Chicago comes first

Today was one of those crazy days when just about everything happened! It was a beautiful sunny day, and that is always something to cheer the soul and energise our personalities into action. I did my laundry first thing, and then hung the clothes out to dry on my "Rotary Airer", a pole with three struts (that hold the washing lines) that I keep in my garden shed. It made me a little late for my voluntary work at the church office, but I phoned them up and wonderful Tony said "No trouble, make the most of the good weather"! Once there it was all go with phone calls to take and cups of tea to make, bills to pay and banking to be done...

One of the calls was a dear church member needing prayer. Another was from a Dutchman called Gerard who works in India with the street children. He founded a mission called Good Shepherd Homes ... here's a link you can click on to check out their work - http://gsh.org.in . And he was in England! And coming to our church office at 3 o'clock! Wow! I visited his Children's Homes in India last year, here's a photo of him looking exceptionally cool in some classy shades!

Well, it was good to catch up with him. But then it was quite a rush to get to the bank before closing to order my US Dollars for my trip...

Which brings me back to one of the reasons for this blog.... it's to solicit your prayers! I may have been to India and many countries in the Far East but  I have never been to America before, and I have heard that Chicago has a crime rate worse than New York. So I would appreciate your prayers. Isn't Chicago the city where the ground crew open your checked in luggage and rifle through your belongings helping themselves to anything valuable? It may be a rumour, but I'm sure I saw video footage of staff actually stealing things out of people's cases on  one of those expose TV programmes. And we all know Chicago is home to the Mafia!

But it is also home to Barack Obama's home church, Trinity United Church of Christ....

This church is very important in Barack Obama's life. It's where he came to Christ, got baptised and got married. God challenged me "You may prefer the warmer climes and exotic locations of Hawaii and Indonesia but you cannot be serious about Barack Obama's faith without visiting Chicago and his home church of Trinity United Church of Christ. You may feel apprehensive about going there, but go there you must!" So I changed my itinerary to include it, and it's my first stop! Please pray for me!

Dinner with Adrian

Tonight I had dinner with my good friend Adrian who is going to "house-sit" while I am away. He's feeling at home in my office already! Here he is sitting at my desk!

Adrian's a great chap, he's a teacher with a heart for Africa. He's been to lots of countries there and I'm afraid to say that I'm not visiting one country in Africa on this trip. Next year perhaps!

Barack Obama never lived in Africa, but his father came from Kenya and he visited his father's village after his father had died. Quite a moving part of his book "Dreams from my Father". Kenya is a place for another trip, this time I will visit the places he grew up in Hawaii and Indonesia, and his home city of Chicago.

Travel Plans Go Ahead

I've been up to London to stay with a vicar friend of mine who is from Myanmar (Burma). It's my second recent visit there. A week ago I stayed with him, and enjoyed the church life there in the East End of London. On the Monday I went to hear Bill Wilson of Metro Ministries, New York.  Bill has the world's largest Children's Sunday School, and he speaks powerfully about Faith for our Children. I also to the opportunity to visit the Myanmar Embassy to arrange my visa. It is the only country that I am visiting that I actually need a visa. This week I week there again, I've got the visa, so it's all systems go! I also had a great day with my  vicar friend at a New Wine Network Mini Conference where we heard an old friend of my brother, John Coles.
Other great news is I have arranged for a friend to stay at my house while I am away. More about that later.

The Obama Trail

One of the reasons for writing this blog is to invite my friends to pray for me. I have decided to go on a world tour following "The Obama Trail" and visiting the places where he lived.

So here is a list of the places I will visit:-
1. Chicago (Where Obama did community work, and where he came  to faith)
2. Honolulu  (Where Obama was born and went to school)
3. Sydney (Any world tour has to include Sydney!)
4. Jakarta (Where Obama went to school and experienced an Asian childhood)
5 & 7. Singapore (To facilitate Myanmar)
6.  Yangon, Myanmar (I went to Myanmar [Burma] last year and made friends I want to visit)
8. Hong Kong (Where I lived for many years, and still have many friends there)

This will be the most extensive trip I have ever been on, it's quite daunting and I would appreciate your prayers. I will let you know the dates later. Tomorrow I go to the Myanmar Embassy to get my visa.

The FAITH of Barack Obama

To help me write my book I have been reading books about Barack Obama by various authors.The FAITH of Barack Obama by Stephen Mansfield is a fascinating read, I thoroughly recommend it!

