16 October

These weeks have been ones of rapid development, not least in our family. 

 

Evie keeps her photo-weblog up to date at http://eviewilson.blogspot.com/ 

 

Seán has moved to Japan where he is doing some film-editing work with an ad company http://www.alien-eye.com/  He has also for some time been designing music especially for use on websites - he is one of the artists featured at https://www.goodnessmusic.com/

 

Joel produced a documentary piece for Agapé UK in connection with another film company "One Small Barking Dog" http://www.osbd.org/  A lot of his work over the past few years has been alongside a federation of Christian artists at http://www.throwstar.com/  His latest is a website 

http://www.welcometobrum.com/  in which Agapé makes as much useful info as possible available to in-coming first-year students to Birmingham.  His very very latest is http://www.agape.org.uk/kgp/ where you can click your way through the new edition of "Knowing God Personally"

 

My good brother Myles has just launched a book last month. "Funding the Family Business".  When I say "book" it is more than a book - it also encompasses training arrangements http://www.fundingthefamilybusiness.org/  It's great book - a manual on developing support for God's work.  There's nothing like it on the market, it does exactly what it says on the tin, and you can order on the website  ISBN: 0955332001

 

Last month the Three Amigos (and the Amigas) spent a week together in Paris to talk about the future of European Agape.  We took an evening off to see the sights by taking a boat-tour on the Seine.  The boat approached the Eiffel Tower just before 20:00 and suddenly the Tower lit up like a Christmas tree - apparently it does this every hour!  You can see a good simulation of it on http://www.tour-eiffel.fr/teiffel/uk/home_nuit.html  This is the night version of their official website (there is also a day version!)

 

 

17 June

How odd it was to celebrate the handing over of Agape leadership in yet another European country - Germany.  I say "odd" because we have just been through this in the UK and the German event was so - well, so German!  They really did serve wurst to everyone in the grounds of a big Schloss (castle) in the countryside.  For us it was fun to join with the other Amigos to thank Duane and Martha Conrad for their work and welcome Clemens and Karin Schweiger.

 

9 June

Today we joined with hundreds of others to attend the funeral of Liz Bewes, wife of Rev. Richard Bewes.  They had so recently left All Souls church (when Richard retired as rector) it was hard to believe that she was gone.

 

4 June

Today the Weaver boys (Wilson and Owen) were baptised in the Clubhouse church.  We have know them well, and their parents, for eight years.  It was eye-popping to see Mark Prentice baptising them by immersion and so heart-warming to hear them tell how they came to trust Christ - somehow it's powerful hear young boys (9 and 12) giving their testimony like this.  The Club isn't exactly used to immersion baptism so the church leaders taught themselves how to fill a blow-up pool during the previous day.  One thing they hadn't thought too much about was how to empty it afterwards.  This took the combined efforts of about a dozen members of the congregation with all kinds of engineering schemes including siphoning, a human chain of buckets like the old fire brigades and tug-o-war-type dragging of the pool into the shower-room through a narrow corridor.  I come from an immersion baptism background (it's what "baptism" means in Greek after all!) so I was proud of them for trying so hard - and eventually so successfully.

 

26 May

We just came back from a 12-day break in the South of Spain.  Pam suggested that we take the opportunity to go over and see Morocco.  This was a highlight of our trip.  I was amazed that oyu can get from Tarifa (in Spain, where the Atlantic meets the Mediterranean) to Tangier (in Morocco) in 35 minutes by fast ferry.  You can even go for the day!  We opted to stay overnight so we could wake up in Africa.  Somehow getting two days outside Europe helped to give me a little perspective on Europe.  We lunched in the Kasbah (it's just like in the movies), wondered at snake-charmers and shopped at a supermarket across the street from our hotel.  I like to go to supermarkets in other countries - just to see how real people live - at least how they shop and in what categories shopping is organised.  This was one of the nicest supermarkets we've ever seen - anywhere.  It was positively gleaming and packed with a wide range of goods and a vast array of fresh produce.

