This post comes with a PG certificate

It is really amazing how well our kids know us. Last week I was asked to be Father Christmas for the toddler group that meets in the church where I have my office, this was a great privilege although I didn’t think my waistline had expanded that much! It was a great time, all the parents secretly bring a small gift leave it in a sack out of the way and then towards the end of the session Father Christmas turns up and sits in a circle with al the children and hands out the presents. As you would expect I had the full garb on, including a huge beard that covered up most of my face bar my eyes, the hat came down to just above my eyes, and a coat shoved inside the jacket to make the earlier mentioned waistline more appropriate for the character, I’m note sure I would have recognised myself. I walked into the room with two large sacs of toys with a loud Ho Ho Ho, and then my two year old announces to the room, “that’s my daddy”. We had not told him I was going to be doing this, he had not seen me in the costume before, I had disguised myself quite well and put on a deeper voice than usual, yet he knew it was me, even from a distance. Whilst I hope he didn’t therefore spoil the affect for the other children, I find it quite pleasing that there is obviously something about me that he recognised, how well do you have to know someone the be able to do that, how do you get to know someone that well with out spending time and loving that person, Jonah you light up my life.
And as a little spiritual application, just as despite doing everything in my power to hide the true me, yet Jonah just knew, how great it is (although sometimes scary as well) to think that no matter how well we try and hide ourselves from God, or even from ourselves, He always knows who we truly are, sometimes we even manage to fool ourselves with the disguises we try and put on but it doesn’t work with God and no matter ho much we try and hide He will always see us as His……!

God bless you this Christmas time.

Where was Jesus born 2?

Having written about the Christmas Story a few days ago I found this link to Kester’s thoughts via Dave at Cartoon Church, which raises some slightly different thoughts but again get you thinking about what might have really happened all those years ago, this has certainly got me thinking.

And then there was light.

Well finally found the problem, it looks like a part of the problem we have is a very damp bus and electricity don’t mix strangely enough! The lighting on the bus is all 12 volt halogen lamps so the power has to go through a transformer and when they get wet they go wrong. So the bus is now fixed although not quite back together. Next week it goes in to have some heating installed downstairs so when we start up again next term it should be a little warmer (although I think a coat will still be a good idea especially for upstairs.)

Also this week, was supposed to meet up with youthblog and Theobloby on Wednesday but it all fell through for a number of reasons (the bus being one of them) so sorry I didn’t meet you Michael and I wanted to know if you are pink with yellow spots as well? Never mind hope you enjoy your visit to these shores.

The Darkness

Is it me or is it dark in here? As many of you will be aware I run a bus project, we have a converted double decker bus that spent 15 years in service with the local bus company, 10 years after conversion being used by the local Youth for Christ and then 3½ years ago was brought by the charity I now work for. During most of this time it has given great service, however since my arrival it has broken down twice firstly about this time last year, it took until April before we got it back on the road. The a couple of months ago it just stopped as I was heading home late one night, I had to call out a mechanic at 11pm to the middle of nowhere. Now the electrics have gone wrong, without sockets we could still run it would reduce what we could do obviously but we could still do something, but no it’s the lighting circuit that has gone, no idea why, just that if we turn that switch on at the fuse box we trip out the whole bus (or as we discovered the other day half the house that was kindly supplying us with the electricity!) Running sessions in the confines of a bus in the dark are just no go, it would not be safe, so once again we are currently off the road apart from day time sessions. Still tis the season to be jolly!

Where was Jesus born?

