Off I go to Wick

 

(multimap’s spelling is just priceless… Edingurgh, hmmm, so where’s that then?!)

Well, the time has finally come… Sue’s wedding is on Saturday, and I’m heading up to Wick tomorrow lunchtime. Flip me its miles away! Its probably still light til 11:30pm up there! Sarah and I are hiring a car from Inverness airport and driving up to Wick, which should be interesting! I’m looking forward to seeing the old flatmates again, its been a while… a jolly good time should be had!

My talk thing on Sunday night went pretty well I thought, although I was quite nervous to start with and suddenly my three pages (1.5 spaced, size 12 font!) felt like a 3 volume tome, but I got into it, and people seemed to be paying attention to me! Neil (the minister) asked people at the end for some feedback and it was good, so I feel encouraged. Will still need to get a whole lot of practice in before I feel really comfortable with it, but hopefully I’ll get many opportunities to inflict my trainee skills on innocent people!

Yesterday and Tuesday I did a couple of days work at a box-packing factory. Oh yes, I did. It was definitely an experience. The 3 ladies that worked with me were in their 50s and 60s, and were really friendly and helpful. Working there just even for those 2 days gave me a small insight into real ‘working class’ (I know its not very pc, but I don’t know how else to describe it) women’s lives. And it was both humbling, challenging and frustrating. Humbling and challenging because it made me realise how fortunate I am. Growing up with my parents happily married, going on holidays, going to university and now going to do my masters… these ladies’ kids didn’t have the same priviledges as that, and I think that alot of the time I took these things for granted. And it also made me realise how hard it must be for people to get out of their difficult personal circumatances sometimes. The one lady, Terry, really hates working in the factory, but she’s been there 6 years now, and she doesn’t really feel like she can do anything else. She is 6 years off her retirement and although she has applied for other jobs, she hasn’t got anywhere and she feels doomed. She also has RSI through working there, so its pretty rough for her. I tried to encourage her to maybe volunteer somewhere to get some other experience, and to get feedback from her interviews, but I really didn’t feel like I could actually help her at all. I just felt like a spoilt posh girl who didn’t understand what her life was like. Its so hard. We got on really well and it was great talking to her and finding out about her life, but I wish that I could have done more.

The experience was frustrating as well though, because of the close-minded views that the ladies sometimes had. Their main source of information for news and current affairs was the Daily Star. So, really, their opinions on the current situation in the UK with terrorist threats etc, could definitely not be repeated here! They often insinuated things like all Muslims were terrorists and should be sent back to where they came from etc. I tried to give an alternative opinion when I could, but I also didn’t want to come over as ‘holier than thou’. It made me concerned because there are millions of other people who read the Daily Star as their daily newspaper too, and if these people also have some of the racist opinions that seemed prevalent, then its no wonder that the UK is struggling with issues of intergration, and race relations. It also made me think about churches’ role in all of this. Where was the church for these women? Terry lives on her own, one lady was a raging racist and the other seemed quite lonely. How does the church reach out to women like these? What could I have said that would have helped? The gospel is for all people, so why did I feel that really it is very easy to be a Christian if you are white, middle class and educated? Its so hard. I don’t know the answers, and I don’t know how the church can relevantly reach out to millions of people like this, but I think that Christians and the church should seriously start thinking about these issues and finding solutions to them too. Its a challenge that is relevant to us all. We can’t just ignore the issue and hope that it will go away, we must be part of the solution.

Time is marching on, and Tuesday fast approaches! I can’t wait to be in Prague with Phil, it is going to be amazing! I am going to a conference that is going on at the Seminary next week. It is titled: The Theology of Creation Care: Christian Environmental Stewardship conference. What a name! I’m looking forward to going, and I will keep the blog up to date! I don’t think that I will have time in between getting back from Wick on Monday night to leaving for Prague on Tuesday morning to blog again, so farewell lovely friends! I will definitely keep blogging from Prague, as long as you read it, I’ll write it! Lots of love. xxx

The Phil story… news from Prague.

So, Phil has been in Prague for a week now, and I thought I would update you on what he’s getting up to. I was looking for a picture of Czech beer and found the one above of this lady in a beer bath! I just couldn’t resist putting it in for your general education. A beer bath. How disgusting..! Imagine how sticky you would be? And the smell? Beer-breath stand aside, this is a whole new sort of smell! Anyway, this really has nothing to do with Phil at all. (I hope!)

