Shall we Sing a Song for you?

Reports of our demise have been greatly exaggerated

by Matt Jess (with Joel Somerville)

Greetings one and all for the final (ie [first ever SWS]) update from Joel and Matt’s African odyssey.

Firstly, in answer to the question currently holding the nation in suspense…

NO – WE ARE NOT DEAD, HOSPITALISED OR IN JAIL.

YES – WE DID IT.

Van and crew both made it to Lome, capital of Togo. Vehicle and drivers a liitle rickety and in serious need of a wash, but all more or less in one piece.

For some of you, the last you heard from us we were sunning ourselves in St Louis, Senegal. So you may be wondering how we got from there to Togo. I know you are all busy people so I will try to edit the epic down into highlights package. Think of it as a trailer – you can get the full detail from one of us next time you see us.

The reason we were stopped in St Louis was mechanical – ie total failure of the Caravelle’s brakes (though that had actually happened in Mauritania – we drove through two border posts and three police checkpoints with no brakes). With the assistance of a couple of Senegalese mechanics (initially unconvincing, but eventually did a decent job) our busted break line was repaired and we made it to Dakar. In Dakar we were superbly well looked after for a weekend by a Canadian missionary Joel met once in America. Lovely lady. Also got to enjoy an English-speaking international church on the Sunday.

From Dakar we set off along the Sahel highway to Bamako (just the two of us, having deposited Gregg at the airport at silly o’clock in the morning – at least we didnt have to worry about the traffic). Doesn’t take much to describe the road – strip of tarmac, absolutely flat scenery, dry savannah vegetation and villages every few miles on the road. The scenary was pretty much like that till we reached Togo, with one or two exceptions.

More interesting than the road was where we stopped. First night we pulled into a village as it was getting dark and asked if we could camp in the compound of the local Catholic church. The caretaker, a wee old Senegalese man called Raphael who lived in the compound with his family, made us very welcome – even gave us a tour of the village. All in French, but he was so friendly we understood. Most weird though was Raphael telling us that just a few weeks previously he had entertained another team of random Irish tourists. The Cycle for Hope team (a bunch of Christians from Portadown doing a sponsered cycle to South Africa) arrived in exactly the same way as us, and Raphael looked after them too. Of all the backwoods Senegalese villages in all the world…. what are the chances, eh?

The next morning we called in with a family of missionaries I knew of because a friend of mine spent a gap year with them. Proper tea and scones – you have no idea how good they tasted. Corey and Katie were really great and we wished we could have stayed longer with them.

Once we made it into Mali we also stayed a night in a village – this time a totally Muslim one. The guy who owned the petrol station where we parked was a bit dour, but nevertheless pulled out all the stops for us – even bought us drinks and offered us beds to sleep on. We didn’t stay long in Bamako – just enough to appreciate what a haven our missionary guesthouse was in the midst of such a mental city. Also got our first taste of ice cream in a long time thanks to another lovely missionary couple. From Bamako we turned off the highway to do a few touristy things. At least they started out touristy….

The mosque

First we visted Djenne, the mud-built town with a world famous mosque. All very interesting, but most fun was tryiung to understand the boy we hired as a guide. He did speak English (one reason we hired him instead of a proper guide) but some of his pronounciation was a bit unusual. Like “millick” for milk. Then from Djenne we went to the Dogon country. Dogon country was where an interesting trip turned epic. Mention “Dogon country” in our presence and expect to see haunted looks and beads of cold sweat. Dogon country may be West Africa’s number one tourist draw, but for us it was by turns nerve-wracking, breath-taking and then harrowing. It involved unintentionally driving the Caravelle up a mountain, treking through some of the most incredible scenery we have ever seen, a minor yet nearly final breakdown in the middle of nowhere, and a white-knuckle drive through a desert. And it finished with The Miracle of the Wheel Nuts. Dogon country was our Vietnam. We learned a lot about providence in Dogon country.

Dogon country

After Dogon country the rest of the rip seemed pretty straightforward. From Mali through Burkina Faso, stopping at Ouagadougou. We officially entered the Republic of Togo at 11.40am on Saturday 13 March – half a day behind schedule. We had intended to do a bit of sightseeing on the way through Togo, but the roads off the main highway were atrocious and we felt we had abused the poor van enough. So we headed to Lome and got there on the evening of Monday 15 March.

