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One van - packed until it was ready to pop;
One car - full to the roof;
One boot load of stuff - coming up with a friend next weekend;
Half a boot load of stuff in our friend’s shed;
A plant and a vacuum cleaner waiting collection in our old garage;
And that is that.
Llanelli is 298.46 miles behind us - the future is unwritten.
We’ve not got a house, we’re camping out in the in(out)laws’ spare room.
It’s kind of exciting to wonder where we will be at Christmas time, kind of stressful too.
Today we looked at a house, it needs a lot of work doing, and a lot of money to buy it - well a lot of money to us anyhow - I wonder if that’s where we’ll end up… Or maybe its somewhere we havent seen yet. Yikes!
Thanks so much everyone who helped us, I wish I had taken photos of the crew, truth was I was too busy worrying about what would happen when the van got full! Anyway, Paul’s shoulders would have filled the whole picture, and Michael and his immaculate ‘tash hopped it too early.
So there we are, thanks everyone! See you in September!
We’re in Romford this weekend, visiting our friend John, and staying in his parents house, which has a wonderful garden! (I’m jealous!)
Tomorrow night we’re doing a meeting at the Good Shepherd church in Romford, should be good, maybe see you there.
Last night we stayed with Charlie in Bristol, really lovely city, very impressed with the harbour area. Trouble is I began to covet the houseboats, I think I’m getting a bit house obsessed 
Hopefully that should all be resolved soon, we’re going to Grimsby on monday to try and find a place, I’m tempted to scout out the local farmers, and see if anyone will rent us a field for a couple of months, we can borrow a caravan, and our tent is pretty big, so that could work… watch this space!
I enjoyed the conference on New Monasticism, jointly organised by the Anabaptist network, and the Northumbria community.
Not being part of either of these networks, but interested in both, we went along without much of an idea of what the event would be like. We found it both encouraging and inspiring.
The morning sessions included a time of worship led by the Northumbrians who took us through their morning office. Then Pete Askew of the community introduced Stuart Murray Williams of the Anabaptist network, and Roy Searle of the Northumbria Community. Roy plays cricket with my old P.E. teacher!
There followed two talks - one about Anabaptism, which I went to, and one about the Northumbrian community which Kel went to. I found the explanation of the history of Anabaptism very interesting, and was able to corner Murray Williams at lunch time to quiz him on whether Anabaptists, with their adherence to non violence and peace making, can take an active part in politics outside of anarchism. His answer boiled down to: “there are a number of different opinions about that!”
I also bumped into Mark Berry, the emerging church leader from Telford, who I recognised from his dodgy hair do. It was nice to have a chat, after having commented on his blog occasionally and read a lot about what he’s doing over there.
Other emerging church types knocking about included Ian Mobsby from Moot in London, and Ian Adams from Maybe in Oxford among others.
Brother Samuel from the Aglican order of Franciscans added a touch of gravitas and extra dollops of wisdom. Although he’s not a ‘new monastic’ it is fair to say that his order is less than ancient itself! I really agreed with his remark that one of the key things for a committed ‘monastic’ type community is that they work together manually. His comment ‘there is some very deep spiritual wisdom in making bread’ is so true.
After lunch there was a choice of workshops - I went to a discussion between Ian Mobsby and Brother Samuel - conparing and contrasting the old monastics and the new. Just how monastic are the new monastics? Good question. One of the main themes coming out, and well made by Mobsby and others, was that its more about being frianrs than being monks.
The distinction being that Monks tended to seclude themselves, while friars went out into the community to live out their faith. This is true to a degree, but of course only really applies to certain streams of monkism. Anyhow, I liked the concpet of ‘re-friaring’ the church, but it’s easier to say re-monking!
This session allowed more of a discourse between those in the meeting and the speakers than the first session had - which was very valuable.
More conversations and question and answer sessions followed, with a final session of worship in an Anabaptist style, which included a lovely way of singing the Shema Yisrael among other things.
In all, Kel and I were both really encouraged by what we saw, and the people we met. There were a lot of different types of people there, from the rather posh, to the decidedly not posh - from the emerging church smoothies to the Jesus Army. I’d have liked to have seen some more of the missionary community there, and perhaps some of the 24/7 folk, but that would have just been more icing on an already rich cake.
