Konichiwa

So, here I am on day 2 of my trip to Japan, preaching with the Nelson's at Nirayama, in sight of the beautiful Mt Fuji. I pushed through until 9:00 last night and feel like I am holding the dreaded jet-lag at bay for now. As I made my way here on 2 planes (via Moscow!) and 3 trains I jotted down a selection of random thoughts on my journey so far that I thought I'd take this opportunity to share.

First tho; Mo news...
as you can see, this Movember's effort is coming on strong. Not sure what breed of Mo it looks like yet. Possibly 1950's bin man? I haven't set up a web page for sponsorship, I know too many people already doing it. I thought it made sense to redirect to them. This year I am urging people to give via the page of Steve Besford.  Come on people, dig deep. Some of us look proper silly! I refer you also to the pages of Matthew Arrowsmith and Giles Smith.




So, a beginning to some Japanese cultural differences as noted by a roaming Gai-Jin on day 1. I assume some of these 1st impressions will change as time goes on...

A significant number of people are wearing surgical masks. I first noticed a row of matching young ladies on the plane and some more at the airport. Once I was out in the world, I noticed some men too, but far fewer (would have covered up the magnificent moustaches!). Apparently this is to block in-bound germs (on the plane) or politely restrain out-bound germs when one is afflicted with lurgee.  Some of this makes a good deal of sense; the culture is still very family oriented and many families continue to cohabit. It's not unusual for 4 generations to be in the same home, exposing both elderly and very young to germs. That said, cleanliness seems to be something of a national obsession bordering on the compulsive. I am told that I need to sneeze gently (which will be a MAMMOTH effort) and leave he room to blow my nose. Wonder what else I need to leave the room for...

Anyhow, apparently I'm off to quarter the town to get oriented now (Pun totally intended!). More news and impressions later!

Movember looming

Well it's nearly Movember.

This year it's especially poignant, as just after last Movember drew to a glorious close, my papa was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He's now finished his treatment and we wait to see if it's been successful. It;s been a tough year, filled with not knowing how he was doing, conflicting reports from too many doctors and side effects that I won't go into today. Those of us around him have had to pull together and I think he's doing ok. We'll see.

For now, I know this: if there was the time and money devoted to man-cancer that there is to breast-cancer, this may well have been spotted earlier and treated more swiftly, with fewer side effects and a better prognosis. I don't want to take a single penny away from other any other cancer research; breast-cancer too has claimed friends of mine. I do simply want to raise awareness and cash to help the plight of men everywhere. Too many of us will eventually be glad that we helped.

This is my face on the last day of October. There will be regular updates. Keep the cash coming in by sponsoring any man you know growing a Mo. Why not show support by sporting a stick on one yourself, if you're too young or have the wrong chromosomes to grow one yourself.

Watch this space!!

My head hurts!

Well, eight weeks in and I am developing a new relationship with pain!

It's not because Mrs D is beating me regularly, or at least, no more severely than usual! No, it's the French language. I seem to bee making fairly good progress and have even begun the dreaded subjunctive, and the more I speak and listen the easier it gets. The biggest barrier to progress is a lack of practice; I just need more francophones in my life. What with tutoring happening in English and Victoria and I largely communicating in English, it's hard to get the French in. 

We have joined two churches, on in English in the evening and one in French on Sunday morning. I suspect Victoria, given a choice, would go exclusively francophone at home and church, but I'm just not ready for that. As much as it's satisfying to be making progress, and I can now largely make myself understood and keep up with the rigors of shopping etc, it's too frustrating to operate at a language level where I can't express complex ideas or, for that matter,  simple ones with the option of a more elegant turn of phrase. 

Anyway, my point is this. I find, regularly, that after a while submersed in French, my brain hurts. It's always the same pain, a kind of fizzing across the middle, very much akin the stress buzz I used to get at the thought of Ofsted visiting. The exact same feeling I called 'impending doom' whenever the headmaster called to me to his office, and which never went away however long I taught or high I wandered in the rankings of my profession, surely a sad indictment on my self-confidence.  It is a decidedly odd experience to have come to view this feeling as my friend. Whenever my brain starts ticking like that these days, I ascribe it (with no neurobiology to speak of, you understand) to neurons connecting, to synapses linking, to LEARNING HAPPENING! It's a delight! I seek it out, some of the time, when I am strong enough. At time's when I'm not it's proved a remarkable opportunity to lean on God, remembering that I believe He called us here, that there's something special for us to do here and that learning French is somehow adding to the kingdom. Standing in His grace helps me daily over here. If I get really stuck, I even pray in French! 