That left us time to recuperate a bit and civilianise the Caravelle. We got a tour of the Mercy Ship on Tuesday night – very impressive setup (I jokingly asked where the on board swimming pool was and they showed me!). On Wednesday we explored Lome and rejoiced over The Miracle of the Gearstick. Yesterday Joel officially joined the ship’s crew and I travelled to Accra in Ghana to fly home (border number ten, country number eleven).

The real hero of the voyage has been the Caravelle. You have no idea how tough that vehicle is. European motorways, dirt roads, potholes, mountain tracks, soft sand, African city traffic – it has coped with them all. It is virtually indestructible and I wouldnt have swapped it for anything else. In total it covered 6407 miles between Dromara and Lome.

It was funny parking in the campsite whre we stayed in Lome. It’s very popular with overlanders and there were all the vehicles parked: souped up jeeps and enormous 4×4 trucks… and the wee Caravelle.

Thanks to everyone for your prayers and messages of support. We have seen so many obvious and continuous providences along the way – it’s very humbling and we give thanks to the Lord for His faithfulness.

The facts:
Left Dromara 9 Feb 2010
Arrived Lome 15 Feb 2010
5 weeks
6407 miles
Ten countries (eleven for Matt)
Nine borders
3 breakdowns
1 minor injury
10 pages of my new passport filled up
1.5 kg porridge oats, 1.75 jars of chocolate spread and several
packets of custard creams consumed.

Best meal – probably the tomato/garlic/kidney bean/sardine concoction
we created for the rice a few nights ago.

Soundtrack to the journey – Jailhouse Rock by Elvis Presley.

Tell you all about it sometime.

Until then,

Go well,

Matt and Joel

Originally sent 19th March 2010, 6:20pm

From 12th-14th February some of the Airdrie young people went to Arbroath for the February version of the biannual (Jonny that means twice a year – like your series in the Messenger :-P ) Free Church Continuing-organised Arbroath weekend. Some went for the full weekend while others just went up on a road-trip on the Saturday. Although organised by the FCC, various denominations were represented at the weekend, including several baptists, the Free Church and the occasional Welshman.

The roadtrip begins… (well, we were nearly there by this stage!)

Breakfast!

The weekend was held at Windmill Christian Centre, which is phenomenally close to Arbroath FC’s (of biggest victory in world senior football fame) ground – I’d tell you what it was called but you’d think I was being puerile.

Always an alternative to whatever may be organised for the Saturday avo!

The speaker for the weekend was Rev Gavino Fioretti from Dores and Tomatin FCCs. He was sooon dubbed ‘the Italian Stuart Olyott’ – a title he fully deserves. After the morning’s talk there were discussion groups, and then when they brought everybody together, rather than get groups to share their ignorance report back, they just asked Gavino the questions, leaving it open for people to come back to him with more questions. He fairly schooled us!

He gave five talks over the weekend on the topic of ‘The Church’. They are available to download here, and you really should listen to them:

1. The Church: Its Origin (Matt 16:18) (CD only it seems)
2. The Church: Its Practice (Acts 2:42)
3. The Church: Its Message (1 Cor 1:23)
4. The Church: Its Worship (John 4:19-24)
5. The Church: Its Commission (Acts 1:8)

Put your hands up if you didn’t split

…Some impromptu games (uno, and then connor took it upon himself to teach mau to the assembled Scots/Welsh), more chat, and then it was time for the day-trippers to depart…

More Photos from the weekend:

Good mingling

Loughbricklander

Gooseberry!

Deep in conversation with the Welshman. Though it turned out he was from Liverpool really, so I asked him if he knew Stuart. He did :-)

very nice people

having a jolly ole’ time

And the whole weekend gets the thumbs up from Debbie:

All in all, a great weekend (or day-trip!), with amazing talks, good bant, fellowship and some rare Scottish Presbyterian unity. Definitely a highlight of my time here so far. The next weekend is planned for October, where the speaker is to be Geoff Thomas. He’s definitely Welsh!

From the editors:

Those who were at Senior Camp Reunion or who have listened to the talks will already have heard these first two:

According to a survey taken at a conference on prayer, Christians pray on average for just 5 minutes each day.

The same survey revealed that ministers and church leaders pray on average for 7 minutes each day.

If those astonish you, here’s two more:

Only 64 people are currently registered to receive the monthly CY Prayer Points email from www.rpc.org.

For March 2010 – as in a number of other months in the past year or two – ZERO prayer points were contributed to the prayer letter.