 

13 May

The last couple of weeks we were in Budapest (for a conference of Eastern Europe national directors) and then Amsterdam (to meet with the Amigos).  In the process we picked up some gems

(a) http://www.sanluchesio.nl/ the place we stayed in Amsterdam.  A great accomodation deal if you want to spend a few days in Amsterdam.  It is a quiet guest-house-hotel with Franciscan ambience

(b) Dorsey McIntosh in Budapest gave us a screen-saver: it's at  http://www.staralliance.com/star_alliance/star/frame/main_10.html   an extraordinary real-time world-map of their airlines

(c) During this week I was converted to www.wikipedia.org It has what oyu wnat in an information source - continual links to the sources and a narrow-ness of focus when you search.  It happened to me accidentally when I was looking for the "Top 100 European cities".  Try it.

 

 

Easter Monday

One of the leaders in All Souls was praying at a meeting yesterday morning, praising God for the resurrection. He said something simple and profound, "Thank you that the resurrection shows us that the universe is ultimately good".  God's intervention in raising Jesus from the dead restores the hope that everything is not going down the pan, that he (and not the environment on its own) will judge the world, that he has plans for his creation, that he meant it when he said that his creation was "good", that the groaning creation is waiting for its freedom too.

 

I never saw it so clearly.  It helped to make sense of a conundrum Pam and I were mulling over on Saturday night.  We had gone to see a film ("Take the Lead" with Antonio Banderas www.taketheleadmovie.com ) and were pondering how on earth the critics come to their conclusions.  One element must be this - many of them do not believe that the universe is ultimately good, that there is such a thing as altruism, that serendipity happens - or as Acts 14 puts it, "God has shown you kindness... by filling your hearts with joy".  That was the hearts of unbelievers by the way.

 

14 April

My brother (Myles Wilson) has written a book, "Funding the Family Business", being published by Stewardship.  It is the culmination of years of study of the Word about giving, teaching others how to do it and practising it himself.  It is written in the form of a complete workbook for anyone whom God has called into the "Family Business" of extending the Kingdom.  Look out for its appearing in the early summer.

 

 

13 April

Many people ask me how I feel about handing over the leading of Agape UK.  I feel three things (a) relief - feeling the responsibility pass was almost physical (b) silence - I need to keep out of Andy's hair now and one of the implications is that I don't have the right to poke my nose into things and give my unsolicited opinions! (c) thinking - Pam and I are going to go into a serious planning phase in May and June as we contemplate our new European responsibilities and get ready for them.  Of course we have already been working on the European level - but we don't want to rush further into it without prayerful and thoughtful planning.

 

12 April

On my return from Budapest (I never did see the city) Pam and I went to the UK staff conference in Nottingham University.  I was well impressed by the planning of the conference and the high quality content of the Bible teaching.  Those who spoke during the four days included John Arkell, Duncan Moore, Rod Powell, Andy Atkins.  Just the recognition given to the Bible as our guide speaks well for the future of the movement.

 

On Sunday 9th we had the Commissioning of Andy and Tiffany Atkins as the new national director for the UK.  It was quite a moving time for us - and for all.  My sister Ruth McNeill, her husband John and daughters Tia and Lyn came (from Namibia www.cccnam.org) to be with us as a surprise!  Others who came included numerous of our personal supporters, George Verwer www.georgeverwer.com , and Dave Wiley of Christian Leadership Ministries who came from Dallas www.clm.org .  A selection of representative staff publicly thanked us for our time with them which was meaningful for us and very kind of them.  Our dear friends Rod and Margi Powell came from Southern Russia and Rod gave the commissioning address.

 

We are so thankful to have Andy and Tiffany in this position - we can give them our wholehearted support and look forward to what God is going to do through them www.agape.org.uk

 

8 April

This week I was with the other Amigos to meet the Campus Crusade leaders who oversee the work in Eastern Europe and Russia, to see how best we can help each other.  We met outside Budapest in the Wellness Hotel in Rackeve, which sports an ambitious website including a page on "our famous guests".  I rushed there only to find an entry saying "no entry".  I checked today and they haven't changed it since we were there! www.wellness.hu

 

2 April

Last weekend Pam and I were invited to the wedding in Birmingham of Sara Sotoudeh (who had been my assistant last year) and Daryoosh Zareian, also Iranian.  As you might have guessed the ceremony was suitably cross-cultural with vows and songs in both Farsi and English (for us linguistically-challenged locals).  What we couldn't have prepared for was the reception.  It was due to start at 5 p.m. (although that was a little delayed because the bride's mother nipped home to do a message, broke the heel of her beautiful sparkly-decorated blue suede high-heel shoes, accidentally locked herself out of the house with the car-keys inside, and got the next-door neighbours to order a taxi for her back to the reception).

