Author: Hazel Frost

Life’s chugging along as usual, one kid at school, the other trashing the house, the car being fixed; normal service in the Frost household. The car had to go back in to fix the last fix when we realised that they’d left a spanner hanging out of the undercarriage, and the undercarriage itself was dripping oil, fun all the way. But it seems to be OK now, for the next two minutes at least.
I was writing a sermon on and off over the last week or so, on Ephesians 6 (Efesios in Spanish). It’s up under the sermons tab for those who read Spanish or want to look at the pictures. It went down well this morning, received a rousing applause at the end anyway which isn’t how we normally respond to the message. It’s probably a moot point as to whether it’s good or bad that folk like what you say, but it’s nice to be appreciated anyway.

The sun was shining so we took the rest of the day off and went to Devoto, small town half and hour away which has a sizeable plaza and kid’s play area, and an ice-cream shop and a duck pond full of turtles. I don’t know what we’ll do with ourselves when our kids have grown out of thinking of Devoto as an exciting afternoon out, but thankfully that’s a few years away yet.

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost

It’s a funny old life this one.  Martin is currently holed up in the house of an ex-prisoner, where the XP is so far trying to avoid talking to him because of what he knows that Martin knows but doesn’t want to acknowledge that he knows Martin knows… fun and games, Martin’s hoping to bring him back here tomorrow.  Another XP is in a live-in relationship with a transvestite and says he wants to get out at least some of the time, but he’s also financially dependent on his partner which is a real concern in a land where “job-seekers allowance” isn’t even a pipe-dream.  Both of these guys are Christians, and we do believe that both of them have a genuine faith even if their current life-styles are more complicated than the bitching about their neighbours and looking down their noses at the church down the road which most Christians are free to indulge in without having their salvation drawn into question by those around them.  The question is how to stand with these guys (and others) in a way that says we know that you don’t want things to be this way but we understand you can’t do it right now? 

I finally tracked down where my itinerant friend is currently living, after several months of trying to make head or tail of her directions (beyond the big tree, near the horses, past the red car that sometimes parks there… ) coupled with the fact that she’s changed location half a dozen times (part of the job description).  And having found her she’s currently hiding from me having conned a third party into phoning me up to try and extract more money from me.  She knows I’ll be annoyed about that, we’ve known each other for a few years now.  Question is, do I wait for her to come to me (she always does in the end) or should I go to her first, now that I know where to find her. 

When I hear my husband’s phone conversations “Let me check that I’m understanding you, what I think I’ve heard you say is that you’re working as a male prostitute…” it makes me feel truly proud that he’s at the real chalk-face dealing with the grit of societies casualties.  But as he says, why is it that prisoners is considered sexy ministry, whereas chasing around town after funny old itinerant ladies wouldn’t get half the press coverage in a mission magazine, and yet we purport to believe that to Jesus both people would be worth exactly the same. 

And when I see so many mission related bulletins and presentations it strikes me that so much stuff is about being big; big conferences on big stages with big names and middle class people with clean faces singing songs and gazing upwards in adoration (presumably of the expensive paint on the shiny ceiling, can’t imagine what else there is to look at up there), it is kind of hard not to feel a tiny bit smug that while all that racket’s going on, we’re standing with (walking with/limping along with) the people who Jesus might have walked with had he walked in Argentina.  But at the same time, I am also totally aware that had we been able to fore-tell the future and see ourselves today before we arrived, we might well have run several miles in the opposite direction.  So the fairest thing I can say is that if we are on “the road less travelled”, then it is either by accident of fate, or possibly because the road has chosen us. 

Knock, Knock!
Who’s there?
Says!
Says who?
Says me, that’s who?

