The Sphere Effect

So we finished with a tearful goodbye to Katrina and Mary as I started off on my next adventure to New Wine conference off somewhere near Bath.

I didn’t know very much about New Wine, except that it was a christian conference and that I would be camping for a week with English Cath and Aussie Kath. Haven’t been camping for many years, so was a bit ramped up for that. Also, it seems that up until this point everything was about Greece and meeting Kels and Mary and Katrina. So at this point I was looking ahead and realising that I only have five weeks left in England. Didn’t realise just how terrified I would start to feel at this point. At any rate I was hoping that I could get some special out of the conference, but wasn’t really sure what it was going to be all about.

Well!! It was awesome! Haven’t been to a Christian Conference for years and years and years. Wayy too long. It is so nice to be able to spend time in an environment with people who are like me and where I can totally relax and be myself. And the teaching! Really, really good.

I was actually quite surprised because New Wine is a part of the Anglican Church (Church of England), but whoever said that the Anglican Church in England was dying. I haven’t seen such a vibrant alive group of Anglicans together… well, ever actually! I think there were about 7000 people there the week I went and there were going to be 15000 the following week.

The week was broken up into about 5 talks a day, and two main worship times, one in the morning and one in the evening - Fantastic music - learned lots of new songs - the bands were from Trinity Church and from the Vineyard at Trent - well worth getting the CDs. The main things I ended up getting from the conference, was the call to get out of our comfort zones and commit to a higher purpose in this world. We are the hands and feet of Christ here on earth, and we have been called to give everything we have to those in need, not to live lives of Consumer Christianity. It is no wonder the world thinks that Christians are hypocritical and stupid. In most cases we live lives that are broken up into what we can get out of life, instead of living the extreme life that Christ called us to.

The week affirmed for me that my calling is to go and be Christ to those who don’t know him. To those who have no food or water, or clothing. To those who are suffering from the destruction of their worlds through natural disasters, and man-made greed and conflicts. To those who are orphaned or widowed because of AIDS and sickness and poverty. Those countries who have nothing, and who are raped and pillaged and are dying desparate deaths while we in the West sit back and close our eyes, while we watch our TVs, listen to our MP3 players, go to our expensive Gymnasiums, take our drugs, drink our alcohol, and live lives that are excessive and disgusting when looked at from the eyes of an African Orphan who has nothing.

As one of the teachers said during the week - if all of the food and resources of the world was divided up per year so that every single person on earth had adequate to be comfortable, and healthy - 3 meals a day, then we in the West used up our yearly share in March this year. Since March we have been living on someone elses food, and that person is dying or is already dead.

We heard from another missionary in Burundi about the needs in Burundi - and about in the Congo, how men and children are enslaved and put in the mines searching for a material called Coltan - and their wives and mothers are shot and raped in order to keep these slaves under control. This material called Coltan is what we use in our mobile phones, laptops and playstations to keep them from overheating. 80% of the world’s Coltan comes from these mines - so we in the West directly affect what happens there. If you are interested in reading more - please check out this site: http://www.johannhari.com/archive/article.php?id=863

As you can probably tell my passion has been raised up another notch, and my determination to try and do my bit to ’save the world’. It’s not a task that one person can do, and I know how difficult it is to try and make a difference, but I cannot, I WILL NOT sit back and do nothing anymore. I will give everything I can … I don’t yet know how, but I am at least going to make a start.

I bought heaps of books and a few cds at the end of the week - One called Healing Rain which is Michael W Smith’s latest CD.

Words that are going around and around in my head today from MWS.

All I have in this world
Is fire from above
All I have in this world
Is you
And all the journeys I have walked
I know you’ve walked them too
All I want is to be faithful
All I want is you

All I have is a love
That set my world on fire
Let it fall, let it burn in me
And oh to be a friend of God is all that I desire
All I want is to be faithful
All I want is you

A silent call from a distant land
Crying for a helping hand, so
How long will it go on?
Ignorance and vanity
Supercede humanity, so
How long it will go on?
I want to know how long will it go on?

We can’t wait any longer
They’re crying out, doesn’t it matter
We can’t wait any longer
No, no. Too long in a slumber
Shake it up, wake it up now.
We can’t any longer. No, no.

Another child is laid to rest
Another day of hopelessnes, so
How long it will go on?
And every day we’re on the fence brings
Another fatal consequence, so
How long will it go on?
I want to know, how long will it go on?

Yuko awezayo kusikia kilio chetu? (Can somebody hear us crying out?)
Twaomba msaada wenu (Somebody help us)
Aweko mwenye kuttuoka (Somebody save us)
Aweko mwenye kutupa uhuru (Somebody free us)

And finally this song from Delirious

40 million babies lost to Gods great orphanage,
It’s a modern day genocide and a modern day disgrace
If this is a human right then why aren’t we free?
The only freedom we have is in a man nailed to a tree.

