Finally, A Piano

Mario Campanale tunes our new Bentley piano. Not connected with the auto maker, it is  nevertheless a respected piano maker.

Amazing to see the piano taken apart. Nice to have a professional doing the work.

It had been obvious that Holly was not enthused about piano lessons because she didn’t have a piano to play. We had a Yamaha keyboard that friends gave us. It wasn’t a weighted keyboard. It felt like a toy. I tried to tell her that if she wanted to play piano, she would have to get over that and just persevere. That didn’t really solve the problem. If she was going to continue, we would have to get a piano.

We looked and looked. We had friends praying for us. There are thousands of bad pianos on eBay, and Freeserve, and Gumtree. People give away pianos for free. That’s because they are so bad, they can’t sell them. We knew none of these were going to inspire Holly to practice. We almost bought one piano, but the auction time expired, and the seller wouldn’t respond to us. Frustrating.

On eBay Joanie found a piano owned by one lady, which was a four-out-of-five star rated brand. We bid on it and prayed that the Lord would close the door if it was not His piano for us. And then we won! This is the piano!

Joanie found a piano mover to deliver it. Then she called Mario Campanale, a piano tuner we knew. He brought it up to pitch and serviced it. He reckoned it hadn’t been tuned in twenty years. We replied we planned to play it and use it and wear it out. Joanie is playing more now. Holly is on it everyday. I love the sound in the house, and I can’t always tell who is playing. I love that, too.

A funny side effect: Joanie and I became aware that having a piano in the living room says to us, “Home”. We grew up in families that always had a piano there. So now we are home. That’s a funny feeling, twenty-five years down the road. You would think it’s about time. Thank the Lord for answering our prayers and helping us this far, and making our place a home.

Katie Exhibit

Holly, Joanie, and Katie rest in the exhibition room while I try for some art photography.

Katie's drawings are the two next to each other in the upper right corner. Just to show you a little of what the others were doing.

A group of home schoolers got an art exhibit together at the West End Centre in Aldershot, about a half an hour from where we live. Katie considered her drawing collection and chose two to enter. We drove there and viewed the exhibit. There were sculptures, drawings, felt art, and photographs. There was some genuinely good art there. Some of those kids have a future in art if they keep going on. 

Katie is firmly set on drawing manga (Japanese-style comics). For Christmas we gave her a book on how to draw manga style hands and feet, and recently followed that up with a companion book on heads and hair. Her drawings are growing in expression and skill. Hopefully this won’t be her last show.

Siegen Trip

Our first night in Siegen we went out for some real Siegerlander food at The Black Sheep. It was Schnitzel Night. Left to right: Conor Berry, Andrew Rann, John Golightly, Daniel Flores.

We slept at the Bible College dorms and walked in to the church for meals. This was morning, in front of the church, overlooking the Sieg River.

One of the guys scrapes his car at the Bible College villa. Overhead you can just see the tallest Autobahn bridge in Germany. 

From January 23-27 I got to take part in a pastor’s conference in Siegen, Germany, at the Calvary Chapel I used to work at before I moved to England. I had the idea to ask Conor Berry (pastoring in Bristol) if he wanted to come with me. He did, and we had a fun time being together. What a great guy!

When you go to a conference, you really want the Lord to speak to you. He did to me this time. I found myself admonished to not look for the approval or sympathy of others. I can offer those things where I am overlooked or suffering directly to the Lord as worship. Thank the Lord that His ways are higher and better than ours.

Conor and I had time to shop for German goodies for the flight home: dense German bread, Brötchen (nice bread rolls), Nußecken (triangles made of ground up nuts and the corners dipped in chocolate), Almdudler (an Austrian soft drink the girls love).

While the conference was on I was reconnecting with friends I hadn’t seen in years. One friend found me at dinner. He told me what had been happening with him, and we firmed up plans for me to speak at his church in May. I was able to pray with a friend who is battling cancer. The Lord gave me encouragement for him, to help him endure the treatment he was about to undergo.

Praise the Lord for letting me have this time, for blessing on so many different levels and ways. And the girls really liked the bread, too. Total score!

Glory Morning

One morning I was walking to Tesco, my home away from home, for some Bible reading, meditation, and prayer in the café. The wind was blowing cold clouds across the sunrise. Most days it’s not especially beautiful - it’s just cold and grey. This was one of those momentary bursts of glory that I get to see as I race inside. 

I praise God for making a beautiful world. I’m so glad that I get to see His glory in His word no matter what the weather is doing.

Trip To York

When I suggested we go out and have some fun in York that didn't go over so well with Katie. Yes, I know it was raining, but it wasn't that bad.

When the going gets tough, the tough get their hair cut. Sarah Bard offered. We did them in the kitchen of our flat.

I was amused by Katie's patience and womanly poise as Sarah did her hair. What a woman she is.

I had to go out to the car on our shopping trip and found this. All this, and bargains, too!

More old stuff. Trying to catch up. Happy new year.

During the break between Christmas and New Year’s Day we made plans to visit our friends Dave and Nancy Sylvester (who pastor Calvary Chapel in York). So we got in the car Monday, December 26, and drove up. They let us stay in the flats that the Bible College student use during school, but are vacant during the holidays.

The girls were less than thrilled with the weather. Well, it was typical winter weather: cold and rainy. We thought we were lucky it wasn’t snowing. But they weren’t having any fun walking around freezing. As we have learned to do on our family vacations, we prayed and asked Jesus to help us have a good time in spite of the weather. 

Somehow things got better. There is an outlet mall that we have rarely shopped at. We are either arriving in York or departing. So we decided to look at the sales and pick up some clothing that the girls needed. We helped out in the worship on Sunday. We talked and played with our friends, watched some Poirot adventures, played piano and guitar and bass.

I took my laptop and a writing program designed for books. I began the tutorial during our down time. After getting through the basics I began a project I’ve been thinking about for years. It’s a book on how to teach through the Bible expositionally. I got the idea for doing examples for each genre of Scripture of how I used the concepts for studying to interpret the scripture, and then how I developed the message from the preparation. If I walk the reader through the practical application of the ideas, maybe I can multiply more teachers and pastors for planting more churches. 

But I promised myself I would have to get the first two books out and published before I can write this book. No use piling up manuscripts. So if you would pray right now that I can finish what I have already started, I can move on to new things. Thanks.