Today, being Sunday, I have had more free time. I'm about half way through this book now, and I've been trying to make notes as I go along, so today has been a good day to catch up with my note-taking. I'll post some more comments on this book next time.

Checking out where Barack Obama lived.

It’s been a few days since my last post, But I’ve been away visiting friends and also quite busy at work.
When writing my book and creating the artwork I want it to be as genuine as possible. I’ve been reading up about Barack Obama. I also want to visit the important places in his life. So I’m planning a world tour visiting the different where places he lived. I plan to visit Chicago, Honolulu and Jakarta. I can now reveal that this is all going ahead. I will give more details later. Now all I need is a “House Sitter” to stay in my house while I am away.

My friend at the checkout!

One of my best friends, I’ll call him Brother “A”, goes to my church and also works at Tesco. Here’s a photo of him:-

This shows  Brother “A” serving at a Tesco checkout. Today has been a normal day at Tesco, and I often do a little shopping after my shift. And so it was this evening. When I had got what I needed,  I went to  his checkout. It’s always good to see him with his infectious smile. What a blessing friends are!

Yes, Indonesia here I come!

I've been in touch with my friends in Indonesia, and my Travel Agent, and a trip is planned. As they say... watch this space!

Obama in Indonesia - must look into that

Not much to report today except the fact that Barack Obama had an interesting childhood and part of it was spent in Indonesia. I have friends in Indonesia, and they say I'm always welcome. Indonesia here I come!

Friends are such a blessing!

I don’t work at Tesco every day, and on Mondays I usually work at our church office. So first thing I was dashing round the house trying to tidy it for my friends who were coming to tea. Then it was off to the church office. It was such a rush that I didn’t get the dishes done after breakfast! At the  church office our pastor spoke to me about a project he’s starting. He wants to drill a bore-hole to provide water for an African village. He asked me if I would like to join him on a trip to Kenya next year .... and more besides.... could I lead a small team to do Children’s Ministry while we were out there? You never know, some of you reading this blog might join me on that trip.

My church office days finish much earlier than my Tesco days! I dashed back home, biscuits and milk in hand, thinking how I needed to wash the kitchen floor and what should greet me? .... dirty dishes in the kitchen sink! Well, they got done as did the kitchen floor and the hoovering but I still had a duster in hand when the doorbell rang. My friend, his delightful little daughter and heavily pregnant wife arrived. I won’t share their names here to protect their identities. He went off briefly to park the car and then we all settled down to tea, cake,  and  biscuits. I was able to take the little girl into the garden to look at the flowers and feed the birds. She loved to put her little fingers into the bird bath and see the ripples and feel the cold wet water!  I was able to take to some photos that I hope will help me in my efforts to produce my book about Barack Obama. It was such a happy time and my friends were so gracious. What a blessing they are!

Harvest is coming!

Yes, many churches are celebrating Harvest Festival today. Our church is a little too non-conformist for that! Besides, I was helping in the Children's Church! But I did manage to do a couple of rough sketches for the first 2 pages of my book. Tomorrow some friends from my church are coming to tea. I hope they might be able to help me with the book... We'll see....

Our Tesco is such a nice place!

I work at Tesco on Saturdays, in the afternoon so I was able to go to our church conference in the morning. It  was interesting because the speaker was a YWAM leader at Holmstead Manor when I did my DTS training School there many years ago. 


Anyway I was on the checkouts for part of the time, and  one of the people who came to my checkout was a colleague doing her shopping. 


“Have you just finished your shift and you’re about to go home?” I asked
“No,” she replied, “I’m on holiday!”
“You can’t keep away from this place!”
“Well I have to do my shopping and I like this shop better!”


So there you are! I’m not the only one who says it’s a nice shop! So I thought you would like a photo of it....

Looks inviting doesn't it! But what with the conference and working I didn’t get anything done for my Obama book! More next time!

The Summer is over, the real work is about to begin.

Yes, it’s raining here in the South of England and I am about to go to work at the Tesco Extra Store where I work. Recently they asked me to change to a later shift. This has some advantages, this week we have a conference at our church and I was able to go along and help for the morning session. There was a need for helpers in the crèche, so I volunteered and was helping to look after the children. But I was able to hear the message over our  loud speaker system.

“How’s the book going?” You may ask. Well, I’m still reading up about Barack Obama - more about that next time as I must go to work now!