100 million faces, staring at the sky,
Wondering if this HIV will ever pass us by.
The devil stole the rain and hope trickles down the plug,
But still my Chinese take away could pay for someone’s drugs.

Our God reigns, Our God reigns,
Forever your kingdom reigns.

The west has found a gun and it’s loaded with ‘unsure’
Nip and tuck if you have the bucks in a race to find a cure.
Psalm one hundred and thirty nine is the conscience to our selfish crime,
God didn’t screw up when he made you,
He’s a father who loves to parade you.

Yes he reigns, yes you reign, yes you reign,
For there is only one true God,
But we’ve lost the reins on this world,
Forgive us all, forgive us please,
As we fight for this broken world on our knees.

To see pictures of New Wine (not many I know) please click on the Album Below

Well, anyone who knows me well, knows I’m a bit precious about Easter. It is to me the most important weekend in the year and I was desparate to somehow have a very special Easter in England.

So I had a good chat with my friend Kath (that I met in France) and we decided to hire a car and to drive up to York.

Well! What a drama! We went to pick up the car on the Easter Thursday night. The idea was that we were going to leave at 4.30am on Good Friday morning, in order to get up to York by 11am to see an Easter Play that was being done in the York Minster Cathedral.

When we got into our car at Victoria Station we said a little prayer for Angels to surround our car, and then set off for a church service at Holy Trinity Brompton. The church service was nice (but a little average) but the very exciting thing is that when we got back in the car we managed to stall it in the parking lot, and nearly didn’t get it started again. Then I looked down at the odometer and realised it had only done 13 miles. They had given us a BRAND NEW Ford Focus. Excitement plus!!.. except that all the lights on the dashboard started flashing and we couldn’t get the stereo working. UH OH! NOT GOOD.

Took it back to Kath’s house in Acton Town, and after I turned it off, I tried to restart it. Dead as a doornail. We called the AA and he came out to have a look. Apparently the alternator (whatever that is) was completely dead - and the car would have to be returned. By this time it was 11pm, just 5 and a half hours before we were to leave.

Hertz told us that we should arrange for the car to be recoved, and then go to the Heathrow depot where they would issue us a new car. The AA man arranged for a recovered and then drove us to Heathrow. When we go there, we were told we couldn’t have a new car until the old car was brought in, which was going to take 6 HOURS because we were no longer with the vehicle. ARGHHH.

So Mr AA Man drove us back to Kath’s house (40 mins drive) so we could wait with the car, because apparently it would be a shorter wait of 2 hours. We lay down and got some sleep thinking that at any moment the AA would arrive. They never did, but we got some good sleep until 4.30am when the alarm went off. Very worried we called AA who had lost our booking. Then they finally said they were sending someone around. Then we called Hertz who told us they had run out of cars. We had been relatively calm up to this point, but now we were starting to get a bit grumpy. What else could possibly go wrong? We finally talked to a supervisor at Hertz who found a car for us.

Then we go into the tow truck with our car on the back. On the way to the airport, the cable fell off the back of the tow truck and got run over, which mean that the tow truck man couldn’t get the car off. We sat on the edge of the road for half an hour while he grunted and swore. By this time we were giggling hysterically, as there really wasn’t too much more that could go wrong. I was convinced that we were being held up so that we wouldn’t be in some horrific accident somewhere, after all, we had asked God to protect us hadn’t we?

Anyway we finally got our new (slightly older) Ford Focus at about 7am, and merrily made our way up to York. I would just like to say that there was absolutely NO traffic anywhere on the roads. Everyone else had been too scared to drive on the Monday morning and so had driven on the Thursday evening - apparently there had been terrible traffic the night before.

We made it to York in short order and saw a fantastic passion play in Yorkminster. We spent the rest of that day resting after our traumatic ordeal, but got to see a bit more of the city the next day.

This is Kath standing outside Yorkminster (we got the artistic effect of looking through the trees).

In the afternoon we went for a drive through the Yorkshire Dales and looked at some old ruined abbeys.

We visited St Michael of the Belfry church on the Easter Sunday morning which was absolutely lovely, and made our way home in the afternoon after having Roast Dinner with Yorkshire pudding, which is of course something you must do in York.

And the end of our car story? Well we didn’t have much money to begin with. When we took the car back in and told them our story with much laughter, they were so impressed with our loveliness and our terrible story, that they gave us the whole car hire for FREE! How good is that??? God looks after his own!! And kept us cheerful for the whole way through!