Phil is doing really well so far. The other people on his course are good fun and an interesting mixture of nationalities, sexual orientations, religions and ages. He’s enjoying the post-working day beer with his new friends! Their days are pretty long and hectic, they start at 8:30am, and finish at 7:00pm. They have already had two teaching practices, which Phil said he didn’t really enjoy because of how pressured it was and how new it all felt, but he said that the feedback was good, so that’s the main thing. They are having to learn Romanian as foreign language students, as it teaches them how it feels to learn a new language, by being taught completing in that language. It sounds pretty hilarious! The also do teaching observation, as well as English grammar and language, and the teaching practicals too. So, sounds like he’s keeping out of mischief certainly..!

Lovely Czech beer…

Phil and his class buddies don’t seem to get much spare time, but they have been into the city a couple of times (once to go to Tesco..!) and he said its looking beautiful, if a bit wet. (August is often very wet in Czech… but September is lovely apparently!) The only thing that is a little on the nasty side is his accomodation, which he said is a bit basic and communist-feeling (!) but his flat mate is good craic, everyone is in the same boat, and they don’t have much time in their flats anyway, so he’s not too bothered.  He is feeling happy and at home, so that’s the main thing. I think he’s really delighted that a long-held desire to be in Czech has finally come true. Its pretty exciting! He did try to go to church last week, but he got lost, so he’s going to try again tomorrow… I’m hoping for the best..!

Nothing really happens in Sevenoaks, so I’ll not bore you with the non-events. However, I did have a great time chatting to the minister of Bessels Green Baptist over coffee on Tuesday. (Those of you that were at our wedding will remember Neil Durling as quite a character!) I was asking him about being a minister and how he enjoyed it, what inspired him, what annoyed him etc etc. It was a really excellent time and helped me think more about what I want to do, where I think God is leading me and where my passions and gifts lie. As Neil thinks I should get as much practice talking from the front, he asked me to do a wee 5 minute thing on Sunday night on some of my favourite Bible verses. Although its only 5 minutes, I’m a little nervous. I’m looking forward to it though, in a strange way. So yeah, if you pray, pray that I do an OK job tomorrow night.

Anyway, that’s about all really. Enjoy your weekend everyone!

Rattles flock

(I apologise for the length of the two most recent posts, however, this one in particular has struck such a chord with me that I felt that I had to put it up on my blog in full, not just a link. This article comes from Malcolm Duncan’s blog, the link to which is at the end of my blogroll. Malcolm is the Leader of Faithworks.) 

by Bill Alkofer for The New York Times 30^th July 2006

Most members of Woodland Hills Church near St. Paul stayed after the Rev. Gregory A. Boyd urged an end to sexual moralizing and military glorification and said America should not be proclaimed a “Christian nation.”

Like most pastors who lead thriving evangelical megachurches, the Rev. Gregory A. Boyd was asked frequently to give his blessing — and the church’s — to conservative political candidates and causes.

The requests came from church members and visitors alike: Would he please announce a rally against gay marriage during services? Would he introduce a politician from the pulpit? Could members set up a table in the lobby promoting their anti-abortion work? Would the church distribute “voters’ guides” that all but endorsed Republican candidates? And with the country at war, please couldn’t the church hang an American flag in the sanctuary?

After refusing each time, Mr. Boyd finally became fed up, he said. Before the last presidential election, he preached six sermons called “The Cross and the Sword” in which he said the church should steer clear of politics, give up moralizing on sexual issues, stop claiming the United States as a “Christian nation” and stop glorifying American military campaigns.

“When the church wins the culture wars, it inevitably loses,” Mr. Boyd preached. “When it conquers the world, it becomes the world. When you put your trust in the sword, you lose the cross.”

Mr. Boyd says he is no liberal. He is opposed to abortion and thinks homosexuality is not God’s ideal. The response from his congregation at Woodland Hills Church here in suburban St. Paul — packed mostly with politically and theologically conservative, middle-class evangelicals — was passionate. Some members walked out of a sermon and never returned. By the time the dust had settled, Woodland Hills, which Mr. Boyd founded in 1992, had lost about 1,000 of its 5,000 members.

But there were also congregants who thanked Mr. Boyd, telling him they were moved to tears to hear him voice concerns they had been too afraid to share. “Most of my friends are believers,” said Shannon Staiger, a psychotherapist and church member, “and they think if you’re a believer, you’ll vote for Bush. And it’s scary to go against that.”

