Missionary Gas

It´s been the strangest month of my life. Three advisore told me I had different medical crises including an instant death warning, there was a lump on my skin and then I was left on my own. It felt like I was a wannabe Job but without the camels There are two things which kept me sane. One was observing nature carefully. For instance watching a full moon appear between darkened clouds or noting the 12 different colour tones in street-side flowers or picking out the variety of bird songs. All drew my mind to the One who is their Maker and my peace-maker. And the other was reading the poetry of a man who went through a comparable emotional crisis, and survived. I memorized David's Psalms and repeated their wordsd in the night stillness. Of course, it really worked out well for Job in the end. And my advisors too have all proved wrong, the skin's healded and Olwen's at my side. Just missing the six thousand camels. Photo: Last weekend's Fruit and Flower Festival: and a po...

Missionary wives are a funny lot. Last weekend was a Bank Holiday one, and we decided to go and stay in a fairly luxurious hotel on the other side of town. My recent health scare made us want to spend some time thinking things over. Maybe it’s my pagan background, but I don´t have a problem with luxury, however Olwen’s Northern Ireland pietism makes it touch her conscience. And especially before leaving the Seminary when the sewing ladies were asking where she was going for the weekend. She didn´t have the bottle to say the InterContinental Hotel nor could she lie. Speechless? Never, but fudging, not half. However it all changed on Sunday night, when on the hotel’s shinny brass staircase we encountered colleagues from the Seminary: old, revered and eminently spiritual ones. The two wives fell over themselves to explain how they didn’t normally come and stay here. Jack and I just smiled, happy with life. Today in the history class we read John Calvin’s famous opening statement: our wisd...

My five nights of journeying from Scotland to the Seminary extracted their cost on my heart, and on Tuesday I knew I needed medical help. What comforted me was reading the Parable of the Good Samaritan: a half dead traveller cared for and cured by a Samaritan. Dr Luis Horacio’s surgery next door to the Seminary is a kind of all-in-one basic health post that achieves wonders in the barrio but would give an NHS doctor enough cocktail party stories for a lifetime. The crucifix was behind the doctor’s desk, a rosary hung on the wall, and he carefully examined me, stopped the palpitations and he sent me on my way to hospital for an ECG. Unfortunately they had finished for the day, however a nurse coming off duty turned round, opened up the ECG room and ran the test: she was a nun. And now a friend of Manuel’s has kindly arranged for me to queue jump in order to see a top cardio man. It’s going to be amazing to meet the Good Samaritans in heaven. Thank you Lord for such people. I was jogg...

A crumb of comparison between ourselves and the apostle Paul, is the uncertainty of travel. I've just spent a couple of weeks in the UK, and journeying back to Colombia I missed the London-Miami connection, so had an unexpected overnight at Heathrow, and arrived a day late minus a case with clothes and students' essays. Landing in Medellín airport in an evening means you risk encountering the urban equivalent of pirates: gangs of high speed motorcyclists specialising in international arrivees. So I stayed at its airport hotel in order to travel into the city in daylight. To rectify my clothing shortage I bought a T shirt, which has a bull's head on and written underneath in red, yellow and blue: "Colombia" - not sure if Olwen will take to it, but she won't be back for 2 weeks. Over breakfast I read the day's El Colombiano and in it there was an article on our part of the city. Not about its 59 gangs but about the main road at the botto...

Saturday was the Zero Stress outing. The ladies went to a farm about an hour from the city and had a barbeque and games. And the biggest encouragement was: so much God-talk. For many of them God's love is like a distant planet which has to be entreated by personal sacrifice: lent, fasting, confession, multiple masses. And not a personal Father and saviour, nor someone you’d relate to and talk about. At today’s opening of the Art Seminar an ex-student described the photographic exhibition she’d been allowed to show at the local University. It was on the Song of Songs and demonstrated the privacy of female beauty within the marriage bond. And also testified of an alternative ethic to the ordinary. On Sunday, when walking to church, out of the corner of my eye I watched a tramp with his begging cup and dirty shawl. Fearing he might home in on us, I quickened my pace. But no, he shuffled towards the door of an evangelical church, waited and soon a well...

Husbands will appreciate the crisis I found myself in: I was 15 minutes late meeting Olwen, and so was dashing along a busy shopping mall. In my hurry I caught a yellow “Piso Humido” (Wet floor) sign and knocked it over. Colombians are scrupulously clean and forever mopping down pavements and putting these things up. I apologized profusely to the two elderly ladies nearby and replaced the sign. I dashed on and almost immediately knocked over another “Piso Humido” sign. They are quite solid things and cause such a clatter. Unfortunately, Colombians also have loads of rules and an armed security guard approached me. But now he apologised to me for the placing of the “Piso Humido” signs, putting them to one side. 80% of missionary work is learning to respond appropriately to life situations in a new world. Next week I’m to take a 4 day Seminar on using art in the service of the gospel. I thought it would be easy as students will be working on producing something...

You have to understand that the Seminary lies on one side of a road, and accommodation blocks lie on the other. The street in-between is a narrow one, but can be fairly busy. Last Friday a lady was waiting for a bus opposite the Seminary gates when armed motorcyclists robbed her of her rings and bus fare. The teenage criminals roared off to the bottom of the street, where they were both shot: one of them was killed. Each barrio of our city is controlled by a local mafia. They extract protection money (called a vaccination), organize drugs and prostitution. They also shoot police informers, suspicious incomers and visiting criminals. These street robbers were not from our area and a local had told me they’d be shot. At the weekend we went to a tourist town an hour away. I sat under the palm trees by the pool, and gloried in the opportunity to get away from the violence. It was then that a heavy coconut-type fruit fell, just missing my head. Olwen reckoned...