Religious put-downs

On the way to church, got chatting to the old ladies about which church we're off to. 'They're all religions', says one. 'Ah', says the other, 'they're all religions but Orthodoxy came from the mouth of Christ' and was off the bus before you could say sufficiency of Scripture.

A little glimpse of daily life

I'm on the school run. 

Esther with preschool portacabin

Our older three have been at school in portacabins since October 2010, and will be until the new school building (on the site of the old one) is completed, allegedly this summer. They're making good progress. 

Parish church 

Opposite the new school is the Orthodox parish church building, on a pleasant square (which would be a great place to live near if the church bells weren't so loud - goodbye lie-ins), which now has a lovely nice new pavement - see below.

The new school building in progress

Next door is the high school, which is where our kids will go if we've not moved by then (no plans for that) and if we decide that keeping the kids in the Greek state system is the best thing to do (about which more in a year or so when it becomes a live issue for Joel. There are significant pros and cons, at least from the perspective that we have at the moment).

Work continues on the last bit

Anyway, the pavement.

The old pavement was perfectly fine. It had plenty of chewing gum (don't get me started) and was grey not yellow, but it really didn't need replacing. Even if Greece discovered oil.


It was level, had an appropriate level of friction, even when wet, and did its job better than many of Athens' pavements, which is to say it made it possible to walk across it without particularly thinking about it. It was inoffensive to eye, nose and foot.



But it was decided that it needed replacing.

Old (grey and chewing gummed!) and new (golden) in contrast

I have no idea how many euros it costs to replace a pavement, a job that has so far lasted about a month. There is a cynical one-liner doing the rounds - λεφτά υπάρχουν (there is money). It's just that it isn't being used very well. Financial crisis? Perhaps, but integrity and wisdom might be more useful at the moment. If you're going to fix pavements, at least do the ones with massive holes in them.

The Christian Mind

Bob Horn was the General Secretary of UCCF while we were students and young staff with the British IFES movement. He was a significant influence on me (and many others) and a lovely man. 


Shortly before he died he recommended I read Harry Blamires' 'The Christian Mind'. I found it in the smallest second hand book sale I've ever come across (there were about 50 books on a table, and I can't remember where we were) and snapped it up. I only started reading it at Easter but it's a superb little book. The writing is ascerbic and incisive and the thesis important - who cares that it was written in the 60s and represents an England that has changed enormously since then?

When I've finished I'll perhaps review it but here's a quote (from a chapter called 'The Christian Mind: its awareness of evil'):


A peculiar quality of the Christian mind is that, knowing the weakness of human nature, it expects conflict in the moral sphere. It assumes that the powers of evil will exploit every possible occasion for drawing men into the mental confusion of blurred concepts and twisted values. There is about the Christian mind a peculiar hardness - a refusal to be surprised at evil and depravity; an inability to be overcome by shock; an expectation that evil will be at large when God is not. Hence its cultivated suspiciousness of that which currently passes muster, in any powerful worldly circle, as the right thing. Hence, in the moral sphere, its zealous attention to the thin ends of wedges. It knows how evil grows.


This is one eminently quotable book. If you see it lying around in a second hand shop, buy it without hesitation and give it a good home.

Confessions of the female English tenor

I love singing in choirs: I love the depth of sound from simple four-part harmonies; I love the unity without uniformity; I love the discipline of holding your line whatever everyone else is singing.

We’ve just started up a choir in our church, so I have joined this group of thirty or so that rehearses two or three times a month. I am naturally an alto – I can’t easily reach all the high notes of a soprano and I love the challenge of a good harmony – but in this choir I sing tenor. There is only one other regular tenor who is 13 and a bit quiet. I’m not quiet.

