It’s this time of year that I normally send out an email wishing everyone a Merry Christmas, and explaining that Suzy and I will be donating the money we would have spent on Christmas cards to Toybox. Toybox are a fantastic charity that work with street children in Latin America. In many ways nothing has changed this year. We still want to wish you a Merry Christmas and we still will be donating the money we would have spent on cards to a charity, only this year it’s a different charity. It’s not that we suddenly feel Toybox don’t deserve the money, it’s just this year there is a charity that is slightly closer to home.

On Thursday 10th December 2009 our daughter Becky who has self funded a trip through many kind friends, flies off to India to visit and work with Mustard Seed Ministries (http://www.msm.org.uk) for a couple of weeks. Mustard Seed are about enabling local charities and people to impact the young and old who are in need, in their communities. I have met Rick and Gilly who work with MSM in India and greatly admire the work they do. I won’t say that the concept of our daughter going out to India doesn’t scare us, but we know she is with good people and in Gods hands. I know Becky will come back greatly impacted by the visit, and in many ways these types of trips bring greater short term benefit to the individual visiting then they do to those in need. However I believe that over the long term, people like Becky being exposed to different cultures and situations benefit those in need greatly. Those visiting change their life views, and get involved with compassionate issues more over their life.

So I hope you forgive me once more, if you don’t receive a piece of card form me this year. You will know that somehow, somewhere the cash that would have bought the card that you would have thrown away in January, will carry on working with those in need. I’m pretty sure that Jesus didn’t intend his birth to fund a card industry, and would rather we celebrate His birth by helping those in the world who need our help. A slightly out of scope post for this site, but actually it dawned on me as I wrestle with my journey and where that should take me, my daughter is also taking these initial steps, only nearly thirty years my junior. It makes me both proud and scared to be her Dad.

Belinda, a puzzled friend who cares, approached me last night and asked what was happening? It seems John, (my mate, vicar and Belinda’s husband) had received a request for a reference for me to work on Club 1. Strange they thought, Max isn’t doing what he said he was. Not that I am incapable of saying one thing and doing another, but in this case I blame God. In my human self I thought there were only two options, but God had a third, which I think I may have secretly hoped for. Having said that I would not work at Club 1, but would pastor or go as a delegate, I then get asked to pastor at Club 1. Why does God do that? Why does he seem to come to the rescue at the last moment once we have made a decision to listen to him? This is a fairly small example of a repeating pattern in my life. Maybe, just maybe I should listen more!

In other news, you will be glad to hear the writers block did go away and a couple of essays have since gone in. The family then dragged me of to Florida for a couple of weeks. They claimed that they had been saving up for five years and they deserved the holiday. We had great holiday and particularly enjoyed our time at Discovery Cove and swimming with Dolphins. Partly the dolphin’s fault and partly the fact I still need to cull some activities out of my life, I am now two essays behind my self imposed study plan. This means I have four to complete before the end of the year. It’s not an insurmountable mountain, particularly as with the original study plan I had assumed no work over Christmas, but once again I need to knuckle down. Is there something in my make-up that likes stress, or am I just plain lazy?

Blaming God and the Dolphins? Well someone has to be to blame don’t they? And it couldn’t possibly be me!

Where to start? I guess I won’t go into my background too much as you probably know me, and if not perhaps that will come out as we progress on the journey. We are here because over ten years ago when we became Christians Suzy and I felt very clearly that God was prompting us to prepare ourselves for the second phase of our lives. The exact words I wrote in my Bible at the time were “Prepare yourselves for the work I have for you.” About eighteen months ago we experienced a number of things that lead us to conclude that perhaps we had been treading water for a while. The outcome of this was that after much prayer and soul searching we felt that it was time to move forward. So what did moving forward look like? Well the truth is we are still on that journey of discovery, but we have concluded it looks like some form of leadership within Gods plan. To that end over the last year I applied and was accepted for the distance learning CertHE in Theology and Vocation at St Johns in Nottingham, UK. This wasn''t a simple step because amongst other things it meant stepping down from leading my beloved 11s-14s at COGS our Church in Portsmouth. This course which starts this September 2009, is a two year course that may or may not lead onto completing further training to become a full theology degree. In parallel we are exploring the possibly of ordination with the Church of England, something which still blows my mind. It’s very early stages and neither Suzy or I are sure it is the ultimate destination, but that said we are a whole lot more open to the concept then we were a couple of years ago.

What ever the route is or where ever we end up there are some big hurdles in the way, which we will not get over without Gods intervention. Perhaps this is why we were treading water, but now I am comforted if we end up in some form of leadership it will be because God wants us there, because without Him it will not be possible.