 

But the dancing, the dancing!  At the drop of a hat the entire Iranian part of the reception crowd took to the floor to execute their own dances of sheer elation which obviously must have come with their mother's milk.  We didn't start eating until 8 p.m.  Over dinner I then found out that our fellow guests were not just Iranians from around Birmingham as I had imagined.  They were from around the whole of England.  Many of them (dozens) have recently come to faith in Christ through Bible conferences held in their various locations.

 

You get the feeling that there is something spiritually historic going on with these Farsi-speaking brothers and sisters.  It's getting harder and harder to find any of the 8000 Iranians in Birmingham who haven't seen the Jesus film.  Typically now, when the Farsi believers offer the film to Iranians in the city centre, they say 'Oh yes, I've seen that'.

 

30 March

We were saddened, moved and affected today to hear that our friend and example, Nigel Lee, had left us to go to be with the Lord.  It is God's choice, it is better for Nigel and it solemnly causes us to think of our responsibility to keep on with the work of the Kingdom, especially the teaching of the Bible.  There is a heartfelt, informed entry on Nigel at http://thebluefish.blogspot.com/2006/03/nigel-lee-gaining-christ.html

 

 

28 March

The BBC are reporting today that Abdul Rahman has been released http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4851666.stm  The grounds for his release included mental health (= anyone would be crazy to become a Christian) or questions about nationality (= how could anyone be Afghan and become a Christian?).  Nevertheless a Human Rights principle has been widely aired and an alert sounded about such cases in the future.

 

27 March

On Friday the story came out about the Afghan, Abdul Rahman, who was being tried in Kabul for conversion to Christianity, given extensive coverage by the BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4848614.stm  

 

I decided to write to the Afghan ambassador in London - every pressure needs to be brought to bear on this case.  I argued from a Human Rights point of view. 

 

Much rides on this case - first of all a man's life, who is reported to be a brother in Christ.  The Word says of detained believers in Christ "remember those in prison as if in prison with them".  If the case against him is won, it does not bode well, from a human point of view, for Afghans to hear the gospel of Christ more openly.  If the case is dismissed it puts down a massive marker showing the freedom of Afghans to choose whether to follow Christ or not.

 

 

21 March

We were in Ireland for a couple of days last week.  My goodness!  Have you been there recently?  Very simply put - Ireland is new Europe, the UK is old Europe.  We were with Kelly and Kate Mulholland - who were there for the whole week.  The Mulhollands have done a great job in recruiting young Christian friends to the work of the Kingdom.  On Tuesday Kelly met up with Declan Harvey (who had taken the morning off work) to go and share the gospel with students in Trinity - one of whom was ready to receive Christ. 

 

On Thursday we went to the wedding (in Newbridge) of James Clancy to Susan.  Amongst the range of guests was Peadar Somers (now from France) who came into the hotel with the words "the old action group from Cork is together again!"  Lo and behold they even had a photo of themselves as students in the action group at University College Cork in the early 80s!

 

 

13 March

Pam and I spent last week in Germany with the other Amigos.  I got to visit the university of Basel (with Jesse Marcos) on Tuesday, then the Amigos talked until Thursday; Thursday evening we visited the University of Freiburg together, Friday we met with the staff at the Operations office in Kandern.

 

In Basel I was again impressed at how accessible university students are.  We met a student called Marc-Andre who studies phenomenological philosophy.  He quoted the latest in French philosophy (Jean Luc Nancy) who says that "all our thinking is Christian" (I think he means when we think in a European language).

 

In Freiburg the Amigos met with three students who are part of the core of the Campus fur Christus work there which has been maintained by Stinters for years now.  One of them, Werner, described the theological work he had had to do to serve in the Army.  He took this route (of working on Romans 13 and Exodus 20) rather than the "softer" option of taking on social work.  I have seldom met someone of that age so thought-through on these Biblical issues.

 

The latest from Evie - we saw her yesterday - as seen above.  Her parents have put out a newsletter about her - called "Evie Wonder" what else?!

