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Every so often Joni hijacks my camera for a little sojourn.  These are a selection of the shots that I found on my data-card after his circuit of the house today. 

There were several of Danny from close quarters.  He loves his brother.  They play and fight, and play and fight, and play and fight.  Although Joni normally likes to keep his distance when the snot levels reach these proportions. 

He lost his first baby tooth this afternoon, which he’s been looking forward to for months.  “See that white spot on that picture mummy?…

… That’s my tooth!” 

Monday is usually house-blitzing day, so he follows around after me n’ my mop bucket requesting regular estimates as to when I might be available to do something more interesting. 

We bought his first second hand brio train set for his second birthday, and nearly four years later, of today’s 35 photos, 10 are of his current layout. 

This is his wall calendar which I made to help him understand the distance between Danny’s birthday in May, and his in September (i.e. before he drove me crazy asking every half an hour whether it was nearly his birthday yet)

And this is our wood stove which comes into its own at this time of year.  He loves helping to light it, and to feed it with paper and wood.  A true Scout my boy. 

“In our haste for a cosy walk with Jesus, we turn him into a soft toy”. 

This week’s quote from our friend Ben, (someone whose spiritual common sense I most admire.)

A family of mice were out for a walk when they were ambushed by a cat.  Quick as a flash, father mouse jumped up and bellowed, "Bow-wow!"   The cat ran away.  "What was that about Dad?" asked the baby mouse.  "Well my son, now you see why it’s important to learn a second language."

Unashamedly plagiarising… uh I mean drawing your attention to someone else’s work… Maybe I need to do something about my caffeine addiction, but I am right with this guy;

I have heard several Christian songs use the line “Grace like rain”, speaking of God’s great grace pouring down on us. It’s not a BAD analogy, but I have always felt it could be better. Who (besides health freaks) really loves water? Yes, I know we need it, but what do we enjoy and need more than water? The answer is obviously COFFEE. Can I get an Amen right there from the choir!

The blog entry is actually mostly about his experience of learning Spanish (in Spain).  He has some interesting points to make as well as the coffee analogy, and you can check it out by following this link.   Since I’ve acknowledged the source of the quote I’m not plagiarising at all, so caffeine remains my only vice…  Maybe ask my husband for a second opinion on that. 

Yours for a couple of pesos from our local supermarket, any prizes for guessing what this item might be?

It is a bath sponge.  

Or possibly a cash-strapped alternative to silicone implants? 

Someone stole my mug from the plaza where I was playing with the children.  She picked it up from near the swings where I’d left it, wrapped it in a child’s blanket and hid it under her arm.  I asked her if she’d seen it, but she said no, and since there wasn’t a lot else I could do without accusing her of stealing my stuff, I decided that discretion is the better part of valour.  We only actually have four mugs in the house, so losing 25% of them is a bit annoying, but it won’t change my life.  Although it did make me wonder why she did it. 

San Francisco is a well-off city in Argentinean terms.  Average vehicle ownership is two cars per household, and even in the poorest neighbourhoods people travel by moped and watch cable TV, so why would anyone steal a mug? 

I think the clue is in this snippet of conversation overhead in the corner shop the other day;

“Alfonsin (a previous president) never stole as much as this one (current president)”

“Only because he wasn’t in power long enough; we didn’t give him time to.” 

Brazilian educator Paolo Freire developed a theory of the self sustainability of oppressive regimes, as the oppressed at the bottom of the pile seek leadership not to bring about change, but in order to become the oppressor. 

So, what can we do?  Pray that the light of self-respect might find its way in through the cracks in this broken society.  And then buy some new crockery. 

I have put my reflection on Rahab the prostitute up under the sermons tab for those who read Spanish (or who like to have a laugh at your favourite online translator.)

For various reasons the weekend turned into a trial by offspring.  We did start discussing the relative merits of selling them for chemical experiments versus slavery.  I also remembered that Jonathan Swift wrote A Modest Proposal, which is quite a handy piece of prose for such occasions.  Thankfully things have improved today so they have won a reprieve, but I’m holding onto the link in case of future need. 

I’ve been singing a little home-made bath-time ditty to the tune of Boney M’s Brown Girl in the Ring, so I had to find the real version for Joni the other night.  It’s aged a bit since I was seven, but this, my boys, is part of your cultural heritage.  Although these days you might find yourself arrested under the anti-terrorism act if you wore those shorts without a proper licence. 