As I sat in rehearsal the other day, I realised that me singing tenor in this choir is a bit of a metaphor for my life here in Athens. I’m not sure how best to explain this, so here are some bullet points to start us off:

• Singing tenor means I’m out of my comfort zone: I am singing to the very depth of my range which means I am often not singing as loudly or as freely as I could.
• I stand out: you don’t get many female tenors. I am a freak. It’s ok, I’m used to me, but in this way I am obviously odd in front of a lot of more ‘normal’ people.
• Sometimes I’m alone. In rehearsal the other night it was just me in the tenors. It’s fine: I’m up for the challenge! And I’m not REALLY alone it’s just perception: there are plenty of other people in the choir and I am not ‘the only one left’! (1 Kings 19:10 – sometimes I have an Elijah complex.)
• This singing tenor business is stretching me. I’m not playing to my natural strengths. It’s close, but it’s not the same. I was going to say that it’s like trying to draw with my left hand, but it’s not THAT hard! I guess it’s more like trying to draw with just my right thumb and little finger (try it…).
• I’m trying to do two things, and I’m doing both badly: I’m trying to sing the tenor line AND sing the Greek words correctly. Very occasionally I manage both (and it feels GREAT), but most of the time I manage one at the expense of the other.
• BUT, I’m willing and able and meeting a ‘need’, so I might as well (although I’d appreciate more capable fellow tenors, or even replacements…).

Maybe, like Jonathan, you don’t need the illustrative nature of this situation spelt out. You can stop reading now, if you like!

Living for Jesus means self-denial and life as an alien and stranger (or foreigner and exile as the new NIV has it) in the world. Sometimes one’s “strangeness” is deliberate: choosing to stand out and not go with the flow; holding a viewpoint that is considered out-dated or intolerant. Sometimes the strangeness is unconscious – it doesn’t require deliberateness or self-control – but still indicates one’s alien-nature:  a godly knee-jerk reaction to something that before Jesus would have not bothered you so much; a confession of both your weaknesses and sin that doesn’t require careful self-examination and that you no longer need to hide because of the liberating grace that God has shown us in Jesus.

There are many ways in which we are made to feel alienated. We are MADE to feel it – both by the alien culture in which we live AND by the God who has MADE us (and is making us) this way. It is good for us to feel alienated: we don’t belong in the world as it is; it should stimulate a desire for our true home – the new heaven and the new earth; it should drive us to call others to have that same hope of eternal life.

Somewhere in between this true and godly experience of all Christians and my experience as a tenor is my experience as a Christian from the UK living in Athens.

Language incapacities still restrict and inhibit my life in lots of ways. There is more that I could do about this in an active deliberate way. Just as practising and doing singing exercises would be good for developing my tenor skills, so practice and more work would improve my Greek. Sometimes there are not enough hours in the day, but usually there are. So please pray for my Greek and my deliberateness in development – especially in this season where my Greek has taken a back seat in preference to running the family and enabling Jonathan to get further in his Greek. But I’m out of my comfort zone most of the time in Greek: more comfortable listening, although it still depends a bit on the subject and the speaker. Thankfully I am comfortable listening to sermons and Bible talks, but my conversational Greek is still a bit ropey. I am not as free in Greek and in Greek situations as I long to be. I am not myself yet, most of the time, in Greek. I want to try and explain this a bit better in another blog, but we’ll see…

I stand out because, although some people think I could pass for a Greek, I don’t quite fit in. I don’t really WANT to fit in in some ways – I’m not very conformist. But Greek society is quite conforming, generally.  So there are ways in which I’m deliberately making myself conform. Some of these are probably ok or even good: my clothes style has changed so that I don’t look quite so much like a foreigner; and, for the sake of not upsetting some of the older folk in church, I wear skirts mostly on Sundays (this one is up for debate, anyone?). Not so good is that I am less comfortable going out without make-up because I’m aware that most women don’t, and therefore do conform and put make-up on to go out. There is a constant (but not always consciously constant) strain between not conforming to the pattern of the (Greek) world and being all things to all people that maybe I wouldn’t have thought so much about if I were living in my own culture.

Feeling isolated and lonely are regular flickers in my conscience. They don’t stay long and don’t really affect me, but I’m aware that the feelings exist. I mostly believe that they are mostly a product of my own expectations and sense of entitlement. (See Andy Shudall’s blog here for an interesting take on that.) The extent to which I feel any of these things is relative. I once had more friends and more tangible local support than I do now. Now I don’t. Head up. God is still God, I still have the same assurance that Jesus is my only hope, nothing can separate me from the love of God and if God does provide for all my needs then he is providing for my needs for fellowship. I need to learn to be satisfied in Him whatever and practise contentment. And anyway, I live with five other people and there are friends in the city, just not round the corner. AND I should make more of an effort to make friends with people in my neighbourhood.

