Martin & Hazel Frost

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. 

This is an armadillo…

… and we ate it.  For a second I could almost imagine I was a real missionary.  24 hours later and we’re all still alive.  Actually if you can let go of the mental image of it cooking in the pot, the meat is really OK, slightly darker than chicken, maybe a bit like a wild duck or something.  Apparently armadillos eat carrion and they like to hang out in cemeteries, so you might also like to work on forgetting that you might be eating someone else’s grandmother. 

Maybe it’s the influence of the armadillo or something, but my kid has some really unusual tastes in food for a kid… I asked Joni what he’d like for lunch:  “Fish pie, and can it have cabbage in it”.  Personally I’m more than happy with fish pie, and I have no problem stuffing it with as many vegetables as he’d like, but aren’t normal kids supposed to demand hamburgers and chicken nuggets? 

“Diez pacientes internados en el Ipad fueron trasladados el jueves por la tarde al nuevo Hospital Florencia Díaz, en barrio José Ignacio Díaz. La medida fue la primera que tomó el nuevo equipo de Salud Mental de la Provincia, después que volviera a ser noticia el deterioro del Ipad y el de otras instituciones que atienden patologías mentales”.  (Newspaper La Voz del Interior 13-04-2012)

Ten patients interned in the IPad were transferred on Thursday afternoon to the new hospital “Florencia Diaz”, in the neighbourhood of Jose Ignacio Diaz.  This was the first measure taken by the new provincial Mental Health team, following renewed publicity regarding the deterioration of the IPad and other institutions attending those with mental health pathologies. 

Further investigation reveals that the IPad in question is an acronym for the “Instituto Provincial de Alcoholismo y Drogadicciones”.  For once I’m not sure Apple would fully appreciate the publicity, but it made me giggle in a childish sort of way.    

I was going to say that Easter this year left me cold.  But actually it didn’t even do that.  So then I was going to say that Easter this year passed me by completely.  But that’s not true either.  Of course I noticed it.  The special school did the stations of the cross.  At Scouts we organised Easter activities and told the Easter story.  It even had a mention in church this morning.  We received Easter greetings in two languages by email and text from friends and colleagues.  No, the thing that Easter didn’t do this year was have any impact on my emotional register in any way shape or form.  Yes it was all very nice, but did it have any meaning?  Not in the slightest.  So here’s the question… If we’re supposed to be “overseas mission partners” (whatever one of those is) or “full-time Christian workers” (ditto) and the earth-shattering (literally) crux of the history of the cosmos and everything I believe isn’t capable of moving me to anything, is it time to find a new day job? 

I am encouraged in a strange sort of way by some newly retired friends who wrote saying how amazing it was finally to have time to reflect properly on the Easter story after forty years in ministry in which household Holy week conversations have mostly consisted of “what time’s supper today?”.  Maybe that’s the sacrifice we’re called to make; by ministering to others we give up the privilege of experiencing it for ourselves.  Or maybe it’s time to find a new day-job. 

I am also encouraged in an even stranger sort of way by a friend who has recently moved to San Francisco.  She is attending what is probably the most solid Bible-teaching church in town, and yet, she says “In San Francisco I feel poor and black, even in the church”.  The fact is that even the best local expression of church is a travesty, a pale imitation of the true body of Christ that we are supposed to be modelling.  The prejudices and petty jealousies of the world are at least as evident within as without.  Why am I encouraged by this? Because it reminds me that in the big history of the world, we were still on Easter Saturday.  Yes Christ has won the victory, but most of the time we do not experience it.  The very best of our best today is a mere shadow of what is yet to come.  We are still waiting for Easter Sunday.  So praise the Lord. 

If I said I was putting my baby in a cage for safekeeping, I would have social services pounding on my door faster than I could say “politically correct”.  But pad the top, chuck in a few soft toys and call it a play-pen, and everything’s just fine.  Semantics is a strange beast. 

 

The reason for the cage uh play pen, is essentially that where Joni’s most trying feature as a baby was that he couldn’t self entertain, Danny’s most trying feature is that he can and does.  Places where he has been found to date include stuck behind the computer trolley, escaping down the front garden path, under the car in the garage, and shut in the bathroom.  He adores Joni, but he drives him crazy trying to join in everything that his clever big brother does.  And then the duet of screaming drives me crazy too, hence the play pen (it’s for me to hide in really).  And since he can’t walk yet there’s almost definitely worse to come. 

