Pilgrim Soldier

It’s hard to believe that we’re already two weeks into the new term at College and that already deadlines are fast approaching! Have to hand the first sermon in this coming Thursday before I preach it in a fortnights time!

I really don’t have a lot to report, although this week has been a week of seeing friends. Sarah has been over from Latvia and Lisbeth was at the college for a course earlier in the week. Henrik was also sighted for a coffee but we didn’t see him! So all in all it felt like a Latvian reunion for a few days!

One thing that has happened is that I have started to try to keep a little more fit! As part of that I’ve joined with a group of cadets to attempt the feat of rowing around Lake Victoria on the rowing machine here at college. The aim is to build up sponsors in aid of the Army’s ‘A Cry in the Darkness’ campaign. Not sure how far I’ll actually be able to row myself, but I’ll work out a widget in the sidebar (the bit to the left) for those who might be interested. Once I know how the sponsoring will work I’ll let people know who might want to sponsor me/us as well.

We’re now nearly at the end of a 2 week break from college! It’s been nice to have, especially after the handing in of 5 essays in 5 weeks that we had at the end of term. Thankfully, I’ve managed to pass both the two papers that we have had handed back! The next stage of the process will see a return to preaching and leading meetings as we will be having 7 Sundays at Chalk Farm corps over the coming weeks. Both Zoe & I are looking forward to this, even though it’s not quite what we’ve been used to in recent years as far as worship is concerned. It’ll be good to spend some time at another corps though and get to know some new people.

The break has been a time of family, friends and travel! For the first time, we were able to get round all the closest family. We spent Christmas Eve and Boxing Day at Zoe’s mum’s and on Boxing Day got to see our rapidly growing nephew, Oliver. It was then off to my family for a couple of nights which culminated with an invite to our eldest nephew’s 18th birthday party in April!! Despite the amount of travelling we’ve had to do, it was well worth the effort to spend Christmas with the family!

We’ve also managed to get some time with friends as well, which is always good. In fact the last three days have been spent with either friends who’ve been to visit us, or amongst the college community now we’re back in London.

And so we’re back! Still quite a bit to do before we restart lectures on Monday, but its been a great Christmas and a nice end to 2008. Here’s to 2009!

This week has been about old friends! Firstly, is the fact that one of the people I’m in training with is someone I’ve known for the best part of 18 years, but lost touch with 13 years ago!

Secondly, the weekend saw something of a reunion for Riga 1 Corps, with a motley crew of 9 adults and 4 children being together at the welcome meeting for the Prayer Warriors. There was something of nostalgic feeling and it made me realise just how much I miss those days. We’re looking forward to our hoped for trip over there sometime during the summer 2009.

Finally, tonight we had a visitor who wasn’t part of the family. Dom is a friend who goes right back to my days at the Anglican Communion Office and we haven’t seen him since a trip back from Latvia about 5 or 6 years ago. It was really good to sit down and share with him what’s been happening since then. It really didn’t feel as if there had been such a long gap between encounters and we just switched back into the old relationship.

On a completely different thing, it seems incredible that we’re already at the end of Wednesday. We’ve had 3 days of classes now and I’ve come to realise that there is something scary about college life. Time simply seems to vanish! It makes me realise that these 20 months that we will spend together are actually something incredibly valuable and I need to guard it carefully. In next to no time we’ll be out of this place and into our ministry.

One of the wonderful things about living here in the College is the fact that we are living in community with so many others. Ok, to some extent it is a bit of weird community because it’s made up of people who have chosen to live here and study to be officers, but it is still a community, and as we get to know each other better I’m sure some of the tensions of community living will rear their heads.

For the moment though it has been wonderful to sit down and start getting to know some of the our fellow cadets. In particular we’ve got to know those who have families and live in the same house (and the next door one) as we do. It’s already easy to see how the friendships that you see people having over many years are formed and I’m really looking forward to spending these two years here.

We’ve now been back from Latvia for 6 months and over on her blog Zoe wrote an entry that summed up the things she missed about Latvia and those things she enjoys about being back in the UK. It does seem amazing that we’ve been back this long already as sometimes it only seems like yesterday since I spent almost all my time in Bruninieku iela 10a, which was where we lived, worked and worshipped for almost 6 years.

So where am I today? Well it’s been an interesting few months and I’ve discovered a great deal about myself and about the God who I serve. I’m more certain of my calling now than when we left Latvia and the Lord is continuing to reveal more about what He wants me to do for him. I’m also far more aware of my own failings and the things I need to rely on God for. His Spirit is guiding me and strengthening me and I honestly can’t wait for the opportunities that I’m going to have over the coming months.

That’s me! I’m not one for lists so I won’t even begin to make a list of things I miss about Latvia. I would say though that I miss the friendships that we formed over the years there. It can be a lonely life as a Corps Officer, especially in a traditional corps like the one I am in and there is an expectation that the officer stays at arms length relationship wise. I can’t quite get that one, but it has made me realise how good the friendships were! As for what I am enjoying about being back in the UK, well its as simple as being able to communicate freely with people, both about their lives and about spiritual things. I look forward to many more conversations of these sort over the coming years.

Well the Latvia adventure is nearly over! In less than a week our stuff will be taken away by the removal company and we will be staying at Sarah’s for 3 nights. Which means in 9 days from now we will be on a plane flying back to England!

Friday was a strange day! We said goodbye to Evie of course and I basically finished up the last but one job that I have to do. Now all I have to do is finalise my ‘brief’ and meet with the Regional Commanders and I will be done here.

We are not the only English people leaving the country. The British Ambassador is also leaving and when I opened my e-mail on Friday I discovered an invite for Zoe & I to go to their residence for a dinner on Wednesday. Our Ambassador and his wife are really nice people, who we have had the privilege of meeting a number of times. They have also been very supportive since finding out about Patverums, so it will be nice to spend some time with them before we leave, even though we will be only 2 amongst quite a number of people.

So our 5 years, 10 months and 13 days are almost over and we’ll have so many memories, and of course will be taking two beautiful girls back to England with us! Not sure how much I’ll get to blog before we leave but I have a few things in the pipeline!