The sky has turned dark, the thunder rolls fighter jets booms over the city and the waters of the Danube become disturbed fretting about the upcoming storm. It's been the weather all week, the sweltering temperatures of thirty plus have been reduced back to their adolescence and coats have been shaken off their pegs once more. I've retreated this week back into my hermit being, as the list of activities shortened and I begged off unnecessary engagements just to stay and be and rest my weary bones. The plans I held so close of doing something, a mark to leave, a legacy of unashamed witness, finally feel like they are moving. And in my fear of finance and feasibility, I find myself falling into those arms again, calling me to 'get back up again' reminding me that there's enough in love, in mercy, in grace to carry me through, to do his will. And so I step out again, out of these walls I've renamed home and into the streets that drain me and drive me. Its been uplifting and destroying this week, things have grown and died as fresh shoots spring up in their place. The complacency of home shattered and lovingly glued back together. 'My project' as it has been carelessly termed is simple in it's execution and hopeful in it's practice. I want to do some detached community work with the young teens and students who meet on the streets in the centre. To challenge them to ask questions, to look past the answers they saw as manipulative, and to see if in the things they dismissed there was any truth. My agenda is obviously motivated by the bigger hope, but also by the apathy that hides its face so well but leaves it's offspring to run wild. Well aware that this blog is read by people in many countries I shall leave it as ambiguous as that, but feel free to e-mail me for more details.
The city has come alive in the heat of summer. Out of the cracks blanketed in dust, and buildings whose walls become claustrophobic and airless, the people spill into action like fireworks. The dreams of the winter see festivals plying their passions to the people, carpeting walls with posters and lighting up the air with sound. I retuned to this world to find the museums stamping their culture into the city, opening wide all doors and turning shop displays and side-walks into brief history lessons and art installations. For a single ticket price hundreds came and moved like a swarm between Roman helmets and pictures of lavatories, a tank parked in the pedestrian street way and long forgotten advertisements, though old buildings and park demonstrations to see the exhibits of each and every kind. Monday saw a return to reality, an English lesson and then a walk to see a workshop and be given a mirror! American corner's conversation group in the evening wandered beyond the building to the street and outside an establishment with pints of beer and laughter we continued. And so my week of promise began, and it did not disappoint. Tuesday's treat was keenly anticipated, a trip to Vrbas to see some evangelism in action, a chance to find out theology and approach, a lesson I hold well for my future plans! Wednesday also had an invited to return to Vrbas but instead I sought out older laid plans, to return to haunts I had missed. It was lovely to return to the stumbling and somewhat confusing lesson of student english where I am more and more relied upon as a walking dictionary, and humbling to find a business term that I couldn't recognise! Delivering Viennese gifts during the lesson break proved a test in new friends discovery and reassuringly joyful. After food I wandered into the outreach work the American guys are doing with students, an evening on personalities drifting into talk of theology and God while laughing in the cooling evening. Then stumbling back to my friends from earlier, to see the land of student-hood the project reaches. The evening had passed and morning hours were near, buses were sought and sitting in the shelter I started to talk about my plans, my hopes and dreams, the ideas that has been forming the past week in Vienna. I was so excited to voice the visions I had that by the time the final bus came I did not want to stop, my feeling infectious we joined the weary band of travellers together and talked all the journey back to her house where I crashed the night and remained trapped the following morning with no sun screen. Thursday night was going to once again be a late one, with the launch of a friends rap album and it's associated party, a huge occasion for those involved. Totally out of my depth and feeling very lost every time I turned round I found eyes I recognised, places to go, people to talk to, and the voice whispering my name. Another launch was prepared on Friday, this one to take place next week. I sat in MNRO offices and cut paper as CD copies were made and prepared of the video that has been filmed, and of which I am a part. By the time I dragged by weary body home I sat exhausted from the week but glowing from the excitement of starting to share my ideas and eager to put digital pen to paper and make a real proposal. Not exactly spring from my bed for the Roma children on Saturday morning but happy see their smiles and stories, hearing about 'Baby Exit' the next day and promising my attendance after obligations of church and the photographic project. The original evening plans cancelled and reformed shortly after I left the children involved rock music in a small field by the station and so my week ended and the next rolled it's way into being. This week I have talked about God so unashamedly, been asked about him so much, been challenged by him, angered by him, and wrapped in his love so completely I can not begin to describe. i wonder what the following week with uncover? I so want to be able to decipher Cyrillic script and complex gramatics and find a way of giving life to the words that I fail to describe. Sometimes I wonder if amongst the noise and the vile that this place can so emit if there is anything I could do for them to even remember me? Other days the beauty and peace of the place sinks into my soul, humbling my fractured self image. If I embark upon my own quest in this land then who would be my guardian angels, when all around me life could become so very complex. When would hope become simple and life realign to clocks ticking. Or do I even need that, do I plan and place in comprehensible slots the ideas that bubble through the cauldron of my neurons so that I can keep my public God safe inside the conservative limits of acceptability. I had a dream and in its moment of waking sleep I saw the city alive to questions. But dare I follow this vision or is it merely a quest for glory? Dare I step out of my limit of rules and permission slips and run through the world with arms abandoned to the sky and voice lifted in the hope that someone may come and ask the simple word 'why'? I stepped onto the train, apprehension outweighing the excitement, found a guard and showed my ticket. I was led back along the now moving carriage and a compartment unlocked for me. I sat down, now devoid of both ticket and conductor, in a compartment that bore a different number to the ticket I had purchased. Finally he returned with sheet and blanket and a flat pillowcased rectangle. I was instructed to safety chain the door and refused when I asked to retain my ticket. So I spent my first night on a sleeper train, being tossed on the rails like a small ship in the squall. 