Thanksgiving in September

Hello again,

My time in England, it seems, is rapidly coming to an end. It has been a wonderful two years. I think this past weekend really encapsulates my experience here, and why it will be so sad to leave.

Conversation class yesterday morning (my Saturday staple for a year and a half) was lightly attended since we only recently reconvened from our summer holiday, but was still a great time to get to know people from all around the world – to listen to their stories and peek into their lives. This time, an Iranian, Eritrean, Yemenis, Chinese, and two Uzbeks come along – all except the Chinese were Muslim by heritage. We did introductions this week – who we are and where we came from. An elderly Iranian lady – an asylum seeker – recited a poem she composed in Farsi. Upon learning I was American, she managed to express that it was a sad anniversary, and that Sept. 11th was a terrible thing. Then she dictated a letter for me to a friend who was more fluent in English, wishing me a safe journey to America and that I settle down and “meet the girl of your dreams and get married.” I was touched –I had never met her before.

Directly after conversation class, the community centre hosted an Eid Murabak party, celebrating the end of Ramadan. A couple of us decided to stay to see what it was all about. Some Kurdish folk singers came and led us in a Grand March-style traditional dance – rocking forward and back with one foot in the middle, hands clasped with the person next to you, space for improv in the middle. The Kurdish men were mostly dressed in flowing blouses and trousers, tied with a wide cloth belt, crowned with a small knit cap. But most people were normally dressed, of course, with the women with their scarves. Then, they opened up the food – a buffet of home cooked dishes and fresh produce: curried rice, stuff herbed peppers, leaf-wrapped fish, salad, fruit.

It was technically an Islamic party, but about a quarter of the attendees were, like us, not Muslims. We told them we were Christians, and they still welcomed us. (There were no overtly religious ceremonies or prayers). Over the course of lunch, one of our Uzbek friends asked about the church I go to, about different denominations, and the meaning of baptism. So, in the middle of an Islamic celebration, I had the chance to explain the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and how that shapes the way we live as his followers. Similarly, I could overhear Lucy talking about Jesus to a Chinese friend of ours, who had also stayed for the party. It seems we (Refuge gospel community – our small group of the church) have had a lot of neat opportunities recently – Amy related that one of her workmates said “the more I find out about your church, the crazier it sounds.” To which she replied, “If you knew Jesus, then you would understand why we do it.” Awesome!

Well, later yesterday evening, I went to my friends, the Johnson family, for a quiet goodbye dinner with Ian and Rosemary and their boys. I depart Sheffield on Friday. I opened the door, and was hit by a barrage of “surprise!” and party poppers. The entire Gospel Community was gathered. They had for months been secretly planning this dinner – it was a Thanksgiving dinner. We had held Thanksgiving dinner last November as a way of setting aside time to reflect and celebrate on all that God had done in and through us over the previous year. They repeated it – roast turkeys, potatoes, roasted vegetables, bread, cranberry sauce, pies, sweet potatoes... the works. It was amazing. It was a feast. They even talked to my mom to get American Thanksgiving recipes! Everyone had been cooking all day, without me knowing a bit. Everyone was dressed up (but me). Ian sang a creative rendition of the Will Wangled Banner. We all held back tears... or tried to. I was given a montage picture of Refuge moments. We all went around the table and said something that we were thankful for.

In addition to me leaving Sheffield this coming Friday, the gospel communities in the church (like small groups, but so much more – they are the church day to day) are also going to be mixed up as of this week, in order to put us in a better position to plant more churches in the future. About half the people are moving to different GCs – some in the rougher east side of the city where there is almost no gospel presence; some into other GCs that could benefit from their gifts and passions. It means that Refuge, as we know it, is no longer. We have had to remind ourselves that it is not about us, or about Refuge, but about the spreading the fame of King Jesus to every tribe and nation and tongue – starting in our own city.

So, this morning (Sunday) we decided to do a morning outing with the gospel community one last time, before the gathering, before the changes. We carpooled out into the Peaks District national park at 7:00am, and walked up to Cavert Edge, a rocky cliff dotted with Bronze Age ruins, overlooking the valley.

The sun was especially bright this morning. The rain was gone and the clouds were arching over the rolling hills and moors that make up the Peaks. The landscape laid out below us was as peaceful as a Constable painting – sheep and horses grazing in fields of purple heather; an old stone bridge, reflected against the winding river. Nestled in the folds of the old hills were the villages I’ve trudged through during my hikes - Eyam, Baslow, Cavert, and Froggat – stone houses and old mills on the river, villages crowned by their steepled churches and Great War memorials. Looking down from the edge, we could see grindstones that were abandoned one hundred or two hundred years ago because of some crack or blemish, now laying discarded at the base of the cliff. Two hot air balloons drifted in the distance. It was beautiful – almost too beautiful – the type that makes you think, we don’t deserve this; beauty is made more poignant by grace.