Well done to all the organisers, I thought it provided a good platform for those who are interested in finding out what others are doing in this area, but arent perhaps able to make all of the connections themselves! Looking forward to more.
I’m in Grimsby now, having eventually got up here last night after a thoroughly enjoyable, if slightly tiring wonder around the UK. In edited highlights - the trip consisted of a cup of tea with Wes Sutton, leader of the Oasis Trust ‘church.co.uk‘ network, at the Oasis base in Waterloo. I was really impressed by what the network is doing in Waterloo, and excited to hear their plans for other projects, some alreadty on the go. Later that evening I returned to the same building, to hear Shane Claiborne speak about his experiences living as an Ordinary Radical. I found out about that event by signing up to a Chrisitan Anarchists mailing list, even though I’m not really an Anarchist. (Shhhh! Don’t tell!)
That night (Wednesday) was spent with Kyber and Mrs Netikos, at their flat in South London. Conversations ranged from virtual reality, to killlng sheep with bolt guns, to archery. And places in between.
Next day, I got to spend some quality time with a friend who wants to expand his clothing company to include a fully ethical range. He’s already working as hard as he can to ensure his suppliers meet the hghest standards of looking after their workforce, and is trying to integrate organic and fairly traded materials into his supply chain. Seems like I’ll be able to help him, which is great.
A bit of a rush over to Euston station then, where I was able to grab a few minutes with Dan Radice of Cokoon. It was good to find out what he’s up to, and to consider what possibilities there are for the future.
Off on to Northampton then, to spend some time with Julie, who is planning to join World Horizons in the summer. I also got a chance to meet Julie’s church, which is an interesting ecumenical fellowship in the heart of the town, very engaged with their community, and offering a whole load of services, from a shoppers coffee shop, to counselling rooms, and various other things throughout their five separate congregations.
On Friday I headed to Shrewsbury via Birmingham - Shrewsbury is home to Ian Matthews and his family. Ian is now working for Zondervan in the UK, but I remember him from our first meeting over ten years ago, when he came to work on a late and unlamented Christian magazine that I worked on at that time. Ian became a friend then, and has remained so, despite not having seen him for a long time.
It was fascinating to see how he and I, through very different paths and in relationship with very different people, have arrived at a very similar place theologically and philosophically (although he’s a left wing libertarian, and I’m not) - it was as surprising as it was encouraging. We both share the same desire to find a way of living in community as families that really works well - I think we agreed that the ideal scenario would be for a group of families to form an open cooperative, the co-op would then own the property, and the families would pay rent to it. Given that it nullifies the effects that personal ownership of property have, and allows for a vaiety of people to live in community in a wholesome way, it seems like the best option. Now, if we could find some other families in Grimsby who were up for that…
A reunion with Kelly and the kids (hooray) meant a short journey to Walsall where we spent the night, and after dispatching the kids to their Grandparents, we went off to the New Monasticism conference in Coventry - which was excellent. I shall blog further details of that soon.
A last laid back drive along the A46 took us all the way to Grimbo - and tea.
I’m off to London today, then to Northampton and other destinations before ending up at the New Monasticism conference in Coventry on Saturday - that means dont expect to hear much from me over the next few days, not that you have over the last few 
Today was an important day for us, we officially told the community here that in August, our family will be leaving South Wales, and heading back up the road to Humberside, from whence we arrived some four years ago.
Part of our trip away over Easter was spent talking to folk in Grimsby about our thoughts and plans for this time, and as we had already talked it over with our leaders, and family members etc, today was the last part of the journey in terms of telling people our plan.
In fact when we originally planned to come down here, our plan was that we would remain for about two or three years. The death of our son this time last year meant that any thoughts of moving on at that time were shelved, and I’m glad. This last year in Llanelli has been very special.
What will this mean for our work? My work will carry on much as it does now, although obviously I’ll be less involved in the day to day life of the community here. The plan is that I will return to Llanelli once a month for meetings, and from time to time the whole family will come down together.
Why go back to Grimsby? The reasons are many and varied. But most importantly we just feel it is the right thing for us to do. Unfortunately it does mean leaving this lovely part of the world, and our happy home for something quite uncertain. We dont know where we’ll live, how we’ll afford to pay a normal rent, or how we’ll cope so far from the Welsh beaches we love so much! But with uncertainty comes excitement, excitement at what God has got for us over the next years, and the thrill of moving into destiny.
