What kind of legacy will I leave?

This has been a very sad and very challenging week. I attended a funeral on Monday and watched two girls aged 10 and 18 weep over the coffin of their father. Another situation that I am indirectly involved sees a girl my age lose her husband today to cancer. She has a two and a half year old child and is expecting their second in November. I watched my nephew play happily with my two kids today desperately sad that he will not grow up to know his Grandpa, someone who doted upon him, someone who would have been such a role model for him.
I have had some pretty deep conversations this week. In one with my brother we discussed all that Jack's Grandpa had been to folks around about him, the completely giving nature of the man. So many folks tonight grieving the loss and wondering who else will fill that gap. As we talked we acknowledged it was our responsibility to ensure that those values would be passed to Jack. It was our responsibility to ensure that he grew up with the challenge of living a life for others. The choices will be his, as they are ours.
My son climbed in to bed beside me this morning. Grateful, I think, for a few quiet moments with his mum, there have been precious few of those this week. In that half asleep but conscious he was there state, I heard him say. "You are my hero, Mum." How wonderful would it be to always be that to my son. He will watch my choices and live my choices directly for the next 14 years, God willing, and then indirectly after that. May he see someone he can be proud of. May he see someone who values life, who enjoys the journey, someone who recognises that we are not just here for ourselves but here to make a difference in the lives around us.

Enjoy the journey

We live our lives at such a pace. There is a constant pressure to do and to achieve. I have worked really hard over the last few months to tackle my "need to achieve" condition which was beginning to impact on my health. I have been proud of my progress and the reduction of stress pains in my back and shoulder. It is never far away with me though and a new boss at work has just thrown things out of kilter a little. I need to keep remembering that life is not about doing.

This weekend in our extended family we have been shocked with a devastating event and are now walking with someone facing the loss of her much beloved father. He has lived life to the full, someone to admire. Our faith brings the certainty of a bright future for him and also the comfort of knowing that we do not walk through these traumas alone. We walk with a God who knows suffering and promises a peace that passes all understanding.

Life is there not just to be lived but to be enjoyed and in our enjoyment there is opportunity to bring much to others. My parents returned form Tanzania today. They have had an excellent trip. Sharing and encouraging many. Doing more than perhaps would be suggested normal for a couple of their age but they are maladjusted. They are clear about what their lives are about. They have the normal stresses and strains and many discussions about priorities but they are enjoying the journey and do not live in a "if only I had done...... if only i had said" mentality.

Too hot to post!

It is too hot to do a lot of things in actual fact.

We have had their baby paddling pool out for the kids two days in a row. It is way too small to swim or even paddle in but it has been a lot of fun taking diving leaps into and having water fights! We have worked like mad in our allotment and in our own garden over the last four days, planting kale and broccoli wherever we could find space. We have discovered that slugs just adore broccoli, nasty creatures, so we are now tempting them over to the very dark, hopefully dead, side with beer slug traps. To date we have only sent a beetle to a very intoxicated death.

I have had a mountain of school to complete this weekend and have a huge mountain of ironing that we are now falling over on the upstairs landing. Both are going to be done outside today. I have never ironed outside before but I refuse to spend this period of sunshine inside. This is Scotland. This sunshine will not last. It needs to be exploited to the full. (or maybe fool as I flatten bugs into our clothes!)

My parents called again last night. It just blows me away that I can talk to them in Tanzania like they were in the next house. They have been insanely busy but are having a really rewarding time. Yesterday they had a few hours off and they went for a walk. I walked the same path in my head last night, knowing that over 15 years it will look very different. There were three kids that we played with a lot around the TAG church all those years ago. Winnie, all grown up, is now serving food at the bible college. Her Mum was part of a sewing class we helped out with.

It really is time for them to come home and let me see some photo's.

Toilets and stuff

We had to have our toilet seen to this week, an intermittent flush. We tolerated it for a while and then I had a major stamp the feet moment one night and we both new that a plumber would be required and soon.If you live in our area and need a plumber I now have one I would be happy to recommend. Our little boy was kind of anxious about him coming. I am not sure exactly what image "plumber" had conjured up in his mind but he looked mighty relieved when he arrived in a normal van, with a big smile and friendly chat, and he was, of course, mighty impressed by anyone that can fix things with a wrench and a hammer.

During our six months in Dodoma we had an intermittently flushing toilet. It flushed when the water was on and did not when it was not. Sometimes it was just off for four or five hours and other times much longer. On one occasion it was off for about two weeks as a major piece was missing from the town system and needed ordered from who knows where, probably a neighbouring country. We ran extremely low in our water supplies, huge barrels in the house and had to pit the barrels in the land rover and drive up to the Bible college a couple of miles up the road. They had their own well and were delighted to let us fill our containers. That is the Bible college where my parents are currently staying and teaching.

Across the road was an AOG church and many wonderful folks who became firm friends. They lived in a dry and dusty area where very little was grown. Cathy went home from that group and her ATC group raised a whole heap of cash that allowed that church to sink a well. We returned two years later and a dry and dusty area had been transformed into a wonderful vegetable garden. There was food and income right there!!

On my third trip to Tanzania we had no flushing toilet, just wonderfully constructed wooden platforms and the rest I leave to your imaginations. Actually, it is hugely preferable to a non flushing disgusting toilet any day! The village we stayed in had no plumbing at all. Each morning our water for the day arrived on the heads of a group of women from the village. That was hugely humbling and when we returned from making mud bricks, an incredibly dirty process obviously, we tumbled into "shower blocks" wooden partitions and bathed in a small bucketful of water. There was no complaining. That water had travelled miles, and I do mean miles, at a great cost to someone else. I also have to confess here that when I asked for my bucket, it was always hot. Hey! Don't tell the others! Some of them may only have had the occasional warm bucket. Leader privileges. I just smiled and said a very big "Asante sana!!".

