O Celestial Sphere

The glory of the African sunset can be summed up in one word, and one word only: God. Hannah Trevett, on a visit to Romania, once sat with a toddler looking at the moon. Pointing it out in the sky, she asked the child, 'Look, what's that?' With all the doctrinal accuracy of St Paul, the metaphorical beauty of Shakespeare and the innocence of a five yr old Romanian girl, she replied: 'God.' It's a bit like that.
That is the memory that I want to keep from this past week. It's also the image I want most to communicate to all you friends, prayer-people, blog-surfers and others who are reading this. Sometimes it's blood-red, sometimes it's peach, mauve, pink, orange...it's always big. It always sucks your eyes away from the small things of life. And the hotter, dustier and more miserable the day has been, the more gorgeous it is. Like I said...God.
On Thursday night, after a week that must have lasted since I was born, I sat outside on the kondi [verandah], eating spag bol by the light of a candle. I was too tired to mind the mosquitos much. The power was off, so there was nothing else to do. The sun was directly behind the candle one minute. The next I just had a candle and one of those rare feelings that everything IS going to be ok with the world despite...
In other news, Wik's dog Tiki killed the three remaining puppies born to her niece, Chip. I reversed the Maestro into the shiny new pickup of a big car fan. It was also just after a Bible-study with his mum others that he would prefer we didn't have at all, let alone in his house. Wik's no-claim bonus is no-more. I also came down with a severe cold which many of you have lovingly dubbed a man-flu, though I never mentioned the F word! So not the greatest week in the history of Ian Thomson by the common measuring standards.
This week's CPC service went well, and the young people followed it up by a trip to Chikwawa prison. The last time I went it was with a group of Welsh students on a missions trip, back in July when it was hot. This time the group were all Chichewa speakers with the exception of Matt, a longish term missionary bloke - oh, and it was REALLY hot. Chikwawa is in a rain-shadow behind the hills FR nestles among, and with Malawian summer coming on...yeah, it was rough. The prisoners cowered into one small patch of shade at one end of the courtyard, while we cowered in one opposite them. Whoever happened to be speaking to them had to walk out into the sun to do so. They also had to stand next to the open sewer and the dustbins and shout to be heard. Six of the young people talked to the prisoners about topics ranging from the values of being old to a brief summary of Biblical history. Matt and I picked up a word or two of it here and there, but the prisoners seemed to love it. We also played football with them and apparently drew 1-1 though I don't think we ever actually scored. I wouldn't know though...I attempted to play barefoot and after 5 minutes and 2 blood blisters I spent most of the match hobbling around feeling sorry for myself and shouting useful comments that the Chichewa speakers probably didn't understand: 'Get in, lad!' - 'Middle it!' - 'Use the 1-2, use the 1-2!'
OK, this is strictly for those who are going to diligently pray: pastor Glen's wife is Kerry Halliwell. Her sister in Canada fell from a ladder last week and broke her back. Felix from church has just started a new orphanage on discovering the flaws in many of the existing ones. Since doing so he's had church leaders criticise him, the police try to dump children guilty of witchcraft on him, and unsurprisingly, he's come under some heat from the other orphanages in town. He's going about his work with a smile and a Bible verse ready for every situation. I've been invited to help record some jazz music with a group of Chichewa musicians, which is an awesome answer to prayer, but I'm under a lot of time constraints from work at the mo, so I'm asking for some time to be created in my week, and that I'd not fall for that old stress-lie the devil loves to chuck at us.

And yes, these are my first photos that I've managed to upload. The first one is the view from the kondi at FR, and the second is me helping/hindering Wik flying his twin engine. An awesome privilege!