I'm off now to read an article on Michael Schumaker's retirement in French! A bientôt!

BTW: should you actually have some neurobiology, don't disabuse me of the notion that I can feel the learning happening. It's too motivational to lose.

An expensive word to learn!

Well, it's been a hell of a week. It's been utterly fab having some folks from home visit, one of whom brought her new beau for us to judge (sorry, meet!). What was truly special was having a part of our much cherished friendship group from Leeds come over; it really helped this feel like home and it's incredibly reassuring and comforting to know that we're still connected. At an hour and a half's flight we're MUCH less cut-off than we were in Rwanda or Calgary.

So, word of the week was " Une Amende," which means "A Fine." 

On Thursday I was coming home from a Sailing lesson I hadn't had as the sailing company had forgotten about me when Victoria called. Normally I wouldn't pick up when driving but I was making poor choices that day. 

The previous evening a colleague of Victoria's (we'll call her Jane) had been robbed at the entrance to her garage in Geneva, her hand-bag lifted off the passenger seat of the car by a ne'er-do-well while his colleague distracted Jane on the other side of the car. Being chivalrous and kind, Victoria lent Jane her husband so she didn't have to suffer through the rest of the evening unprotected and alone. Jane and I waited up for the RIDICULOUSLY expensive late-night emergency locksmith to come and let us in to her flat and replace her locks, and then we took a pleasant stroll through a raging storm to the police station in the middle of the red-light district, where she lives. By the time all this was sorted I got to bed in Geneva at about three O’clock. Now, you may well know that I'm not at my best in the morning, far from my usual cheery self and considerably farther from observant than usual, so when Jane's alarm pulled me from my slumber at 7.30 the following A.M. I was impressed that I managed to quietly leave her flat and get to the station, where I managed to buy the correct ticket and get a coffee. Sadly, having accomplished so much, I must have rested a little on my antemeridian laurels as I managed to get the only train to Lausanne that DOESN'T stop at Nyon. This put me an hour later back home than anticipated, which made me an hour late for my first meeting with a new tutee. At this point I was already quite stressed and bouncing through my morning on caffeine and adrenaline (with a little help from a delectable almond croissant. If one must be stressed in Switzerland, there are at least perks). It didn't help that being late for my first appointment necessitated a call to the parents of my second and third appointments to relate my sorry tale and apologise!

Eventually I got home and crammed in some lunch  before setting off to not have a sailing lesson. This cancellation was almost the last straw and I was going a bit out of my mind when I picked up the phone, which I knew was wrong but thought to be legal here as I had seen so many people on their phones while driving. This was a notion the policeman who pulled me over seemed more than happy to disabuse me of. He was even happy to take time to explain what was happening in broken English and sign language as he told me he was giving me 'an amende' of CHF100. 

Mea culpa, I know, and I make no excuses, but if every word I have to learn comes at such a price Victoria's salary won't go nearly far enough!!

Thankfully, I start regular French lessons on Monday, at a much more reasonable rate.

Bienvenu A Suisse

You'll have to forgive the delay in posting; I know we've been on this new adventure for nearly two weeks now but it's been just too hot to move or think! Still this being the view from the dining area helps; you can almost see the heat, no?

So, here we are in sunny Nyon, temperatures clearing 30 degrees every day so far and not dropping much at night. Alps to the left, Jura to the right and beautiful Lake Geneva (Lac Leman to locals, and who am I to argue) sat right there in the middle.  There have so far been several lessons as a private tutor, one wonderful trip to church where we both felt right at home and were immediately installed as small group leaders (daunting!), one barbecue, four overly hot runs, one guest (my easy going sister) with two more on the way and much French taught. It's been hectic!

Things I have noticed about Switzerland:

When you take over a house you do just that, not a house and its light fittings. Several dark nights followed and some minor electrical jiggery-pokery: now we can see! Hosannas were sung over the brownie-points earned.

Ikea meatballs are equally awesome wherever you go!

The cheese is really that good!

The trains really are that punctual!

Pistachio and chocolate is THE BEST combination of ice cream, flavours, c'est sure!

Electric velo-pass bikes (Swiss 'Boris-bikes') should be available everywhere! All of you who visit MUST try them.


