There is nothing like England in the spring…or Cheshire.

Tonight I was home alone. Jon in London with work. At 8:00 Judah showed no signs of falling asleep and with him teething and in a constant state of feeding I was starting to feel slightly touched out, not to mention sore. Iona was trying to count sheep but wasn’t quite getting it. Judah just kept looking up at me and smiling…and normally at this stage I would just pass him over to Jon and put Iona to bed but without that option….I just decided to throw both kids in the back of the car and go for a drive.

I put Rich Mullins on in the car and we drove around the beautiful country roads and lanes. Iona was completely bemused. In her Pj’s….out at bed time. At one stage she sleepily asked me “mummy are we on an adventure???”  Were we ever…the adventure I face every evening at bedtime.

They both fell asleep and transferred into their beds without a peep. yes it was the lazy mummy route tonight….but it was better than me getting too stressed at them.

I then settled down and watched Jamie Oliver does Stockholm….love him.

Then I saw this ad on the telly….and I just felt totally blessed. I may be a bit unsettled at the moment. I may not have the house, the car, or the right clothes to match the advert…but I have the beautiful children…they are worth the sleepless nights….the house that’s never quite clean or tidy….the imperfect body….the dreaded moments when they make you look bad….and all they reveal about who we are….

So I am about to go to bed..knowing I will wake several times before dawn breaks….and it’s…ok really….i mean…it may not feel like it right now..but..it really is ok

Last night while lazily flipping through channels, in a haze of fatigue, we caught a bit of a program on South Africa. It’s always strange when you see a place you have visited or live through the eyes of some cultured sounding travel writer. Our lives hit the ground running when we got back to the UK. So fast in fact that except for missing specific people, I have not really had a lot of time to “miss” the country itself. When i let myself remember it..it almost seems too unreal. I can hardly face it. When I remember just how close our house was to the sea or remember the endless sand dunes at Reit River.

Even inconsequential things…like when I discovered the health food aisle at Dis-chem and the countless visits to the various supermarkets…making our food budget stretch as much as possible and having endless conversations with Annie and Nicole about food. Shopping..Moffat on Main…Walmer Park…the Hyper market. Driving in that horrid coloured turquoise car…but nearly always being able to drive with the windows down…driving Iona around so she could have a nap and feeling guilty about the petrol.

I’m not talking about the relationships or the depth and richness of experiences there. You’ve read countless blogs on that already.  I’m just thinking purely of the physical things. The way the grass felt under my feet. The way the sun felt in Annie’s back garden. Mangos for breakfast, Avocados for lunch…Butternut Squash for dinner. Low GI seaded brown bread, Ina Parmin’s seasoning. The warmth of a Braai (if you could actually penetrate the wall of men tightly knit around the sacred fire) the sun usually out, the stars being upside down. That momentary feeling of comfort when you walked through a Woolworth’s food hall and then that slightly dreary feeling knowing you better get out of there quick before you spent too much money.

I don’t often choose to dwell on the physical things. Perhaps because if I did I would miss it too much. It was so different. I’ve said this before, but it really was like some sort of alternative universe. Watching that program last night I looked at Jon and said “should we move back??” who knows. Everything is still so up in the air with us. I’m growing weary of being in transition. I just want to know where my home is. But perhaps I never will except to know that it is where my heart is.  Perhaps we are not meant to really ever feel at home anywhere…maybe we’re more effective being on the run. I don’t know…is that really healthy?
I suppose the risk of really stopping and putting down roots would be that you “settle”, get “too comfortable” and perhaps become a bit apathetic and consumed with the every day things and you lose your broader perspective and motivation to keep changing things. There is the fear that we’d “miss out” on some greater purpose or experience. However the advantages would be actually having the chance to really make a difference, giving our family some sense of security and belonging, and laying a foundation from which we can grow and live and do.

I just need God to make it happen….for things to fall into place and make it clear. There are too many unknowns to go about this in any conventional way. I really do feel in my heart England is my home…but is that just my 31 year old, weary of travelling ,mother’s heart wanting to settle and make a nest???

More Rich Mullins lyrics come to my head….I invite you to try and get your head around them.

I love Rich Mullins. Love Love Love him.

Who??? You ask.

You’ve most likely never heard of him…reason being…while most of you may get together on occasion and reminisce about your favourite music from your youth….and associate significant memories of your growing up years with the popular music of the day…I was never part of that world. The reason being. I hardly listened to mainstream music during my youth. I was a child of the 80′s but my only real memories of 80′s music is hearing flashes of it coming from my older sibling’s bedrooms. I remember one of my brothers playing “stairway to heaven” for me and I have memories of my sister being into Phil Collins..I think. Anyway, it’s a haze really.

