brace

I've been trawling the blogs lately and it turns out that there are a lot of blogs. There's 'I know Jesus better than you so here are my (generally unoriginal)  thoughts' blogs. There's 'I made cookies!' blogs and 'life is what I decide it is, here is my half baked philosophy' blogs. I particularly enjoy 'photos of my face in a variety of shades' blogs. I genuinely waste hours on photography of babies blogs, and I will not be ashamed. Babies are awesome. So is craft, I also like craft blogs. But i'm vexed by the religious type blogs. And i'm vexed that i'm adding to them. It's noisy out there.

So I need to say sorry for when I get preachy - I don't want to fill cyberspace with more BELIEVE MY WORLDVIEW or I AM PERFECT or I AM COOLER THAN YOU.

Although, I am cooler than you.
So i'm going to be trying to make this blog a space where i'll just try to tell the truth about  my life. Words like missionary still kind of bring me out in hives. Words like sin and prayer and Bible and freedom and healing need to be dusted off and tried again,
re-communicated,until maybe we can see through them and glimpse something real. Through the veil.

Maybe we could take the veil away.

This is where I reach my meandered point - we're running a Discipleship Training School.
I've always been a bit snobby about YWAM's 'University of the Nations' ('it's not a real university' etc etc) (and it's not) but it doesn't need to be. It's better. It's something else. It's not trying to be the jaded institution where I wrote essays on old books and then someone gave me a bit of paper that reassures potential employers and my mum that I was able to attend at least half my classes and tick the boxes and say the right things and prove myself an independent thinker as long as I was reading the right books.
Disclaimer: Education is wonderful, and as a woman I am only just realizing how privileged I am to have been raised with the expectation that I would get a degree. The opportunities and career options offered by having a degree are still exciting and beautiful, and I loved my time university. Proper, proper loved it.
But the reason I loved it? Apart from the obvious things like thinking I was a grownup because I cooked my own meals and sat in a library dressed like a boho scholar filling my mind full of interesting things? And because I love exams?
I loved it 'cos of Jesus.
I will always treasure the three years where I fell in love with Him and discovered what adventure feels like.

And that's why we're running a DTS, because even though the world scorns Bible College and all the concepts therein, I don't care because DTS saved me from stagnant, selfish, stupid Christianity.

DTS took my lukewarm (ish), constrained faith and blew my brain into a million pieces. God used those 5 months to take this wounded heart and breathe peace, child, into my lungs. Filled my head with stuff that actually matters. I wrote that the teaching felt like a sunrise, and it still does every time I open my notebook. Cheesy. Don't judge me.

And now we're halfway through staff training, tired and brain dribbly and aware that we're not Holy enough to disciple other people, but standing grateful and glad to be trying. So pray for our next month as students ask to come along and we say 'sure!' and then try not to freak out as we look down the barrel of a travelling outreach with small babies. As we start trying to be strong or kind enough to not alienate someone from the process of letting Him in.

It's going to take grace. I think that's ok. But pray? 'Cos we're going to try to take the veil away. 

And here's Beth. Because I know you're all like 'but where's BETH?' and crying and stuff. 

She dribbles a lot. I made some bibs. She dribbled them to death. Now my sewing machine's broken. Wheeeee!

Good night. xxxx

You know you're a (very bad) missionary when...

- You hide Marmite from guests.

- You find 100g of cheddar in a supermarket and it costs three pounds fifty, and you buy it.

- The cheese on toast that results from this is the highlight of your week. 

- Your water comes from a well in the back garden, and turns your kettle orange but that's ok because 'it's only sulphur'.

- Annabel Karmel cannot help you here.

- You have fed your baby jarred rabbit. Once by accident, and a few times on purpose after that.

- You go into clothes shops but leave without buying anything because
a) you're too fat for the clothes
b) you understand nothing
c) the woman guarding the fitting rooms spoke to you but you couldn't work out what she was saying so you ran away

- Your tumble dryer is from the 80's. And it's German. So you spend hours on Google translate and then just have to risk it and set the bed linen to 'lack moisture' or 'completed fail'.

