Blood Diamond… think about your bling.

You have to see this film. Its incredibly powerful and challenging.

See it.

Phil and I did on Saturday night… and its certainly stopped me from thinking about the fact that I was preaching in church the next day! The film is incredible. DiCaprio does the most convincing ‘Rhodesian’ (Zimbabwean) accent that I have ever heard. He has all the nuances and expressions of white Southern Africans to perfection. And Djimon Hounsou is an amazing actor too. Just go and see it. And be changed by it. Really think about where your or your girlfriend/wife/friend/lover’s diamonds come from. Make sure that you are not buying conflict diamonds by asking for a diamond registration number and country of origin.

Preaching on Sunday went well too… I had to do it as part of a course requirement, but also just for me to have a go and see what happened! I was happy with how it went, and I passed it in the formal assessment sense. I’ll just have to see where this crazy path is leading me. I love what one of our friends, Dejan, said that his Croatian friend said about me when I got up to preach: “A girl. Who is going to preach. In jeans.” Brilliant.

The itch that you just can’t get at to scratch…

 

I’ve been thinking about South Africa alot over the past few days. Sometimes with excitement, sometimes with fear… always with love. Since I left South Africa as a teenager, I’ve always known that I wanted to go back to Africa. Over the years, that desire has not decreased, but the ‘where’ in Africa has shifted around a bit. Sub-Saharan Africa was always on the radar, but not necessarily South Africa itself. I’m not exactly sure why though. I’ve always felt the desire, but also felt scared by the thought of it. When we lived in South Africa, we didn’t think twice about having burgular bars, electric fencing, home security systems etc… its just part of life. But then when we moved to the UK, we discovered a whole other way of life. Most people don’t have major security concerns, most people feel safe walking around places… you don’t always have to lock your car doors (I mean, when you are inside the car!) or be vigilant every moment of your life. You don’t need burgular bars on all your windows and doors… and I really like life this way. Now when I go back to South Africa, I hate feeling security conscious all. the. time. I hate not being able to walk to places… or rather, I hate the way that people tell you that you can’t walk around anywhere. People are always warning you, don’t walk there, don’t go there, don’t don’t don’t. I really got sick of it. OK, I know that there is crime in South Africa, and I know that there is more crime in South Africa than in alot of places, but I hated feeling like I should be scared all the time. I hated feeling like a prisoner. I hated being told where I could and could not go. And that is the major thing that puts me off going back to South Africa. I like feeling safe. In fact, I really love it. But I also love South Africa. I would really love to go back, and to be, work, live alongside people that need to experience God’s love. I would love to be able to go back and try to make a difference in the country that I was born and brought up in, and where my heart truly is. Maybe one of the reasons that I was always afraid of going back to South Africa is because when I compare myself to friends who have not left, I don’t ‘feel’ South African. I know that that is stupid, but I’ve been away for 10 years nearly, and sometimes I feel like a con saying that I still feel South African. (BTW, Phil says this is very stupid, and I know he’s right, but sometimes you can’t help that you feel something stupid!!) I also get seriously frustrated with many white South Africans who only moan about their situation instead of trying to actually do something about it (although there are those kind of people all over the world in every country)… and that although apartheid is not legally in place, still there are so many divisions in society.

Anyway, I’m dreaming about South Africa. I’m dreaming about going back and being with people and communities… being with those people who are showing the values and attitudes and love of the Kingdom of God in that amazing country.

Lent

Found this very interesting study for the season of Lent on the BBC Religion and Ethics website. It looks at the history of slavery, what the Bible says about slavery in the Old and New Testaments… the key people who fought against slavery, and how it affects us still today, and how we can help bring slavery to an end.

Check it out… its a great resource and could perhaps be helpful in group discussions or Bible studies, or even as a quiet-time focus for the next few weeks of Lent.

Questions…

Sometimes there are just too many questions going on in my head… this weekend has been one of those times. Generally it happens when I’m studying… one thing just leads to another. When I was younger I truly believed that by the time I was 21 I would know exactly what I wanted to do with my life etc. Obviously, I’m still waiting!

This year the Ellish family will commemorate living in the UK for 10 years. While there are many many things that I can celebrate and be thankful for, it still is a weird thing for me. Leaving South Africa marked the beginning of my rather unsettled life since then. Not that I don’t love adventure/travelling, but that I really miss that sense of being absolutely rooted in one single nationality or culture. It was such a shock to the system. And sometimes I still feel the pain of that. I think that one of the hardest things is that its impossible to go back. It would be impossible for me to go back to South Africa now, because its not a place that I recognise in that familiar, back-of-your-hand, comfortable type way. I guess I see it with adult eyes now, instead of a young 15 yr old’s eyes. That life that I left is truly in the past. And that hurts. And sometimes I want to feel that comfort of just being from one place, one people… but I can’t. I can’t completely associate with white South African identity because there is a fair bit that I dislike about it, and also its feels like too long ago now… I didn’t have my ‘formative’ years there… and I still ‘feel’ South African, but at the same time I will never be British… so what am I? Some weird mixture I guess…

Sometimes you just wonder what life’s all about anyway…

Run in with the law!