Everything really is shut on a Sunday. Hello Sabbath!

Grass beaches, despite initial weirdness, really do work. No sand in pants = happy Rob.

On a more general note, I've started writing a book. It concerns marriage and fidelity and I have a lot of ideas to work out, so that might be a recurring theme here for a while. I'm just not sure how to treat a necessarily sexual subject in overtly Christian fiction.

So, what next for Rob? That's been a common question for months now and it's no different here, most often from folks at church. Back in the UK I was happy with the position that God had called us both here and there would be a right thing to do once I got here. Now I'm finally here and I'm in that period of reflecting, waiting and praying it all feels a bit odd. Still, it's early days, so we'll see. Maybe it's the writing, only time will tell.

The coolest trees in the world: a picture of faith from creation

These are Redwoods.




Grizzly Giant, Marposa, Yosemite

I love them. This one's called the Grizzly Giant, it's the 25th biggest sequoia in the world. 64m tall and 28m around, it's 3.5 times taller than my school ,which is a substantial 5 storey building. I took this picture in Yosemite National Park, California, which was a real privilege to visit. I you're in the area, you just must go.


Of course, that's a Giant Redwood (Sequioadendron Giganteum) which are the biggest trees in the world in terms of total volume and mass. Sadly, they have rather fragile tops which tend to break off after a thousand years or so. This leaves the mantle of tallest tree to their cousins, the Coast Redwoods (Sequoia Sempervirens). Oddly, despite being called Sempervirens (ever-living) it generally only lives up to 1800 years, whereas the Giant Redwood often gets well over 2700 years old. Some of those trees were already 700 years old at the birth of Christ!




'Giant Tree.' No kidding.

This is Victoria and I at the foot of the unimaginatively titled 'Giant Tree' in Redwood State Park, Northern California, home of hundreds of Coast Redwoods. It was near there that they filmed the Endor scenes in Return of the Jedi. You don't need special effects around there, it's an alien environment already.


This tree would tower over the Grizzly Giant; it's 109m  tall! 6 times taller than my school! Wandering around Redwood Park is an awesome and eerie experience; hundreds of these massive trunks shootiog straight up into the air. The dense canopy 300 feet up keeps much of the light from getting through, so while it's quite light enough to see and trek about, there aren't many other trees about, just these humongous long lived statuesque beauties rising straight out of the ground. It's 40 metres or more until you get to the first branches, so the trucks are left to impress.

A Grove of Giant Redwoods in Mariposa, Yosemite

Giant Redwoods grow a little differently. Rather than dominating an area they grow in groves of a few trees clustered together, but like the Coast Redwood, they never grow alone. This is all down to the incredible way they are rooted.


You would expect, perhaps, that such massive trees have very deep roots shooting deep into the earth, possibly tied to the very bedrock itself. Some kind of super-root must be necessary to keep these towering trees up, surely?


Well, you're not wrong, but it's not what you'd expect. The roots of these arboreal legends go down a mere 6 feet.

SIX FEET!!!!!

Surely that's not enough to hold up these forest giants? Well, it certainly wouldn't be, but their roots, while they down go down very far, do go out! Not only that, they grasp hold of one another. Theses magnificent creations could not stand on their own, but weather the storms of this world by holding each other up, leaning on each other for support and stability.

What a picture of fellowship. I was reminded of this recently looking at Mark Chapter 6, when Jesus send out the disciples for the first time. He doesn't let them take much stuff to support themselves with, no food, no spare clothes, just a staff, however he does give them one important thing: each other. He sends them out in pairs. I take this to mean that we are to be there for one another, that God doesn't expect us to perform miracles by ourselves, that we can achieve so much more with each other than alone.
The other cool thing about Redwoods is their response to fire; they need it. They are largely impervious to fire, one of very few non-flammable woods. When the Great Fire of San Francisco caused devastation in 1906 the damage was abruptly halted when the flames reached a district made of Redwood lumber. Forest fires rarely damage Redwoods but do thin-out competing species, leaving space and nutrients for the Redwoods. Beyond this, the seeds are released from the cones by high temperatures, so any forest fire releases thousands of new seeds to help the next generation start their incredible growth.

Cool trees, and beautiful too. Go see 'em.

Dude, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wave!!

