A long weekend

Next Friday I shall begin my epic voyage back to the UK. I use these grandiose words not due to the fact that I will end up travelling some 1,800 odd miles, reach great heights, or many even the fact that last time the journey took somewhere around 22hrs each way.
No, instead it comes back to the fact that I shall do this twice within the space of a weekend. Admittedly this is a long weekend [starting on Thursday late night and ending on Monday early morning] but in totally I shall spend about two days travelling, one day being an usher for my friend, and then two half days in England. All in all potentially very tiring [especially as on Thursday I am going straight from work at 9:30 after 3 1:20hr lessons] However due to the purpose of my visit I can help but just be overwhelmingly excited.

Perhaps [see probably] this will change in the aftermath of the return journey but I still hope that I will be able to cling on to my reason for the visit and so gain a second wind of energy. I can certainly say that this has been the case with teaching.

Recently my workload has been on the heavier side of things and yet because I have so much greater satisfaction doing this job than my last one I have still found joy in what I do. I always find myself full of energy and enthusiasm in the teacher's room.

It really reminds me of what N.T. Wright says about the importance of Vocation in Christian living and especially when he looks at how Jesus' clear vocation, purpose and vision gave him the drive, courage, and strength to live the life God set out before him. I am reminded especially of the moments in the garden of Gethsemane when he fixes his eyes on the events to come, he asks for the cup to be taken away if there is another option BUT still says "Your will be done".

Or when he is talking to the woman at the well. He is clearly not feeling the best after a long journey and sits down to rest. Yet as soon as the woman starts speaking to him, and again when the town come out to see him, he starts to minister and says he has been given food that the disciples don't know of [they clearly think he too needs a drink, I wonder if they thought he had got sun stroke.]

Individual and Group vision can certainly be important.

[P.S. You may have noticed that the Blog design has changed a bit, I've taken of a load of the widgets and simplified things a bit. Although I did enjoy having all those little gadgets on the blog, ultimately it looked a bit congested and so I've taken some things of. I hope you like the new layout, if you have any suggestions of things to add/take of ways to improve the blog, then please comment]

Travelling back

Well after 23hrs of travelling I have finally managed to reach my destination, New Malden. of course it wasn't as easy as that, oh no! Everything was going very well until I got to passport control and suddenly [I say suddenly after a 30 minute wait after initally handing over my passport] I was told that despite having a visa I hadn't got my passport stamped after my inital 30 days and so was asked to pay a penalty charge. A few phone calls later and at 18:40, when my plane was due to finish boarding, I was allowed to pass through passport control with a peice of paper informing me that I needed to transfer some money into an account. After then dashing through to the terminal in a frantic search to work out where my plane was, was it still there, were all the people seething at the idiot who didn't bring enough grivner to pay a bribe penality charge as he passed through passport control?

well actually everyone was stood next to the gate as the plane hadn't yet arrived. After a brief period [see an hour] in the que meeting American peace corps volunteers [apparently the Ukraine is the biggest station of peace corps in the world...who knew...well obviously they did as they told me] and a man who had been studying in the national engeners school for his Msc in Engenering, we were let on to the plane...to wait until we could depart.

All of which meant my arrival in the UK was 2hrs later than scheduled BUT I fortunately was not so late as to catch the last underground train. So after 23hr 3 trains, 1 bus, 1 plane, 1 underground train, I finally got home.

There have already been some interesting moments in the UK, such as going up to a counter and hearing someone speak in a British accent and in English [as opposed to russian/ukrainian or English with an accent] and readjusting to British prices [I had only just got use to thinking in Gryvner!] being on public transport and everyone speaking English and finally taking the dog for a walk.