9. Angels carry fire arms

I know this to be true because I met two and saw their guns. Ok, I admit they were dressed as slightly overweight black guys in police uniforms but they were definitely angels. Probably on an exchange program or something.

The story started last Saturday morning. You'll recall from a previous blog post that we shipped a car into South Africa. Well it cleared customs quickly in the first week and was waiting for us to collect it from Durban, 500km down the road. After a number of plans to fetch it were made and changed over the weekend (and let me tell you, cheekily paraphrasing Field Marshall Helmuth Carl Bernard Graf von Moltk, no plan survives contact with Africa for long), I headed down on Monday morning with one of the other J-Life guys who needed to be there to referee an argument about a field.

By four in the afternoon I had the car in my possession, no damage, nothing stolen, no additional customs charges. Amazing. In fact the shipping agent said it was the first car he had ever seen come out of clearing with a full tank of fuel: people usually ship them almost empty, and if they don't the fuel is almost always syphoned out and stolen in the docks. Well not ours, for which I was mightily glad. I decided not to stay the night in Durban but to head back up. I should have been home by nine.

The N3 Durban/Joburg is quite a beautiful road; first it climbs constantly for something like 200km out of Durban towards the Drakensburg mountains and the 1600m plateau on which Joburg and its surroundings sit, then you cross the Drakensburg at Van Reenen's pass, which is picturesque, and finally cruise through a lovely landscape surrounded by rolling hills punctuated by occasional dramatic mountains and escarpments left over from the last period of volcanicity in the area. I'm sure the Cape Garden Route is nicer, but the N3 from Durban to Joburg sure beats the M6 through the industrial wasteland of the English midlands.

Motorways in SA are restricted to 120kmh, and I generally don't speed, so I was cruising along at 120 when a cop stepped into the road ahead of me and waved me in. I had absolutely no idea what was wrong and assumed it was a spot check as I was driving a British car. I rolled down the window and said a cheery hello, in the most polite and quintessentially British accent I could muster.

"Sir could you step out of the car, please, and look at my speed gun. You were driving at 120, see, it says so right here". Fortunately the internal gatekeeper in charge of filtering my thoughts did its job for once, and I didn't say something dumb and sarcastic. "Yes sir", I said, "I see that. Is there a problem?". "Yes there is, you are in an 80 zone".

Ahh. That'll be it then. Doing a full 50% over the limit tends to attract the attention of the people given the task of catching speeders. Nuts.

Now the problem with the police in SA is that a lot of them are corrupt. They routinely take bribes, and actually it can be quite hard to avoid giving them a back-hander because of the clever way they pitch it as an on-the-spot fine. Paying the bribe is pretty much the most pragmatic way out of the situation, but not exactly the path of most integrity, so I decided I wasn't going to accept paying him off.

"Well, sir, you see we have a problem here. Your driver's licence is British so I can't process the fine here...". At this point he leafs through his cherished Big Book Of Fines to show me I am to pay R1500 (about £130). "...so what I must do is take you to the station. But you see, sir, that is 30km away, and I think your time is very precious so you probably don't want to do that...". Here it comes. "...so this gives me a problem.", "Yes, I can see the problem. It is a shame", I said. He continued, "Your family is probably waiting for you to get home. You want to be home quickly...". I'm now just waiting for the drop. "So I will tell you what I can do for you. Because I think you made a mistake and you don't want to pay the whole fine I can right here...", crunch time, "...well, sir I have decided I will give you a warning. Please drive carefully now."

Stunned silence for a moment. "Thank you sir, I appreciate your generosity of spirit, I will not let this happen again", I said meekly, and with that I was on my way. Answer to prayer there. Nice guy. Or more likely just too lazy to drive me to the station and back. Whatever the reason I was just glad to get away with it. However he is not one of the angels. No, the angels appear later, when, for the second time that day, I end up sat in a police car.

Picturesque the N3 may be, but the government seem to have given little thought to the fact that something like 100% of vehicles using it will, at some point, need fuel. As I passed a garage I glanced at my gauge and saw I was down to a quarter tank. It would have been a bit of a manoeuvre to get across to that station so I decided to keep going until the next one. Well it turned out later that the next one was over 150km away. After the fuel light had been on for about 50km, with the next garage on the N3 an unknown distance ahead, and fearful of running out of diesel alone in a strange country with no breakdown insurance, I looked on the SatNav for the nearest filling station on a provincial road away from the N3. It found one 30km away. Remember by this point I was sure I was running on fumes and it was dark.