1am drew and my passport was checked as promised, the 2am check caught me more off guard and the duty free about 10mins later baffled me wholly. By 8am, with a touch of sleep under my belt, but still alone in the cabin, the conductor put his hand through the gap the chain allowed and returned mt ticket. 1 hour later I stepped off the train into the heat and day of Vienna. I saw quite a bit of Vienna for my first day, sat in a bakery walked in town, went to a party on the outskirts and tried to stay awake. Coming back into old Europe the difference is quite marked. It's not just the sharp rise in prices but the order and style of the passers-by. Vienna is very ordered, within 24 hours I felt like a marble inside a helter skelter run. Everything is coded, numbered, identified by colour and term. Even the lights under the escalators show which tube line you are on. And it's so touristic and multicultural that every 5th person I pass is speaking English. I feel very lost here, like a grubby postit note stack at an efficiency conference. But there is reassurance in the order. You know the bus will arrive exactly when it is due and with that reliability you know certainties face. I can see the attraction of the city for many but my heart already longs to return to novi sad... The week passed, with the weather going colder and drizzle setting in. i played tourist and relaxed but by the time i returned to the station to sit again on a night train (this time not alone and in a much better quality train) i knew that the plans and passions i had drempt during the week would be my projects for the next three months of mission! I'm having a deliberately slow day today. The TV sleepily plays it's stories in the background and the washing machine whirls it's last spin cycle with it's constant whine. It's Friday and the working week has drawn it's heavy curtain. Outside my window people sit in the sunshine and talk to friends, the abandoned offices settle into the weekends dust and the multifaceted leisure activities begin. In this place the quiet soothes me and I twist the clothes tightly into my bag trying to get everything in before my departure. My mind wanders to three months ago when I stood and did this in the vicarage bedroom, the choice and re-choice of suitable clothes and the inevitable feeling that some decisions will be wrong. The excitement of the new adventure and the squashing of apprehension. This trip will be a small one, a few hours north to visit a friend in Vienna, an excuse to leave the country for legal reasons, and a marking of the half way point in my mission. So what have I learnt, what great revelations have I uncovered to share when I return home... I'm not sure. I've learnt, undeniably, though what exactly I am too close to see from this position. I have grown, and I will grow of that I am certain. Though what about the objectives I had when I came here, many lay abandoned on the cold floor and their resurrection, though begun, is slow and not at the half way point yet. But I have begun to resurrect them, I have found and discovered the youth and the outreach, I have glanced the church and the problems it faces, I have seen this land and painted the faces of it's inhabitants to the point where I know names and hopes and fears, even if only fleetingly. This coming week I shall miss my students, the conversation groups and friendship circles. I shall think of this land and hope abundant I shall return, for three months is but a drop in the ocean of what is to discover and I have two drops! The trees are submerged by the riverside, the boats drift up and down the still water and the people pass by walking their chores into action. For days you wandered the desert finding cactus and lizard as friend and now you return to the baptiser and reacquaint yourself with the cousin, as you find your way back from the single voice into the choir of life. And so my brothers and sisters greeted me, distant though they are and unrecognisable to view. I found them out, living in the cracks between my neighbours. I heard them talk about the relative that I also knew, how his presence was tangible and his wandering stories loved. I walked back into my Galilee and in that place I felt the warmth that you had left as you passed before me. As you did I walk the water edge, aware of my singularity and yet unafraid by my task. Before me stands a world of possibilities and yet only a single path will I follow. Dare I call the fishermen to come fish, or the dancers to come twirl? Something hinders my movements and releases it's grip in a moment. For why should the fishermen fish alone or the dancers twirl without a partner. As I glance my eyes around I see the musicians screaming out their song, I see the wooden shacks and mud brick houses replaced by asphalt and concrete, I see the ruins of plans unfulfilled and the frustration of graffiti protest. With this modern Galilee I to walk the broken pavement with tired feet and dusty shoes, as in need of cleansing as any first century centurion. But no longer am I the lone voice, no longer am I simply a small whisper in the crowd. Around me I see huddled in the shadows the faithful, the followers of the last great uprising and the cynicism of their eyes. In their hands they hold jewels untold but fear and fighting left them so possessive that their neighbours starve for bread. Beyond my view I see the world anew, where the jewels are laid into the floor and are as cracked and dusty as the streets. I hear the musicians scream a new song that makes even the deaf dance. I see the walls of the town painted with art of spectacular vivid shades. I hear the young call out and the old answer with truth and patience and wisdom untold, the youth replying with grace and beauty and simplicity compounded. |
The other siteWho is GfeefGfeef is the name that my writings have been under for some years. As far as I know it's unique to me. Originally from the UK, I now live in Serbia but continue to have a passion for childrens and youth ministry. Archives
October 2014
|