With such an agreeable backdrop and with a large rock for a table, we shared a breakfast of croissants and bagels, tea and hot chocolate. We laughed about the good times had, and the good times yet to come. Faye had printed out some hymns, so we sang them, the 12 of us, from the cliffs. I will sincerely miss hearing hymns sung in English accents – the way they would have sounded when first composed by Wesley, and Newton, and Toplady. Refuge is a motley crew, really – you couldn’t help but notice it with our dodgy, unaccompanied singing voices in the early and cold morning air; some young, some old; some university educated, some not; some from posh backgrounds, some living on shoestring budgets; some brand new Christians, some older in the faith; singles and couples; an American and Brits; some with disabilities; some unemployed. The only thing we had in common was Christ – the gospel was our common story. But we are family. Jesus died for us. He has called us, who were not a people, to be a people. To be certain, over the past two years we have annoyed one another, offended one another, sinned against one another... mixed with all the good times were plenty of reminders that we are still people in need of grace, in need of a saviour. The joys of community!

They are family, and I will miss them. But we have hope – hope that we will see one another again; hope that every good thing about Refuge is merely a glimpse of the New Creation, when Christ will reign fully and we will be like him; hope that God will again prove himself faithful during this time of change; hope that He is unchanging, though we travel half way around the world. Our hope is assured.

I have no idea what the future holds, but I am so excited for it.

Signing off from Sheffield,
Will

Prelude to California

Hello friends and family,

I know; my blog has been dormant for some time now. Please trust that it’s not because of a dearth of noteworthy adventures or news items, but rather that blogging comes fairly low on my time priorities. Gotta keep first things first (does anyone else find it curious that in Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits “First Things First” is the third chapter?). Another excuse is that the research has been going full steam since Christmas, so after 8 hours of programming and writing, I generally don’t want to look at screens for the rest of the evening.

Excuses aside, as you may know my Marshall funding ends in September, at which point the Air Force would like me back. I wanted to take the chance to share and explain a fairly big career decision I’ve made regarding this upcoming transition.

This may come as a surprise to some, but I have asked the Air Force for a different assignment, other than flight school, after I finish my degree here in Sheffield. I mulled over the decision for six months or so and finally submitted the paperwork in late November.

Being a military pilot has been a dream of mine for a long time – it’s partly the reason I went to VMI and partly the reason I joined the Air Force. But I’ve been convicted over the past couple years to really consider whether my career decisions actually reflect my priorities in life – particularly regarding family and ministry/missions.

I believe our families (both our natural families and our church families) are one of the biggest responsibilities that God has given us. So, while I want my work to provide financially for them, I also want it to leave me with the time and energy to properly invest in them. Similarly, I have been learning that the local church and church planting are crucial to the way God is bringing about his Kingdom, and that serving the ‘widows and orphans’ of society is a central response to the good news. I have seen that in action here in Sheffield, and I have absolutely loved being a part of it. So, I want to go into a job that gives me the freedom to continue.

Military life in general, but especially flying, is demanding both in terms of time and energy, as well as requiring frequent moves and time away. I’ve known that all along, but now seeing close VMI friends in the military has made those challenges seem more concrete. Similarly, having to wrestle through courtship questions over the past year has made me more cognoscente of the challenges that such a lifestyle places on families. I don’t want family and ministry to become secondary, getting the leftovers of my time, energy, and attention after my career ambitions have first been satisfied.

Now, obviously, family life is tough and church is messy, regardless whether you are in the military or not. And I’m not saying that it’s impossible to be a family man or a missionary within the military. I know it can be done, as good family friends have shown. And someone needs to do it; there needs to be missionaries in the Air Force just like everywhere else and I am glad that there are committed believers who will do it. But I guess what I’ve come to learn is that it doesn’t have to be me (that being said, I must remember that God sovereignly brought me here, so as long as I am in the Air Force I will enjoy it as a blessing and fully invest in it as a mission field.)

I saw it as a wisdom/freedom issue. I was free to either continue down the piloting path or to choose something else. One choice may have been wiser than the other, but neither was intrinsically wrong. So given that, I freely chose (in fact, I wanted, preferred, desired…) the one that would allow me greater flexibility to shape my life around ministry and family, giving them the priority they deserve (by the way, splitting ministry and family, and ministry and career is a bit artificial. I think that ministering to our families is just as important as any other ‘ministry.’ Plus, ministry is a whole-life thing, not an event or a task that we can separate from the rest of our lives. But I digress).