My commitments for the afternoon were cancelled, and Joni had a last-minute play-date at someone else’s house, so not only did I manage to make the final adjustments to the hoodie I’ve been knitting for the last couple of months:

but I also managed to make a pair of booties for Danny out of the oddment of wool left over:

 

and he even kept them on for the rest of the day which is more impressive than you realise.  I used this pattern after trawling through many and discarding anything which said “slip one” “increase across the row” “circular needles” or any other vocabulary that I didn’t understand, so believe me these are eeeeasy.  The author reckons it’s for nought to three months, but using chunky wool and 5mm needles they fit Danny’s chubby little pork-pie feet just fine.  I sewed the cuff down and used it to house a cord which I tied up at the back, which might be why he didn’t take them off, although he’s never not managed to extract himself from his trainers within thirty seconds.  He did however toss them into the bath after I took them off for him this evening, so maybe that’s a statement, and now I have to dry them out and the house has gone into freezing mode for the night.  He put his socks into the toilet yesterday too.  I already have the next batch of wool waiting in the wings for Joni who also wants a hoodie, hopefully before spring arrives and the temperature goes through the roof.  I’m thinking I should make it big enough to last next winter too.  Or maybe I should just go the whole hog and knit a marquee to last him into adulthood. 

Looking back at the last several family/minutiae orientated blog entries I probably should state that we are doing some work too, I might even try and write about it at some stage.  Meanwhile if you’re interested in what’s going on around here in a general sort of way, check out this article from the Economist the other day, which sadly seems to be all too accurate; the same information has appeared in the local press here at any rate.  Fears for the economy abound, although looking at what’s going on around the rest of the world we probably might as well be here as anywhere else as far as economic stability is concerned, and despite the gloom and moaning there were still no tables to be had at our local coffee house when we attempted to make our contribution to the local economy on Sunday afternoon. 

Knock, Knock!
Who’s there?
Delores.
Delores who?
Delores my shepherd.

………………………………………..

Knock, Knock!
Who’s there?
Armageddon!
Armageddon who?
Armageddon out of here!

(jokes courtesy of best-knock-knock-jokes.com they don’t make’em like they used to…)

Night night. 

Another couple of dodgy home videos to impress Granny. 

Little brothers playing football; sort of anyway.  Except that the rules are set to ensure that the smallest one never gets the ball!  Danny’s been properly walking for ten days or so, and he’s practising with the dedication of a premier league player.  He’s super-independent; where Joni was “walking” holding hands ages before he actually had any proper balance, Danny doesn’t want anyone to touch him even when he falls flat on his face.  His first words will probably be something like “I can do it all by myself”. 

“a slug on a rug; purple!

an adder on a ladder; red!

a lion with an iron; yellow!

an… “

Mummy, what’s an iron? 

That’s an iron there in the picture

But what’s it for?

Mummy’s moment of realisation; of course, he’s my child, when would he have ever seen an iron, let alone one in use…?

We’re in the first week back after the two-weeks of Winter break here.  The first few days were filled with freezing drizzle, so our plans for picnics were shelved in favour of the cinema, twice; Madagascar 3 and Ice-Age 4 although the plots have rather blurred together for me; Madagiceage.  Joni likes to sit on the front row which has but one  advantage; namely that Danny can crawl around without being thrown out for public disorder.  I’m sure the other parents think we’re unspeakable, particularly when we pretend we haven’t noticed him eating popcorn off the floor.  Anything for a quiet life, I say, and he’s probably developing some great antibodies.

Then we went to Buenos Aires for a week, starting with a trip to the zoo:-

 

and going on to our annual team conference.  From which we drove home (eight hours, that’s record time for us, it helped that the kids were asleep for most of it) on Wednesday evening and I spent the next two days in a no-man’s land of post-conference fog trying to drum up the brain-power to organise a Scout camp for the weekend just gone:-

 

We took over the rural school at Luis Sauce, where we didn’t do quite as much work on the school as I would have hoped beyond a little light painting, but we did have a good time and the camp-fire was electric (not literally, silly).