Basically having run out of options I took the next exit and followed the SatNav. After 5km the tarmac ran out and I was on a network of sand roads, blindly following a computer in complete darkness for the remaining 25km. I was in a state of fairly constant prayer by this point, as you might imagine. I eventually pulled into the station, and the attendant told me they had run out of diesel. Oh My Goodness. The SatNav told me the next station was 5km away, so with no choice I headed for it. It was closed. The next one was another 10km away. It, too, was closed. The next was was 21km away. It was non-existent. By this point I had done nearly 120km with the fuel light on. In desperation I punched in the next station, a BP garage 30km away, and set off once more. All of this is on sand roads in the middle of nowhere, with no lights and no infrastructure of any kind, so I was pretty scared.

10km from the BP garage the car died. I prayed that miraculously I could get another few km, and the car burst into life. At 8km it died again, I prayed again, it revived for another km or so. This happened six times until it coasted to a stop about a km from where the computer said the BP garage was, on the edge of a tiny town built around a gas works. I locked up, got out to walk, and phoned the J-Life guys just so they would know where I was in case anything went wrong. All this time I was praying that this would end up as a cool story to tell on the blog and to laugh about for years to come. Obviously, since you are reading this, it did.

About ten seconds after I put down the phone a police car pulled up and asked if I was ok. I threw myself on their mercy and asked for help. The put me in the car, and drove me into town - it turned out the BP Garage was also closed but they knew of another which was open. They had diesel. The guys running it scampered around and found an old plastic watering can which they filled with fuel, and the police took me back to the car. They helped me push my car round so the fuel lines were facing down hill, held the torch while I searched round the engine bay for the manual priming pump, phoned the police mechanic in case we needed him, then cheered twenty minutes later when the car started.

After all that they even accompanied me back to the garage to make sure I didn't get robbed while filling up. Awesome guys. Short on wings, but big on hearts.

While this saga was unfolding, John from J-Life was phoning all his contacts to see if anyone knew anyone in the town where I was stranded. He conferenced-called his mechanic to help me find the priming pump. He even said he would drive out the 200km to pick me up, this at way past ten at night. Community in action.

The cynical among you might ask, if God really answers prayers, why did I coast to a halt 1km from the fuel station. To that I would say that God does not absolve you from the need to put fuel in you car, but he might just shorten the odds in your favour when you're stupid enough not to do so. I drove 150km with the fuel light on, at times at least 20km from the nearest civilisation. From the moment the car started dying, I limped another 10km before it coughed its last. Within a minute of stopping I was picked up by friendly and non-corrupt police officers who drove me to an open fuel station and back, helped me get the car started, and stayed with me until I was on my way home. I call that answered prayer.

I think I have mentioned before that part of the reason for doing what we're doing is so that we don't hit 70 without a story to tell. Well, I'll say it again, be careful what you wish for.

8. Arrivals

After twelve months of planning and ten hours of flying we landed at OR Tambo Airport, Johannesburg at 9.40am local time Saturday morning just over a week ago. The goodbyes were tough, and many tears were shed. As well as the burden of saying goodbye we had four large and heavy pieces of hand luggage, four heavy and full laptop bags and two small children to manhandle onto a plane. None of this was made any easier by Daniel asking hundreds of questions about how planes fly, how do jet engines work, why do planes sometimes land on water…I love the fact that he’s inquisitive, but seriously...sometimes you just need to get on the plane and not have to explain four times why daddy's bag of computer bits had to be unpacked so the man could check for bombs.

The flight itself was remarkably easy (especially as Reuben only wanted attention from Daddy), but getting through Passport control at the other end was a different story. Shattered after very little sleep we had a long walk to passport control (with no trolley for our 120 kilos of ‘hand’ luggage), and then in the queue through security both boys decided to be sick. Reuben was in a carrier on Jason’s back and wasn’t too bad (umm, bad for whom? – ed.), but Daniel looked like a ghost and decided enough was enough and laid down on the floor in a wretched fashion. We had no spare arms to pick him up and nobody took pity on us; they just got cross and told us to stop holding up the queue.