I am going to write a blog some time about living cross-culturally being like living like an amputee. So here is a very brief summary: Living cross-culturally means that you can’t rely on your natural abilities in the same way; you live similarly but not the same as before; you have to make adaptations in order to settle in to your new life; you need to have lower expectations of yourself; you need to be willing to grow in ways that might highlight some of your limitations; you need to accept that you will have limitations; you need to be prepared to grow and stretch in spite of those limitations; you are not the same as you were in your own culture and you never will be. More on that some other time.

Multi-tasking in any culture is tricky. Trying to be a faithful child of God, a good wife, a perfect mother, a thoughtful daughter / sister / niece / cousin / friend, who is spinning all the associated plates  plus a few others, doesn’t always (ever?) go to plan. When things go well, praise the Lord, when they don’t, praise the Lord. I rejoice especially whenever I manage to give time and attention to something in a proactive not reactive way: when I PLAN to spend specific quality time with one of the children for their good; when I manage to plan and cook something that isn’t a last-minute, thrown together, born in stress creation; when all the clean laundry is away (fat chance!) and all the children only have clothes in their wardrobe that fit both in terms of size and weather (and we see flying pigs whilst enjoying a month of Sundays…). If I spent any amount of time thinking in more detail about all the things that need doing, all the things that I should be doing and all the things I’d like to be doing and trying to plan my life around them, I would probably lie down somewhere quiet and not want to get up again. So, I try to rejoice in the good times and the not so good, persevere in the stretching nature of life and look forward to the eternal rest to come!

I am willing and able, so I might as well live here and seek to serve the church here and be involved in Christ’s work of building his church where I am. I would LOVE to have more co-workers, especially Greek ones who would find aspects of life and work here easier than me. If you know any Greeks that might consider working with us, do let us know! The co-workers don’t have to be Greek though, but they do have to be prepared to "sing tenor" as it were - even if they are a well-seasoned and very gifted soprano or bass or sing so badly that they don't even want to listen to themselves. The problem is that we don't like admitting our weaknesses, let alone learning to be content to live in them for extended periods and press on through, relishing in God's strength and provision and rejoicing. Language learning is tough. It was then, it still is. Cross-cultural living is ego-bruising to say the least. I would love to find and train replacements for the things in which I can be replaced (there is no vacancy for wife of Jonathan…), but it’s more likely that we will be training co-workers and not replacements at this stage.

I know that all of the above contains a lot of ‘I’s. Many of the ‘I’s could be ‘we’s: I know that many of the feelings related to the above issues are shared with Jonathan and other 'cross-culturally living' friends; I know that many of the above are common to all who live for Jesus. I’m also aware that this is a very me-centric blog. My prayer, however, is that, as you’ve read my confessions and my struggles, you are pointed to Jesus who is the author (captain/pioneer) and perfecter of our faith.

Οι μαμάδες δεν είναι τέλειες - Mothers aren't perfect

It was Mother's Day for most of the world on Sunday. As is customary at our church, the Sunday School presented a little γιορτή (celebration) in honour of mothers, at the end of the morning meeting. I volunteered to speak, briefly, on our chosen spin for the year - Mothers aren't perfect. Below is the talk, as given, and the translation. Happy Mother's Day!

Η Τέλεια Μητέρα

Πάντα κάνει το καλύτερο για τα παιδιά της. Μαγειρεύει το πιο νόστιμο φαγητό που αρέσει σε όλη την οικογένεια. Δεν θυμώνει ποτέ. Δεν φωνάζει. Το σπίτι της είναι αστρεφτερό. Τα ρουχα των παιδιών της είναι  πεντακάθαρα. Είναι συνέχεια στην τρίχα. Τα παιδιά της είναι ΠΑΝΤΑ υπάκουα και τα καταφέρνουν εξίσου καλά στο σχολείο, τις ξένες γλώσσες, τα αθλήματα και την μουσική. Η τέλεια μαμά είναι κοινωνική, είναι φιλική με τους γείτονες, κάνει τα καλύτερα τραπέζια και είναι πρόεδρος του συλλόγου γονέων. Επιπλέον είναι καλή σύζυγος και διαπρέπει στην δουλειά της. 