If you’ve heard Warren’s talks, you will recall the example of Daniel:

* He prayed no matter what:

“When Daniel knew that the document had been signed, he went to his house where he had windows in his upper chamber open toward Jerusalem. He got down on his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he had done previously.” (Dan 6:10)

* He prayed strenuously:

“In those days I, Daniel, was mourning for three weeks. I ate no delicacies, no meat or wine entered my mouth, nor did I anoint myself at all, for the full three weeks.” (Dan 10:2-3)

The talks were also a reminder and a rebuke about the significance of prayer in the spiritual battle.

In case you’re not sure what the CY Prayer Points are … it is a very simple and straightforward system to enable the young people of the church to pray for each other. Each CY can add prayer requests (about their CY, congregation, Presbytery or wider denomination – and not forgetting thanksgiving as well as requests!) that can be viewed by anyone registered on the RP site. On the first day of each month the prayer requests are automatically emailed to everyone who is signed up to receive them. The idea is that one person from each CY adds prayer requests once a month, and then each CY uses all the prayer requests in their prayer times at their CY meetings.

So what!

So what …. can I do about it?!

STEP 1 – Sign up

Old timer

Sign up to receive the prayer letter. We can all agree that 64 is a really pathetic number of people to be receiving the prayer letter when there are so many young people in the church. In fact the number is probably far worse than that since it is likely that 64 includes ‘old-timers’ (e.g. people born in the 80s or earlier!) who would have signed up when the prayer letter was first started but maybe aren’t that actively involved in their CYs anymore.

STEP 2 – Use it

Print the prayer letter when it is emailed to you. Use it in your own prayer time. Ask whoever is in charge of your CY if you can use them as a CY in your prayer times. If they aren’t already being used, volunteer to be the person who will print enough copies for the whole CY each month!

STEP 3 – Contribute to it

Once you are in the routine of using the prayer points in your personal and CY prayer times, you’ll hopefully want to start to add some prayer points of your own. Each CY should put someone in charge of doing this. Again, if there isn’t anyone presently doing this, why not volunteer? Don’t worry if you think you might forget! That is easily done! But the website can send you an email around the 20th of each month to remind you to add prayer points before the 27th.

Here are the technical details of how to sign-up and also how to add prayer requests:

How to get an account (needed both to receive and add prayer points):
1. Go to www.rpc.org
2. Click on ‘Register’ at the top right of the page
3. Fill in the form and request an account

How to sign up to receive prayer points:
1. Login to your account by going to rpc.org and clicking ‘Login’ at the top right of the page.
2. Click on ‘Members’ to the right of the blue bar and click ‘Email lists’
3. To the right of ‘CY Prayer Letter’ click edit and ‘Join list’
4. And then, as they say in Airdrie, Robert’s your mother’s brother. You will receive you first prayer points email on thie first of the next month. Or you can look at current requests by clicking on ‘Members’ and ‘Prayer Requests’.

How to add prayer points option 1: (usually the job of a designated person in each CY):
1. Login to the rp site (following the instructions above) and click on ‘Members’ and ‘Prayer Requests’.
2. Click on ‘Add/Edit requests’ (if you don’t see this option you need to be enabled to add requests – to do this email www-admin at rpc dot org)
3. Click ‘Add Request’. Type your request, choose a start and end month, and click ‘Add Request’ at the bottom.

How to add prayer points option 2:
1. Email them to stutefc at gmail dot com.

What an opportunity we are wasting to pray for each other and encourage each other!

“Pray for each other” (James 5:16)

Last night, Philip McCollum was ordained as an associate pastor (with responsibility for Mission work) in Shaftesbury Square congregation.

For posterity: Opening worship was conducted by the Moderator of Synod, followed by a sermon by Rev. Derek Petrie, exposition of Reformed Presbyterianism by Rev. Harry Coulter, Historical Narrative by Mr John McEwen, the giving of the prescribed questions by Geoff Allen, a prayer of ordination and installation by the former along with Philip’s previous minister, Rev. Warren Peel, a charge to Philip and to the congregation by Rev. Knox Hyndman and finally, worship conducted by Rev. Philip McCollum himself!

So keen I got up at 5:45!

After the worship service was finished, Shaftesbury’s newest pastor was welcomed by Rev. David McKay (Senior Pastor!), followed by speeches from Rev. David McCullough (representing the Synod, the Presbytery and Dromore – Philip’s most recent employers), Prof. William F. M. Wallace (Shaftesbury Session) and Miss Sarah Gowdy (Shaftesbury Congregation).

Following the speeches and some informal slagging off of Paul, supper was provided in the hall.

Wishing the Airdrie Mission team vet success in his future career

Update: Modblog report here