By hook or by crook we got through, collected our hold luggage and went through customs with ease to be greeted with a warm and welcome smile by the wonderful Garton and Abrahmse families. Such a relief! Daniel was sick in the car again on the way to J-Life, but by that stage he had a bit more sympathy from us, and at least he stopped asking questions for a few minutes.

The J-Life main centre sits on a farm about an hour and a half’s drive from the airport. To say that it is beautiful is an understatement, and we've had a couple of hikes through the mountains around the J-Life centre. We're looking forward to exploring more in the coming weeks, and there's a lot to explore: the farm is huge, a few km across in both directions at least. There are rumours of a leopard in the hills, and there are certainly porcupines and lots of buck and birds of prey.

We have our own little three bedroom pad which is the ground floor of a quad of converted grain silos. It’s small, simple, clean and comfortable; we are all very happy with it and the boys have taken to it well. 

Two days in, Reuben decided to dump the cot and go into a bed, which was not exactly how we would have worked the timing but he’s doing fine. The boys love being together in the same room at night, and it has left the spare room free as a playroom for them.

We’ve had the first week to settle in and get accustomed to the new surroundings. Daniel and Reuben have started school; Daniel is loving it, Reuben is taking a little more time, and we spent a great day with Clive and Clare Garton at their house in Jo-burg. We’ve checked out the local supermarket and hung out with the wonderful Abrahmses – John, Lorna, Jordan and Nathan; swimming in the pool, playing football, generally feeling welcome and loved. We’ve had a couple of BBQs (although here they call it a Braii), been for the aforementioned hikes through the mountains, got to know the other staff a little more, and found our bearings. Work started in earnest today and we are looking forward to really getting stuck in.

We haven’t had time to stop and miss the UK yet - the weather and people have put a hold on that for now because it’s still a little like being on holiday. There have however been real tinges of sadness especially when Daniel opened his birthday cards from people in the UK, and when Reuben asks often for their friend (and our God daughter) Annabel. Each time Reuben asks for her, Daniel says “I’m sorry Reuben Annabel’s not here but we’ll see her at Christmas”. Now we at last have a decent internet connection and phone we can start contacting people properly: we've really missed speaking to people this last week.

In the time we've been here we have had Daniel and my (Claire) birthdays – they were both suitably spoilt by the J-Life team but my extra ‘present’ was to be thrown into the pool by John A and a few others after dinner – apparently a ritual on the camp, just a shame we will be in Zambia by the time it comes to Jason's birthday.

All in all it has been a great start. We are definitely in ‘honeymoon’ phase but we think we are going to love being here.

7. An Exercise in Trust

If you ever want to know real trust, ship a car.

First you do a google search for shipping companies, phone a few at random, then contract the one with the nicest-sounding receptionist and/or the best price. Because they don't take credit cards, you transfer £900 quid from your bank account into theirs. In return for this you get an email of a scan of a photocopy of a shipping note, of which you must download and print out two copies.

Some time later you drive your car to a warehouse complex next to a harbour in Kent, where you follow a set of hand-written signs to 'export' past disused buildings, piles of rusting scrap, and burned-out cranes. When finally you go past the last sign you find yourself in a carpark next to a portacabin where a burly man in a ripped fluorescent coat waves you to the back of a disorderly queue of stationary vehicles. You hand him your illegible shipping note and he scribbles something equally illegible on the windscreen in dry-wipe marker.

You leave the keys in the ignition and go home. And that's it. If you remembered to take a spare copy of the shipping note/illegible smear then you can get one of them scribbled on by the man with the marker pen by way of a receipt.

You just have to pray that by some quirk of fate, your car accidentally finds itself on the right boat at the right time.

Then, once it is under way, you google for customs agents in the destination port, email a few at random, then pick one equally at random (because this time you can't even speak to the receptionist). You send them your bill of lading, which hopefully you have been emailed by now, followed by a transfer of £700 from your bank account because, naturally, they don't take credit cards.

