"made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

⁷But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. ⁸We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; ⁹persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. ¹⁰We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. ¹¹For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. ¹²So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.

¹³It is written: "I believed; therefore I have spoken."With that same spirit of faith we also believe and therefore speak, ¹⁴because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you in his presence. ¹⁵All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God.

¹⁶Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. ¹⁷For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. ¹⁸So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

And then we were packing once more.  The last few days particularly have disappeared in a whirl of meeting up with friends, family, supporters and all manner of people old and new.  I have a year’s supply of clothes courtesy of Baldock’s charity shops.  My kid has a year’s supply of clothes courtesy of his cousin.  My parents have a year’s supply of jam courtesy of the many blackberries ripening a minute’s walk from their house; Joni and I and the dog spent a happy couple of hours collecting and jamming them this afternoon.  I expect I could have gathered more without my two trusty helpers, but we have more than sufficient and it was fun.  There are also two bucket loads of greengages waiting for something to be done with them (more jam?) following my expedition up the greengage tree yesterday morning.  We’ve watched model trains whizzing by at Bekonscot model village:

and giant butterflies whizzing by in a glass house in Bedfordshire (while the rain hammered on the roof outside):

It’s been good, and now it’s gone, but we’re quietly bullish about some of the plans that we hope are coming to fruition in San Francisco even as we speak, so we’re optimistic about the next steps.  Unfortunately there are two nights of travelling between here and there, and even before that, the stuff which hasn’t packed itself yet appears to be liberally scattered about the house. I feel some gathering up coming on. 

Family time

Having been nine in the house since we’ve arrived, and up to sixteen at various points during the weekend, it feels rather quiet with a mere five of us at the moment.  We should probably make the most of it though; the ever versatile Baldock Hilton will be back to eleven when the next wave of family descend on Sunday. 

Building relationships

This week we’ve been meeting with a great new supporting church (new to us that is).  So far we’ve just seen a sample of folk over lunch yesterday, but if the advance party is anything like representative of the rest of the congregation, then we’re really looking forward to getting to know them. 

Redefining relationships

When I became a parent I had a whole lot of lofty child-care-professional ideals which it is almost possible to uphold for six hours a day, but twenty four…? Today’s climb-down went:-

– No trainers no trainers no trainers no trainers no trainers no trainers no trainers no trai…

– How about these Thomas the tank engine ones?

– No trainers no trai… oh yes please mummy.

And thus the “no brand named stuff” went off to join “no lying” and “no bribery” long since consigned to the nursing home of good intentions. 

New Toy

This year’s birthday present:

Second hand sigma 70-300 macro, seventy quid from the second-hand-camera-stuff guy on Hitchin market.  Cost new, quite a bit more.  Cost in Argentina, multiply by goodness knows what. Martin enjoyed testing it out for me the other day when we took the kids to play on the big slides at Knebworth park: