What does a tenner get you?

According to the United Nations 'half a million children's lives in the Third World could be saved a year, at a cost of less than £10'.

We agree and thats why we're keen to support our friends who are actively seeking to save lives in Zambia, and to do so they need a new ambulance and so we're asking 200 people to give '£10 and a not a penny more!'

If you'd like to do so, or you think others might like to, click here to find out what to do, or here to find out what its all about.

'Local vicar stabbed on doorstep'...

...read the Newham Recorder headline in my head as a very agitated and tormented man introduced himself. Availability and vulnerability - the double-edged 'advantage' of living above the hall!

Steve was very clearly not a peace, with talk of conspiracy, satanic cults, sexual abuse and institutional intimidation it was hard to grasp where to start, so I thought I'd listen.

Having shared his jumbled and incoherent thoughts it was clear that Steve's daily life was painful and isolated - 'no-one understood, believed or cared about him.' I'm not sure how much 'help' I was or could be, but he seemed pleased to find someone who let him talk and didn't write him off as a babbling nutter - I'm glad he hadn't 'read' the headline in my head.

Perhaps he was right?!

A while back, when I was studying, I was chastised for ‘reading too much’. Now it’s fair to say that at the time, given the collegiate context, that I thought this a rather queer (in the old sense of the word!) charge to bring, a strange admonishment to make – I mean, when it comes to studying and learning, can you read too much? (another Tuesday night discussion point?!). But the other day at church, whisper it quietly(!), I began to wonder if he didn’t have a point - let me explain.

My ‘wonderment’ stemmed from when a friend of ours was about to embark on two years training for Salvation Army Officership and her husband was invited to share some words of ‘encouragement’. This he duly did by encouraging her ‘not to get bogged down in study, but to get bogged down in the One she studies’. In his own unique way he used Ecclesiastes 12:12 to emphasis his point:

‘Be warned… of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body’!

Too much reading? Perhaps he was right?!

Typical!

You wait 20 minutes and then 2 come along at once! Then you have to wait another 20 minutes for the next one!

No, I’m not talking about the proverbial London buses, I’m talking about people willing to give money to support the work of the Salvation Army; I’m talking about Red Shield collecting at a very lethargic Canary Wharf; we’re talking slim pickings.

Still, tomorrow’s another day at the crease!

And so is the day after that!

And…

Empathy - a defintion and an unfortunate experience

empathy em'pa-thi, n the ability to share someone else's feelings or experiences by imagining what it would be like to be in their situation.

Let's just say I can 'empathise' with how Paula Radcliffe felt when she had to take an impromptu 'pitstop'?!

32,187 steps later

Twenty miles is a fair way to run and two and a half hours gives you a fair chance to think, listen and observe - especially when you're shuffling around early morning London.

Things I saw... someone sleeping on a bed in the middle of the street, a discarded condom (thankfully these two were not linked?!), and the biggest rat I've ever seen!

Things I heard... Big Ben chime 7am as I turned into Parliament Square, DJ Spoony's last 'Early Doors' club on Radio 1 (a real pity as he's kept me company on most of my long runs), and Ozmosis' awesome track 'Imagine the dreamer' - check it out.

Things I thought... why?! Is this what a heart-attack feels like? I really need to find a toilet - quick!

A good point?!

This morning as I dragged myself around the Isle of Dogs at some unearthly hour (I perhaps should state that I was jogging, I wouldn't want anyone thinking I was actually dragging myself in some Opus Dei style of self-flagellation!). Anyway I digress...

..as I shuffled along, a vigorous and indepth medical debate ensued on the Chris Moyles show. Split, perhaps predictably, down gender lines, discussion focused upon the potency of 'man flu' - a phenomenon much maligned and scoffed at by those incapable of ever really knowing - namely the female half of the human species.

You can imagine the nature of the chat, which was considerably invigorated when one brave (foolish?!) male suggested that suffering from 'man flu' was like having a baby! Naturally enough this brought a firm rebuttal from the feminine side of the argument. But as her co-presenter pointed out since she had neither experienced 'man flu' or indeed child birth she was unable to offer any credible critique. Encouraged by this obvious weakness, the 'man flu' advocate pressed home his advantage by highlighting the fact that even those ladies who have produced a painfully large child from an obviously too small 'area' are unable to undermine the claim as the clearly are unable to experience 'MAN flu'!

A good point - well made? DISCUSS. I dare say it depends on your physical 'make-up', but while us men will 'never know' what it's like to give birth, 'you' women will never know what it's like to have 'man flu' (and whatever song and dance we may make about having it, we're unlikely to blame you for our predicament, break the bones in your hand, or swear uncontrollably!)

BLOGGING CAVEAT: it goes without saying that my wife (Captain Hanover) did none of the afore-mentioned things!

Worth a read?

I recently received this promotional blurb from 614network.com:

'Every city has a group of troll-like rejected misfits. They are the
homeless, the prostitutes, the greedy, and the addicts. These are the
people on the fringe to whom churches close their doors, the ones you
move away from on the pew. They are the marginalized, rejected, and
forgotten cultural lepers who lurk outside your church. They are the
most unlikely prophets of all.