So by this point you are down £1600 plus the cost of the car and the stuff in the boot. If it were a poker game you'd be throwing in your chips, finishing your drink, and going home with a worried expression. But you can't. You just have to hope for the best. This small part of your life is completely under the control of other people whose methods you don't understand and who aren't contactable in any meaningful way.

Now call me a control freak if you like but that is no where near my comfort zone. However it does make for a good metaphor.

Last week I did a presentation on the Africa project to thirty or so people at work; lots of people had asked why I was leaving so I thought it would be good to do a dinnertime PowerPoint. The presentation was ok, people asked good questions, I'm told I got the message across. Apparently two (non-Christian) colleagues were talking afterwards and one said "I had no idea they were self funding...I thought they were being paid. That takes real faith..."

I've been thinking about this a lot since. I never really considered that I had real faith, I've always just thought of my life as a bit like driving through fog: basically I see things when I hit them. Long term views are all very nice and so forth, but in my opinion you can't beat a bit of ignorance for improving your outlook. So I just haven't been worried about this stuff at all. What I have come to realise in the last few weeks is that I am faithful, in a very real and tangible sense.

I've heard faith described in terms of a devolution of self-reliance, of a weak and cowardly ceding of control and personal responsibility to a Higher Power. I don't recognise that definition of faith. For me faith is more like flying: I can't fly by myself, no matter how much resourceful self-belief and arm flapping I engage in. To fly I must step on to a plane, trusting in the engineers who designed it, the technicians who built it, the mechanics who service it, and the pilots who fly it. There comes a point in most things you do when you just have to accept that you can never be fully in control, and that you need to have faith in the people pulling the strings further up the tree. In no way is that cowardly: it's simply pragmatic.

For Christians, that higher power is, you won't be surprised to learn, God. We just accept that there are some things we can't do alone. I reckon with a following wind and a lot of free time I could have raised our budget in the six months, but I am absolutely sure that I couldn't do it alone, while working full time, and without directly asking people for money. Unless, that is, the wheels were being greased. You'll know from previous blog posts that we haven't asked anyone for sponsorship, yet we're now sitting at about 98% of budget.

There are generally quite valid naturalistic explanations for almost everything, but the confluence of things that have just happened perfectly in our preparations leave me feeling that we are being aided. There's no ceding of responsibility there, we've worked very hard: but, like flying, the pilot gets you to your destination but you get yourself to the airport.

It is that trust in the wingman that has enabled us to get where we are now.

Now the observant among you will note that it is six weeks since our last post. This tardiness is because in the last six weeks we've been unbelievably busy. In that time we have shipped a car, sold a car, wound up and left two jobs, organised two birthday parties, opened three bank accounts, redecorated the house, found tenants, chased and received our visas, packed stuff for storage, arranged medical insurance, got international driving licences, practiced for and sung in three choral concerts, closed down nine mobile phone contracts (long story), found fish-sitters (ten koi and eight tropical), and said goodbye to our friends in Poole, all the while maintaining perfect marital harmony (eh??? - ed.) and passable parenting. Christmas at the opposite end of the country alternating between two large families half an hour apart with thirty of our closest relatives was something of a welcome break.

For the first time in eleven years we're homeless and unemployed, and about to embark on a three year voyage of uncertainty.We fly in six days.

Apart from the odd twinge of recent anxiety, this all feels normal and right. Rationally, from a western capitalist viewpoint, it's an utterly bizarre thing to do, but we are so convinced about it that doubt doesn't feature. I guess you could call that faith.

Judaism has a concept of "places where the veil is thin": physical locations where the people felt they were closest to God. Personally I don't believe God is more in any particular physical location than in any other, but where we are, waiting for the next phase to start, the veil sure feels insubstantial.

All my adult life I believe I have been following God, but on a looping, chaotic trajectory; sometimes close, more often far. I feel that now, having taken the first steps, we're finally on the racing line. We're doing what we have been called to do. It feels indescribably like everything that has gone before has led up to this moment.

Just one more anecdote before I close. A few months ago we realised that our mortgage period was coming to the end. We searched around and found somewhere that offered great terms for people letting on a non-professional basis. The contract stipulated the mortgage should be held for six months before we could let out the house, and at the time that was fine. In the event the switch took longer to process than expected, leaving us with a month of no cover for our costs. To try and head things off, we went into a branch to talk to a mortgage advisor. He was great: sympathetic, personable, and helpful. He collated our evidence, submitted our application, and told us all would be well.