The upshot for both events is that I’m still on the team exec of our mission and I’m still the cub-section leader of our Scout group, definitely against my better judgement in both cases, and I’m also now the group-Scout leader which I’m still trying to figure out what that actually means before I decide how bad an idea it was.  In my defence, I have not chosen any of these positions, on the contrary, if I have any self-insight at all it is that leadership is my most un-quality of all and I seek to avoid it at all costs.  So I have no idea why other people find it amusing to shoe-horn me into these roles and I can only assume the major motive in all cases to be desperation, and more fool them when they get the leadership they have chosen. 

And now here we are back at the ranch trying to figure out what it was we thought we were doing before the winter holidays got in the way.  Looking forward to spring mostly I think.  I don’t mind wearing seventeen jumpers and never seeing my own skin on Scout camp when no-one else is going to wash anyway, but I’m not sure I could get away with it for the whole of the next two months at home. 

“I’ll ask Daddy…. he knows everything”  Ego boost to the four-year-old’s male parent. 

I on the other hand may have indoctrinated him too well;

“Mummy, someone’s dropped a sweet paper on the pavement… the police should come and put them in prison”  I wonder if he’s too young to open a discussion on the pluses and minuses of a totalitarian state. 

Me ‘n the Scouts are currently working on a plan for a joint project with the little rural school in Luis Sauce, the hamlet where I go several times a week to extract my young disabled friend.  The school is tiny in both fabric and membership (23 at present) and looks like it hasn’t had a great deal of maintenance within living memory.  The director says that’s because it isn’t widely seen and since all civil service appointments are political, all the money goes to those buildings which are visible by the public in order to maximise photo-opportunities and press coverage, so a hut in a field a long way from anywhere isn’t likely to become anyone’s priority anytime soon.  Hence, the idea is that we hold a Scout camp in the grounds, and the older kids will make themselves useful painting and fixing things, particularly the play equipment, while the younger kids (cub section) will share joint activities, games and the like with the pupils from the school.  At the moment we are holding our breath as the inspector for rural schools has to give permission.  There doesn’t seem to be great rhyme or reason why permission may or may not be granted, and there are apparently no official policies, so we await the whim of the dear inspector.  The current post-holder is rumoured to be particularly conservative when it comes to vetoing school trips and the like, so I’m hoping they’ve had a good day and drunk at least a glass of wine before they get round to reading our project proposal.  I really hope we get the go ahead, but I’m also happy we’ve even reached this point.  Working in partnership, love for ones neighbour, and looking out for folk who society doesn’t particularly notice are all things we’ve tried to model in the last nearly seven years since we’ve been here, and if we’re honest we’ve barely made any inroads into convincing the church that these ideas have any relevance to the gospel they’re preaching, so it’s an encouraging breath of fresh air for me to see the Scouts; kids and leaders alike, rolling their sleeves up and keen to run with a ball I’ve tossed them. 

And, something I have yet to understand… Having been initiated into the over-40’s club on my birthday last year, there’s a running joke in Argentina that all women over the age of forty are blonde, which is of course because just about all of them dye their hair.  I have no idea why they go for blonde, frankly it looks pretty silly when they could go for something that far better showcases their dark skin and dark eyes.  In fact even then I’m still searching for a any reason as to why that would be a good idea.  I’m guessing it’s about looking younger.  But why do they want to look younger?  Most of the young people I know are charming and wonderful, but lacking the sort of common sense that only years of life experience can bring.  So why would I want to disguise myself as someone who has even less common sense than I do?  (although it is a moot point; who has the least common sense?  the genuinely young and inexperienced, or those who try to emulate them?)  Needless to say I shall grow old with neither grace nor shame, granting myself the freedom to gobble up samples in shops and run my stick along railings to make up for the sobriety of my youth.  I may even start to wear purple. 

Life here’s been somewhat heavy of late with various unexpected twists and turns over the last few days. Most of it’s not our story to tell, which hasn’t stopped us finding ourselves in up to our necks in conflicts and counteraccusations. Tonight peace reigns, although I couldn’t say exactly whether that’s because the storm has passed, or because we’re in the calm of the eye and the worst is yet to come. I’m not sure I have the wisdom or the experience to deal with the meteorites that it appears to amuse the Deity to be throwing our way at the moment. 