My small group from Church have just finished an amazing study series. We've been watching the DVD of 'The Reason for God' by Tim Keller. The book is great and I heartily recommend it to anyone looking into the common questions people have about Christianity, but the DVD series is a little different. We've watched a group of non-Christians putting their thoughts to each other and to Dr Keller and exploring the arguments for and agaist different aspects of Christianity: is the church full of hypocrites, how can a loving God send people to hell etc. It's really opened our eyes to the types of objections people out there in the world will have to our faith, but more that that, it has helped us work out what we really think or our own faiths. I reccomaned it to any small group leaders looking for discussion points.

Anyway, enough about that. Dr Keller seems to have a good enough reputation and enough sales without me plugging his wares. I wanted to share one of the visions of God we found useful during our discussions.

Mrs D and I were lucky enough to be in Hawaii a few years ago. We had a fabulous time there and managed to cross of one of our lifetime ambitions: we went surfing. We'd done a little before on the same trip and had managed to stand up and ride some waves in to shore, but only inside the break, on waves which had already crested. By all accounts,  riding the bigger waves outside the break is much more thrilling, but rather harder to do, so to help us make progress, we had another lesson with a local instructor, Dave.

Dave was very cool. He looked and sounded like a regular chap, he wasn't a stereotypical surfer dude, but his attitude to life was very laid back. He was one satisfied and chilled out man, and why wouldn't he be? He spent his days cycling and surfing along Hawaii's North Shore.

Dave ran us through the tips for getting up beyond the break. It seemed to come down to choosing the right wave, timing and effort. The first two he would take care of, the latter was up to us. Forewarned, we set out.

The break Dave had chosen was not too far out to sea, but it was breaking over some nasty looking shallow rocks. There were places where falling off and getting smashed down would be seriously bad news. We were going to need to be careful. Thankfully Dave knew the spots to look out for.

We hung out on our boards at the end of a small line of surfers, waiting for a wave big enough to be worth riding but small enough to not kill us. A few of the guys in the line caught some bigger waves and made it look easy; some missed waves altogether, and the odd one got chewed up by the Pacific rollers only to emerge smiling, ready for another go. We started to get both keen and anxious.

I was first to go. Dave told me to get ready, he could see the right wave coming in. I turned to look, to see what I'd be riding, but Dave told me off. "I'll time the wave, buddy, you just paddle hard when I say." He was right, I just didn't have the skill yet to know when to go. We'd seen plenty of guys in the line going to late and just slipping off the back of the wave, if I wanted to catch this one I would have to trust Dave.

Suddenly our even-tempered surf instructor bellowed at me. "Paddle!!! Go for it." He yelled; I paddled. I felt the wave build around me. Lying on the board,  I was now facing downhill and rushing towards the rocks below. There were lots of them, and they looked big and sharp. I guess Dave sensed my fear, he must have seen my paddling slow down, and he knew as well as I did what was below me. He also knew that if I really committed, I'd be up, safe and enjoying a wild ride. He tried to spur me on again...

"Come on Rob! Give it!!!!"

I gave it everything I had. I cleared the rocks, but as I cleared them and went to stand up I mistimed my move and wiped out. I went over, but for the briefest fraction of a second I was on that board and riding. I knew what Dave knew, what he wanted me to feel.

I didn't get up that day. Mrs D did, she's a natural, but even so, not every time. We spent an hour paddling hard, trusting Dave and falling in. It was exhausting and exhilarating, and for me at least, very frustrating. When we staggered onto the beach we vowed to go again.

Three days later we got up at sunrise on our fourth wedding anniversary and rented boards in Waikiki, on the South Shore. I suppose the waves were a little smaller and there were certainly fewer rocks, but that day we both made it up onto our boards. When I was finally riding a wave in to shore, staring at Honolulu rushing towards me, I knew Dave would have been proud.

Dave still comes to mind when I hear people talk about God being demanding, when I hear  confusion or anger about all those instructions in the bible, all those commandments. I remember Dave yelling at me, not in anger, not because I was breaking the surfing rules and that made him cross, but because he knew best. He knew when I needed to paddle. He knew the dangers. Most of all he knew how awesome it is to ride along on the energy of creation, and his instructions were all he had to help me feel it too. He couldn't paddle for me, I had to do it myself. Those shouted commands were for my benefit, laid out by someone I had to trust because in that moment, he knew best.  When I look at God's commandments, especially the ones I don't understand, it helps me to remember that He DOES understand, and he's telling me out of love, to help me avoid the rocks below, to help me enjoy the rush of working with Him.


There comes a time when you just have to trust.