Σηκώστε το χέρι όσες είστε σαν αυτή τη μητέρα! Κάποιες από σας μπορεί να αναγνωρίζετε τον εαυτό σας σε κάποια κομμάτια της περιγραφής: μπορεί να είσαι η μαμά που μαγειρεύει τέλεια, ή μπορεί να είσαι οργανωτική μαμά, ή να έχεις παντα υπάκουα παιδιά... Μακάρι...

Το μοντέλο της τέλειας μητέρας υπάρχει και στην Βίβλο:

Ισχύ και ευπρέπεια έιναι ντυμμένη· και ευφραίνεται
για τον μελλοντικό καιρό.

Ανοίγει το στόμα της με σοφία και επάνω στη γλώσσα
της είναι νόμος ευμένειας.

Επαγρυπνεί στη διακυβέρνηση του σπιτιού της, και
ψωμί οκνηρίας δεν τρώει.

Τα παιδιά της σηκώνονται και τη μακαρίζουν· ο άνδρας
της, και την επαινεί·

πολλές θυγατέρες φέρθηκαν άξια, εσύ, όμως, τις
ξεπέρασες όλες.

Ψεύτικη είναι η χάρη, και μάταιη η ομορφιά· η γυναίκα,
η οποία φοβάται τον Κύριο, αυτή θα επαινείται.

(Παροιμίες 31:25-30)

Στην πραγματικότητα όμως ούτε στην Βίβλο υπάρχουν απόλυτα τέλειες μαμάδες: Η αλήθεια είναι ότι οι μαμάδες δεν είμαστε τέλειες.


Προσπαθούμε να φαινόμαστε όσο το δυνατόν τελειότερες και, ίσως, ο μεγαλύτερος φόβος μας είναι ότι οι άνθρωποι θα ανακαλύψουν ότι στη πραγματικότητα δεν είμαστε τόσο τέλειες...


Δεν είμαστε τέλειες: μας ενοχλεί όταν τα παιδιά μας δεν κάνουν αυτό που θέλουμε. Πολλές φορές δεν καταλαβαίνουμε τα παιδιά μας και δεν τους φερόμαστε όπως χρειάζεται να τους φερθούμε: Είμαστε πολύ αυστηρές όταν το μόνο που χρειάζονται είναι μια αγκαλιά ή μερικές φορές απλά τους δίνουμε αυτό που θέλουν για να μας αφήσουν στην ησυχία μας. Οι σχέσεις μας δεν είναι τέλειες επειδή εμείς δεν είμαστε τέλειοι. Έτσι είναι.


Σαν χριστιανοί ξέρουμε αν και δεν υπάρχει τέλεια μαμά, υπάρχει όμως τέλειος πατέρας.(Και δεν είναι ο ανδρας μου, ο Τζόναθαν.) Αυτός ο τέλειος Πατέρας συγχωρεί τις ατέλειες μας εξαιτίας του ενός τέλειου Υιού Του. Έτσι, σημαντικότερο από το να είναι τα παιδιά μας υπάκουα ή να έχουν καθαρά χέρια, η προσευχή μας είναι ότι εμείς και τα παιδιά μας θα ελπίζουμε σ’αυτό τον Τέλειο Υιό. Άρα κάθε φορά που συνειδητοποιούμε ότι έχουμε αδυναμίες και δεν είμαστε τέλειες ας φέρνουμε τις ατέλειες μας και τις αδυναμίες μας στο Χριστό.


Ας μην απογοητευόμαστε αλλά ας ομολογήσουμε πρώτα στον Θεό και στην οικογένειά μας ότι δεν είμαστε τέλειες και ας εμπιστευτούμε τον Χριστό.


Οι μαμάδες δεν είναι τέλειες. Είναι καλό να παλεύουμε με τις ατέλειες και τις αδυναμίες μας μέχρι να έρθει ο Χριστός. Αλλά οι ατέλειες μας να μας δείχνουν στον Χριστό, τον τέλειο Υιο, και λέει στη Γραφή:


Αρκεί σε σένα η χάρη μου· επειδή, μέσα σε αδυναμία, η δύναμή μου φανερώνεται τέλεια. Με βαθύτατη ευχαρίστηση, λοιπόν, θα καυχηθώ περισσότερο στις αδυναμίες μου, για να κατοικήσει μέσα μου η δύναμη του Χριστού. (Β’ Κορινθίος 12:9)

The Perfect Mother

She always does what’s best for her children. She cooks delicious food that all her family love. She never gets angry. She doesn’t shout. Her house is as clean as a show-home. Her children’s clothes are always spotless. She is always turned out beautifully, with every hair in place. Her children are ALWAYS obedient and succeed in every area – school, foreign languages, sport and music. The perfect mother is sociable: she is friendly with her neighbours; she shows hospitality and is president of the PTA. On top of all this, she is a great spouse and she excels in her work.

