Church plans - prayer request

When we joined New Life Church about 4 years ago, it met in a small building that it was already outgrowing. Since then, two congregations have been planted out into the south and west of Milton Keynes respectively, and the remaining church is still too big to fit into the old building. While we still own it, and use it for all sorts of purposes, our Sunday meetings take place in the sports hall of the boys' school. It's a bit of a strange experience, since the hall is overlooked by various passages and venues, and the accoustics are none too marvellous, but it has served us well.

Of course, we have been looking for a more permanent home suitable for our growing needs. There have been various words of prophecy around the growth of the church, and the word 1000 keeps coming up. We are nowhere near that size, yet, but we are growing fast.

There are no sites in MK for a church of that size. We are looking at buying a building that is currently a warehouse. There are, of course, all sorts of issues around rezoning and so on that need to be resolved, but these are going down like dominoes (another word that has come up in prophecy). The building is going to cost us a fortune, but the banks are unexpectedly positive about mortgages and so on. However, the challenge is for the church to pay a large whack to keep the mortgage manageable.

To this end, we are all looking to commit to making some level of financial contribution. Richard (our lead elder) talks of equal sacrifice, not equal giving. One of the approaches that has been introduced is a first for me. They are including the teenagers and the kids. So these young people will make their own contributions, rather than being included in the contributions of their parents. I really like this idea. Obviously the amounts the kids can give are unlikely to amount to much in a purely fiscal sense, but the fact that their contributions are sought and are considered to carry equal weight with those of their parents, gives them a sense of equal ownership of the work of the church and their standing within the church. And let's not forget the story of the loaves and the fishes - it was a child who made that ludicrously inadequate initial donation which, in the hands of the Lord, became enough and to spare. They are not the children of the "members" (we don't have official membership, by the way - for various reasons), they are themselves a part of the work. They have been given gift forms of their to complete.

So each of our boys must have peace with his own decision. I will respect their confidence by not revealing their initial reactions or current stance on this matter. Suffice to say that it is between each of them and God. It's their money, their church, their business. We will guide and support them. No more, no less.

For those praying types among you - we could certainly do with prayer support through this time of decision making. All four of us. The pledges must be in within 5 weeks.

Paper rounds all round

About a year ago, Björn put his name on a waiting list for a paper round in our area. We had all but forgotten about it, especially since he had a very lucrative job through the summer at our local greengrocer. However, that job has all but fizzled out, since the weather turned colder and the fruit and veg no longer need to be packed away into fridges overnight.

So it was great timing that he got a call to say that there was a paper round available in our area. Initially there was a bit of a mix up as to whether there were two rounds a week or just one, and the upshot of the calls to resolve the issue resulted in a paper round for Torvy as well.

So Torvy has a round of 97 houses once a week, while Björn has a slightly larger (and therefore more lucrative) round twice a week. Wahey! I'm not quite sure how much they will each earn, but together with their allowance, they should be doing quite well for themselves. I am about to post about the plans for our church, and you will see timely how this!

Digital natives and candle wax

On Tuesdays, I work at home. This is because Tuesday is the evening I head through to Oxford for lectures, and it's a shorter drive from home than from work. At the moment, I have to use the family PC for my home-based work, because my laptop has recently taken it into its head not to talk to our wireless network for more than a few minutes before dropping the connection. This is usually not a major hassle.

Today, however, is a different matter. Today, the family PC's keyboard sports many keys that have developed an unhealthy fixation upon their neighbours. The cause? Candle wax dear reader. "Candle wax?" I hear you ask, as well you might. Well, it's like this...

In this house, we have two digital natives, two members of the net generation (net gen) or generation Z. These are people who conduct their relationships online and who make full use of the always-on connectivity that symbolises this age. Several hours of online discussion via msn (an instant messaging tool, for the uninitiated) with several friends at once is a daily occurrence. More power to them, I say. When the time comes for them to be remote workers/telecommuters, it'll be an ingrained habit.

However, back to my story: Torvy has put this to slightly creative use. He is trying to romance a rather beautiful girl (for those who knew her, she looks a lot like Jenni Tredoux) who is a few months older and a year ahead at school (strangely both Björn's successful relationships have been with girls a school year ahead, too). To this end, he adopted a method I shall call msn-by-candlelight. I kid you not. Very sweet. Very original. Very creative. Very romantic. Not so good for the keyboard, though.

If anyone knows of successful methods of fostering an atmosphere of romance online without destroying electronic devices, please let Torvy know. Anyone who knows of a way of removing wax from a keyboard, please let me know!

Janet and John go to London

Okay - it was actually Karyn and John that went to London, but no-one ever thought to include my name in a series of children's early readers, so what can you do?

Yesterday - a very windy morning - John set off to London for work as usual. A little while later, I did likewise, having agreed to run a workshop for some of my colleagues on behalf of my boss, who has been ill for some time. While I was on the train, I got a text message from John to say, "I hope you've left already - the trains are running late and slow." I had noticed - our train was crawling in to the city, which our driver had announced was due to a blanket speed restriction. This, we later discovered, was in case of trees on the line.

John was late for work. My train took well over an hour to make the 35 minute trip, and I was also behind schedule. I took a tube from Euston to Victoria, then stood waiting for my connection to St James's Park. Nothing. I walked to the London office in a howling headwind.

After my workshop, I walked back to Victoria - once again in a headwind (the wind must have shifted!) and caught the tube to Goodge Street and then walked through the howling gale to meet John for lunch. We spent a very civilised hour eating Scandinavian food, then parted company - he back to his office, I to get the tube to Euston and thence home. Or so I thought. Ha!

