Elliot calls our apartment in Dar es Salaam ‘the bat house’, because there’s a big colony of bats in the surrounding trees. From the balcony where we hang our washing, you can look directly at bats hanging in the tree only centimetres away, and at dawn and dusk they fill […]
I like routine. Someone told me I’d be a liability living cross-culturally because of that but I’m not wedded to it. Things come up: kids get sick, sometimes friends are in need, I’m asked to teach at something at the last minute, we’re informed that we’re hosting a dinner, etc. […]
On Mondays over the next few weeks for something a bit more lighthearted I’ll be posting some very short anecdotes of cross-cultural moments from the last little while. Here’s the first one. Just before Elliot went on school holidays we were talking about playing soccer and he said, “Girls don’t play […]
I like the way Christianity lingers in the December experience of every Australian. I’d be really sad to see it go. But I do know that it is only on the periphery for many people… It would be so much more satisfying if the deeper meaning of Christmas could surface […]
Even though I’ve got the name of the great defender of Britain, I’m not English, or British. I once heard that I have some Scottish ancestry. My parents used to play Enya and ‘A Celtic Heartbeat Christmas’, so does that make me Irish? Anyway, I’m still drawn to the songs […]
Below is the outline of a campus ministry resource I’ve been working on for Go Conference 2016. One of the reasons for this particular resource is the need to move people beyond the commonplace idea that evangelism means standing and preaching. In what follows I’m therefore using evangelism as an […]
He comes to make his blessings flow far as the curse is found This morning our family hung the first installment on our Jesse Tree (purple circles => God). Tamie and I are going through the Common Grace Advent devotions on Being Present. And we continue to draw on the […]
Meet Jesus at uni 