Girls And Me, Without Mom

Nice day, nice girls.

Joanie had a women’s retreat in Siegen, Germany, May 6-9. And that meant I was Parental Unit for the weekend. Which I did not mind in the least. I love my girlies.

We had fun just sitting out in our therapeutic backyard, soaking in something so uncharacteristic for England: sun. You can see my right shoe at the bottom of the pic. We also did errands, walked around Ashford together. I had to bribe them with some ice cream. Money well spent.

The girls helped me when we did church. I had to play guitar alone for the worship. Holly sang the worship songs with me. She’s been doing that lately with Joanie. Katie helped set up chairs and talked to people afterwards.

We also had fun putting meals together (some really good sausage and pasta) and reading our bedtime story (the ‘Heinlein juvenile’ Farmer In The Sky), and ice skating with the home school group. 

It’s hard to have Mom gone. So we hung in there and had fun until she got back. That’s the best fun.

Dave Visits Again

Holly and Dave wait for dinner in the backyard.

My older brother Dave got to visit us for the second time this year. 

He works for an engineering firm that makes hardware to function with its intended software. He had meetings in Dublin, so he thought he would first fly to us and get over jetlag. So for five days, April 27-May 1, he visited and basically relaxed around the house. I think it was one of the few times in about three years that he has just done nothing. I was worried that he wasn’t getting enough action out of his visit. He told me, “I don’t ever do this. I’m happy just sitting and reading, believe me.”

A couple of times he went with me to my morning hangout, the cafe in the Tesco supermarket. The store is 24-hour, but the cafe opens at 8. I like to sit there before opening hours and read and pray undisturbed. Dave and I had great conversations and even breakfast. He would go out to the store and come back with a load of bagels, yogurt, milk, cream cheese, and lay out a spread. He would fortify that with coffee when the cafe opened.

He took us out to dinner Saturday night, at a great Indian restaurant we had just discovered. The food was rocking. We had a great time.

Dave helped me out quite a bit on Sunday, when we were short of help setting up. He does the same thing for his own church in Seattle. So it was nothing new to him. It was great to be working together for the Lord.

He took off to Dublin after church. And some days later I got a call from him: he was changing his plans and wouldn’t be coming back through London. So that was the end of his trip as far as we were concerned. 

I was tempted to be disappointed, but I was so thankful to have time with him. It was way more than we usually get when we see each other. I am so thankful for how the Lord set this up. I’m trusting we get to do this again.

New Guitar

My office: effect pedals, amplifier, guitar, yes, and some books.

All my guitars are a miracle. God found them for me. 

Look at that left-handed guitar there in the picture. It was given to me by Luis Toro, guitarist for Universal Royalty. Somebody gave it to him. He said wow, thanks, and then noticed that it was left-handed. He couldn’t play it. He said, this guitar should go to Rob Dingman. That’s because I’m the only left-handed guitarist Luis knows. When they played for the church in March he gave me the guitar. 

When I saw the guitar I was a little disappointed. It’s an Epiphone, an Indonesian copy of a Gibson SG, a more expensive and better guitar. If I were buying for myself, I wouldn’t even consider this guitar. 

But I said thanks for thinking of me, and went about changing it to right-handed stringing so I could play it. I play left-handed on guitars strung right-handed. It’s the only way I know. That’s how I started playing, and by the time someone told me I was holding the guitar wrong it was too late. I wasn’t about to start over again learning from scratch.

The value of that is I can play any right-handed guitar laying around. If I was true left-handed I couldn’t do that because there are no left-handed instruments lying around. They are too rare.

I switched the strings and tried re-tuning the bridge so it would play in tune. When I got done, I was amazed. I really like how it sounds. Plays great. Sounds just like some of my favorite guitar players, like Duane Allman and Jerry Garcia. I mean, I would never buy one of these, but now I have one. I plan to use this on street outreach. It will look pretty uncool (think Black Sabbath or AC/DC), but when I play it, it will sound cool.

So once again, a little miracle. God found this guitar for me. Thank You so much, Lord. And thank you, too, Luis, for being my friend.