Its no secret that Horizons is something of a monastic community in its own way, and I think that is something we’ll be looking to grow around us in Grimsby too. Kelly has a strong vision for enabling local church to move outwards from within… in other words not being totally reliant on ‘mission agencies’ for the initiatives in terms of overseas trips, but being able to call on resources that will allow them to go themselves.
Thanks to a cheap rent, we live on very meagre income at the moment, unless we can find similarly cheap accomodation (unlikely 
) we’ll have to find ways of earning more money. Possibly I’ll take more writing on again, or maybe there’s another way. We’d love to open a coffee shop, but so far that hasnt worked out in planning yet.
I will of course continue my work with organic cotton, which continues at its usual snail’s pace! And lots of other interesting opportunities are floating around too - so we’ll just have to see what happens.
In our meeting this morning Gareth spoke about the question of ‘why are you here?’ referring to here in Llanelli - not on the earth :) His answer was ’so that God can change you.’ I can testify to that, we’ve been changed a lot over the last four years, and I’m thankful for it.
Lets just see what the next few years have in store…
Yup this time makes it number four, and surely that’s enough for anyone! Let’s just see if there can possibly be any more marriages, it’s quite possible of course that Keith is arranging these himself, in the hope of snagging a bridesmaid..?
I am really only writing this because Karen said I should, but tonight was a special night.
A bunch of us went down to a certain secluded beach on the Gower to say goodbye to Alex, who’s off to be an instructor at an outdoors centre in Scotland, the campfire was excellent, the sausages sizzled, I did mine on a stone.
I love those nightime trips to the beach, when really you cold be a million miles from anywhere, and the world seems incredibly open around you, and yet the darkness encloses you like a wall around the fire.
Fire holds incredible attraction, and yet repels… amazingly wonderful stuff.
And all the guys have different ways of making fire too, for some reason the girls there didnt have much to say about fires, but all the men (including me) were experts… now back at home, and that smell of smoke is all over me, my legs ache from the walk to the beach, and the run I did earlier, and I feel great.
And there’s nothing like the ride home to get to know people… aint that right Karen!? That said though, I still contend that I’m nothing like Peter Kay.
I’ll get some photos off Rob, and post them up. I dont think he took any of the mass plunge…. yeah I didnt do that!
There’s a Howies wall paper that says something like, ‘there’s nothing so relaxing as aching muscles’. So true. Off for a bath now.
So this weekend I had the delight of celebrating my old pal Kyb’s 30th, and meeting his wife and some of his other friends.
We had a great time, it was good to see the old boy again, although he is looking pretty old and wizened, its all that city living
Anyhow, I was kind of intrigued by the job title of Roo Reynolds, one of Kyb’s other friends, he works for IBM as a ‘Metaverse Evangelist’. I dont think I have knowingly met a metaverse evangelist before, so it was quite a thrill… well you know.
Anyhow, Roo’s site is worth a poke around, although his extraordinary collection of lego leaves me a little worried. At the party I almost got drawn into a potentially troublesome discussion on the nature of consumption and the importance of efficiency, but felt that it might ruin the mood, besides there was really nice cake to eat.
Anyhow, the whole metaverse thing got me interested. I first came across the notion of a metaverse in Neal Stephenson’s novel ‘Snow Crash‘ which was one of the many pieces of Cyberpunk literature that I devoured during my student days. Stephenson and his more famous counterpart William Gibson formed an important part of my higher education, and informed some of my later writings. Notably of course Gibson is credited with the invention of the notion of cyberspace, which is considerably better known than metaverse.
The Metaverse is easiest to understand as a virtual world, in which you can act and interact with others, the kind of thing that is manifested in stuff like second life. I dont use any kind of metaverse myself, unless you can count what I’m doing now, which I dont think you can strictly. Metaverses require avatars… so perhaps this is a metaverse then. I dunno, but it sure aint cyberpunk!
So there we are, a good ten years or more since I first studied metaverses, I meet a metaverse evangelist. Interesting. Evangelist is often synonymous with missionary…
I am delighted to see that Keith Smith now has internet access in his mud house, he doesnt yet have running water, but after four years of doing without both water and power, he can now write emails, surf the web, and crucially blog - from his home in Burkina Faso!