This week, I dug out my canvas shoes from last year. They were still in pretty good nick and I am not into wasting anything. I wore them for a couple of days and then took them off one night in the living room to a fairly major reaction from Mike. My feet were possibly not the sweetest smelling things. Some things just maybe need to hit the bin. Can you imagine how our canvas shoes smelled after six months in Tanzania with very little else to wear and in high temperatures. Gill (my roommate) and I, had an agreement that they would never be brought into our room. For the life of me I cannot recollect where we left them. Big ol' nasty cockroaches were always a toe crunching hazard. On the last day in Dodoma Gill took her nasty shoes and had a bit of a dumping ceremony, leaving them outside by the fire for our guards to burn up. (As wazungus, white folks, we needed guards on our house to protect us from armed gangs. They would have been dreadfully disappointed as we did not even have furniture beyond a table and eight chairs in the house.) We were completely gobsmacked later to see one of the guards wearing those nasty ol' shoes, looking totally chuffed with himself at his new aquisition.
As I said Tanzania taught me a lot about maladjustment.

Tanzania

Today my parents arrived in Dodoma, the capital of Tanzania. They have travelled in Tanzania on a number of occasions but this is the first time they have visited Dodoma, the place I lived and worked and learned so much for six months, way back in 1993. I have just spoken with them, so easy these days with mobile technology and a far cry from the one phone call home I had in six months, on Christmas day. I recollect Mum and I crying most of the 30 minutes!

Tanzania was the place that I really and truly developed my heart for maladjustment, taught by so many wonderful friends there and supported by a great team of folks who were keen to learn the same lessons as I and desperate to give whatever we could. Cathy, Gill, Jackie, Mark and David. I will relive those days so much over the next two weeks and am desperate for news and photo's and my parents' stories.

I went back to Tanzania with another team a few years later. It was another truly inspiring time. We started a process of building a secondary school by helping make the mud bricks. That team grafted their hearts out in tough but wonderful conditions. I think about those guys a lot too. Annette, Rowan, Brenda and Terry. Jenny and David to name a few. I am so bad at keeping up with folks that they are probably sure I do not even remember their names. The secondary school is finished, I have heard, and I know much of the work that was started in the hearts of team members is still real and bearing fruit. I know it is in mine.

If I had the authority, I would be oh so tempted to make it mandatory for everyone to spend at least one week of their life in another culture. The world would be a much more understanding and generous place. We would better know what was important for sure.

For me, I want to take the family and go back to Dodoma and learn some more.

Growth

All sorts of stuff is growing in our allotment, and most of it good. The greenhouse now has tomatoes and cucumbers. Our cabbage, kale and broccoli are doing their level best to fight past the slug munching and grow up big and strong. We are still not completely sure which is which. I kind of lost the system when I transplanted them out into trays to give them more space.The beans have made an appearance, as has the garlic and the onions.

Today while we rejoiced in growth we did a fare amount of raka fracking at a weed, a strong virulent, and all over the place, weed. Little did we realise as we dug over the soil initially that we were in a battle with this enemy. Its root system is oh so long and now very hard to remove from in between our little plants battling bravely for life. As we moved to dig out a new area today I took so much more time to dig deeper and clear out every sign of anything that may just be a root. Who knows whether I will have been succesful. Time will tell, as will the success of the carrots we plan to sow there.

This week I listened to an account of a family whose lives had been devastated by an evil act of wrong doing. This one act had allowed something to become rooted and the roots grew strong destroying over and over again what could have been new positive life. As I listened I wondered how change could ever be brought about. What level of support and counselling would be required to bring goodness into a situation that so cried out for it?

As I have reflected on this situation this week I have been led to pray. I believe that the Eternal Gardner knows how to gently but persistently pull out and clear away all those roots that would seek to destroy. Then those plants that have been desperate to blossom can do so, into all sorts of wonderful creations. Please God.

If only I had some faith for a miraculous removing of that weed from our garden.

Charity shops don't do white!

One of the big challenges I had set myself this year was to avoid clothes shops and see if it is possible to stick with charity shops to keep my wardrobe kitted out. Also to explore the possibilities out there in fairly traded clothes.
I hate shopping so leaving behind the high street has been a breeze. I have made the occasional forage into charity shops and found a few good things but on the whole I just haven't bought stuff, quite honestly having no need. That in itself, I reckon is a good move in the direction to maladjustment. We live in a society that seeks to convince us we need more and we need the latest. We don't. Pure and simple.
White t-shirts and shirts have always been a bit of a main stay of my wardrobe, t-shirts with my jeans most of the time and whites in various forms for work combined with smart trousers. I am deeply envious of folks who can do do that smart/casual look with black. I am pale all year round and very pale eight months of the year. One February a cleaner came into my classroom at the end of the day. "Oh!" she said, "You look hellish!" "That is a pity", was my reply, "Because I am feeling great."

Well, my white shirts are no longer white and I ain't going to be finding them in charity shops. Other folks grayed out whites I can live without. I found myself buying a much needed white top for work in ASDA, actually suffering such a level of guilt, expecting the maladjustment police to march me away any minute. M&S did me a favour with a fair trade t-shirt but only one style in my size.

So if this challenge is to become a lifestyle then I need to look at a few more options and I guess for that it will need to be internet shopping. So what about these?

http://www.peopletree.co.uk/category/hers/tops/jersey-basics/

These I do not think so............
http://www.nomadsclothing.com/pages/es19blusml.htm

but there is some good stuff there and they get fair trade. http://www.nomadsclothing.com/pages/fair-trade.htm

Maybe these are more me. In fact I like them but maybe in black or aubergine!
http://www.nomadsclothing.com/pages/tr11grnsml.htm