At the end of November we got an out-of-hand rejection. Not only were we not eligible to rent our house, we couldn't even APPLY for eligibility until we had been with them for six months. That would have killed the whole scheme for us, and remember that by this point we had both quit our jobs and were in the run down to finishing.

Claire phoned the company and talked to a call centre who reiterated the information in the letter ("I'm sorry, madam, that you have been given this misinformation and that it causes you a problem...", "PROBLEM, I have left my job on the basis of this INFORMATION..."). She phoned me at work in a panic. I grabbed a couple of guys to pray while Claire tried again.

Five minutes later she was through to a UK manager who was both sympathetic and apologetic, and moreover bypassed the whole system to give us permission to let from that moment. Just one more door opened for us.

And so here we are. Planning stage complete. The next post will be from Africa as the next phase of the adventure begins. Until then we're in limbo, but, standing here where the veil is thin, the view's awesome.

6. Feeling the pressure

A number of people have asked that Jason hands the baton for writing the blog to me [temporarily! - ed.], and for me to give insight into my thoughts and feelings of the next chapter in the story. I’ve been assured that this request is in no way a slur on Jason’s writing skills – just in case you were wondering. I confess I’ve procrastinated over writing this – I’m certainly feeling the pressure of following in his footsteps, although I have had minor, albeit crucial, editing rights to the posts; statements such as ‘you can’t possibly write that!’ have come from my lips on more than one occasion. 

So where am I at? To sum it up in a couple of words I would say I am ‘at peace’ with our decision. I’m also really excited about what we are going to be doing, about the positive impact we could make, the relationships we will develop, and also about allowing the very rough parts of my personality to be honed as we adapt to life in a new and very different culture. And I confess that I’m really not going to miss the English weather.

What am I nervous about? Well at the minute I am bizarrely daunted by the task of writing Christmas cards. We have so many good friends, and so many people to thank, that writing cards this year is going to be tough. The annual writing ritual in our household generally requires me strapping Jason down with a list of people and a large glass of wine, then feeding in more wine as appropriate until he stops moping with his head in his hands, declaring he can’t think of anything to write. 

What can we write? I wish I knew. There are those close friends who have walked with us, prayed with us, laughed with us, wondered with us, and cried with us since we were asked to work with J-Life. There are those who have given encouraging words when needed, there are those who have challenged us (in love), there are those in the foreground and background who we call our ‘3am friends’ – those rare and valuable people who you know you can call on at 3am when you need help, knowing they will be at your door at 3.10am. There are those who have helped practically in large and small ways, those who will be supporting us financially in the short term and the long term and those who have committed to pray for us regularly throughout the next 2.5 years. Of course I include family in this, especially our parents, who are truly wonderful. The list is long, and I confess I’m welling up as I write this even now, but it’s safe to say that we are going to miss a lot of people when we go and writing cards will not do justice to the love and respect we feel for them. Without their encouragement the journey would be much more difficult, and I am already dreading the 23^rd of December when we say goodbye to friends in Poole, and the 4^th of January when we leave our families.

But I’m definitely looking forward. The house is now on the market for rent, and whilst our visas haven’t yet arrived, we’ve been told they will be processed in December – so at least we haven’t been rejected yet. We’re still sorting out banking and lots of other bits and bobs, but it feels like things are coming together – we just need someone to rent our house and the visas to come and then we are on our way. And I shortlisted candidates and interviewed for my own job last week – now that was a weird one. Oh and for those following the 4x4 saga, Jason is now driving it around Poole ‘just to test it’ of course. 

As people have been praying for us, we’ve had a few encouraging verses of the bible sent to us to ponder, they will be important in the tough and potentially lonely times. 

That’s it really for this blog, no great philosophical ponderings, no great words of wisdom, no great wit, just and honest and heartfelt thanks – those who love and support us know who they are – thank you.

5. Confessions of an environmentalist

My name's Jason, and I'm an environmentalist.

