Overgrown

A new week, a new project. A veggie patch. You might think that this is a pretty poor time of the year to be starting a veggie patch - just as we head into Autumn with Winter right around the corner but the inspiration and drive to do it is here now so it is happening hear and now. That and it gives us a good few months to be able to prepare fully for the Spring.

It is not the most amazingly lit patch but we will have to make do

It is easy to confuse a new project with a blank canvas, when it comes to gardening this is absolutely not the case. In fact, if you can at any point get to a blank canvas you have already done pretty well. I think Jesus understood this and it is possibly one of the reasons that he used the imagery of a gardener to describe God. The truth is that in our little patch, and in everyone's lives there are an abundance of weeds. Life sucking, fast spreading, tough to kill, deep rooted, weeds. If these are not dealt with you don't have a veggie patch. What  you have is at best a patch of problem-inducing dirt that is going to overgrow and starve anything useful that you try to plant.

Other than the single Rhubarb plant and the grape vine everything green had to go

Looking from this perspective it is very easy to understand that a piece of ground is completely incapable of ridding itself of weeds, where the weeds are they will continue to grow. Simple as that. Yet it is amazing how quick we are to draw the conclusion that we are able to de-weed our own lives. The ever growing self help section of Waterstones stands as testament to this. Offering up every kind of burying, ignoring and weed-hiding technique there is. Pouring into the false hope that we are able to tackle our own habitual sins, change the broken condition of our hearts and patch ourselves up so we can live the way we were meant to.

Our very wobbly makeshift work bench made the woodwork that much more exciting

The hope is false because we cannot change those things about ourselves. We can maybe change the way that the symptoms of our brokenness manifest in our lives or we can simply ignore the fact that we are overgrown with desires and behaviours that we cannot shake. But at the end of the day we are as helpless as a patch of dirt trying to de-weed itself.

We made stakes to support the panels for edging the patch

The only way that our little patch was ever going to be productive was if we got the tools out, got stuck in and worked hard at removing all the junk that was bedded in. So, being gardeners that wanted our patch of land as productive as it could be that is exactly what we did. Similarly the only way that any of us is going to grow in maturity and start bearing fruits is if we allow the divine gardener in to clear out the choking weeds of sin from our lives and sow the seeds of the gospel in us.

re-installing edging around the patch

Our first foray into this latest adventure was satisfyingly hard work, there was lots to dig up and some parts were more work than others (we found rather a large piece of metal nestled a good half meter down in the ground - it was one of the harder parts). We completely overhauled the ground and it took some time, all the while excitedly discussing plans the for the future. 'Go big or go home' my brother would say. I imagine God is equally as thrilled while he is working on our lives. He sees that his work in saving us is glorious and he gets excited about the culmination of his work in us which will be ... well glorious.

During our discussions there was also the recognition that while these first steps are big ones the journey of our veggie patch will be continuous work. De-weeding is going to have to be a day by day, intentional activity. There will also be some big milestones along the way such as the construction of the lean-to green house which is going to cost us, but it will be worth it. Again this must be the practice of all of us who wish to grow in Christ-likeness. We are to recognise, challenge and do our uttermost to give over these things to God and allow him to fix us.

Whether you are totally overgrown with sin or you are steadily waging the ongoing war with your weeds, my encouragement to you is this - let the Gardener till you, de-weed you, prune you and burn up in you all that is not from him. While we cannot kill sin by ourselves we can make the choice to allow God in, to release to him the most insidious of our problems and trust that as the good gardener he is shaping us for a mind bogglingly exciting, hopeful, glorious future.

We found a few gems while digging from the previous occupier of the patch

N.B  Once again the pictures that feature me were (unsurprisingly) not taken by me but the rest were. Thanks to Charlie and David.

Title font used: 'Bleeding Cowboys'

Seasons Changing

Old things going,

New things coming,

Seasons changing.

Old life passing,

New life budding,

Seasons changing.

Old darkness fading,

New light dawning,

Seasons changing.

Old tears drying,

New laughter sounding,

Seasons changing.

Old habits dying,

New resolve growing,

Seasons changing.

Old pains soothing,

New smiles emerging,

Seasons changing.

Old wounds dissolving,

New healing starting,

Seasons changing.

Old bitterness melting,

New forgiveness bearing,

Seasons changing.

Old doubts resolving,

New faith maturing,

Seasons Changing.

Old sadness waning,

New joy rising,

Seasons changing.

Old despair lifting,

New hope stirring,

Seasons changing.

Old things going,

New things coming,

Seasons changing.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. - 2 Corinthians 5:17

Title font used: 'Eternal Call'

Laudium #1

I have spent the last 2 weeks in a township called Laudium. Created in the 60s under apartheid for 'non whites'. This results in a very concentrated population of Indians who are now 3rd or 4th generation South Africans yet somehow have maintained their Indian accent and to some extent their culture.