A few years ago I heard an interesting sermon at a midnight service on Christmas eve suggesting that maybe we had got the Christmas story substantially wrong because of some bad translation and interpretation. It’s the kind of thing that makes you sit up and listen, because of the fact that it was someone I knew and respected standing up saying it I was intrigued. I have been doing some looking into it myself and there are some very interesting things that we read and miss both through our traditional understanding of the Christmas story but also reading the translations we have rather than looking back to the Greek (sorry I now sound all theological). I’m sure most of us are aware of things like the donkey not being mentioned in the story, although there is I suppose reason to think they may have had a donkey. But here are some of the other interesting things, there is no mention of how long Mary and Joseph had been in Bethlehem before Jesus was born, our nativity generally puts it that he was born the night they arrived, but lets be realistic, travelling 70 miles on foot or donkey when 9 months pregnant, I’m not sure. Next the innkeeper and stable are also not mentioned, in fact this is when if we go back to the Greek things seem a little strange. We are told that Jesus was laid in a manger because there was no room in the inn, but what if Jesus was actually born into a loving family home, this was the question put to us that Christmas eve. For years we have had this image of the stable (or for some a cave) because of the Manger (or feeding trough) plus the fact that we ‘know’ they did not stay at the inn. And it is the word ‘inn’ that is perhaps confusing, the Greek word is ‘katalyma’ which appears 3 times in the New Testament the other 2 are Mark 14:14 and Luke 22:11 both times referring to a venue for the last supper, an upper room or guest room which would be a more literal translation of the word. Think back to Jewish culture of the time, hospitality was a key thing, Bethlehem was Josephs ancestral home, there must have been relatives there. So what if Mary and Joseph arrive in Bethlehem and go to the family home, the guest room is already occupied possibly by older relatives, however there is a lower area where over winter and at night the families animals are brought in (this would also fit in with our understanding of Jewish homes of that period). Mary and Joseph stay in this lower area of a family home
At some time during their stay Mary gives birth and lays the Baby Jesus in the feeding trough for the animals in the middle of a loving family home?

It’s all in the name

Onmebus has now been around for about 10 months, it has had it’s ups and downs in terms of the regularity with which I have written but I have been thinking for some time now about how well the name reflects the contents. Whilst yes I do run a bus project it is not as if this features regularly in these pages. I am therefore considering a name change to ‘Simo’s world’ this is an idea that has been around for a few months, I was going to change to some software and host it fully including backend software but I am also rethinking this for two reasons, one blogger work well, secondly I can’t get word press to install properly on my server. What do you my devoted readers (he says optimistically) think?

The Talented Mrs Faulks PT2 + the weekend

The busy weekend actually ended up starting on Friday night in the end, thinking I was going to have a quite Friday evening as we had had to cancel the trip with the bus due to a lack of volunteers. The I discover that I can’t get any long trousers for my second stilt walker for Saturday afternoon. The talented Mrs Faulks though came to the rescue and spent a couple of hours finding fabric and putting together a new pair of trousers. Unfortunately I don’t have a picture but thank you Gill it was great and there would just have been me stilt walking without your help.
As for the weekend it went well although as a said busy, in about 4½ hours stilt walking I made over 100 balloon models which was great and kept me warm during the afternoon. Sunday mornings preach also went well, it was a strange one, I don’t get to preach anywhere near as often as I used to so I found myself feeling a little nervous before hand, also it was one of those as I wrote it I felt quite good about it, I then read through it again just before finishing work on Friday evening and just felt it didn’t really do anything but I couldn’t spend time reworking it, when it came to Sunday morning though it seamed to go well, John the Baptist, a great passage. It was a pleasure to be over in Shrivenham, thank you for the work welcome.

Busy weekend

I have just been doing a stilt walking practice with someone I trained up for the pantomime last year ready for one of the events over the weekend. Tomorrow starts with a school Christmas fete in the morning at which I shall be stilt walking and balloon modelling. Tomorrow afternoon is the turning on of the Christmas lights, with lots of things going on all afternoon, more stilt walking, with one other person (this afternoons trainee!) plus more balloons possibly some juggling and who knows what else? I’m a bit worried about this one as the weather forecast says rain and this will be outside on a slight hill around the Market place in Faringdon. Sunday morning I am preaching in one of the nearby villages, think I’m about ready for that although was trying to learn a new trick and I’m not sure I’m going to get it by then which is really frustrating. But hey there we go.

Meet the people

Just found this link to traidcrafts ‘meet the people’ tours, they are basically award winning package holidays with an educational edge, you get see some beautiful parts of the world and the bits you wouldn’t see on a normal package tour, you also get to meet some of the people that tradecraft helps, see them at work producing the things we can then buy through their catalogues. An excellent idea, although not having specifically done this myself from my trips to Africa and Guatemala I know how fantastic these kind of things can be and I would highly recommend this experience to anyone!