To be honest, I’m not looking for any sort of existential fulfilment in my career anymore, just a just ‘tent-making’ business that will allow me to serve my family and others. While I don’t want my career to be a waste of the skills and gifts God has given me, I think the bigger waste would be selling out on what is of eternal significance in the pursuit of a career.

So there we have it.

What will I do next? Well, I still have a 6 year commitment to the Air Force (down from 10 if I were a pilot). So, in mid-September, I’m scheduled to go to a developmental engineering position at Vandenberg Air Force Base, in Lompoc, California. Vandenberg is the Air Force’s West Coast space launch facility (like a Californian Kennedy Space Center), so I’ll be working in some way/shape/form with rockets, rocketships, and satellites. One thing that made it relatively easy to give up the flying is that I love so many different things, especially creative engineering.

The base owns a large swath of the Pacific coast and is bounded on the east by national parks; square in California’s wine country. The big unknown at this point is finding a church where I can be received and with whom I can invest my life.

After that, I don’t know. There are loads of opportunities and I’ve got a bunch of ideas, and a lot could change between now and then anyway, so it would be naive to try to nail it down too much.

All very exciting.

Soli Deo gloria!

-Will

Hello, Your Majesty

Hello Friends and Family,

I’ve got a lot to report on!

First of all, I saw the queen! It was amazing! So, last Wednesday I was in Oxford for a meeting with some Air Force staff who were in the UK, visiting all the different USAF students across England. It turns out there are about 20 of us on sundry different scholarships and research grants. That’s an aside. Anyway, I was walking down the street, and I saw a bunch of commotion by one of the museums. So I stroll on over, wedge my way into the crowd just in time to see Her Majesty walk by, get into her car, and get driven away.

It was pretty cool. Interestingly, the whole thing was very low key. Her only security was a bunch of motorcycles and one extra car. Her windows were clear, not tinted, so she could wave while she drove by. The crowd was only about 200 or so – in fact, at first I assumed we were waiting for just some minor celebrity. We waved, and then dispersed. I always thought that for the queen of England, there would be horse-drawn carriages, secret-service style police, trumpeters with banners dangling from their horns...

As cool as that was, the next day I got to tour No. 10 Downing St with the Marshall Scholars. It’s not normally open to the public, so the custodians were our tour guides. One of them had worked there for 15 years or so, and had lots of stories to tell about various dignitaries visiting. I sat in Winston Churchill’s reading chair (the seams on the arms are frayed, because he had the bad habit of picking them when he was nervous or deep in thought). I saw the desk where Chamberlin signed the infamous words “peace in our time.” I sat at the cabinet table. I saw the candlesticks that were made when King George was on the throne. I saw the staircase that was in the movie Love Actually. I stood in the room where Lord Nelson met the Duke of Wellington. It was absolutely incredible.

But again, I was surprised at how low key it was in the whole scheme of things. It was really just a large house turned into the Prime Minister’s house/office. It clearly wasn’t designed for a head of state. There are no massive halls, no ornate ballrooms, no sweeping dining rooms like some of the countryside mansions near Sheffield... there is no indoor theatre or vast gardens like the White House... It’s a just large, old house that was serendipitously turned into the office of one of the most powerful men of the western world (granting the common use of ‘powerful’). Crazy cool.

Then on top of all that, we got to have a Q&A with Gordon Brown’s Private Secretary of Foreign Affairs – who advises the Prime Minster on all matters relating to foreign affairs. He’s the one who reminds the PM of dignitaries’ names just before he enters a meeting, and is the first one to talk to him after the meeting. Not surprisingly, he had the charisma and charm you would expect of a top diplomat. But he looked pretty young to be a senior civil servant. He told us lots of stories about G.W. and Obama. He gave us a little insight into the PM’s life. He talked about the different methods they use when working with different foreign leaders. They said they loved the DVDs Obama gave them on the visit (in return, they gave Obama a nameplate carved out of the wood from the same ship that the presidential desk is made out of. Hmm... Box set of DVDs, $100... Historic artefact, priceless... Box set of DVDs, Fun... Historic artefact, priceless...)

It was fascinating to get a glimpse of how the PM does his job. Before, I couldn’t even begin to imagine what it must be like to try to run a nation, win a war, ease a recession... But now I see. He works amazingly hard and surrounds himself with sound advisors. He doesn’t have to know everything about everything... There is obviously a lot more to it than just that, but my point is that he suddenly seems human. He is not a super-human machine. He’s just a man who does the best job he can. Now, I’m not his biggest fan by any means, but I do have a lot of respect for him – perhaps more so now, having realised all this. Well...