A Minaret

This was a world faiths outreach - the purpose being to gain a greater understanding of the other main world religions. Laudium is around 60% Muslim 30% Hindu and 5% Christian. This outreach put a face on those numbers.

The cleaning area in the Mosque

On the first day we visited a Mosque and a Hindu temple for exposure. It was a very interesting insight into a different world. The Mosque was clearly very well funded and our tour guide was very friendly and allowed us to take pictures. Dream.

The 99 names of Allah

The Hindu temple was quite different - it was dilapidated and the stench of incense was almost overwhelming. The thing that stood out the most though is that the people who ran the temple were more than happy to give 2 completely contradictory answers to the same question asked by 2 different people just 5 minutes apart. In my limited experience this pretty much sums up Hinduism.

The Tamil Hindu temple

For our duration in Laudium we were reaching out into an area called white blocks. It is the poorest area in the town yet is a stone's throw from the houses of millionaires. It was quite surreal everyday to walk past a mansion with a Porsche Cayenne in the drive and 5 minutes later be in someone's house who didn't even have a handle on the door let alone a lock because they have nothing worth stealing.

The prayer price list

Laudium and specifically White Blocks is renowned for being gripped by drugs, any substance you want you can get it there and where there are drugs there is crime. Most of the people we talked to in the 2 weeks made some mention of the murder of a 16 year old boy the previous month in the streets that we were walking on, though the way it was talked about was common place. We visited one house and asked the 18 yr old there whether he felt safe in Laudium. He said 'No' and pointed to the bullet hole in his wall - it was at head height.  He explained how thankful he was that he was not in the house at the time and his plans to leave Laudium as soon as he could.

A Hindu shrine in a house

The police seem powerless to do anything about this, We were talking to one Muslim lady who runs a tuck shop with her husband from their house. We were asking them about how their beliefs affect their lifestyle and how they find living in an area like White blocks. She said that they loved it and would never go anywhere else because they have a strong community. In the hour and a half or so that we were talking I counted at least 5 different people who walked into the courtyard and bought drugs off of the ladies family members. The tuck shop was across the road from the police station.

On another occasion we were talking with some guys by the side of the road about crime, the local area, police etc and a policeman drove past. The man we were talking to flagged him down, he clearly knew the officer. He asked him a question  'A personal question: A good cop is a dead cop. True or false?'

The cop laughed. 'No, no some times in order to catch the criminals you first have to make friends with them.' He smiled and then explained that he really needed to change out of his uniform before talking any more.

Policing will never change the hearts of men, Only Jesus can do that.

Title font used: 'Alhambra'

101

This is my 101'st blog post. It seems funny now looking back at the very first time that I posted here (though the web address was actually different then) the original purpose of the blog was to keep record of my photos and track my learning curve and to have an immortalised diary of my progress. looking at my first post now it is somewhat embarrassing in terms of how low the quality is. (I would not advise going and taking a look - it would be the biggest waste of your time ever) even if you do go back now and look you won't be able to see the original layout and design of the page which was on a par with the standard of pictures.

On this training base and particularly within the last week we have been given a large amount of reflection time where we can take stock of the days events and process them as the days are very full and we are dealing with pretty heavy stuff. These reflection times have been a joy for me, at first they were great for catching up on sleep but I now find it incredibly useful in decision making to stop and think for an elongated period of time. Looking back on my life as a whole and specifically on my walk with God I feel that this blog is somewhat of a condensed representation of that. It started out shoddy and stayed that way for some time but there is no questioning the continual improvement, step by step that might not be noticed between individual posts but if you skip from first to last you would barely recognise them as being authored by the same person. This gives me great hope for the future - in the same way that there is always a certain level of dissatisfaction in every post that I make, the technique could be better - the editing could use a touch up or the wording could be more witty or engaging so I know that as I live I do not do so as an end product - I am a work in progress. If I were to stop growing today but lived to 80 then I would look back at my life and be bitterly disappointed that I wasted so much of it.

(yes this is a picture of a gecko the size of my fingernail licking its own eye!)

Fortunately I know that this will not be the case as my growth is not solely dependant on me (if it was then I would have to say I have no idea what will happen in the rest of my life) My friends and family will constantly be encouraging me to stretch myself to be all that I can be but more than this God is actively working in me and won't stop till he decides to bring me home - be that tomorrow or when I am old enough to forget my age. I know this because I know that God is jealous for his glory and my good and he is not satisfied with second best.

What does 'growing look like?' the bible describes the life of a christian like a tree that bears many different kinds of fruit - the fruit of a Christan being that which God supplies - Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Self Control, Faithfulness and Gentleness. If these are all words used to genuinely describe who I am when I die then I know I will have run well.

Title font used 'Crash Numbering Gothic'