Episode 78 - Milkshake!

Last week I had the most amazing milkshake I have ever drunk in my life. It was a butter shortbread milkshake. The amazing thing was that it tasted of shortbread. Not like shortbread. Not like how every piece of exotic meat you’ve ever tasted, tasted like chicken, no. Not like shortbread. Of shortbread. It tasted exactly the same as shortbread. It was unmistakably shortbread. Except somehow creamy and smooth and well, liquid. This blew my mind. How was this possible!? The answer to this was of course painfully simple. It was made of shortbread. Lots of it. All crumbled up so that it could take on its new form and mix with the other ingredients. Simple. And delicious.

Just to prove that I'm not making this stuff up...

This of course got me thinking. There are many things in life that I want to be, and that I want to be good at. A good friend. A good son. A good engineer. A good drummer. But there is one thing I want more than anything else – something which actually makes all these other things happen too. I want to be a good person. Actually, I want to be the best person I can be – the best me I can be. Fortunately God wants this too and is always ready to lend a helping hand. He even made a blueprint for me to look to – Jesus – who actually lived a perfect life. And so what I want to be, is to be like Jesus. Or do I? Perhaps I can learn something from the milkshake. Perhaps I should focus a little less of my time on copying Him and a little more time on letting Him into my heart. So from this point forward I will endeavour to be a milkshake – made with only the finest ingredients, after all, you are what you eat!

Episode 77 - Independence!

Just a short one this week to say... Happy Independence day Papua New Guinea!

Saturday marked 42 years of independence! Here is a link to an article about some independence day preparations, I'll add more about the celebrations themselves as they get published...

Episode 76 - Acheivement

This week (after months of working on it) I finally submitted my tax return. This is a huge achievement and something that felt very satisfying. Normally of course this wouldn’t be the case. However with being able to do less your goals become less too. The curious thing is that the sense of achievement remains the same. On one hand, this seems quite logical; whilst the task is smaller the difficulty is greater and so the same amount of work needs to be done – it makes sense. But when you look into this further it has a strange implication; the satisfaction gained from accomplishing something is dependent upon how difficult it is to achieve. Whilst I seem bound by these rules, I don’t understand why. It’s incredibly difficult to balance three balls on your nose, yet relatively simple to help out at a soup kitchen once a week – surely I should gain more satisfaction from the later than the former, and yet in truth, would I? Honestly I don’t know. The only conclusion I can draw is that subconsciously I’ve been looking at achievement all wrong and so from now on I’ll try to stop looking at how hard what I do is to achieve and look at how much what I do achieves instead.

Episode 75 - Sori Not Sorry

The English use their own language in ways that no one else does in ways that it was never intended to be used. We are famed for not saying what we mean and meaning what we do not say. Of all the words that we English misuse one probably stands out above them all – sorry. Whether it’s to make something mean sound nicer (such as; I’m sorry to disagree with you but you’re wrong), as a replacement for “please could you repeat that I didn’t hear you”, or anything in between, I have probably used them all. But there is one particularly way that I use the word that often seems to cause confusion in the recipient of my remark – that is when I use it to show sympathy. When somebody shares sad news with me I will often express my sympathy by saying I am sorry, to which I often receive the response; “why are you sorry, it’s not your fault… is it?” It’s as though to say sorry is not just a show of compassion or sorrow, but also an act of taking responsibility for a wrong you have committed, like feeling sorry is an obligation of wrongdoing and nothing else. But this response would not be elicited in Papua New Guinea.

In Tok Pisin the word “sori” from the English “sorry” means sorrow. It is the word that is used to apologise, but it is also the same word that is used to express that one is sad. To use this expression to convey your compassion for another’s misfortune would not be considered unusual at all. In fact, in a world where it is normal to ask someone how they are and not only want them to answer truthfully but to also be interested in their answer, it is also totally normal not only to express empathy, but to actually share in the feelings of that person. Upon reflection of this I found it strange that compassion and empathy could be a product of culture, one that seemed missing in my own, replaced instead by stoicism and reliance upon self. I even worried that we Brits must seem cold and uncaring to the rest of the world, and even considered that perhaps we were. However then I realised that we were just as capable of compassion and empathy as anyone, we just don’t say it. At least not with words, and certainly not with the words you might expect. Still having been embraced by such open compassion and now knowing how good it feels, I will try to let my own compassion out a little bit more.

Episode 74 - Trusting God in the Unknown

In an outrageous act of recycling, this week I thought I'd share an article I wrote for the MAF monthly prayer devotion about my current situation (to read the original or to sign up to receive these devotions each month by e-mail, click here), so here it is...