In other news, Stuart & Suzanne, a family in our church and good, good friends, are heading back to Australia on Saturday to help set up the theology/missions/Christian living/church planting course that the Crowded House developed (my church), and to be involved in church plant in Sydney. Stuart and Suzanne have been a massive encouragement to me over the past year, both in friendship and company, was well as giving me very wise advice on career choices, relationships, life, and everything. We try to emphasise sharing life together in our church, which Stuart and Suzanne modelled well. They are more than simply 'like' family to me; In a very real sense, they are part of my family.

The only trouble is that it makes it so much harder to say goodbye. They had me over for goodness knows how many breakfasts, lunches, and dinners. They took me on holiday with them in France. We went hiking together lots. I saw them almost every Saturday morning at the ESL class we run... I’ll miss them a lot. They also have a 6 week old baby, Eloise, who only just learned to smile. She won’t remember Uncle Will! Sad. But exciting at the same time. It’s exciting to think of how God might use them down there. It’s exciting to think that God is at work all over the world, not just Sheffield. And it is exciting to know that we will meet again and not have to say goodbye – that’s not a promise or wishful thinking, it’s a certainty, demonstrated for the world to see in Jesus’ resurrection.

Bon Voyage, friends!

Merry Christmas!

Love,

Will

Farsi

This is my name in Farsi. Some Iranian friends taught me. I think it's awesome, especially because it is written right to left. They also introduced me to real Turkish Delights - also awesome.

Cheers,
Will

Some pictures

Hi folks,

Here are some pictures of my new room and of my walk to work, for your viewing pleasure.

My new room is in the attic room of a typical terraced house.

Coming in from the door.

Turning left from the door. The cloth in the corner is hiding all my pots, pans, bedding, etc, that I don't need right now since Dan and Charis are providing all that. I have less space than my last flat, but it does the job perfectly, and living with a family more than makes up for the inconvenience.

From my bed.

From my window, overlooking Sharrow.

These next ones are from my walk to the office.

Sharrow. Typical terraced houses leading to the city centre. Sharrow is a great neighborhood: very ethically diverse, slightly quirky, and always humming.

An old knife and tool factory, now turned into offices.

There are still some steel works in Sheffield, but they mostly do specialized work like ice skates, razorblades, and airplane parts.

There is something about the gritty and industrial feel of the old city that I like; it carries over into the local ethos.

More to come later. I need to get back to looking up Latin Hypercube sampling and Monte Carlo sensitivity analysis.

Cheers,
Will

The English are so weird!

...sure, we Americans have our own strange customs and oddities, but this trumps:

Bonfire night is officially on the 5^th of November, but we had our celebration on Saturday evening. It celebrates the failed plot by Guy Fawkes to blow up the King and his Parliament with a boat full of gunpowder over 400 years ago.

"Remember, remember the fifth of November,

The gunpowder, treason and plot,

I know of no reason

Why gunpowder treason

Should ever be forgot

Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, 'twas his intent

To blow up the King and Parliament.

Three score barrels of powder below,

Poor old England to overthrow;

By God's providence he was catch'd

With a dark lantern and burning match.

Holloa boys, holloa boys, make the bells ring.

Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!

Hip hip hoorah!"

This year I went with a handful of friends from the neighbourhood and church to a local park where the scouts were hosting a bonfire night celebration.

In the centre of the park was a massive, thirty to forty foot tall tower of old crates, doors, chairs, studs, and scrap wood. An effigy of Guy Fawkes was on the top, tied to an old wooden chair, perched on top on a broken shipping pallet. It was already very dark out, but there was just enough ambient light to see the scratchy, irregular outline of the tower against the skyline.

This is when it got surreal.

A spotlight focused on the wooden mountain in front of us. Suddenly it looked like Guy Fawkes spontaneously tipped back in his chair as if to fling himself backwards off his pyre. But then, the whole pallet supporting him rocked back and a man crawled out of the middle of the tower, taking the place of Guy at the top. His face was painted green and white, and he had a megaphone in his hands. At first I thought we were about to witness an immolation, but then he shouted some safety announcements into a megaphone – all very weird.