You see, I grew up in the unique American Christian subculture. So when my peers are remembering the music of their youth….whatever it may be…I’m remembering artists and songs no one around here has ever heard of. I may as well have been living on another planet. But…that’s not to say the music wan’t great. I sat in my room and drove in the car listening to music just like any other teenager, but it was just to a different soundtrack that most of the people around me. It was a vast array of music..from the cheesy and cringe-full (anyone remember Carmen?) to the quality stuff I still love to listen to today….when I get the chance.

So the other morning I had that chance. Jon, hunting around for something to get me for my birthday discovered a few titles I’d put on my Amazon wish list ages ago. I had even forgotten.  So for my birthday I got a collection of songs from probably one of the greatest artists of that particular era of my youth.

Rich Mullins. *sigh* There are no words really. His life came to an untimely end while I was in Bible college and I remember several of my friends and I marked his death by wearing black and making these brightly coloured necklaces. Not exactly on par with etching Kurt Cobain into our flesh for eternity…but hey

Rich Mullins’ music always reminds me of who I am..of what’s important…and of this road I’ve been travelling on. Just these simple words “and everywhere I go, I see you” have this huge emotional impact on me. I think of all the places I’ve been.  All the different people…personalities….the relationships. They swirl together in my minds eye. I see myself as a 13 year old…in a dirt floor shack on the shore of Lake Atitlan in Guatemala, then 10 years later….in Manila, overlooking the city from the roof of a high rise shopping mall, sipping a Caramel macchiato from starbucks….four young Irish teenagers under my inexperienced care. All these places…they come rushing into my head….and I smile to myself….because everywhere I go….everywhere I’ve been…He’s been there. I’ve seen Him. I’ve felt him, I’ve known he was real. He’s been a “cloud by day, and in the night, the glow of a burning flame” He’s been with me while i’ve hitch-hiked in broad daylight down a highway on the back of a tractor in India, and while I’ve walked briskly home on my own from a pub in Limerick in the shadows.

I’ve changed so much. I’ve wandered all over the place. I’ve had great moments of faith, and I’ve had several downfalls and failures. I’ve grown up…I’ve gone forwards, and I’ve gone backwards. But..He hasn’t changed. He has been there…because everywhere I go….I can’t help but see Him.

Those songs that were so real and true to me as a young adolescent,….they are still just as real, and just as true…because…He hasn’t changed. He has been there. He is here. Every step of the way…and He continues to be there.

Rich Mullins….he was a beautiful person who sang about his own journey and relationship with God, and he was always barefoot on stage!..and so many of us related to him on so many levels….some of the music was kind of cheesy…but a lot of it was amazing. The best part about it..is that it reminds me of Him....and who I am…in Him.

some of my favourite lyrics

“The other Side of the world..is not so far away..as the distance just dissolves into the love”

“We are frail, we are fearfully and wonderfully made…forged in the fires of human passion, choking on the fumes of selfish rage”

“and on this road to righteousness, sometimes the climb can be so steep, I may falter in my step…but never beyond your reach….and Step by Step…you’ll lead me…and I will follow you all of my days”

“If I stand let me stand on the promise, that you will pull me through…and if i can’t let me fall on the grace that first brought me to you”

A few weeks ago I posted this blog. I did so in order to try and very subtly address the judgemental attitudes we all carry around with us from time to time…depending on the day, depending on our mood, and our own personal feelings about a number of things. Today I’m not going to be so subtle.

I’ll start by talking about New Life Church in Congleton. Back when I was in my early 20′s, young and zealous about youth ministry and chomping at the bit for my life to really take off and get started. I found New Life Church. It was crazy really. Who would have thought that a bored half hearted wander into a Christian chatroom one evening would find me in a conversation that led me to where I am today? My heart was always for missions…and living overseas…I spent summer after summer travelling the world, having adventures, and always so excited about how my life would turn out. There were twists and turns all along the way, and I had a few crazy ideas of where I would like to end up…but I never in a million years dreamed it would be England. Yet after two years in Ireland..the place I initially thought would be a perfect place to end up….something unexpected swept in and stole my heart. I met someone who lead me to a church in a little town i’d never heard of….in a country I didn’t expect to like…and my life was never the same.