- Your child has never experienced Cbeebies. Instead she is very excited about pirated, low resolution Pingu. In Russian.

- You have only got the money (and will) to decorate one room in your house, and you don't go in it but sometimes hover in the doorway just looking at how beautiful it is. You post pictures of it on the internet.

- And yet you're so busy that this room is somehow strewn with clothes you don't remember wearing.

- Your baby has probably said her first word. You have no idea. She doesn't speak English. 

- If you open the laptop in front of your baby she will get a bit desperate to look inside it, because that's where her Grandparents live.

- Your baby's latest soft toy was stolen out of a bag of beanie babies donated to an orphanage.

- You're terrified. All the time. Of everything. If you could you'd just stay indoors forever.

- You make your own frozen ready meals.

- You forgot to pack toys to help her develop so she's still just licking teddies. And the mop. 

- You try to buy her toys to teach her to count and shiz, but a flashy singy ball costs thirty pounds and you leave the shop in bewildered shame.

- When people ask you what you want for Christmas you don't know what to say because 'everything' isn't acceptable. 

- Your main expenditure is air fares.

- You own the Lada that Jeremy Clarkson reviewed as 'the worst car i've ever driven'. 

- Said Lada fills you with contentment and happiness, and all your missionary friends would also like to own a Lada.

- You drive around for ages getting lost trying to find a baby stuff shop, you finally find the big signs to the baby stuff shop so you park up. You wake the baby. You assemble the buggy. You insert the baby. You follow the signs. You round a corner. It's not a baby stuff shop, it's a car wash. 

- You can buy really nice wine for two pounds! 

Screw it.

This was a hard post to write because it's super personal and also i'm super poorly. So as a form of light relief I shall now choose a fun song for you...
This is 'feel again' by One Republic and it makes me happy. The video is a bit meh but if you turn the song up really loud and jump about it's FUN. I will do that when I can walk and stuff. 

So let the thinkings commence:

So we live in community.

If you're not a Christian or haven't read the same books as me, you might not get what that means to me or what i'm trying to tell you.

In the book called Acts, inside the bigger book called the Bible, there's a bit that talks about what Christianity looked like when it was new. And nobody wanted for anything because everyone shared everything.

Sounds simple
and as a heady newbie to the Jesus following I was passionate about this - about doing relationships intimately and well, about bringing a bit of heaven's joy to the people around us, about living together in big groups and seeing each other all the time and helping each other and learning how to love in the face of the consumerist isolation of the culture I grew up in.

Yep. I'm a big ol' hippie.

The thing is: it's not that simple.
I've experienced Christian community in a few different ways - boiler rooms, church, DTS - and find myself now looking down a road of long term commitment to a small group of people who I don't yet know that well.

If I was perfect, this would be easy.
Every slight would be ignored, all wrongs instantly forgiven and forgotten, all belongings surrendered, no offence taken, no offence meant, no offence caused.
I'd share everything, right?

Instead, this is what me living in community looks like (it's an honesty smack down, people):
I get angry when people break my glasses.
I get angry when people draw on my sofa with biro (seriously, this happened like 3 weeks ago and i'm still writing about it, there is something wrong with that).
I get angry when people wake my baby up.
I get angry when people put things in the wrong place.
I get angry a lot.

But there's more, and it's more sad than a bit of sleep deprived stroppyness. It's actually really sad, and i'm sad when I see how broken my reactions are to things. (Sad.)

It's taken 10 years of Christian community for me to own this fact: I am insecure.
I don't mean about my weight or my ability to apply makeup or any of those other token insecurities that girls apparently must have, and I don't mean about my ability to follow or lead or write or other things we might consider deep.
I mean bone deep, soul deep insecurity, graven in scrubbed through etched insecurity. 
Not sure why - some hurts from life, some lies from the world, mostly just because I am a tiny human person walking small in this big scary world. And sin. 