Then the crowd started a countdown as the green and white man scrambled back into the mouth of the tower. By “zero” the man had escaped out the back, and then to the side we heard the whoosh of a firework’s rocket. Turning to look, we saw that the firework was attached to a zip-wire and was heading straight into the tower, presumably to spark the bonfire. It flew along the wire for a split second, but then got stuck on some invisible knot in the wire. We all watched, mesmerised and terrified, as the rocket tried in vain to get past the knot. It gave up. A spit second of silence. BOOM. The firework exploded into sparkles about 50 feet in front of us… and about 50 feet away from the wooden mountain. When our temporary blindness wore off, we saw the Guy still sitting untouched and unlit atop his pyre, now resembling a throne. Determined to prevent a smiling effigy from having the last laugh, a couple scout dads ran sheepishly in with torches and lit the base of the tower.

Eventually the fire made its way to the top, consuming all the old doors, window frames, and chairs along the way. The Guy went up in flames and smoke, his embers joining the thousands of other sparks that fled, crazed, into the night sky.

It was the stuff of nightmares.

The rest of the evening was good fun. There were fireworks, hot tea, sparklers, tomato soup, and good friends. The park was on a hillside, overlooking Sheffield. It was all very beautiful.

Cheers y'all!

Will

I'm Back!

Hello!

If you are still reading this blog, I commend your stubborn optimism. Hopefully, it will be rewarded with some more regular posts.

I err as a perfectionist when it comes to writing these updates, so I end up spending a lot of time on them. But as my friend here says, the best is often the enemy of the good. In this case, blogging has been on my to-do list every week, but I’ve been putting it off because I don’t have the time these days to write anything that I deem sufficiently interesting and engaging (just stupid pride, really). The result is that I haven’t written anything at all, interesting or not. So I’m going to try to settle for more regular ‘good’ updates rather than irregular ‘best’ articles. Hopefully I can strike a happy medium.

Well, quite a bit has happened over the past summer and early autumn. Probably the biggest news is that I’ve moved... twice! My contract on the old flat ran out at the first of July. I lived with one family, Rob and Beth, for two months while waiting for the family I am currently living with, Dan, Charis, and their two little boys, to buy and move into their new house in Sheffield.

The church here really encourages single people to live with others, either with other single folks or with families. Paul seems pretty positive about singleness in 1 Cor 7, but our experience is usually rather different; it can be lonely, your house never really becomes your home, etc. But that is where the fellowship of local believers needs to step in and help make singleness possible, even good. Living with Dan and Charis has been great. I don’t eat alone, or come home to a quiet house, or constantly check facebook updates. I love the fact that my toothbrush is once again in a cup with four others of various heights. Plus, it helps prevent me from becoming totally self-absorbed and thinking the world revolves around me – having to share the bathroom in the morning quickly reminds you of that.

My new house is also much closer to the others in my church (5 minute walk in the rain instead of 30) which makes it a lot easier to spend time with them, which I’ve been trying to do more and more. One of our goals as a church is not just to spend time together but to share life together (1 Thes 2:8, Acts 2). The hope is not to add more time commitments and activities in the mix to juggle, but to do the same everyday, normal things together, but with gospel intentionality so that “whether we eat or drink, or whatever we do, we do it all to the glory of God.”

The idea is that the more we get rid of our individualism and share life together, the more opportunities we have to disciple, encourage, and correct one another, to be missionaries together in our neighbourhoods, and point each other back to the gospel – not simply twice a week on Sundays and Wednesdays, but Monday over dinner, Tuesday after watching a DVD, Wednesday while watching the sunrise, Thursday during my Birthday party (cough, cough...), Friday while doing the dishes, Saturday while helping at the ESL Conversation Class, Sunday at the gathering, and everything in between.

But the discipling, encouraging, and correcting will only happen if we are intentional about it, which is often the harder challenge. Our Gospel Community was a bit slow figuring all that out this time last year – we knew the theory but weren’t so great at putting it into practice. It felt more like a glorified Bible Study or small group than a family that is “healthy, growing, and full of love as each part does its work.” But now, as we’ve learned, worked, served, eaten, played, gardened, hiked, and been challenged together over the past year, it feels much more like a true family. We are far from perfect, but it is encouraging to look at the transformation that God has worked since a year ago.

I say all this because I think this is actually one of the main reasons that I haven’t had as much time to invest in the blogging– I have a family here now that I need (and want) to spend time with. It’s not that I am busier, but that I simply have less personal time. When I was on my own, I could just spend all evening reading and writing without distraction; now there are people to talk to, caves to be made out of blankets and bunk-beds, and even TV shows to watch together (gasp!). It doesn’t seem right to retreat to my room in the evenings.

OK. That’s all I can do now. Everything else will have to wait for another time.

Love,

Will