Put your hand up if you are like this mother! Some of you may recognise something of yourself in a small part of the description: maybe you’re a mum who cooks perfectly, or maybe you’re involved in organisations or your children are always obedient… If only…

The model of perfect motherhood also exists in the Bible:

She is clothed with strength and dignity;
she can laugh at the days to come.

She speaks with wisdom,
and faithful instruction is on her tongue.

She watches over the affairs of her household
and does not eat the bread of idleness.

Her children arise and call her blessed;
her husband also, and he praises her:

‘Many women do noble things,
but you surpass them all.’

Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting;
but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.

(Proverbs 31:25-30)

In reality, though, the Bible doesn’t really have absolutely perfect mothers: The truth is that mothers aren’t perfect.

We try to appear as perfect as we can and, maybe, our biggest fear is that people will find out that we’re not so perfect…

We’re not perfect: we’re frustrated when our children don’t do what we want them to do. We often don’t understand our children and don’t treat them the way they need to be treated: We’re too harsh when all they need is a hug or sometimes we give them whatever they want just for a bit of peace and quiet. Our relationships aren’t perfect because we aren’t perfect. That’s how it is.

As Christians we know that even if there is no such thing as the perfect mother, there is such a thing as the perfect father (and it’s not my husband, Jonathan.) This perfect Father forgives our imperfections because of his one perfect Son. So, more important than our children’s obedience or whether or not they have clean hands, our prayer is that we all put our hope in that Perfect Son.  And each time we recognise that we are weak and imperfect we should bring our imperfections and weakness to Christ.

Don’t be disappointed but confess your imperfections to God and to your family and trust in Christ.

We mothers are not perfect. It’s good to wrestle with our imperfections and weaknesses until Christ returns. But our weaknesses are to point us to Christ, the Perfect Son, as the Bible says:

But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. (2 Corinthians 12:9)




I guess it is typical that, on the morning of the Mother's Day celebration, I sent H back upstairs to change into something prettier and more appropriate for such an occasion than the jeans and t-shirt she had chosen (which she would have been hot in...) a recurring Sunday morning scene - we now have a 'deal' that we take in turns to choose her clothes...; that I shouted at J for not getting dressed quickly enough and that I was irritated with Esther for not keeping her head still whilst I tried to brush her hair... Not to mention my frustration with the printer not working (and therefore having to print out from the pastor's office in the church building with 10 minutes to go), having to force a brush carefully through Ruth's incredibly curly, knotted hair, having to put away the fridge-related breakfast things and blaming some of the above on Jonathan. Needless to say I spoke with honesty and feeling, but still... Grateful for grace, frustrated with imperfection, persevering in hope and looking forward to glory!

The anticipation ...

There are PLENTY of things to look forward to over the next few months. There are significant economic and political matters to face; sporting events that will both unite and divide in almost equal measure; and widely anticipated (and already criticised) films to watch. [I narrowly avoided using the word movie in that last sentence - a devastating consequence of living in a world where anglophony is accepted but only in its 'adapted' form...]


I don't doubt that there are other, probably even more significant events upcoming, apologies for any offence caused by any omission.


Some of them we are all awaiting with great anticipation and excitement. Others hold some level of trepidation.

But we don't need to fear, because in all circumstances God has it covered.

In the NEXT FEW DAYS there MAY be a flurry of activity here on this blog.

I say, "may", as there are many mitigating factors that might mitigate against us. But it's our intention to give word to some of our thoughts over the last wee while, so look out!


Our 'radio silence' over the last year and a bit is inexcusable. I'm not sure if we'll be publishing any of the half-finished thoughts that are drafted here and there, but we might. If you haven't read any of our prayer letters over the past year, and would like to, let us know.



In the meantime, I think, over there in the distance, I see the first real blog of 2012 making its way over the horizon...