Sermons like Mr. Boyd’s are hardly typical in today’s evangelical churches. But the upheaval at Woodland Hills is an example of the internal debates now going on in some evangelical colleges, magazines and churches. A common concern is that the Christian message is being compromised by the tendency to tie evangelical Christianity to the Republican Party and American nationalism, especially through the war in Iraq.

At least six books on this theme have been published recently, some by Christian publishing houses. Randall Balmer, a religion professor at Barnard College and an evangelical, has written “Thy Kingdom Come: How the Religious Right Distorts the Faith and Threatens America — an Evangelical’s Lament.”

And Mr. Boyd has a new book out, “The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power Is Destroying the Church,” which is based on his sermons. “There is a lot of discontent brewing,” said Brian D. McLaren, the founding pastor at Cedar Ridge Community Church in Gaithersburg, Md., and a leader in the evangelical movement known as the “emerging church,” which is at the forefront of challenging the more politicized evangelical establishment.

“More and more people are saying this has gone too far — the dominance of the evangelical identity by the religious right,” Mr. McLaren said. “You cannot say the word ‘Jesus’ in 2006 without having an awful lot of baggage going along with it. You can’t say the word ‘Christian,’ and you certainly can’t say the word ‘evangelical’ without it now raising connotations and a certain cringe factor in people. “Because people think, ‘Oh no, what is going to come next is homosexual bashing, or pro-war rhetoric, or complaining about ‘activist judges.’” Mr. Boyd said he had cleared his sermons with the church’s board, but his words left some in his congregation stunned. Some said that he was disrespecting President Bush and the military, that he was soft on abortion or telling them not to vote.

“When we joined years ago, Greg was a conservative speaker,” said William Berggren, a lawyer who joined the church with his wife six years ago. “But we totally disagreed with him on this. You can’t be a Christian and ignore actions that you feel are wrong. A case in point is the abortion issue. If the church were awake when abortion was passed in the 70’s, it wouldn’t have happened. But the church was asleep.”

Mr. Boyd, 49, who preaches in blue jeans and rumpled plaid shirts, leads a church that occupies a squat block-long building that was once a home improvement chain store. The church grew from 40 members in 12 years, based in no small part on Mr. Boyd’s draw as an electrifying preacher who stuck closely to Scripture. He has degrees from Yale Divinity School and Princeton Theological Seminary, and he taught theology at Bethel College in St. Paul, where he created a controversy a few years ago by questioning whether God fully knew the future. Some pastors in his own denomination, the Baptist General Conference, mounted an effort to evict Mr. Boyd from the denomination and his teaching post, but he won that battle. He is known among evangelicals for a bestselling book, “Letters From a Skeptic,” based on correspondence with his father, a leftist union organizer and a lifelong agnostic — an exchange that eventually persuaded his father to embrace Christianity. Mr. Boyd said he never intended his sermons to be taken as merely a critique of the Republican Party or the religious right. He refuses to share his party affiliation, or whether he has one, for that reason. He said there were Christians on both the left and the right who had turned politics and patriotism into “idolatry.”

He said he first became alarmed while visiting another megachurch’s worship service on a Fourth of July years ago. The service finished with the chorus singing “God Bless America” and a video of fighter jets flying over a hill silhouetted with crosses. “I thought to myself, ‘What just happened? Fighter jets mixed up with the cross?’ ” he said in an interview. Patriotic displays are still a mainstay in some evangelical churches. Across town from Mr. Boyd’s church, the sanctuary of North Heights Lutheran Church was draped in bunting on the Sunday before the Fourth of July this year for a “freedom celebration.” Military veterans and flag twirlers paraded into the sanctuary, an enormous American flag rose slowly behind the stage, and a Marine major who had served in Afghanistan preached that the military was spending “your hard-earned money” on good causes.

In his six sermons, Mr. Boyd laid out a broad argument that the role of Christians was not to seek “power over” others — by controlling governments, passing legislation or fighting wars. Christians should instead seek to have “power under” others — “winning people’s hearts” by sacrificing for those in need, as Jesus did, Mr. Boyd said. “America wasn’t founded as a theocracy,” he said. “America was founded by people trying to escape theocracies. Never in history have we had a Christian theocracy where it wasn’t bloody and barbaric. That’s why our Constitution wisely put in a separation of church and state. “I am sorry to tell you,” he continued, “that America is not the light of the world and the hope of the world. The light of the world and the hope of the world is Jesus Christ.”