I made the move as a single girl…and now here I am seven years later…a married woman with two children! So much has happened in between. However…New Life Church has been a constant theme. I worked there initially. I Spent my days in the office, the youth room, and in the two local high schools. I didn’t have hardly any friends for the first year or so, and so the church was really my life! Slowly and tentatively I began to reach out, and put down some roots. I had a New Life wedding and several people from the church were a part of that. Then I had Iona, and I started to transition from being “April the youth worker” to “April the mum” (or april that extreme breastfeeding babywearing mum) I was both for awhile, and then we went to South Africa. Although I had a wonderful year overseas, there was a part of me that could not wait to get back to Congleton, to new life, and my life here even though I knew it would be different than the life I had left previously.  So we came back, and I settled back in. I’ve made several new friends since coming back, many of which are not from New Life and it’s been great. I feel even more at home in Congleton than I did before. I’ve changed a lot…but New Life is still is still there.  It’s hard to explain. I may not be as close to the inner workings of things as I was when I worked there…but the place is still…a huge part of home to me. It’s my base. In times of crisis it’s a safe place to come, and simply be. I have had incredible highs and lows since during my time in England…all against the backdrop of this little town called Congleton, and New Life Church.

I know that I am far from the only one for who this is true. Why was it that of all the places I have been and experienced, that I came to feel so strongly about a place? What makes it so special? Is it perfect. Ummm no. I worked there and if I was feeling critical i could pull it to bits. I think for me aside from being a place where you were treated like a human being and accepted the way you were, it was a church…but without religion as in…without that feeling like you were about to be in trouble. I had carried around that feeling for most of my life…and for the first time I was in a place where I really felt safe within walls of grace…something I needed a LOT of.

And its grace for everyone. Not just those that call in their home…but for anyone who walks through the doors. But not everyone who walks through the doors, or is a part of the church understands this. When I used to work at the church, the youth room, where I spent a lot of time, had a window in it, and I would always see the “nursery crowd” lining up to collect their children around noon.  I also remember being up in the office, working, and on a Tuesday and Thursday afternoon, hearing that initial shriek of delight and pounding on the floor from the toddlers let in the hall at the end of playgroup. Now I’m on the other side. I’m one of the mums lining up to collect my daughter, I’m one of the mums sitting on the side of the hall while my child runs around.

So I suppose coming from where I am, I’m a bit protective of this atmosphere. When I sense snobbishness, judgemental attitudes, small mindedness, and any sort of vindictiveness, or disrespect, I get riled. New Life is meant to be a haven for everyone. For children, for teenagers, for young mums, old mums, yummy mummies, earth mothers, the whole lot of us. We belong here. Some of us make ourselves at home inside the walls, it’s our haven, our home away from home..others just pass through and see it as a venue for a random toddler group and a place to grab a nice coffee. However..everyone should be welcome, and respected. No one should be targeted or bullied.

However..that’s not the reality as much as it should be.

We’ve all been there. We’ve all had those days. We turn our backs, and our child wanders off, and for three terrified minutes, we search for them not knowing where they are. We’ve all done it…we’ve forgotten nappies, we haven’t packed enough snacks or toys, or have not dressed our kids warm enough. We’ve lost our temper with our kids one day, and let them “get away with it” the next. Our job as mothers is hard work. Harder than anyone realizes. We all bring different stories to the table, different backgrounds, different upbringings, different life circumstances. Our values may vary. Our priorities may seems miles apart from one another…but the truth is….99.9% of us love our children with a powerful unconditional love and would do anything for them.

So why why WHY do people feel the need to be so harsh and judgemental? Why do people complain about children not wearing shoes?? (let alone not wearing clothes) WHY do people decide that certain mothers are not allowed to have bad days and be a bit slack? Instead of stepping in to help pick up the slack…WHY instead to they judge from the sidelines and gossip about it? All of our kids have had bad days and hit other kids, snatched toys, and thrown paddies. We all have an opinion on how these behaviours should be dealt with….and if we don’t agree with how another mother dealt with something we feel it’s OK to gossip about it and write the mother off. I’ve seen it happen. I’ve been in the conversations, and it’s wrong.

So when my friend gets flipping SOCIAL SERVICES called on her because of a minor incident that could have happened to ANY of us…(her child wandered off while she wasn’t looking and walked outside the building) I’m just shocked. I think..what on earth is wrong with people? There was also the incredulous accusation that she left her kids for a whole hour on their own in the hall. Well, the truth is, she didn’t leave them alone, she left them with ANOTHER MOTHER in the spirit of community…in the belief that actually, we don’t do this job on our own like superwomen, we do it together, and we are allowed to go to the toilet, nip into the coffee shop…whatever…for a moment on our own while a friend helps us out. Also, the way New Life is set up…if children were just randomly left on their own in the hall, or “locked in” as the rumour goes….someone from the office would have noticed and done something about it pretty quickly. (and hopefully found the mother…NOT gone behind her back) It’s just not a possible scenario and whoever made the call was doing so in a mean spirited, vindictive way, and it is NOT in line with the values of New Life Church.