I arrived at Euston to see the word CANCELLED across every scheduled train. The friendly announcer advised us that no trains were leaving London from Euston for the rest of the day due to high winds which had stranded several trains out in the middle on nowhere, blocking off lines. Enquiries revelaed that all other north London stations were closing as well. The station forecourt was jam-packed and all around me people were calling friends, relatives, taxis, car hire firms, hotels. Others were swarming into the tube station which was substantially more claustrophobic than usual. Very quickly, the hotels and taxis cottoned on to what was happening and the prices started to rise.

I headed back to John's office, this time on foot, since I couldn't bear the tubes under such crowded conditions. The wind was by now 99mph. One little old lady was offered the arm of a complete stranger. Isn't it amazing how adverse conditions bring out the best in us - if only the same applied to the hotels and taxis!

John set me up in one of their offices, with an Internet connection and I was able to access my emails and stuff as if I were in the office. Isn't technology great?

But we still had to figure out how to get home. We had made all the calls to cancel cell group and let the kids know what was happening, but we were determined to get the heck out of Dodge. I got several worried texts from Torvy, begging us to find a way home. John tried every car hire firm he could think of, but even at £130 for a day, they were fresh out. We wound up hiring a taxi at £260-odd (which Marchpole will cover... and no doubt claim back from the rail company... who will no doubt claim it back from their insurance companies), sharing the ride with two of John's colleagues who were more or less on our way home. The taxi arrived shortly after 6pm, and we were on our way by about 6:15, eventually arriving home at about 9pm.

The roads were much clearer than we had expected under the circumstances, and many people had a far worse time of it. Some of my colleagues got stuck in Birmingham, hired a car and made it as far as Rugby before becoming gridlocked and having to find a hotel for the night. Someone else we know was "fortunate" to find that coaches had been laid on from his station - he got home at 2am.

Nevertheless, the stress must have got to me, because I faded soon after we got home, and really struggled to get up this morning, in spite of having had a full 8 hours' sleep for the first weeknight in ages.

The trains are better today, but still not back at 100%. John has (of course) gone to work - diligent little soldier that he is - I just hope he gets home okay! I am back in my office, hearing stories from all over of the sort of night that people had.

No wonder English people talk about the weather so much!

Tags:

• Weather

An unexpected proposal

John returned home from New York yesterday with the usual armful of souvenir gifts. We each got a supporter's sweater for the New Jersey Devils (the team he got to see live on Wednesday), while his colleague gave him a NJD jersey which he will wear with pride tomorrow night at practice! He also brought back large quantities of cinnamon chewing gum (not readily available in the UK), gloves for the boys and, last but not least, he went down on bended knee, presented me with a white gold, blue topaz and diamond ring and proposed. Yes - proposed!

When he originally informed me we were going to get married, due partly to a bad past experience, and partly to a lack of funds, he gave me a (valuable on many levels) pendant of his own in lieu of an engagement ring. It might have been an unconventional approach - but it worked! I have no idea what made him decide to do this at this stage (other than a very pushy New York saleslady!), but I'm having a great giggle about being engaged at this late stage!

Tying up a loose end

I was reading back through this blog and I came across the post in which I fulminated about my university fees. I thought it only polite to bring you up to date on that situation, since I'm sure you've been having sleepless nights worrying about it ;-)

I managed to strike a deal with the head of finance. Because the error had been theirs, the UK fee structure would stand, pending my producing evidence of "indefinite leave to remain" by end Jan. As you know, this arrived in mid-December, so I was able to fulfill this requirement. I am now legally on the same fee structure as everyone else.

John is in New York at the moment. Tomorrow night he is going to see his favourite ice hockey team (the New Jersey Devils) play an NHL game. His colleague over there is treating him. They will be sitting centre ice, seven rows from the front. It doesn't get much better than that. He is recognisable as a hockey player himself at the moment, thanks to a telltale cut across the bridge of his nose. They regularly get cut just in that spot - it's where the helmet hits when they smash into something

The boys went back to school yesterday. Björn went keenly, since he could show off his ear, which has brought him plenty of derision, I understand. Torvy went less eagerly. He has never liked school, thanks to a bit of a rough start in September 99 when he was a year behind everyone else and had to bust a gut to catch up.

I went back to work last Tuesday (2 Jan) and made it all the way to lunch before admitting defeat. I had started coming down with what I thought was a cold on New Year's eve, but by Tuesday I was feeling awful. My eyeballs ached and burned and my neck ached so much I was loathe to move my head. I dragged my sorry butt back home and took to my bed. I only felt well enough to return to work yesterday, and even then I was fading by the afternoon. The worst is over, but I'm still short of breath and coughing "productively". I seem to have escaped lightly, though - many people I know have been out of circulation for two weeks or more with this thing.

Not a cheerful note to end on, but scroll back up to the top for a reminder that things are actually positive!

Ear-piercing

Björn has decided to follow Torvy's example and have his ear pierced. Only he decided to have two holes put in his.

His plan, once the holes have healed is to put a single sleeper ring through the two holes. I hope for his sake that the holes are the right distance apart for that!

The boys went out with a group of friends on what they call a random walk recently. It involves taking cameras along and photographing each other in funny situations - getting a photo of each person's feet and then one of everyone's feet. During the course of the afternoon, oneof the girls straightened Björn's hair and put eyeliner on both boys - only one eye each. Later that evening, a guy walked past us and muttered "f-ing emos" under his breath.

Labels fly thick and fast among teens at the moment: goth, chav (council housing associated vermin), emo (emotional), grebe, skater, scene, townie, pikey. And it's mainly to do with how people dress and wear their hair/make-up. When someone calls Björn an emo, it's meant as an insult, and Björn feels insulted, even though he intentionally cultivates an emo look - especially when he goes to a gig - and accepts that the label fits. Torvy, on the other hand, is currently identifying himself as a grebe - hence the hat. He is totally philosophical when this epithet is spat at him.