 

 

3 March

We are all getting used to talking about a dear and close relative whose name we did not know until this week - Evie Wilson.  I am proud of her, and Danielle - but I must say I am also proud of Joel.  When Danielle went into the hospital on Sunday he went in with her and he did not come out again until Wednesday night - the baby having been born on Wednesday morning.  How did he do that?  Do they let people do that?  What did he eat?  Where did he sleep?  I knew his commitment to Danielle was total.  Now I know it's fanatic.  The picture of Joel and Evie was taken in the hospital on the day she was born (before he ended his marathon vigil!).  You can see they get on. 

 

1 March

Evie Wilson made her debut today (15 days after her due date).  Mother and baby and father are doing well.  She missed all the anniversary dates we had thought she might hit and chose a date for herself.  We thank God for her and her parents.

 

26 February

I think we will go to Birmingham today.  Danielle is due to be induced.  It might be simpler if we get on-side. 

 

We will make it to church at least this morning.  Today is a big day at All Souls - it is "World Focus Sunday".  Femi Adeleye (IFES Africa) will be the speaker.  We look to this day to stimulate new people to personal involvement in missions and we would like to send out around £220,000 to mission partners around the world.  .

 

 

23 February

No grandchild yet.  Another date is coming up - today is my late mother's birthday. 

 

I was at the Tate Modern this week to read a book "postmodernism - movements in modern art."(ISBN 1854373056)  In her conclusion author Eleanor Heartney says "In its heyday postmodernism provided a much needed corrective to the exclusionary and falsely universal world view of Greenberg-style Modernism.  But it also set in motion a series of negations that ultimately led to unacceptable consequences.  At its most radical postmodernism espoused a relativistic view of history that makes it impossible to refute absurd and dangerous ideas like Holocaust revisionism, recovered memory and alien abduction". 

 

I wanted to add "resurrection revisionism" but Anne Atkins beat me to it with an excellent 'Thought for the Day' (Radio 4) on exactly this issue.  In the course of the broadcast she referred to people who do not believe in the historicity of Jesus as "fruitcakes" (!).

 

 

21 February

No grandchild yet.  This is why the Lord takes nine months - to get the grandfathers ready.  Today I attended my last national Leadership Team meeting.  The new team will do a good job.  I leave content.

 

Yesterday I sat on our committee that is preparing the new edition of the "Knowing God Personally" booklet.  It's a happy job to do.  On the one hand we always pray that the Lord will prevent us from feeling fateful about writing such an important piece. But on the other hand we realise that however we get the gospel in there many people will come to faith in Christ as a result.  That never fails to make us happy about our work.

 

19 February

No grandchild yet.  Back from the Transforum congress in Berlin.  The cooperation of Christian leaders at a city level there is a wonder to behold.  You can behold it at http://gfberlin.de/english/index.html  We also consulted with leaders from other cities in Germany, with Rotterdam and Oslo.  The social affect of Christian urban ministry in Oslo has now captured the attention of the government - both at the city and national level.

 

 

16 February

This is my spiritual birthday!  My dear father took the trouble, despite a terrible stammer, to explain the gospel in simple terms.  I asked Christ to come into my life and save me - in similarly simple terms.  Christ took me seriously and came in.

 

No sign of our grandchild yet.  I had thought she might like to share this date with me.  I need to leave for Berlin in ten minutes.  How odd it would be to hear about our grandchild by text! 

 

More later.  You will have to wait for me to get back from Berlin and check on the baby situation.

 

 

13 February

This afternoon we held the last Agape Board meeting which I will attend.  Andy Atkins, the new national director joined us - it will be his meeting next time.  So I am beginning to do the "last things" as UK national director.  It's supposed to feel surreal but so far I feel just fine thank you. 

 

We are gearing up for two events - the birth of our grandchild who is due tomorrow (mind you, babies tend to come whenever they feel like it).  The other event this week is a meeting together of about 200 city evangelists in Berlin where I am to speak about "God's view of the city".   

 

10 February

This past weekend we saw 300 staff and students attend the National Student Conference at the Pioneer Centre.  The unrelenting theme was 'going to the world'. 

 

Highlight One - all 300 going to the university district in Birmingham on Saturday afternoon to conduct a survey and talk to people about Knowing God Personally.  The average answer I heard from local residents to the question "How do you rate society's desire to know God" was 4 out of 10.  The average answer to "How do you rate your own desire to know God" was 8 out of 10.

Highlight Two - around 100 choosing a country or people-group to take on as a long-term prayer commitment or a commitment to go there and bring the gospel.