Trolls & Truth is the story of a local church of homeless people;
college students; middle-class Christians; some poor and some rich;
black, white, and brown; drunks; materialists; mentally ill; and
former inmates who meet beneath the noise of 18-wheelers and rushing
traffic under an interstate bridge in Waco, Texas. As they live out
biblical mandates across cultural barriers and institutional baggage,
they remind us that the gospel cannot be shaped by socially accepted
values and remain "good news." Through their testimonies they reveal
the mystery that such a diverse group without buildings and
traditional expectations are finding the power of the gospel in ways
that brings cultural validity to the skeptics and unbelieving world.
They have a wake-up call for the American church.

Transformation in the church must come. In new wineskins and perhaps
through the life of an old wino, our ecclesiology must be upended by
the "least of these," the hungry, imprisoned, sick, and stranger.
Intentional efforts in local congregations must be made to reconnect
the rich and the poor; the black, white, and brown; those educated in
the university; and those educated on the streets. Only then can we
wrestle with the values of the kingdom and learn the lessons that this
God of the little people wants us to know.'

I know only too well that you should rarely judge a book by its cover (or e-blurb?!) but 'Trolls and Truth: 14 Realities About the Church We
Don't Want to See' by Jimmy Dorrell might be worth a read.

Who will be the 100th?

Over the last couple of weeks people have continued to sign up to make the Chikankata Ambulance an impending reality. So much so that we are almost half-way there, but as England supporters know only too well - it's the second-half that often proves trickier than the first! Just ask Sven!

So who will be the 100th donatee and see us into the second half? Click here
if you fancy it! Click here if you need an explanation.

Beware the moose!

While in Canada I had to keep training for my impending marathon. Given the hilly nature of where we were this was not something I particularly relished especially as I was unsure as to whether or not I'd be likely to run into any Grizzlies! Yapping dogs were the least of my worries, but it seems my fears were misplaced, it was not the bears I had to look out for, it was the mighty moose!

According to one report I read...

'...on average there are 651 accidents every year involving a moose resulting in 133 injuries and 5 deaths!'
While I can't confirm that any of these incidents involved joggers I wasn't taking any chances - I took heed of my mates advice - 'BEWARE THE MOOSE!'

Oh my word!!

Mouth wide open, jaws firmly on the floor we watched, transfixed and waited for the punchline. The confirmation that what we were watching was in fact a joke, a parody, a stereotypical caricature, but the punchline never came, it remained undelivered and our dislbelief was total.

The cause of our angst? ‘Christian' TV. Canada had a number of channels devoted to ‘raising the spiritual temperature’ and 'changing the spiritual climate of the nation’ – the only temperature being raised was ours as we witnessed the relentless and unapologetic prosperity-driven drivel masquerading as ‘the gospel’!

We were constantly invited, urged even, by the Reverend Peter Popoff and his friends to accept two stunning offers. If we would only call TOLL-FREE we would receive ‘an anointed green prosperity handkerchief’ or a bottle of ‘miracle water’. It couldn't be easier, a 'divine transfer' awaited us, and there was no shortage of amazing testimony’s to the life-changing power of both…

‘My boss wanted to fire me, but when I received my Miracle Water I was promoted and given an $8,000 raise!’

‘I won $6 million dollars shortly after receiving my prosperity hanky!’

‘I prayed that my husband would be saved… and for $20,000 – I got both!. Hallelujah!’

Ding, dong it must be true – let me just get that number down and I'll claim my 'divine transfer'!

As Bishop Nigel MacCulloch once wrote ‘the issue that the churches must face up to is not so much that people do not believe in God, but that they do not find the churches credible.’ Credible or not I find it hard to accept that the Rev. Popoff and I believe in the same God. He should join his sister and stick with Mr Claypole, McWitch, Dobbin and the rest of the Rentaghost gang?!

While I haven’t as yet checked our bank balance I don’t mind admitting to a lack of faith that any such ‘miracle’ is about to happen soon, but then why would it I haven’t phoned TOLL-FREE to order my ‘Anointed Green Prosperity Hanky’ or my ‘Miracle Water’!

Can't imagine why some people struggle to connect with 'the gospel'.

They came from the east and they came from the west...

It's fair to say that I've never been at a wedding quite like it. Just about everyone had to travel miles to be there! I mean the two ring-bearers travelled from Bermuda and Dallas, Texas and they weren't alone.

But something that blew me away was the fact that Nick's family who had travelled from Vancouver (Canada) to Newfoundland (also Canada) had travelled further to get there than anyone else - including those of us who'd travelled from the UK?! That's a big country!

If you're like me and you like to check these things out you'll find that there are 3135 miles (5046 km) (2725 nautical miles - what's going on with 'nautical' miles?!) between Vancouver and St. Johns and 2345 miles (3774 km) (2038 bizarre nautical miles) between London and St.Johns so it isn't even a close run thing?!


Canada is a beast of a place! A beautiful beast, but a beast nonetheless!

Job done... I think?!

Like first time pilots and first time dentists you could be forgiven for not wanting to be around when a vicar/officer type-person is conducting their first wedding/funeral. The funeral will have to wait, but I've got my first wedding under my belt and I'm led to believe it went OK - job done! At least if it's legal?! Because these things are rarely straight forward and this was no different - the wedding involved two people living in Texas and the wedding itself was in St. Johns, Newfoundland - Canada. So as long as I've done all I needed to do to be properly licensed(!) it's job done, otherwise its an expensive cock-up! If nothing else they look married!
















Remember, if you want to get married in Canada - I'm your man, at least for the next 30 days?!