So here’s a blog about some highly peripheral matters that I shouldn’t get into trouble for talking about… 

We figured out how to make custard!  There’s a vanilla pudding mix here in the supermarket masquerading under the name of “flan”, which normally needs to go cold in the fridge for eight hours before it even thinks about thickening, but adding a spoonful of flour before boiling produces something that isn’t quite Ambrosia but more than meets with Joni’s approval. 

While we were away, baby food in jars has arrived in our local supermarket.  This seems pretty lunatic because people here by and large know how to cook from raw ingredients and are generally perfectly capable of feeding their kids without resorting to over-processed gloop over-packaged by a multinational company.   Ah but, over on the other side of the world, people in the global north buy fewer jars of baby food than they used to because the market has wised up to the idea that over-processed over-packaged gloop might not be the most nutritious option for a developing infant.  So the multinationals need a new market, and here’s the clever / cynical bit… if the advertising suggests that sophisticated Europeans behave in a certain way, then even normally intelligent Argentineans do seem to fall over themselves to copy it.  So while parents in Europe are abandoning the product, advertising companies will focus on persuading parents in Argentina that the real way to look like a sophisticated European is to behave like a soap-opera character on a sink housing estate.  Will it work?  I would like to hope not, but we have to acknowledge the many advertising campaigns over many years which have successfully persuaded millions of otherwise intelligent people in both Europe and Argentina that the way to express your individuality is to buy the same products as everyone else.  So the nutrition of Argentina’s next generation hangs in the balance. 

From the corner grocery store in Argentina to the corner chemist in Letchworth.  I replaced my mooncup while we were in the UK and was disproportionally happy to discover that they’re now available in Boots.  It’s not that I’m a particular fan of Boots, but this is really good news because it means that what was previously considered a mad-hippy-alternative product has been mainstreamed, and we can finally break the taboo and talk about feminine hygiene a mere decade or two behind the should-have-been-parallel discussions about returning to reusable nappies in the baby-care department.  I have been using my previous mooncup-equivalent (different manufacturer) for the last twelve years and it would probably have seen me through except that I’ve given birth twice in the interim, and this is probably as much detail as I can go into on a family show so if you want to know why that’s important do email me off air.  Having reached the age of 40 I’m calculating that model mark 2 should now take me to the end.  Sadly I can’t see reusable sanitary protection taking off in any way ever in Argentina despite everything I’ve just said about the power of advertising to persuade otherwise sensible mothers that what their baby really needs is over-processed gloop in a jar. 

To end on a more cheerful note, this is my new toy from the second hand camera stall on Hitchin market (not the walking boot, silly, that’s there for scale): 

It’s low tech, simple, fixed f8, will only work on manual, but it’s lo-o-o-o-o-o-o-n-g and it only cost thirty quid, and he even threw in a nice condition sony tripod for another tenner.  I’m looking forward to going out to Miramar and testing it on the flamingos sometime soon.  In fact the mental image of photographing flamingos in Miramar combined with a  hummed backdrop of “in Christ alone…” (repetitively and tunelessly, don’t you wish you were here?!) has been keeping me going most of the day today in between dodging meteors in some of the more immediate parts of my life. 

In Christ alone my hope is found,
He is my light, my strength, my song;
this Cornerstone, this solid Ground,
firm through the fiercest drought and storm.
What heights of love, what depths of peace,
when fears are stilled, when strivings cease!
My Comforter, my All in All,
here in the love of Christ I stand.

In Christ alone! who took on flesh
Fullness of God in helpless babe!
This gift of love and righteousness
Scorned by the ones he came to save:
Till on that cross as Jesus died,
The wrath of God was satisfied –
For every sin on Him was laid;
Here in the death of Christ I live.

There in the ground His body lay
Light of the world by darkness slain:
Then bursting forth in glorious Day
Up from the grave he rose again!
And as He stands in victory
Sin’s curse has lost its grip on me,
For I am His and He is mine –
Bought with the precious blood of Christ.