Really. And not just a green-wash environmentalist either, we actually try to live it out. It is probably my parents' fault: they were vegetarian before it was eco-chic and mainstream, before Quorn was even thought of, when it was all lentils and tofu. And of course I'm married to an environmental scientist, so it kind of goes with the territory. We have solar panels, and a log burner burning scavenged logs (three years and we've not paid for wood yet). We put our bin out once a month, use terry-towelling nappies, and have a compost heap. Now I'm no Al Gore or anything, but I would give us seven out of ten on the right-on-o-meter

For years we were a one-car family. When we had just one kid I did the nursery run every day with Daniel in a bike trailer on my way to and from work, rain or shine, sleet and snow. I can tell you're impressed. Only when Reuben started nursery did we get a second car, and I bought the cheapest, smallest, most efficient second-hand town car I could [And how many times has he cycled to work since? Zero - Ed.]

Like many environmentalists high on their own sense of smug self-satisfaction, I have a real chip on my shoulder about urban 4x4s. Our diesel Ford Mondeo gets 60mpg on a long run. Try beating that in your X5. It's a standing joke that I can't stand 4x4s that never see mud, where the closest they get to going off road is bumping up the kerb at Waitrose. For the benefit of people outside the UK, Waitrose is a posh supermarket which sells, amongst other middle class basket-fillers, Waitrose Essentials Polenta. Since when has polenta been essential. Really.

So it is a source of some merriment to people around me that for half of this year we've owned two of them. Two 4x4s have been sat in the drive, staring at me reproachfully as my credibility dissolves like a marble statue in a shower of acid rain. And not even proper 4x4s either, the cool kind with checkerplate panels and a winch. No, the kind we have are the kind driven by hairdressers and estate agents. I'm talking, of course, of the Toyota Rav4. Plural.

Now I will admit one thing: I have always wanted a 4x4, always. However my enviro-credentials would never allow it, so when we made the decision to move to Africa it was a perfect opportunity: Zambia has a lot of sand roads, so a soft off-roader is perfect. Toyota is popular in Africa, and the Rav is the smallest and most efficient of their 4x4 range. Simples. I did some research and found that it is cheaper (and by cheaper I mean it is half the price) to buy in the UK then ship to South Africa and import, so I went out and bought a nice Rav4. Perfect. Until Claire pointed out that the boot had about enough room for, let's say, a handbag. Maybe two. If we were transporting false nails and shampoo a couple of kilometres to work then it would be perfect. For a family of four with the contents of a house to transport 1200 miles across 4 countries, well, not so perfect. Apparently I should have noticed this when I bought it.

So as a result, the next weekend I went out and bought another, larger, one, wiping out all our savings. I believe the words I used were "oh, we got such a good deal on that one it will sell in a week, probably at a profit!". Indeed. That was in May. And since then it has been a big silver turbo-diesel millstone around my neck.

Four weeks on eBay followed by two weeks on GumTree followed by six weeks on Autotrader with not even a nibble. I had three haircuts in that time. Continents have moved faster. Eventually I cracked and asked a friend to sell it for us. It sold the next day. Go figure.

So that's where we are now: back to being a one-4x4 family. And what else, I hear you excitedly ask, is going on?

Well, we fly in ten weeks. Even writing that down doesn't make it feel real. Ten weeks. It doesn't seem long since we were first asked to do this, yet it's a full year ago. We've sent almost all the stuff we need: a crew of 60 people went to South Africa from our church recently and they each took a plate or a pasta maker or a towel or something, which was amazing and has saved us a fortune in shipping. The rest of our bits will go in the boot of the car when it goes on the boat in December.

We've applied for our visas for SA, a process which involved well over 100 pages of information and, as I can only presume therefore that it gets weighed in as part of the first sifting at the consulate, we used 100gsm paper just in case.  As for Zambian visas...after spending a month unsuccessfully trying to negotiate the Zambia High Commission website we decided it would be quicker and easier to just drive there and do it in person. Prayers for speedy visa resolution would be appreciated.

Our flights are booked and paid for, Daniel's school places in South Africa and Zambia are confirmed, and we've kicked off the process of getting our international bank account and credit cards. We've been vaccinated against every disease known to medical science, the meds being so numerous and in some cases so unusual that we had to pre-order the vials and close off half the roads in town so the bulk container could be delivered by articulated lorry. We have so many needle marks that we're afraid of being taken for a family of drug addicts.