Of course this development while on the one hand welcome, has led the good mr Smith to consider - ’should I now be moving to somewhere more remote?’
Macy Lou Jones is still in critical condition, but is doing well, we are optimistic about the outcome of her treatment. She is of course still very ill, and we’re not getting complacent just yet.
She’s in Great Ormond Street Hospital, where she was airlifted at the weekend. She’s got the best care she could possibly have, and it seems like the knife edge is broadening out!
We’re all really pleased with the progress she has made, but it is still one step at a time.
see previous post on Macy Lou Jones here.
Gareth Jones is the leader of World Horizons UK - his two week old daughter, Macy Lou is critically ill.
After catching a virus, she grew very ill. She has now been diagnosed as having blood poisoning, and her internal organs have begun to stop working.
She is being flown tonight to Great Ormond Street hospital in London, where there is a unique machine which can properly oxygenate her blood.
It has been a major battle to get her to this point - she has until late this afternoon been too poorly to move. She is currently reliant on heart and lung bypass machines.
Please will you join us in praying for her? She needs the touch of God to heal her body, and her parents Gareth and Helen need all the support we can give.
Macy means ‘weapon’ and Louise means ‘renowned fighter’. These names are significant – Macy is in a fight for her life, our adversary would love to steal her away, and even more he would love to divert our attention from the truth of who our king is.
Our heart’s cry, our desire, our desperate plea is that God would show his great power and heal our little sister.
Please pray for her.
well the conference has finally been and gone - months of planning and arranging turned into just over forty eight hours of eating, drinking, chatting, meeting, singing, listening, praying, more chatting and some sleeping.
One of the big successes of this year’s conference was a little installation thingy we made, called ‘my face’ - we made a kind of web, or grid of string, onto which people were invited to attach a card we supplied them with. On the card they were asked to put their picture, (we asked them to bring one in advance) and some information - the kind of stuff you might find on one of the dreaded social notworking sites knocking around the internet these days.
As well as that, we asked them to put down some of their hopes and dreams, so that when others read them, they immediately got to know a little something about that person, which perhaps they wouldnt know otherwise.
It turned out to be a popular feature which went down well, and gradually filled up over the weekend. I reckon its the kind of thing you could do at any conference pretty easily, and which certainly provides a good talking point if nothing else!
I met loads of people at the conference, and it was a special time as usual, I’m looking forward to next year’s - which I shall not be running!
In Cebu I was lucky enough to meet a couple who are good friends to my mum, hello guys…
You can read about them at Anselmic’s place.
It was interesting to compare the differences between the sort of work they are doing, and the way their mission works to the way WH works and the way WH workers operate in the field, (got to be said, I prefer the way we do stuff… horses for courses and all that .)
many moons ago I lived in Manchester and Salford, in fact Kel and I got married while we were students there. I was both a student there for three years, and also worked there as a hack for while longer - learning the craft from some serious old timers.
Anyway, I digress - one of the first people I knew there was a girl called Liz, we had both been on gap years with Oasis Trust, so we had stuff in common. When I was a fresher Liz introduced me to people and got me in to the CU etc, she’s a great person.
So when Kel and I flew out from Manchester in July, it was an obvious opportunity to see Liz, who we get to see much too little.
And it turns out that Liz and others who I used to know are now part of a cafe church thing going on in Manchester, she told me the name, but I cant find any trace on the web. It’s not Sanctus 1, who seem to be pretty well represented on the internet, but another outfit. The reason I found this particularly interesting anyway, is that its indicative of how so many of us, with similar backgrounds, but quite independantly have ended up going down this same road.
There seems to be a genuine consensus from people of my generation that what we are looking for in Church is no longer to be found best represented in the traditional situations - and so we improvise, getting messy with loose structures, and non hierachical leaderships - maybe there is something in this whole generation thing after all… even though depending on whom you read I’m either a Gen X’er or a Millenial, or even a Gen Y’er, or if you listen to the Jesus Army, I’m Generation J….
Whatever anyway, its encouraging when you find people you respect have come to some of the same conclusions as you, and I respect Liz!
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