There was once a guy called Paul. You’ve probably heard of him. He brought Christianity to Europe and wrote much of the New Testament. But, sometime before all that, he felt called by God to tell the Good News about Jesus Christ to what is now modern-day Turkey. Turkey and the surrounding area was the socio-economic hub of the world at that time, so making an influence there would be a way of influencing the world. It was a big job and one that Paul was no doubt excited about. However, only a short way into his journey, he found that he was unable to share God’s Word there.

In some ways, I can relate. At the beginning of 2015, I felt God call me to go to Papua New Guinea (PNG) to serve the people there with my engineering skills. It wasn’t that I thought this would be a good thing to do, or that it was something of which God would approve. No, God made it irrevocably clear that this was what He wanted me to do. It happened with a clarity I couldn’t doubt and a certainty that I knew I’d need to hold on to in the future — although I didn’t know why at the time.

Getting stuck in

In the summer of 2016, I moved to PNG and began to work with MAF there. I very much enjoyed myself, settled in well, and like to think that I made an impact for God’s glory there too. But after six months, I became ill and had to come back to England to be treated. Much about my illness still remains a mystery. The prognosis for my recovery in the future is good, but when this will occur is totally unclear. I am very much in a time of uncertainty.

It is easy to question whether I misunderstood what God was telling me when I felt called, but I know this is not the case. It’s easy to feel that I failed in some way, that I wasn’t strong enough, but I know this was always God’s work and it was only because of His strength that I’d be able to achieve this task – a strength that I know never fails. It’s easy to feel lost because, well, I am. But that’s okay, because I’m travelling with God and He doesn’t just have the map, He made it!

The Bible doesn’t tell us how Paul felt when he was unable to carry out his plans. It’s also unclear as to why Paul wasn’t able to share the Good News about Jesus. It does however tell us that God was the author of this interruption. It also tells us what Paul did next. He carried on! He tried to preach throughout the whole region and, when he wasn’t able to, he moved on to the next. He carried on and on until he found himself at the very tip of Turkey. From there, God led him to bring the Gospel to Europe, which would remain the social and economic hub of the world for the next 2,000 years. It was something Paul could never have known at the time, but was something God had planned all along.

Episode 73 - Words of Enocuragement

I'm feeling pretty wiped out this week, so I'm just gonna leave you with two passages of encouragement that come to mind, hopefully they'll bless you just as they bless me...

...so I wouldn’t get a big head, I was given the gift of a handicap to keep me in constant touch with my limitations. Satan’s angel did his best to get me down; what he in fact did was push me to my knees. No danger then of walking around high and mighty! At first I didn’t think of it as a gift, and begged God to remove it. Three times I did that, and then he told me,

My grace is enough; it’s all you need.
My strength comes into its own in your weakness.

Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift. It was a case of Christ’s strength moving in on my weakness. Now I take limitations in stride, and with good cheer, these limitations that cut me down to size—abuse, accidents, opposition, bad breaks. I just let Christ take over! And so the weaker I get, the stronger I become.

- 2 Corintians 12: 7-10

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”

- Matthew 11: 28-30

Episode 72 - Singing Songs to Heaven

As I have shared some of my own poetry with you in the past, this week I thought I'd share some Papua New Guinean words. I was looking through my Tok Pisin song book from a rural church and thought it would be nice to translate a few songs for you, so here goes (please forgive my poor translation)...

Oh God you are a watchman

Oh God you are a watchman

You are always watching over my life

Everywhere I go

Everywhere I stay

You are always watching over my life

When I get on a plane

Or I travel by boat

When I travel by bus

You are always watching over my life

On the mountain top

On the mountain top

Go down into the valley

Cross the seas and keep on going

Come and sing

Come and be happy

We hold hands and shout to Jesus

He will make you jump up and dance

He will make you cry with joy

Around the river of God

He will change your life

By the waters edge, the water has life

Angels with us holding hands

Doesn’t matter if you’re from the coast, Doesn’t matter if you’re from the Highlands

We hold hands and shout to Jesus

I’m a no good man, but Jesus received me 

I’m a no good woman, but Jesus received me 

I’m like a confused child

But Jesus received me 

Holy Spirit you are like fire

Holy Spirit you are like water

Holy Spirit you are like a wind from heaven coming down

You make me jump, jump

Yu make me dance, dance

You’re making me and my mind receive heaven

The word of God is very sweet

The word of God is very sweet 

It is like a peanut

It  pierces man’s heart 

The word of God is very sweet

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

The word of God is very sweet

In Papua New Guinean culture the seat of emotions is considered to be the stomach (in contrast to the heart in western culture) In the last song, the word that I have translated heart actually means stomach and so the comparison of the bible being like a peanut actually has great depth and is a very clever analogy and refers to the way in which it satisfies our very being not just our hunger. I love reading the words to Papua New Guinean worship songs and the way that the explore and celebrate God and His creation, I hope you've found it enjoyable too!