You know how I see this insecurity in me working itself out? Judging. Judging others before they can judge me. Mouthing off. Slagging off. Justifying myself. Oh, what a messed up person I am. Scared and hateful and pretending. Which makes living in community quite difficult because of all the time and energy spent on building walls, keeping my scared heart safe, being numb, raging at everything, undermining people who should inspire me, coveting stuff, defending myself when nobody's attacked me...
(You're messed up too. Everyone is. Deal with it.)
So that is what I must confess this week, to the weird world of people I don't know who read this blog and trusted friends who read this blog and people i'd probably prefer if they  didn't read this blog...I am insecure.

And here's the twin conclusion:
1) This is very sad, but: I have not been left like this.
This insecurity - this sin, this falleness, this hurt, this fear, this unforgiveness - is not what was intended when God created us and we. are. not. abandoned.
I've got God, and he is healing me and urging me on and his kind, kind heart will take this muddled me and there will be a day when I will feel awesome ALL THE TIME. It's called Heaven. It's called Grace.

2) In the meantime, it's also called Grace. It looks like me realising that insecurities are smaller when you call them out of the shadows, that the fear is placed in nothing but lies, that the power of my God blasts through these stupid walls and windows and doors and this cage we accept called sin? Screw it.

Gentle

Here she is.

She has found a visor.

Because she is a super hero. A licky super hero. Her super power is licking everything.

Soundtrack to this post: Bethel's snores in bed next to me.
There's a DTS lecture going on downstairs and she's too poorly to sleep anywhere that i'm not, so we're all three of us holed up in our bedroom. It's quite nice. John is reading Harry Potter and thus is in his happy place. I'm trying to type silently, but it's not going well because of all the thumpy PASSIONATE THOUGHTS.

This post is probably going to suck because i'm a bit poorly too. My head is full of thinkings that are half thought because of headache fog that gets in the way, and I should probably be napping too but that would be to admit defeat. Shan't.

So I think today we (the royal we? my many personalities? Beth is helping me type?) shall write about winning. Because i'm in a nation, and on a planet, that thrives on confrontation and aggression and assertiveness.
On a local level, people are snappy and quick to disapprove - you're doing this wrong, you've got that wrong, you need to hurry up, you need to slow down, you need to be less stupid or hot or cold or busy or lazy...I have grown to expect obvious disapproval whenever I venture out of the house. Should probably just stamp FAIL on my own forehead. Would save time. On a global level, things just seem to suck. Fighting for freedom, fighting for money or for power or for respect or for stuff or for someone else's stuff. This world seems to me - from my tiny vulnerable stranger in a foreign land perspective - to be big and angry and a bit scary. Don't believe me? Watch some news. Google people trafficking. Talk to someone who has been abused. Look at how many children self harm. Look at how many mums and dads have to watch their children die of stupidly treatable illnesses. Find out where your bank invests your money. Try going a night without a home. Try being a woman in a country that considers you less than a dog. Try being a man in a culture that demands you show no weakness and need no love. Try getting off heroin.

I live my life against a backdrop of this knowledge of a broken globe, and I think we all do. Seeking family in a hostile world, relieved by the love and comforts around us, sometimes engaging but generally hiding from the things we can't change. Refuge. It's a beautiful thing and it's of God.

But you know what else is of God? Justice. Compassion. Holy Rage. Action.
I've got a lot of rage.
In all the passion of hating suffering, do I get angry too? Do I get confrontational too? Do I stomp about shouting at the world to change because if it doesn't i'll count to three? Do I pick up a sword to kill a murderer? Do I launch a missile at the bad guys?

What Would Jesus Do? (It was only a matter of time before that got in there, people. I'm a Christian missionary. I can't avoid cheesy Jesus acronyms. I need help.)

They came to kill him, to arrest him illegally and try him with no defence, to torture him to death because he told them God is love and you're not loving. They proved him right with whips and with nails, with wood and with thorns.
So his friends get angry, they get some Holy rage, they take some action and take out their swords and they draw some blood. Yeah! Justice! Defend the weak! Assertiveness!
But he told them to stop that. Put the soldier's ear back on (he can do that kind of stuff y'know) and freaked the guy out a bit. Put his hands in the cuffs, his head in the hood, went with them on purpose. Took it.

