More later, but we are sat in our new quarters surrounded by boxes with the girls fast asleep in bed! Not sure how much I’ll be able to post over the coming days as the internet is not set up in the house as yet! Will write more soon.
Monthly Archive for August, 2007
So here I am sat in my mother-in-law’s house and won’t be heading off to church this morning. Feels a bit strange not being at Riga 1. today, and in fact their meeting must almost be finished if you take the time difference into account. However, we are off to Zoe’s Gran’s corps this evening, which is a bit more traditional than what we are used to!
Anyway, I’m taking this chance to catch up a bit on my online reading and discovered this really good post on Joe Noland’s Slightly Irreverent blog. Irreverent maybe, but also highly relevant to my thinking this morning!
This seems to be a subject that I’m touching on in many of my interactions with people on the Internet recently.
From Facebook to blogs there are people who want to see The Salvation Army change dramatically believing that this will bring back the early Blood and Fire mentality back to the our mission. Voices call for us to be relevant to today’s society by allowing soldiers to drink or to bring back the sacraments or scrap the uniform.
The problem is that there are many who think the problems are all with the institution of The Salvation Army. If we change the hierarchy or the autocratic style of leadership or the way we do everything then things will improve.
Why can’t people see that whilst some of the problems that blight this Army of ours are structural, the main problem is in the hearts of many that call themselves Salvationists. If all of us were prepared to make the sacrifice that is the life of a disciple of Jesus then maybe we’d get back to the heart of our mission.
We have arrived safely in England and are now starting to take over the in-law’s house for the next ten days.
On Friday we spent the majority of the morning and early afternoon doing the packing for our holiday, and watching the removal men putting the finishing touches to the packing up of the flat. Around 2:30pm they started to take the 79 boxes/packets/pieces of furniture down the 4 flights of stairs to the lorry. There was an emotional moment as Sian’s bed was taken past our bedroom door and the reality of the situation sunk in!
After we did some of the cleaning that was needed we headed off to Sarah & Aivis’s flat to spend the weekend with them. There was a slightly surreal moment as we realised that our first night in Latvia had been spent on their sofa bed and that we would now be spending our last 3 nights on the self same sofa bed! This was one of a number of closure moments that we have experienced over the last few days.
Most of the weekend was actually spent simply relaxing with Sarah & Aivis which was so nice after the hectic nature of the last couple of weeks. Sian and Josh spent most of the time playing together and this included a 
series of several races down the hall of the flat. Aivis took a number of photos of them and in the one you can see the sheer concentration that they put in before the obligatory “1, 2, 3, GO” command was given.
Going to Riga 1 corps on Sunday was going to be difficult. For me, Riga 1 has been the corps I have spent the longest time at of any corps I’ve soldiered at. With the way officership works this is likely to remain the case until the day I retire! Sian couldn’t quite understand why we were “going back home”. For those who don’t get this, for the last 6 years we’ve lived, worked and worshipped within the same building and for Sian the whole building has been her own supersized house. She’s been equally at home in the flat, Corps, Patverums, and Regional Headquarters!
The meeting itself was really good, if a little noisy from the various children, at times. Both of us got a chance to have a word, mine being a testimony I’ve been trying to give for a couple of weeks now, and Zoe’s being the Smith family farewell message! We were prayed for as a family and for me personally, that settled my mind a little bit more!
Sunday night saw us back at Sarah & Aivis’s and Aivis took a few family pictures for us on both my camera and his own.
Then came Monday. After a hectic morning finalising the repacking of the holiday bags we headed back over to Regional Headquarters for the final little things and the official farewell. A few words were said by our Regional Commander before we had coffee and then we just spending time chatting to people. We did our final bits and pieces and then left for the airport.
Everything went really smoothly and after a quick and uneventful flight we arrived at Gatwick to see Zoe’s mum and step-dad, and The Salvation Army’s Overseas Services Secretary, Elizabeth Burns, waiting for us. After a lovely cup of iced latte (paid for by THQ) we loaded up the cars and headed off up the motorway to Taunton, where we finally arrived at 11:40pm.
A long and emotional day was finally over. The reality of our return has not really started to sink in yet. As I write we’ve been back less than 24 hours and both our girls are fast asleep in bed. The next few days will be quite busy, but its nice to be able to relax fully for the first time in weeks.
With the stress of moving the family across Northern Europe the words of a Marty Mikles song have been a real source of peace in my life over the last few weeks. They are well worth posting here:
to live is Christ, to die is gain
you believe this, but you can’t ignore your pain
it’s hard enough to make it through another day
now you need someone to hear you when you praydon’t worry, child, I’m right here by your side
i’ve been here all along, in me won’t you abide
is your grief too much to bear? give it to me
i can heal your heart, your soul; i can set you freewhen you wake up each day, my promises are new
have faith in me, and i will see you through
is your burden heavy? here, take mine, it’s light
my yoke is easy, come and have this lifeso, you’ve fought until you’ve nothing left to give
every ounce of energy, you have spent
though your heart, it breaks inside, more than anything in life
i long for you to know…my child, i’m right here by your side
i’ve been here all along, in me won’t you abide
is your grief to much to bear? give it to me
i can heal your heart, your soul; i can set you freei know the pain that this has caused
i gave my son upon a cross
no, nothing has been lost, believe in me
© 2007 marty mikles
As well as this I have returned several times in recent days to Matthew’s account of the Sermon on the Mount and of course Jesus’ words about not worrying about anything. I’m finding the more I focus on Jesus the less I worry! It’s only taken the best part of 30 years since I was first saved to get to this stage!
Latest Comments
Graeme, dace, Brian Rowe
Brian Rowe
Brian Rowe
Zoe
Dave Jones
Graeme, Ann Jones