Mr. Boyd lambasted the “hypocrisy and pettiness” of Christians who focus on “sexual issues” like homosexuality, abortion or Janet Jackson’s breast-revealing performance at the Super Bowl halftime show. He said Christians these days were constantly outraged about sex and perceived violations of their rights to display their faith in public. “Those are the two buttons to push if you want to get Christians to act,” he said. “And those are the two buttons Jesus never pushed.”Some Woodland Hills members said they applauded the sermons because they had resolved their conflicted feelings. David Churchill, a truck driver for U.P.S. and a Teamster for 26 years, said he had been “raised in a religious-right home” but was torn between the Republican expectations of faith and family and the Democratic expectations of his union. When Mr. Boyd preached his sermons, “it was liberating to me,” Mr. Churchill said.

Mr. Boyd gave his sermons while his church was in the midst of a $7 million fund-raising campaign. But only $4 million came in, and 7 of the more than 50 staff members were laid off, he said. Mary Van Sickle, the family pastor at Woodland Hills, said she lost 20 volunteers who had been the backbone of the church’s Sunday school. “They said, ‘You’re not doing what the church is supposed to be doing, which is supporting the Republican way,’ ” she said. “It was some of my best volunteers.” The Rev. Paul Eddy, a theology professor at Bethel College and the teaching pastor at Woodland Hills, said: “Greg is an anomaly in the megachurch world. He didn’t give a whit about church leadership, never read a book about church growth. His biggest fear is that people will think that all church is is a weekend carnival, with people liking the worship, the music, his speaking, and that’s it.”

In the end, those who left tended to be white, middle-class suburbanites, church staff members said. In their place, the church has added more members who live in the surrounding community — African-Americans, Hispanics and Hmong immigrants from Laos.This suits Mr. Boyd. His vision for his church is an ethnically and economically diverse congregation that exemplifies Jesus’ teachings by its members’ actions. He, his wife and three other families from the church moved from the suburbs three years ago to a predominantly black neighborhood in St. Paul. Mr. Boyd now says of the upheaval: “I don’t regret any aspect of it at all. It was a defining moment for us. We let go of something we were never called to be. We just didn’t know the price we were going to pay for doing it.”

His congregation of about 4,000 is still digesting his message. Mr. Boyd arranged a forum on a recent Wednesday night to allow members to sound off on his new book. The reception was warm, but many of the 56 questions submitted in writing were pointed: Isn’t abortion an evil that Christians should prevent?

Are you saying Christians should not join the military?

How can Christians possibly have “power under” Osama bin Laden?

Didn’t the church play an enormously positive role in the civil rights movement?

One woman asked: “So why NOT us? If we contain the wisdom and grace and love and creativity of Jesus, why shouldn’t we be the ones involved in politics and setting laws?”

Mr. Boyd responded: “I don’t think there’s a particular angle we have on society that others lack. All good, decent people want good and order and justice. Just don’t slap the label ‘Christian’ on it.”

Worship and Justice

 

By Phil Bowyer

Over the years there have been some incredibly dynamic duos: Batman and Robin, Tom and Jerry or perhaps Kermit the frog and Miss Piggy. Of course there’s been a few doubtful double acts that surely weren’t in God’s pre-fall plans: Keith Harris and Orville the duck, Eddie the Eagle Edwards and Ski jumping and more recently Richard and Judy. So what about worship and justice, should they be kept apart or were they destined to be together?

For better or worst, our lives in some way will have been affected by some of the partnerships above, but what impact do some of the more unequal comparisons which exist in our world today have on the way we live and worship? Why is it that 100% of the UK (60 million people) has access to clean drinking water, whilst 75% of population of Ethiopia don’t – that’s 45 million people! 21 million mobile phones are owned by 14 –25 year olds in the UK, yet over five billion people in the world don’t even have access to reliable landlines. How can a premiership footballer earn tens of thousand of pounds a day while the kid stitching his boots is expected to work 16 hour shifts for less than 60p a day?

And injustice isn’t just ‘over there’. About 13 million (1 in three children) in the UK live in poverty.1 in 20 people in the UK are likely to experience homelessness at some point in there life. Every night people use the doorway of your favourite fast food chain as their place to sleep, women are selling themselves on street corners of every major town and city and teenagers are being stabbed to death at college. Whether you’re familiar with facts like these or not, you can’t deny that this isn’t how things are meant to be. So do such opposing facts from two sides of the world inform our worship? Can a double act of worship and justice make a difference to our lives for the sake of others?