So there is a different way to change the world. Stropping out or taking arms may not work out. It hasn't yet. 
Last night we were worshiping and our friend Daniel was holding his tiny baby girl and she is so beautiful and small, and I realized something important. God is the God who invented babies, tiny little bundles of handle-with-care. He sees the planet he made that is tearing itself to pieces, and against that backdrop he is the God who makes life. Tiny life with chubby hands and wondering eyes and licky dribbles. He made that vulnerable, gentle, sweetness that is a baby. That is part of who he is.  

He is at odds with the suffering we see. He is at odds with aggression. He heals the soldiers who come to kill him. 

The world is often violent and angry and hurting. People are often violent and angry and hurting. But there is a weapon we haven't all worked out how to use yet and it is gentleness. 

Taking it.

This is what I need to do here: the Bible says to come at things in the opposite spirit. You yell at me? I'll whisper back. You want to win? I'll step aside. You take my stuff? Here, have some more.
You want to shout at me in the street? I'll say thank you, yes of course my baby needs a snow suit in June, you're so right. Turn some cheeks. Smile.

Is it hard here? Yes, the culture is much more aggressive than i'm used to. But this country is beautiful, these people are worth so much more than I will ever be able to give them in my lifetime, and i'd like to see how British people would behave after centuries of oppression and communism.
So I will try to be gentle.
Because that way things may start to change. Jesus FTW.
xxxxxxxxxxxx







 

A Positive Post! Freakish!

So this is Beth, looking like a fifties bather/ pilot. 

I did arty effects to this photo.
I am regretting this decision.

Soundtrack to this post: Newsboys
Because when one is happy, one should listen to cheesy happy Jesus music. That said, about half the tracks are so annoying that I instantly skip them. Can tolerate so much cheesy happiness before I get irritable and start craving some Beardy Emo Jesus.

So we're in trouble because over the last two weeks I haven't felt able to update the blog because of not having much positive to say about Ukraine, and the tendency to continuously complain can alienate one from people. Not goths, they like it. But I don't know many goths and i'd like to keep my friends please so thought i'd avoid yet more cyber ranting. 
But now we're riding the flip side of my gloom, hovering over stupidly happy, flying a little bit high on the realisation that when my God-dad sent me here, he knew what he was doing.  

When we got back to the Ukraine after two wonderful weeks of family-friends time, diagonal split in John's arm notwithstanding, I was gutted. Walked up the stairs to the house smelling that rural smell that is not much like shopping centres and more like chicken poo, and my heart dropped a bit. The first few weeks here were so very difficult and at that moment I could happily have quit this stupid adventure. So I breathed in and muttered to Him 

'but your Kingdom come, and your will be done'

and I felt like he got it. And that he was pleased. And like he was standing with me as I unlocked that front door and stepped inside. 

So that was my little decision, made again, made often, to do this thing called missionary life. Come what may. (Moulin Rouge re appropriated, people. You are welcome.)

Two nights in, that made again, made often decision has been an easy one because it's been fun! Beth slept through last night, we've been eating and laughing with the team, I haven't had to feed the chickens yet, John is wonderful, the heating works in the house, I get to wear my winter knitwear and my baby is crawling her over excited way about the house. She loves crawling. She loves crawling so much that she hyperventilates and laughs and disco slides across the kitchen. And eats poo from secret dusty poo collection corners.  

Oh, and lots of you prayed for our return journey to be easier. For those of you who I haven't ranted at, journeys home involved night trains in cattle class in beds a foot wide in the corridor six feet up with no railings, on the trains that suffer from an abundance of stinky men who like to snort in their sweaty drink sleep. With a baby.
It was fun.
Because i'm a super mum.
I would like a cape.
Made by Cath Kidston.
This is turning into a poem.
Or an ode.
Stop that now. 

People say I need to do proper updates, not just existential ponderings, so here's what we're up to:

- Getting the house ready for a team of 8 from America who are coming to do short term mission out of our base.
- Hanging out. Buying food and stuff.
- Preparing for a week of teaching on evangelism that John's helping with week after next, when we'll be hosting a DTS of 15 from Kiev. 

- Playing with Bethbaby and her new friend Camilla who is also gorgeous.
- Going to orphanages and all that jazz.

