We Do Adventure

We’re back from a Novi Most team retreat in Slano, Croatia. Last night we went out for dinner in Dubrovnik. I visited Dubrovnik back in 1986, just a few days before my twelfth birthday. We flew in. I remember the decent over the mountains. The 737 got lower and lower as the bare, rocky slopes got closer and closer. I think I saw someone herding goats – I certainly remember seeing TITO spelled out large and clear in stones. I was sitting in a window seat on the left of the plane and there was still no sign of civilisation when we touched down. We climbed down the stairs onto the tarmac and headed for the solitary barn-like building that was airport terminal. It was a memorable introduction to Yugoslavia. Down in the city last night I tried to see if I could remember anything. I know I’d been to the port before. Although it looked like the pictures it didn’t seem that familiar. On the main street I tried to work out which building was once a sparse shop where I bought a post card or two....

There is nothing particularly profound about this video, or at least it's not intended to convey any deep, hidden message! It is however a record of something that happened at the Novi Most team retreat we attended this week and so has its place here...enjoy :)

People have different ways of coping with getting old. In Lost In Translation, a young Scarlett Johansson asks an aging Bill Murray ‘have you bought a Porsche yet?’ Some people must dye their hair, some just live in denial. I’m not old but I am getting older. It’s more obvious when you work with young people. They’re always teenagers, while you are always aging! Although I’ve been mistaken for being eighteen a couple of times recently I know the truth. When I turned 33 I joked with a few people that I was now the same age as Jesus. In a strange way it was a reassuring coming of age until someone kindly pointed out that was the age that he died! Well, barring any grave misfortune in the next couple of hours I will have moved on a year without being Christ-like in that respect. Well almost. My thirty-third year has seen my most dramatic life change certainly since getting married, probably since I made the decision to work for a church after leaving college. I know it’s nothing on Jesus’...

I was walking back home with some freshly baked burek when a bit from the Bible drifted to mind. It was something about restoring streets with dwellings. Having pumped what I could remember into BibleGateway.com something very exciting is coming into focus. The words I was thinking of come from a book called Isaiah. He was an Old Testament prophet, someone who told people what God was saying. They come from a chapter which starts off contrasting the religious performances we can be tempted to put on with the true acts of faith God is looking for. “loose the chains of injustice...set the oppressed free...share your food with the hungry...provide the poor wanderer with shelter...when you see the naked, clothe him...do not turn away from your own flesh and blood” The street I was walking down, the one where we live, is an interesting place. Many of its buildings are just bombed-out concrete skeletons housing unplanned assortments of trees and shrubbery. There are the semi-restored proper...

We live in an environment that uses cash more than plastic, and one with an exchange rate of 2.5 of our new currency to our old one. That means on days like today you really notice how much you’re spending. I say ‘days’ but we haven’t had a day like today since we’ve arrived. We weren’t much in the habit of having them before we left and I don’t suppose we’ll have another like it in a long time. Today was the day when we spent the money we’d been putting aside to buy essential items for our new apartment. These purchases can be roughly summarised as a microwave – or ‘magnetron’ as a more exciting translation on the box declared! – a table and chairs, cleaning paraphernalia and food. We visited six stores this afternoon, joined for most of it by Ben and Mirja. It was warm and we enjoyed clear blue skies as our trip took us south out of town. Mirja’s from the Arctic Circle and Ben’s from Wales; neither places famed for their good weather! They did some spending of their own, although not...

We welcomed our first visiting visitors to our new apartment tonight. The slightly awkward double ‘v’ is to distinguish them from our working visitors. Earlier in the day Budo, Ben and Claire helped us move our stuff down the hill. They deserve a big thank you for playing an invaluable part in what was a very smooth move. As far as I can tell nothing was lost or damaged! It was all over in a couple of hours. Perhaps it was the pent up desire of two months in boxes but we had everything we could unpack unpacked and installed in a new home before tea time. It was as we finished off our first home cooked meal in our new place that we heard someone calling our names! Our visiting visitors, Mijra and Leah, burst through the door. Mijra ran from room to room making excited noises and say ‘oh my’ a lot. The apartment has high ceilings and is all painted white. The effect is to make an already spacious place seem even bigger. That said it is comfortably bigger than our house in England so it’s...

Ok, so the title should read 'Matt and Rowan' but 'Jack and Jill' are more famous for their hill Rowan is hugely relieved that as of tomorrow we will be living on a flat road in a flat part of town. She's said more than once that she thought that walking up the steps and slopes to the place we've been living should have got easier over time. In her opinion it hasn't. It is fair to say it's good for the legs. I've appreciated it, as I've yet to find anywhere that seems sociably acceptable or safe enough to run. The safety issue centres around the quality of the running service rather than the vibe of the neighbourhoods. Tomorrow the two Novi Most combis in Mostar will share our stuff between them as we descend for the last time. (Obviously, not really for the last time!) I will miss the view. That's all the more reason to get my bike up and running. It's been fantastic to get up in the morning and look out over the city. The light here is ...