Skip to main content

SF 2

This sort of community living in a hostel is something fresh for me. This morning I made my usual journey to the bathroom which is a shower, not the rest room which is the toilet, which you don’t do much resting in, when I saw rest room I imagined a group of people relaxing after a tough day but it was just me not resting. Anyway back to the bathroom which is the shower. I strip to my fine shower physic and look into the cubicle and before me is a disappointing sight. Where the empty shower tray should be is a shallow pool of used water. I could tell it was used because all of the different coloured hair floating lazily in the pool. This has gone beyond the odd pubic hair this is like a hair revolution below me. So I retreat in search of another shower which I find successfully.
The common room here is a bit like the United Nations with people from all over the world. There is the man who always wear’s cycling lycra which he designs himself. Then there is a man with tattoos who is a very cool looking guy, Australian, Austrians, and Japanese and of course English. You can sign in for dinner for $5 which is ok and very cheap. Spent dinner last night with a guy from England and another chap from Canada all of us over 50 which I did not think would happen, I presumed everyone would be under 25. The Canadian travels regularly to England to see the industrial towns of the North of England. We sat talking about Belper and Stoke on Trent. The whole experience is a bit like a camp, which will only mean something to a few people.
Many conversations are a bit like where is john? Oh he is off to LA today then to Las Vegas Fiji, New Zealand a month in Australia. Have you seen Jenny? oh she is off to Yosemite then the Grand Canyon, afternoon in LA the then to Central America to do the ipie chepy trail and then The Black Country Museum in the West Midlands. I am joking about the last one. Some of these people often do not seem to know how to get their clothes on the right way round but are capable of travelling the world without too much trouble.
So for someone who does not often go farther than Walsall it is a fresh experience for me but how people do this for months on end I do not know. And I am not sure how many travel experiences you can go through before they all merge into a stew of travel. How does bridge experience stand out from another one skyscraper from another who did you meet on what continent? My new thinking is travel experiences should be like expensive well cooked meals, separated by time and beans on toast.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Response To Bishop North

A while back Bishop Phillip North spoke to New Wine and caused a bit of a reaction one of it was a Tweet to my millions of followers. In response I had a phone call from The Church Times asking for a quote because I serve in a poor parish, I declined and said I would put a more considered response on my blog, so here it is with a link to The Bishops full talk. https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2017/4-august/news/uk/there-s-a-future-for-the-church-if-evangelicals-put-the-poor-first-bishop-north-tells-new-wine 1.      One of the issues the church does not recognise is the exportation of people , talents and money from parishes like mine to middle class parishes which is draining and demanding on leadership. For 10 years I thought I was building a community, then it dawned on me I was building people up to go to other places. 2.      Bishop Phillip talks of abandonment of the poor: I think it’s more complicated than that. When ...

Two thoughts

My two thoughts for the morning. As the BBC moves to replace the CofE as the national church of no belief, as parts of the BBC becomes more irrelevant in the new world is it possible The BBC will consume itself with its left wing cynical view? When the issue of faith is shown the back door and told not to come back who will the new priests and priestess pour their cynicism on? Perhaps themselves? For we all need the other voice who we don’t agree with to gain a greater understanding of who and what we are.  History tells us every regime needs someone to bully Secondly, will The Church not be better without these platforms of privilege? When we are no longer welcome on the platform of privilege as will happen at some point, will we not need to shape up to redefine what we believe, what we have to share, what we don’t need? Privilege tends to make you slow on your feet, breed chummy inward looking relationships, privilege steals from people the ability to move under the defining cult...

YWAM Nensa

Mercy Air trip to  YWAM  Nen s a ,  Mozambique The  first mission trip of our  ‘ new normal ’   in South Africa  happened last week.   Azarja , our pilot, flew the team ;  which included Bruce, Stephen, Erin and Nigel  in the Cessna 310. We traveled from Mercy Air; to Kruger International (to exit SA); to Beira (to enter Mozambique); then on to Marromeu (12 hours total, including long waits for permits and visas – This is Africa!)   The drive by car ( in a  4x4) would take about 3 days on some very difficult ,  non-tarmac roads.  Allison and Leanna  drove  the final  1  1/2  hours  from Marromeu  to the YWAM base  at  Nensa .  As a rookie African  M ission ary,  I did  initially   feel a bit like Michel Palin without the film crew. The common red sand  road,  so   many people walking into the dark , headlamp beams throwing themsel...