Right, going to go give my lovely handsome fit kind funny clever husband a massive snog. Lucky boy.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Safe

Firstly, I think it must be noted that our baby is an angel.

She's got a halo and everything.
Yes...that's a gym ball. No, we don't use it. Ever.

Soundtrack to this post: Hillsong's 'Aftermath' album.
I find quite a lot of their stuff annoying because sometimes it's a bit 'Jesus is my bestest buddy and he gave me an ice cream made of my dreams ooooh fa la la', but this album is actually full of depth and longing and struggle and relief. It gets me. But not track 2.

This week has been a good week, in that I stopped sulking like a little biatch. This has not been down to my own resolve or grit, but because of shiny distractions that make me forget my AHEMsorrowsCOUGH. I'd like to say that I saw the suffering of the orphans here and got some perspective, but twould be a lie. I'd also love to be able to profess some mountain top experience of God's plan for my life as revealed by a hundred cartwheeling angels covered in sprinkles, but i've barely even prayed since getting here and wouldn't notice confectionary nephilim if they banged me about the head with a harp.
(Are nephilim angels? What are they? Have apparently not read large chunks of the Bible.)

What am I going on about?

Oh yes. How this got easier.
Not 'cos of me. And not because I sorted out my (appalling) attitude. Am still completely struggling with feelings of loss and grief over all my loved peoples not living in Vinnitysa. Stupid people not living in Vinnitsya, get over here. Stop living in Lewes/Brighton/London/other countries. Stupid other countries.
Anyway (sorry, i'm tired and it's late and I am addled like the scrambled eggs the chickens have stopped laying. Sodding chickens), so even though i'm still very sad about missing people, something has shifted in my heart and now I quite like it here.

I think that might be God. Rescuing me from me.
Rescuing me from my fear by changing the people and situations around me. Everything i've panicked about since getting here has got easier. Some of that stuff isn't exclusively my story and thus would be rude to share, but here's one example:

So was sitting in this massive house, having cleaned all day and cooked all day and hosted all day and juggled my angel halo baby who was not behaving as such...and realised that this is my life now. I'm a housewife. A housewife in Ukraine, which is slightly more edgy but not really. I have an apron. With a chicken on it. And while that's funny it also gave me a meltdown brain because I have passion and fire and rage - and being a housewife is great if that's what you want but it has never, ever been my aspiration. Am stroppy.

I never really minded about getting married or having babies but I have always wanted to be like Jackie Pullinger.

Not feeling like Jackie this week, arms deep in yet another apple crumble.

Had a rant. Poor husband. Something like 'how the hell is this my life? I followed God here  and I thought I was called here but I care about women in the sex industry and I live in a field. I should be in Kiev, or Odessa, but i'm here and i'm confused'. Boo hoo sob me me me and my dreams ME.

That weekend a couple from the Kiev base came to stay. Have never met them before, don't know them, hosting them cos was asked to.
She runs the justice DTS that does outreach in the sex industry as well as raising awareness and rescuing people. She knows the person from A21 who has the materials and contacts I would need to go into schools and orphanages. I can pioneer this work here.
I feel better.

My point is this: i'm safe. Safe from despair or from hopelessness or from emptiness. He has got me. He knows. He cares. He ignores my crappy resentment, my angry selfish tears, my fear that i'm feeling because i'm refusing to trust him and he is doing this with me - orchestrating things to make me feel better.
So I do.

p.s. coming home for 2 weeks. In 6 days. John's got an op. Can't be bothered to explain how I feel about this but...see you soon! 

A bad day and a good day

Hi. 
Have been unsure about how to write this blog - have been feeling a strange pressure to be positive and upbeat and represent things well. To be one of those well behaved missionaries who doesn't give much away. 

But this isn't deal or no deal, and i'm not Noel, and I don't believe that 'positive energy' changes reality. 
I'm not in a cult that hides from being real. I'm following Jesus. 
And he is called the Truth. 
So I will be Truthful. 

Moving here has been hard - like really, really difficult. If I knew how hard it was going to be I don't know if I would have been brave enough to do this. (But keep reading, because this isn't the end of my processing, I promise.)