Have we lost our idea of a balanced life?
In Luke 12:15, Jesus says that ‘a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.’ Do we really live as though we believe it? Many of us live life like its one of those all you can eat meal deals at the local pizzeria. Stacking the salad bowl as high we possibly can until the tomatoes spill all over the floor. Piling on hot pizza slices regardless of whether we have the capacity to consume them or not. We try and cram in as many possessions and experiences as we can. At the end of the day that’s how we judge our success.

Not content with grabbing as much as we can, we’re constantly craving the ‘next big thing’. It starts at school with playground crazes – football stickers, yo-yos or cyber pets – and rolls seamlessly into our adult life. No longer satisfied with a printer that prints, we want the one that scans, faxes, photocopies, emails and generally sorts out our lives for us. We ‘gotta have it’. Constantly looking forward, we can easily miss the ‘now’. If we not careful we could find ourselves settling for the ‘next best thing’ rather than the big things God that has in store for us.

A life with all that cramming and craving has only one consequence – you’ll crash! If we forget what we’re meant to do be doing, where we’re meant to be heading and whom we’re meant to be worshipping, it won’t be long before we loose all perspective of who, what and why God is. As soon as your life begins to focus inwards and you put your own search for satisfaction on a pedestal, its inevitably you’ll fall off. Look up and out and you might just be able to regain some sense of balance. A life worshiping things rather than God is kind of like the difference between your digitally enhanced set of scales and the traditional kind you can pick up in any antique shop. One may be able to tell you all you want to know about you to the nearest micron, but it reveals nothing about the affect your lifestyle choices are having on others. You see measuring life the modern way has very little to do with the principle of maintaining equality and balance and everything to do with the amount of stuff. When we measure the effectiveness of our life, do we stop and consider it in relation to the impact it has on others?

So how do we return to a balanced life?
Like the guy who’s so busy looking at his reflection in the shop window or the girl checking her lippy in the car mirror, it’s only a matter of time before something hits us that makes us realise that we’re looking for God in the wrong places. In Isaiah 58 God gives us a glimpse at the kind of worship full lifestyle he expects of his people. The Jews were doing all the right things: praying, fasting, worshipping and all that stuff, but nothing seemed to happen.
‘Why have we fasted,’ they say, ‘and you have not seen it? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you have not noticed?’ (Isaiah 58:3)

God never seems to answer their prayers; they constantly miss his will and feel as far away from him as they ever have done – why? Through Isaiah God reveals three major things for them to work on, and as worshippers eager to lead others closer to him, these might be something for us to bear in mind too.

1. Worship with integrity
God’s questions Israel’s integrity. They may pray one thing but the do the opposite.

“…on the day of your fasting, you do as you please and exploit all your workers. Your fasting ends in quarrelling and strife, and in striking each other with wicked fists. You cannot fast as you do today and expect your voice to be heard on high.” (Isaiah 58: 3-5)

We need to ask ourselves whether we really worship with integrity? What injustice in our own lives can’t disappear by simply shutting our eyes to pray or raising our hands to worship? Or, as a friend once said to me: ‘how do you expect God to answer your prayers whilst you’re wearing those trainers?’ Even if I pray or sing against injustice daily do my lifestyle choices echo my demands? Do the trainers I wear, or the snacks I consume, contribute to or combat the injustice I pray about? Have people really been treated fairly in providing for my lifestyle? Which screams loudest to God, my words or my actions? Presumably, rather than just songs, what God’s really wants is a ‘just’ lifestyle full of activity that benefits others.

2. Worship through action
More than any heartfelt song God seems to be calling for radical action to change the way people are treated. Imagine how a friend would feel if they asked you to help them carry a piano down 58 flights of stairs and all you did was stand at the bottom, sing songs, praise their efforts and say how awesome they were. Is that how to show you honour someone, that when they ask something of us, we’d rather worship from a far than roll up our sleeves up and get stuck in? How does God feel when he asks us to show mercy and justice and all we do is sing?
“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? 7 Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter- when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? (Isaiah 58:6-7)

3. Worship as lifestyle
What God wants from us is a life long commitment to worship him and in doing so to worship others. A life that doesn’t just speak about a desire to ‘loose the chains of injustice’ but actually does it. God’s wants a life emptied, given over and completely spent for the sake of someone other than ourselves.