Meanwhile Daddy and Joni are very proud of their homework tonight.  It’s the second piece since starting school (Joni that is, Daddy doesn’t remember how many bits of homework he ever had since he never did it anyway).  This time it was make a paper aeroplane and write your name on it so I’m thinking that nuclear physics might still be a while off, but he’s pretty good at joining dots to spell Jonathan.  Levels of chaos meant that it was nearly put off till tomorrow morning, except that Joni cried because we hadn’t done it.  When he’s 14 we can remind him about the time he cried out of keenness to do his homework. 

And on a totally un-related note, our car has now been recovered three times by tow truck in the last two years including twice in the last six months (one of which was yesterday, grrrrrr), not to mention various occasions that the garage round the corner has had to come and pick it up to replace starter motors and fuel pumps.  It has now won itself the accolade of being officially the least reliable car that I have ever owned.  This is quite impressive because it is also the newest and the most expensive.  And I have owned some real heaps as anyone who ever saw that Metro would testify.  In fact this one is still only six years old; I have never owned a car that was younger than 10.  But of course this one was made in Argentina.  At the moment there’s a big hoo-ha going on because President Cristina Kirchner is seriously restricting the flow of foreign goods into the country, which is particularly affecting car and bike parts, and electronic goods.  The hoo-ha isn’t because stuff isn’t available locally, but because locally made products are of such poor quality that even far eastern trash is generally preferable.  Hey guys, since it appears that we’re all in agreement on this, might I make a suggestion….??

Hi Hazel

Here’s some activity you may have missed on Facebook. 

Goofy commented on Mickey’s photo. 

Popeye commented on Olive’s status. 

See notifications?

Dear Facebook. 

Thanks for the heads up.  I know my life isn’t the most fascinating in the world, but it hasn’t yet sunk to the point where I could describe viewing someone else’s snapshots as an “activity”, so I don’t consider that I have “missed” anything for not being there.  And as for the notifications, if the photo-commenting “activity” that I have “missed” is the highlight of everything that has happened since I last went in, then thanks but I’ll skip trawling through the rest. 

Love and kisses

I really really don’t get Facebook.  And I find the fact that I don’t get it kind of frustrating, but at the same time I’m not sure I want to get it in case I turn into the sort of person who could define commenting on other people’s pictures  as an activity.  And the more I see about cyber bullying, and trolling, and all the other nasty stuff that people do to each other on Facebook, and the more I read about how Facebook hides behind the language of “free speech” in order to justify doing as little as possible about even the illegal abuse and obscenity that goes on in its back yard, the more it causes me to recall that Facebook was originally called “Facemash” and its original purpose was to objectify and denigrate.  The human condition is able to find plenty of ways of twisting even good stuff for evil, so when something was intended for evil in the first place then maybe we shouldn’t be surprised at how difficult it is to reclaim it for anything else.  But maybe that’s just me doing sour grapes about stuff I don’t understand.

So what’s news out in the rest of the world?  Well the big news here is that the Priest in charge at the Catholic institution where I’m working has resigned from the priesthood in order to get married.  If you want to read about it in English, then this is the only non-Spanish link I have found.  It has caused quite a stir locally, with a lot of negative publicity, but not because the poor guy has done anything illegal, or even immoral.  They didn’t even elope; he went through the proper channels and hung up his hassock, but it is seen as a betrayal to the church and to his “vocation”.   No-one’s asking my opinion funnily enough, but for what it’s worth I think it’s time the Catholic church in general had a rethink on the commitments they require of their ministers, and in this instance I am personally very much going to miss having the guy around.  He has a humility which I find sadly uncommon amongst the not-Catholic clergy in Argentina.  Walk into the school looking for the priest in charge, and when you eventually spot him, he will probably be disguised in a check shirt and jeans pushing a wheelbarrow, or with his feet sticking out from beneath the undercarriage of the Renault that he’s fixing (yet again).  So I thought I’d try and track him down and give him my blessing to go in peace to love and serve the Lord in his new life.  Only tracking him down is proving a bit tricky since he is predictably keeping a low profile, and I’m struggling to imagine who might both be able to furnish me with his contact details, but not lynch me if they knew why I wanted them.  Which is why I was on Facebook trying to find him, only he appears not to have a page.  He probably has more sense.