Why so? Because making a baby stay a maximum of three nights in one room before moving her again is a really good way to take eight months of sleep progress and make them worthless. She's never been a big fan of sleeping anywhere other than on me, but we were getting there and the sun was starting to shine through the clouds and I was starting to feel like I could function. But now she wakes up and she screams and she's worried at nights and it breaks my heart because I want so badly to make her feel safe and secure. But she needs me for that. So I don't sleep so well. You won't understand this unless you've had your own babies, but believe me, it's hard. 

Why so? Because I miss you, beloved friends. Now i've got to rely on a knackered and stressed hubby who needs to rely on me, and on a team of people who will be my best friends but aren't yet and it's been lonely without you. 

Why so? Because I can't communicate and I feel trapped inside my own limitations - so frustrated and dependant on the team. Feel so sorry for them having to ferry me around and fight for me - I prefer to fight for myself. I like a good fight. To have to sit mute while people discuss in other languages wether or not you get to keep everything you own/ have dressed your baby correctly is humiliating and demeaning. And comes with a side order of guilt for being such a burden to the amazingly kind and helpful team. 

And finally, because the house we're moving into is so different from anything i've ever experienced before. It's in a village outside of town. I have to keep chickens, clean a flipping monster sized abode, speak ukrainian to buy bread from the local shop, and learn to cook a lot of egg based dishes. I don't really like eggs. I like shopping. I will never be domestic enough to succeed at this. I'm a damn good wife and a damn good mum, but i'm not your typical housewife and I don't understand how i'm meant to fit here. 

And i've been so busy that I haven't noticed the need to pray - to grieve and to hope and to get some perspective. John is a beautiful man who knows me so, so well and this morning after yet another failed night and Beth sleeping in our bed from 5am because I just couldn't try anymore he took B away and sent me into town. 

I was so scared - have never done anything here by myself. After locking myself in a walk in wardrobe and having a good sob (always helpful) (read some C.S.Lewis as well, even more helpful) I wo-manned up and got on a tram.
I got on the wrong tram. Three times. But eventually I made it into the city centre. My conversation with God was something along the lines of 'this is really hard and my heart is hurting and do you love me?'
As I walked into town I started to notice kids wearing face paint, and trees wrapped in brightly coloured fabrics, and stages being put up. I realised that tonight is some kind of festival and that i'd stumbled upon an orchestra rehearsing for an open air concert. I don't know what they were playing but I recognised it and it was like a present just for me - most people were wandering past but I stood frozen and grinning as the sound picked me up and danced me out of my sulk. It was gorgeous and it was mine. 

After a while people were staring at the smiling nutter so I decided to move on. They stare at me a lot here anyway because i'm obviously a foreigner but hey ho, onwards I trotted and then I found an Accesorize! With a sale on! I got a hat and earrings and a necklace for 6 pounds! 

And THEN I found a food shop and bought an almond croissant the size of my head, and ate it all without having to make small talk with anyone or feed Beth with my other hand or carry the nappy bag or worry about offending anyone or having to learn another language or be appropriate - just skipped about in the park staring at people with my sugary face. 

So I managed to get the right tram home, and I rode it so proud of me! My conversation with God was something like 'I know this isn't heaven yet and I know this world is hard and i'm not asking you to make this easier, but please just make me stronger. 

And thank you. And I love you too'. 

This song pretty much sums up where i'm at today, especially the last verse. I love their music. 

These are the ways I can see He's been washing my feet all along: The kindness of the Christians here, their hospitality and their help with everything. Ed had spent two solid days cleaning our bathroom. Also their patience with living with a Baby B who is gorgeous but high maintenance at the moment. 

I'm excited about how the house will be used to make this world more beautiful - i'm hopeful that we will see people healed and rescued by that building and the dreams within it's walls. 

We've been given enough money to buy a car, so we won't be isolated. This is such a relief I can't even explain. 

I'm so grateful for how good my leaders are - that even in just a Skype conversation with Andrew last night I started to relax about settling in here. 

Vova's home and I need to get off his laptop, he's a kind kind person but I mustn't take the mick.

Sorry for the brain mess. Miss you. xxxxx