Boney M. Brown Girl in the Ring.

Ministry opportunities are a bit like catching a bus… Wait out in the rain for years on end (especially where I come from in small-town UK) and then three show up at once.  But it’s difficult to figure out which of the proposed ministry opportunities is a real opportunity, whereas I have never had a problem identifying a bus.   This week there have been a couple of possible opportunities put our way; a new church plant, a new prison initiative, but at the moment it is hard to see whether either of them might go anywhere or if they’re just someone’s daydream on a rainy Tuesday.  I guess even Google was once someone’s daydream… but then for every Google how many others never went anywhere?  Pope Francisco the other week said something interesting which is that a church that looks inwards ends up sick, and a church that steps outside itself runs the risk of suffering an accident, but it is better to be “accidented” (you can say that in Spanish) from crossing the road than sick from navel gazing.  So maybe it’s time for taking some new risks and see where we might end up. 

Meanwhile I’m supposed to be writing a reflection on Rahab the prostitute (there’s an alternative career path if it all goes wrong…).  So far I’ve got a main heading of “Uneducated foreign woman recognises a big God when she sees one, and ends up featured in the Hebrews hall of the Greats”.  So now we need to unpack it. 

But first I have to do something about lunch.

I’m a legal alien.  I’m an English-woman in the 25th of May parade. 

25th May 1810 was the event known as “la Revolución de Mayo” (the May Revolution) in Buenos Aires, which was part of a series of manifestations, ultimately culminating in Argentina’s independence from Spain.  Each year “el 25 de Mayo” is celebrated with parades in every town centre up and down the country.  I had never taken part in a parade before; we tend to keep a low profile where patriotic phenomena are concerned, so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. 

“Have you ever seen one of those old Soviet films where the army and all the tanks  march past the communist leaders?”  Said our Scout district leader. 

And that is more or less what it was; a civilian march past.  No tanks in sight, although there were more military than I would have thought one small town could possibly contain, along with every band, school, sports club, dance troop, goodness knows whoever else, and of course the Scouts, all marching past a temporary stand upon which sat the mayor and a bunch of local politicians, councillors, and other dignitaries. 

This is the picture from the local paper, featuring one of the primary schools;

And our bit looked like this;

I’m sure Dave Burnett (our anthropology tutor from way back when) would have had plenty to say about civil religion.  It was an interesting cultural experience, which I did quite enjoy, despite (because?) it being quite unlike anything I have ever previously encountered.  O-oh I’m an alien…

Today I had a nearly free morning because my English student cancelled, and the car is in the workshop, so I can’t get out to the village either.  So after a mums’ meeting at school (I have to dress up as a cat for assembly next week, let’s not talk about it) I finally got behind my computer for the first time in daylight hours in a while. 

What’s new?

Danny had his second birthday last week, so I sent a cake and all the gubbins in to nursery on Friday to “do” his birthday at nursery in the morning, and then we had another cake etc. at home in the afternoon.  They said he spent the whole morning singing happy birthday to himself.  It is is favourite song, and he can sing it in two languages, which as my mum says is actually quite impressive to be able to sing in two languages by your second birthday.  We just take it for granted.  The kids spent the afternoon chasing each other round the dining room table:

We had the first Scout camp of the academic year, which went off in usual Scoutly fashion:

The car is in the workshop.  That’s not new.  But it is in a different workshop, belonging to someone who is described as expensive but honest.  That would be new.  Especially if they actually fixed it. 

The fridge has also broken down today.  Luckily for the contents of the fridge, the temperature here has dropped like a rock the last few days.  Although it was up to five degrees when we woke up this morning, which was quite nice for us after several days of waking up to see frost in the plaza opposite our unheated house.  The frost is quite pretty, but the house is too cold to appreciate fully the finer artistic merit of Antarctic weather systems. 

Joni and I are working on the latest book in our “reading scheme” series.  This one is about sharks.  I’m currently pondering the notion that there have been far more sharks eaten by people than people eaten by sharks.  So who is the deadliest species? 

And somewhere in the recesses of what is left of my brain in between creating cakes, teaching English and running around after kids, I am chewing over this paradox:  Jesus was rebellious to the cross, and he was obedient to the cross.  Which is about as far as I have got, but I am sure that there would be big implications if I can get my head round it.