Today I had my first encounter with the Czech police… hurrah! Obviously, they were charming and delightful, as all Czechs are. “What did you do to have a run-in with the police?” I hear you ask… Was it screaming at the unfriendly cashiers in the supermarket? Running naked down the road? Shop lifting? No friend, none of these heinous crimes. I’ll tell you what I did: I crossed the road at a pedestrian crossing on the RED man!! “Oh my word!” I hear you cry! Yes, I’m afraid its true. I did it. I’m sorry.

The two burly men stopped me in my tracks as I walked confidently across the road before the green man appeared. Laughing inwardly at the poor fools who were obediently waiting for the green man. Ha! I am going to get across the street before you… I will buy all the fresh lettuce before you even cross the shop’s threshold! Well, my confidence quickly melted when I was confronted by the men who held up their police badges and started talking to me in very fast and angry-sounding Czech. Thinking that they just wanted to see my tram ticket, I held it out and hoped for the best. But they kept on, so I had to feebly say “ne cesky” and hope that they would let me go. Instead the tougher looking one sighed and continued in English, telling me that I was in the Czech Republic now, and that it was illegal to cross the road when the red man was showing, so I was going to be fined 2000K (roughly £50) and I had to show him my documents. (for a split second I felt like what it might have felt like to live in communist-Czech Republic… being asked for my ‘documents’… like everyone carries around their passport with them?!!) Instead of just begging for mercy (the right thing) I began by arguing my case (the wrong thing)… I said that there were no cars and the light turned to green as I was crossing and what the hell were they doing wasting their time trying to catch people crossing the road at the red man, why weren’t they doing important things… (I may not have said that last bit). But I soon realised my folly and just apologised. He said that this would be my warning, but next time I would be fined. He then saluted me and let me go. Forunately I didn’t pee in my pants, but it was a close one. The combination of humiliation and fury nearly sent me over the edge!

Needless to say, I wasn’t the first one into the supermarket!

Books, books and books…

 

Hello friends, its been a crazy week and I should probably be working on my two essays or sermon (yes, exactly, how utterly scary!) but I’m just checking in to say hello! I had ‘Homiletics’ and ‘Leadership’ lectures last week, which were both very interesting and insightful courses. I now have the fun job of writing essays… not quite as enjoyable as sitting around discussing how real leadership in the church should encouraged to come from the bottom up, not the top down..! But anyway. I’m doing my Homiletics essay on narrative preaching, which will be interesting, and my Leadership essay on Martin Luther King Jr. In my church in Prague we follow the lectionary, which is both a blessing and a curse… so for the 25th February I have to choose from Luke 4: 1 – 13, Deut 26: 1 – 11, Psalm 91, or Romans 10: 8 – 13. Not particularly easy passages, but I enjoy a challenge (erm) so I think that I may go for the Luke passage (Jesus tempted in the wilderness).

Life outside of studying is good, Phil is happy, and Spring is in the air! Have a great weekend!

Babies and all that.

 

For a few years now, I have thought that I when I was a ‘grown up’ I would like to adopt a child.  I don’t know where this desire or thought came from, and it has not gone away over the years, but grown stronger. When I was thinking of mentioning this to Phil a while ago (before we were married) I was pretty worried about what his reaction would be. Fortunately for me, he was open to the idea even though he hadn’t really thought about it before. So, it became part of our thoughts about ‘the future’, which was obviously way off in the distance!

It was interesting then, when I was met at Prague Airport in August last year by a lovely couple called Matt and Jenny, who said that they were in the process of adopting a wee girl here in Prague. This was the first time that I had met a couple that were choosing to adopt before they tried to have biological children. (One other couple that I had spoken to about this said that we should first see if we could have our own children before we went down the adoption route. Personally I found this pretty offensive, as it reflects exactly the attitudes of society towards adopted children, namely that they are the next best option for couples who can’t have their own children. It is exactly against this kind of thinking that I was reacting against.) At the time, I thought that this was pretty amazing: to meet other people with the desire to be parents and family to a baby without either.

I’m beginning to think that this is not just coincidence. Phil and I have become friends with Matt and Jenny over the past few months. Jenny teaches English to some of the students and Matt is an Old Testament teacher. We celebrated with them when they got the call in September to say that they could fetch their little girl, Anna, from the orphanage. And we joined with the community in welcoming her to her new home at IBTS. Anna is a beautiful little toddler, full of life and very smiley! We have watched as she grew from a shy, unsure girl in September to an increasingly happy, confident little lady now. We are even lucky enough to get to babysit her from time to time, which really is a privilege. Naturally, watching Matt and Jenny go through this process and talking with them about how it has and is going doesn’t exactly discourage us from our thoughts about adoption! So, we are thinking and praying about it, asking God to reveal his plan for us, and for any little people that he might bring into our lives.

There are many children living in orphanages all over the world, and although I would not want any child that we might adopt to feel like they were a ‘charity case’, nonetheless, we feel deeply that all children should have a family to call their own. I can’t imagine what my life would be like without my parents, and I don’t think that any child should have to either. Of course, in an ideal world, all the orphans would be looked after, cared for and nurtured, but that is not the reality for so many children. So even if we can only give a family to one child, that is still one child less without a mom and dad. If we do think that this is the right time for us to embark on this scary, but hopefully rewarding journey, we will hopefully start the process in August this year… in the meantime, I would really appreciate your prayers for us, as we seek God’s will about this potentially huge step.