Maidenhead Study

Colin enjoys his after-study chat with Andrea, while Melvin wraps his Bible in a bag and Adam listens in.

Rebecca tells Joanie about her upcoming US trip.

Colin Smith has long wanted a Bible study out in his area, which is Twyford. He lives in a great nether region between London and Reading, north of the M4 motorway that heads west from London. He wants to drag people to church to hear the Bible teaching, but he reckons he can’t drag them as far as Twickenham. Therefore, there must be a Bible study out his way. He has been a Persistent Widow, and has prevailed.

Three weeks ago I began the study in a village near to him called Maidenhead. It is the home of Jill Baker, a single mother who attends Calvary Chapel Oxford. Between Jill and Colin, people have been invited, coerced and dragged to hear the Bible taught. There are unbelievers and Catholics attending, as well as believers who have not read their Bible for decades. They are stirred up enough to come and listen.

Tonight I begin a verse by verse study of Revelation. Because of the imagery and the difficulty of interpretation this book is neglected and practically unknown in the churches. Lord willing, this will be a revolutionary study for those who attend.

The same goes for the midweek study in Twickenham. One of the ladies in Twickers invited her sister to the Maidenhead study. After I announced what we would study she said to me, “Well, what about us? You gonna do that for us? I’m jealous.” 

That Persistent Widow stuff again.

Solid Weekend

I said earlier we went home to do our weekend thing. That means church, but my weekend was not the usual thing. After a full service I went home, ate lunch in ten minutes, and got in the car to drive to Norbury. That’s out Streatham way.

There is a Calvary Chapel there, and the services are done in Punjabi and Urdu. Its pastor, Ilyas Mughal, had asked me on Friday to teach for him. He had to attend a funeral in Italy. I have long wanted to meet with them, not even to teach, just meet them, just be a fly on the wall, just see how they do church. So this was a dream come true.

I drove and drove. There are twelve million people in London. I figure most of them were driving in front of me, I was going so slow. I got there half an hour after the service started, but the worship band (above) was still playing, thank the Lord.

I was thinking about what to teach, and finally decided I would do the most good if I taught Psalm 1. I had other messages with me, but I hadn’t had time to refresh myself on them. It would have been like reading someone else’s notes. Not good.

I asked if there was going to be an interpreter. No, they don’t need one, I was told. Oh… Okay. I hoped I could speak clearly enough to be understood. It turned out it wasn’t a problem. Most people there are multilingual. They live in England. Right.

I had dinner afterwards with the family of the girl playing the electric guitar in the picture above. That church was the sweetest group of people you could meet. It was a privilege to be asked to teach and give them what I could. I hope I get to go there again.

Encouraging Visit

Creation Fest planning meeting at my house.

Just last week Brian Brodersen visited England. He had a packed schedule; he likes to see as many people and do as much as he has time for. So he went to Oxford for the Teach the Word conference. Monday he visited Bristol, where a new work is being planted. On Tuesday following we met for a Creation Fest planning session. That evening he taught the Gateway Fellowship at Yateley, east of where we are. Elliot Wilsher and I have been out there before; his in-laws live out there. We had dinner with Brian before the meeting. He taught a simple, encouraging message from Aaron’s blessing in Numbers 6.

Question and answer time in Yateley.

Wednesday he went to London to meet with the managing director of Premier Radio. Matt Kottman, Doug Keen and I  drove his baggage to York, as we were meeting with Calvary pastors there for a quarterly prayer meeting. We prayed, discussed, ate curry, prayed some more.

Our first prayer session in York.

Discussing weighty matters after a great curry.

He went up to a conference in Scotland and we came home and did our weekend thing (more on that later). Monday he returned to my house. Elliot and Matt met us and we had one more curry in Surbiton.

Quite a lot was accomplished on his trip. It was an answer to my prayer, that the Lord would bless that short time and make it count. The most important thing is that people were encouraged and built up. That is a highly significant work.

After the Ceremony

I forgot to add: after we were sworn in and became real Brits, we went out to celebrate. Where did we go? Why, where real Brits go to celebrate, of course.


We went to a French patisserie.


Mental, innit?