On the plus side, my eBay seller feedback is approaching 800 as we've sold the collected junk of 10 years of home ownership, the proceeds of which have bought, amongst other things for Africa, the iPad on which I am writing this blog and which will be our primary means of communication in Zambia. Oh yeah, and we both quit work. Claire finishes in five weeks, I in seven. We're incredibly sad to be leaving our companies, but both have said they would love us to reapply when we get back.

And our funding: we're still a touch short of what we need but what a blessing. If all the money that people have pledged comes through we'll have almost 85%.  When I explain to non-Christians what we're doing, it's that fact which most grabs their attention. It's another incredible validation of the calling God has given us and of the relationships we've built up over the years. Our sponsors are trusting us with a significant investment, which comes with a massive responsibility: we really have to make all of the investments count.

We'll do our best to make sure they do.

4. There's a lion outside

This post is going to be intentionally reflective. Over the next three months I'll be talking much more about the practical stuff and how we're getting ready to go, but I hope you'll forgive me a bit of a philosophical muse on where we are right now.

This whole affair really kicked off in November 2011. John Abrahmse, the aforementioned persuasive leader of J-Life, stayed with us in our home. Every morning we were treated to a voice shouting from his bedroom "Daniel: there's a lion outside! A LOIYON OUTSOYDE!" in what I can only assume was an attempt at a British accent. Think Dick Van Dyke on an especially unconvincing day, shortly before sacking his voice coach. Nobody could really work out why he did this but in the end we decided he was just being South African. At any rate he provided some useful data to my cultural study.

Anyway, that is not the point of the story. The point of that story is to give me a neat lead into my current thesis. I want to talk about all the things that threaten to hold us back.

You may never even have picked up a bible, but I will put down good money that you have quoted from it: an eye for an eye; at my wit's end; pride goes before a fall; by the skin of your teeth. On the other hand (actually that one's not from the bible) I'll put down equally good money that you have never quoted Proverbs 22:13. Funnily enough, this particular proverb is of limited utility to the average urban westerner:

"The sluggard says, 'There’s a lion outside! I’ll be killed in the public square!'..."

You might wonder why a Northern Israeli would be worried about a lion, but that is where you (and I, I must add) show our ignorance. According to Google (to which I have now outsourced almost all of my intelligence and memory), lions were common in Israel at the time Solomon was penning the wise words which became the book of Proverbs. It was technically possible, though unlikely, to be killed by one in a public square, which would be a charismatic way to die but nonetheless inconvenient if you were on the way to the bank. This, too, is not the point I am trying to make (I find some points are best approached cautiously from many sides before finally settling cosily into their warm embrace).

The point of the verse is to warn against the dangers of making excuses to avoid work. Solomon's sluggard is one who is habitually lazy and indolent, someone known to be  work-shy, someone looking for any excuse to avoid what they have been asked to do. Now an actual lion outside is probably a fair excuse to postpone buying the milk, but like Solomon's sluggard, we find it very tempting to make superficially plausible excuses to avoid the things that bore or scare us. It is all too easy to be held back by fear: how many opportunities do we miss because of our own lion outside?

I'm happy to admit I am scared of what we're getting in to. Not so much scared for myself, but scared for Daniel and Reuben. You know how you can get close to the edge of a cliff yourself without too much difficulty, but if one of your kids does it you freak out with fear for them?

So I'm scared of so much for them: I'm scared of malaria, scared of hijacking, scared of kidnap, scared of them being used against me, scared of losing them. Now those things can and do happen here in the UK, but in the UK we're not unusual: just an ordinary middle-class family in a middle-sized house in a quiet area. However in Africa we are exposed by being exactly the things that anonymise us in the UK: by our choice to move to Africa we increase our boys' exposure, and hence the danger to which they are subject, however unlikely that danger is. It's the same feeling we have had while giving the boys their African vaccinations: a small but present danger of side-effects to which they would not be exposed if we just stayed in our own country like sensible people.