No guilt in life, no fear in death,
This is the power of Christ in me;
From life’s first cry to final breath.
Jesus commands my destiny.
No power of hell, no scheme of man,
Can ever pluck me from His hand;
Till He returns or calls me home,
Here in the power of Christ I’ll stand.

(Townsend / Getty)

There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace. (Ecclesiastes 3 NIV)

We booked an emergency trip to the UK to say goodbye to my Dad, but events overtook us and we travelled knowing that he had already died some sixteen hours before we left home. 

As expected it was a time of mixed and sometimes intense emotions.  My brother Iain presided at the funeral, I have put his address up here.  I think I found out more about my Dad in those ten minutes than I had ever gleaned from forty years of knowing him; he was a private person where his own life story was concerned. 

But there were also plenty of joys.  In the days before and after the funeral we were blessed with some wonderful quality time with family and friends.  Our smallest boy had his first birthday so we took a selection of cousins to the farm for a picnic:-

   

I think I’ve taken a photo of Joni on that tractor every year since he was Danny’s size(!)

 

Joni has been gradually working his way through some of my favourite ancient Walt Disney films (they don’t make them like they used to; maybe I’m getting old) and he was overjoyed when TAM airlines took us over central London on the way in to Heathrow; “Look Mummy, there’s the bridge from Peter Pan”.  Full credit to him for his sharp powers of observation.  So we did a day out in London and blew some bubbles on our way across his bridge:-

 

   

And there were sunny days… slow mornings… picnics…. real beer… walking the dog…. Granny’s garden…. English strawberries… icecream… family… good friends….

  

  

“Mummy, I want to stay and live in England now”

“Okaaaaay…. (back pedalling while we think about how we’re going to handle this one…)  So why’s that, sweetie?”

“Because of the custard”

I’m still trying to come up with an answer to that. 

“You and I can share the silence
Finding comfort together
The way old friends do
And after fights and words of violence
We make up with each other
The way old friends do
Times of joy and times of sorrow
We will always see it through
Oh I don’t care what comes tomorrow
We can face it together
The way old friends do”   (Abba lyrics, maybe not quite as divinely inspired as Ecclesiastes, but who’s counting?)

Robert Alexander Cant, 2nd April 1926 – 9th May 2012

My dad died peacefully at 4 o’clock this morning.  My mum and sister were with him.  He was 86.

We are leaving for the UK in a couple of hours to be with the family. 

Thanks for your prayers.

The arrival of Winter heralded a frenzy of making things. 

Autumn isn’t a great feature of the San Franciscan calendar and this year it didn’t happen at all; we woke up one morning and the temperature was twenty degrees lower than the previous day, which told us that the cold half of the year had begun.  Evolutionary psychology is a controversial area, so you might prefer a more biological explanation of the nesting instinct, or maybe it’s just that something has to be done to counteract the effect of our flippin’ freezing house, but the arrival of Winter heralded a frenzy of making things.  A cauldron of plum jam, four loaves of bread, a batch of scones, a fruit loaf (for the easiest fruit loaf recipe try this; half a kilo of dried fruit soaked overnight in cold tea, next morning throw in two cups of self-raising flour and an egg and bung it in the oven.  No fat, no sugar, your virtuousness knows no bounds, or at least until you spread it thickly with butter and jam.) 

We dug out the sewing machine from its lonely corner of the office and I ran up matching big-brother/little-brother blue fleecy pyjamas for the kids:-

 

I might not have made them identical but Joni insisted.  I am also part-way through knitting me a jumper although I’m not sure which Winter it might be finished for, and Joni has a request in for one when I’m done.  Oh and Joni and I created a junk-model aeroplane one cold wet evening.  The next job is to put up a few curtains around the place; soft furnishings aren’t a great feature of Argentina and this house appears never even to have had curtain rails, but I managed to pick up a heap of curtains in a sale the other week so it’s time to make them earn their keep.  Although if it gets any colder my nesting instinct may just give up and give way to hibernation.