Culture Day

Today was 'Culture Day' at IMC. Yesterday, we were told of some new cultural rules that we were expected to adhere to during the course of today. These included dressing smartly, and the men having to be accompanied by someone else if they wanted to travel around. Also, they could only speak to a woman if she initated the conversation. It was a good learning experience to help us to think about the norms and expectations of different cultures. Daniel and Sophia got involved as well, although Sophia as a girl was meant to wear a dress that came below the knee. The dress I chose for her used to be long, but it seems as if she has grown! Daniel was also meant to wear a shirt, but the only shirt we had was part of a pirate costume, so he went off to nursery dressed as a pirate. Although I explained briefly that we were taking part in a culture day, some things got lost in translation and I picked him up later to discover that the children at nursery has also been joining in with 'Pirate Day' and following Pirate rules! Tomorrow, they are even having a treasure hunt! I love the fact that the nursery got involved - a true cross-cultural experience - and I also love the fact that the nursery leaders may have thought that we were having a pirate day here at IMC; I have images of us all chasing around the place looking for buried treasure. Maybe later in the term?...

The Next Steps...

So, here we are at IMC in Selly Oak, Birmingham. After what feels like a long time of preparation, we have begun the long road to Cusco. It has been a good first week and we have already made friends. This will come as no surprise to many, but there was always a slight fear that we would turn up for missionary training and find that everyone else was super-holy and saintlike. However - and I mean this in the best possible way - everyone is refreshingly normal, with the same doubts, questions, and in some cases, sense of humour as we have. I think that me and Neil are both going to really enjoy the training and appreciate the time when the children are in nursery. When we are all together, the time is precious, partly because we are catered for and don't have to spend time cooking!

One of our first assignments is to prepare a biography of a missionary. I have chosen to look at Dorothy Day and am already challenged by some of the things that she said:

'The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of the heart; a revolution which has to start with each one of us.'

'We have all known the long loneliness, and we have found that the answer is community.'

In other matters, we have already had to visit the walk-in health centre, due to awful nappy rash (Sophia, of course...) and we have been in quarantine to a tummy bug. I have felt icky over the weekend, following a nasty virus the week before. I think that it is a mixture of fresher's flu, new nursery and finally having a chance to chill out after a hard August. If you like to pray, please pray that we will all soon return to full health... in time for Neil's hernia op on Friday!

He did it!

We were both hoping to run the Hackney Marshes 10k on Saturday, 11 September. Sadly, I came down with a virus and, despite working hard to train for it, I couldn't take part and spent the morning in bed watching Cemetery Junction! Neil on the other hand, completed it in 51 mins 33 secs (unofficial time), which is much better than I would have done! I am still hoping to run 10k beofre Christmas. Please contact us if you would like to retrospectively sponsor Neil, or sponsor me when I eventually get to do it! Hopefully, I can post a pic of Neil in action at some point.