We have, time and again, wondered if we really should be doing it. Who would blame us if we didn't? Who would blame us if we just waited until the kids were grown up? Ahh, but then we'd be higher up in our careers, and we'd have elderly parents, and there'd be grandkids on the way, and then we'd decide we were too old to make a difference...you see where this is going? There's always going to be a lion outside.

As a Christian you don't have to prove anything, you don't have to earn your place in heaven, you couldn't even if you wanted to: you already have the suite because Christ booked it for you in advance and paid your bill. That's not to say that your place doesn't come with responsibilities: it does, and one responsibility is to make the best of our talents. We're being funded on this trip by the goodness and grace of friends: do we have to do anything to earn their sponsorship? No we do not. Do we have responsibilities as a result of their sponsorship? Of course we do. Same with Christianity. We don't have to do this for any reason other than that God has called us to do the best we can with the talents we have been given.

Yes, we're scared. But the point at which we decided to go for it was the point at which we realised we were more scared of not doing it than we were of doing it: scared that if we didn't take this chance we'd hit seventy and look back and wonder what we did with our lives. Scared that if we missed this opportunity we'd always be thinking "what if".

There will always be lions outside, but I think you either face them or stay forever looking through of the window wondering what it's like out there. We got tired of wondering. Hopefully when we step outside the lion will be looking the other way.

3. Live Life as a Sojourner

In the last two posts I've talked about Who, and Where, and What For, but not really Why. So here's the Why.

Everyone has some thoughts about what the Point Of It All is, this thing we call life: if by a lucky happenstance you are born as an affluent Westerner you get about 80 years of relative comfort clinging precariously to a rock hurtling through space, then you die. If you're an average African, you die 30 years sooner.  Whenever it happens, you die, and if you're particularly lucky a few people remember you for a few years. Then they die. And so on. The writer of the book Ecclesiastes said all this was nothing more than "chasing after the wind".

So most people think there has to be some point to it all: some reason why getting through those 80 years isn't just a futile exercise in stoicism. People's reasons are different, doubtless you have your own.

For some people it's money. For some it's fame, for others infamy. For some it's longevity, for some service, for some experience. Some want to tell good stories, some want to go along for the ride. Some want to leave a big legacy, some want to die penniless philanthropists. Some want to change the world for the better, some for the worse. There are probably as many reasons as there are people who reason.

A wonderful and stately couple who mentor us have a corkboard in their kitchen. On the board is a map, and stuck in the map are lots and lots of pins that show where their kids have served as missionaries. The couple themselves give almost all their time and energy to teaching relationship skills. They live to serve others: it's something which has really inspired us. The whole family epitomises living as sojourners.

A sojourner is someone who is passing through, someone transient. In The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle ('Conan Doyle!', I hear you shout, 'Surely you are mistaken, for undoubtedly that was Michael Crichton!'. To which I reply, 'Pah! Get thee and thy literary inexactitude behind me, fool!')... Where was I? Ah yes, The Lost World. As the protagonists are setting off into the unknown, one says "...to go and take a sporting risk, young fellah, that's the salt of existence, that's the worth of living, to not be dull and soft and comfy...", this written at the time of the great explorers, and enshrining the spirit of the age: to explore, to travel, to discover, to risk...to sojourn.

So what does it mean to live life as a sojourner? To me it means holding things lightly, treating everything we have as temporary and liable to be recalled. It means giving up a good job to do something cool, giving up a nice house to move somewhere exciting, and giving up a large and well-appointed comfort zone (with a coffee grinder and colour-matched scatter cushions) to step out and serve others. By no means do Christians have a monopoly on this kind of thinking, but I kind of think we find it a bit easier, a bit less of a wrench. Christianity, in its purest form, calls for sacrifice: giving up yourself for the benefit of others. I'm not talking about religion or denomination here, just the simplicity of Christ's life: love and sacrifice to spread a message of hope.

So everything we have is transitory. At best you have it, whatever 'it' is, money, experience, fame, for 80 years. Then it's gone. Pow. The sojourner recognises that, and treats everything, every moment, every opportunity, as temporary. The sojourner makes each minute count, takes every chance to make a difference, seizes crazy opportunities to do something brilliant. They do this because they know that wherever they are, they are simply on the road to somewhere else, and where they are going makes this short time look like a dull warm-up act.

That's what we aspire to.