“…spend yourselves on behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday….you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.” (Isaiah 58:10-12)

So how do we maintain the worship / life balance?
So what does God want? He wants ‘just’ worship and a ‘just’ life. A life that is full of worship, but not any old worship, worship that is simpler, plain and more effectively because it is fair, right, impartial, honest, honourable, righteous, moral, and truthful. Most of all, worship that makes a difference to him, to us, for others and for good!

***Phil’s article orginally featured in www.passionforyourname.com

Charming Sevenoaks…

 

Deer in Knole Park

As a teenager living in Sevenoaks, I always used to hate the insular, middle-class, and very white feeling of the town. I hated going to Waitrose with my mom, as I would invaribly see one of my teachers and then have to make friendly chat, even if I felt that the teacher was probably cursing my name as soon as she turned away! In Sevenoaks there is the ‘right’ thing to do, and wo betide those who aren’t seen to be doing it. I still feel a bit awkward when I come back to visit my parents. I think its just small town life, but everyone seems to know everyone else’s business. Especially where they live, what they drive and which (private) schools their children go to.

But, I have come to appreciate that there are some lovely things about Sevenoaks. Namely, Knole Park. Phil and I went for a walk yesterday afternoon and it was really beautiful. The sun had finally decided to make an appearance, and the deer were grazing or lazing in the afternoon sunshine. It was truly lovely! Another good thing about Sevenoaks is the church that I used to go to: Bessels Green Baptist. Technically its in Bessels Green, not Sevenoaks, but anyway. The great thing about the church is its people and its desire to reach out to its community. It has relevant and interesting teaching, great activities for all ages and a general feeling of friendliness. Its always a pleasure to come back.

Phil goes to Prague tomorrow, I can’t believe its come so soon. I will join him in a couple of weeks, which feels like absolutely ages! I suppose it will be good for him to concentrate on his course though, and not to have me there to distract him! He will be living with another TESOL student near to the Prague Language School where he’ll be studying for a month. I’m glad that he’ll be with another student, it makes me feel a bit better about abandoning him.

 

Beautiful, wonderful, romantic Prague…!

I have two more weeks at home with my folks, and then I go up to Sue’s wedding (one of my lovely flatmates from my student days) before joining Phil in Prague! Hurrah! Its weird that we’re not living in Edinburgh anymore, but I think we both feel pretty happy about it all. (Not the leaving Edinburgh bit, that’s been hard, but the moving to Prague bit!) We have a tenant for our wee flat and she sounds pretty cool, so hopefully she’ll not trash everything in sight and then run away without paying the rent! If anyone sees flames coming out of 277 Dalkeith Rd, please let us know!

Matt and Bethan’s wedding, Saturday 29th July

Matt and Bethan got married at Bessels Green Baptist Church on Saturday afternoon! It was a beautiful sunny day and Bethan and Matt both looked lovely! The service was moving and thoughtful and Neil Durling once again was funny and challenging. The reception was at Kippington Hall, which was such a gorgeous venue… big windows and sky-lights and stunning flower arrangements on the tables. The food was very tasty and although there wasn’t a big dance afterwards, the whole thing was so enjoyable and very classy! Matt and Bethan did do the first and only dance of the night… a salsa which they had been practicing (much to my delight and glee!) for a few weeks. I thought that it was going to be completely twee and geeky, but it was actually pretty good! It was especially entertaining because Bethan’s dress straps fell off! But she was the picture of calm and just kept dancing away!

This is our family with our new extended family too! Bethan’s two sisters were bridesmaids and did a fantastic job, although no-one could out-do Matt’s best man, ushers and friends who were put to work as soon as they got to Sevenoaks. They were fantastic. Never have I seen groomsmen who actually do something useful, instead of just wearing a nice suit!

me and Matt…

It was really lovely having most of the Russell family (alas, not Pam) with us on Matt’s special day. Although I did really expect Jen to speak up at the ‘does anyone have any objections to this union’ bit! Jen and Matt were (in Matt’s words) ‘childhood sweethearts’. I don’t know if Jen always saw it quite like that, but Matt adored her! Pam and I had many a happy time teasing them about getting married. Ah well, nevermind… obviously Pam and I were lacking the necessary match-making skills!

All in all, a wonderful and beautiful day, enjoyed by all. Matt and Bethan are now travelling around South Africa for 5 weeks (alright for some!) and then will be going to live in Wales, near to where Bethan went to uni, until January. After that, probably a few months in Asia with OMF and then who knows?! My little brother is all married and grown up now, I can’t believe it. I’m looking forward to getting to know Bethan better and walking with them as all four of us learn what it is to be old, married and boring!