IF someone was genuinely concerned for this mother and the welfare of her children, they should have had the guts to tell it to her face, risking the mother lion reaction that would have inevitably surfaced. What they did was gutless and pretty pathetic. Mothers needs support, not judgement. But we are pretty much given the message that it’s up to us to do this job on our own, and most of us have to give a convincing performance of good mothering whenever we are in public….knowing our not so great moments are hidden behind the walls of our homes. Yet some of us live out in the open….our home extends to New Life Church..where we feel safe and secure..so inevitably, our vulnerabilities are on display and we are exposed. People see us having bad days and good days….because of the amount of time we spend there. So much more of our parenting skills are open for judgement and criticism. It does not seem fair…in a a place where we are supposed to be able to relax slightly, and let down our guard, and be at home…we are at risk of such judgement and criticism.

I am convinced that whoever did what they did, did not have a real grasp of the situation at New Life. There is a possibility that it was an extremely ignorant passer-by who did not know the mother at all and was just being an incredibly mean busy body. However my cynicism tells me it was someone who knew this mother…and was looking for an opportunity to have a go. Someone who does not understand that New Life stands for community, loving others, accepting people, respecting people, and that it is meant to be a haven for people, and in this case mothers… who need a bit, or a lot…of grace…again, and again.

So below I’ve posted the story of our first trip to London with Iona to get her American passport. It’s been nearly three years, so much has changed….so much has happened…but I was amused today as I realized so much was still the same.

Iona spent the night at the grandparents so we could all wake up at the ungodly hour of 4:30 am. Of course this would be the one morning that Judah has been sleeping soundly for four hours and is in a deep comatose state. The poor thing was completely bewildered. We got to Crewe station around 5:20 and we stepped into the warm waiting room full of half asleep passengers and it was completely silent. It was almost eery. However one couple noticed Judah and smiled and then the woman starting talking to the man (in hushed tones) about someone she knew who had a C-section (in grave detail) Bizarre.

Judah was a little star the whole way down. No falling out this time over sandwiches…I had my breakfast before we left the house. We wandered around a silent Kensington for awhile before finding the embassy and upon arriving, we proudly joined the queue for “Americans” he he…. I must admit, in lieu of all my dealings with foreign embassies and visas and immigration officers…it feels terrific to be sort of welcomed at an embassy as someone who certainly has the right to be there. When I stated the purpose of our visit to the security guards,  which was to report Judah’s birth, they said “congratulations!!!” got to love us Americans sometimes

There was a little bit of a stress over the fact that last night I discovered our marriage certificate was not with our paperwork!!! I had a feeling I had accidentally sent it on ahead with all our other documents, and sure enough, I had. However, seeing as the person in the queue after us had forgotten two important documents and they were still letting her get what she needed on a promise of her sending them in the post, I don’t think it would have been the end of the world…like it would be…say at the SOUTH AFRICAN EMBASSY!!!!!!!!!

So we finished up there in just over an hour and had the rest of the morning to visit the British Museum! (Just like last time) This time we looked at the history of clocks, the Staffordshire Hoard, lots of ancient armour which was really interesting and also fun as Jon knows so much about Saxons and Greeks, Romans and Egyptians.  We also found a bunch of Wedgwood pottery which Jon got all proud of as it comes from Stoke. It felt really refreshing to be there.  The place was heaving with mobs of people. Lots of European teenagers. Two Spanish girls  approached me concerned that Judah could not breath in the Ergo. He was sound asleep on my back. It was lovely as it felt as though Jon and I were on our own, while I could still feel his little body breathing as he slept on me. Anyway, they did not seem convinced he was really OK. I think Jon was worried I was going to get all prickly and defensive..he put his hand on my arm as though to potentially calm me down…kind of made me laugh. I managed a polite “he’s ok..thanks ” ha ha. Total memories of last time!!

So of course the day included a Chai Tea Latte from Starbucks….a gorgeous Sandwich from Pret a Manger, and….Baskin Robbins!!! If I lived in London I’d be all up for trying out every little unique cafe…but as a rare visitor I find myself drawn to familiar places that remind me of previous happy times.

Will there be a third adventure into London with a very young baby and an Ergo??? Should we try and see if we can get a 3rd person to fear that the baby can’t breath?  hmmmm well, I think Jon would kill me! Especially after learning that this whole ordeal will have to be repeated with each child every five years until they are over 18!!!! We’ll have to made a real tradition and ritual out of it now!  The whole process costs quite as bit when you add up the fees, the train tickets, and our food for the day….but It’s an excuse for a fun day out. Whenever I’m in London I’m always struck by how close it is…really..but how it’s such a completely different world that I rarely ever visit. This was my first trip since before South Africa! The reality really hit when we found ourselves at the end of the day fighting traffic driving out of Crewe…..ugh.

Anyway…I couldn’t wait to see Iona when we got back. Bedtime took ages tonight but if feels great to all be under one roof again…I’m exhausted and a bit light headed…so i’m off to bed.