The Fields are White

THE FIELDS ARE WHITE

There I was, alone, on a coach, I had left Dunfermline for London and there I was on a coach from London to the Netherlands with thoughts of the people I was leaving behind, embarking on a new life. I was 38 years old, and from now on, life would be different. How you may wonder, did I come to be in that situation? My name is George Falconer and this is my story

In Gods providence, life does not always work out the way that we think it will. Mine certainly has not. I had no idea what I wanted to do when I left school, and when I finally did decide, it is not in fact what I have done. I imagined that I would be a Church of Scotland minister and that God would use me in this way for the benefit of many. I also imagined that I would marry young. I am not a Church of Scotland minister and I am not married (but I still hope and pray)

I do however see that God answers prayer, but not necessarily in the way that we imagine. The following events are not in chronological order. They are highlights in my life of how God has brought me to the place I am in now.

THE BAND

One of my early attempts at mission was teaching myself how to play the guitar to form a band with my brother and another young man. If the truth be told we were not brilliant musicians, but it gave me experience of organising events and putting them on. We did this for three years. The highlight of our time doing this singing gospel song was that we played at the Carnegie Hall Dunfermline and I invited other bands to appear with us on the programme. At any event, I or one of the others would give our testimony. As to what impact we made, I do not know. There was a girl in our church who scorned us and I do see her point of view as we were really great musicians, but the point was that we were attempting to do something in the service of the lord and I still believe that those who honour the lord are in turn honoured by him.

THINGS THAT MATTER

When I was at University, I was in Halls of residence. There was tutor next door to my room who was a member of the Brethren. I have always had a very high regard for their sound teaching and for the fellowship I have shared with them.

There were times when a discothèque would take place in halls and he would have an alternative event in his flat. He would invite students to it. He played cassette tapes that came from a tape lending library called, “Things That Matter”. There were a variety of speakers on the tapes and one day I asked him where he got those tapes from. He gave me the contact details, and I wrote off to become a member of the library. I did not realise then how significant that action was. I had no idea that the library was a ministry of Operation Mobilisation, and that by doing this, I was making my first direct contact with them. This was to have significance in later years. Some of the tapes were by George Verwer who was addressing OM conferences. I could not have imagined then that one day I would know George and I would be at those conferences.

Wycliffe

I think the first missionaries I met were the Wycliffe Bible Translators. I attended a number of their Scottish conferences and was impressed with their work and the sort of people they are. They were all ordinary people who were committed to Gods service, and they were in Scotland on furlough and giving an account to supporter. I have remained friends with some of them I got a broad view of what mission is like. I decided that I would attend one of their simulator weekends. It was held at inchinan. For the whole weekend we had an imaginary country called Bingola and somehow we had to enter it and work in it. One of the other participants was a man I already knew. I had met Graham at University. We were in different faculties, but we had met at lunchtimes in a room in a church building. The room was called the crypt and every day we had scotch pie and beans. Graham went on to Join Wycliffe and I am still in touch with him. Our friendship was forged over those pie and beans.

The simulator weekend presented difficulties. It involved role playing and our first task was to get into the country. I can still tell you how many of us succeeded at getting though all the official processes to allow us into the country. None. We had a 100% failure. There was a point to this. Getting into a lot of countries is very difficult and a lot of prayer and patience is needed.

Wycliffe had learned things by bitter experience. They showed us some videos that were presented by the man who was leading the weekend and he was sitting beside me as they watched. I asked him if it felt strange watching himself. He told me that Wycliffe decided to make their own videos because in the past they had been filmed by a secular TV company and during the filming they had a party at which they did some things for fun, but when it was broadcast the audience were not told that what they were looking at was a party and therefore it looked like Wycliffe were doing some outrageous things. Sometimes God uses incidents like this to make us wise and in mission we need lots of wisdom. We can never say that we know it all.

FOOD GLORIOUS FOOD

Meal times were interesting. It is amazing how in the west we take it for granted that we sit at tables with our family or friends and tuck in, with such ease, and no thought of where food comes from. That weekend, the leader took us outside where there were two large cardboard boxes. We could hear a scratching sound coming from inside the boxes, so we knew that there was something alive in there. The leader talked to us about his own experiences of eating abroad. He said that he had eaten toasted ants and they were rather like rice crispies. He then came round to how one obtained fresh meat. He said that in some countries, you have a choice. You can buy your meat in the market, but it will have flies and needs to be cleaned, or you can buy it live. He said that the advantage of buying it live is that you know it is fresh. He then proceeded to open the boxes and he took out two chickens. He held them up by their legs. Once again, he said, “you have a choice; we can either wring their necks, or chop their heads off.” He then added, “I once wrung a chickens neck and then found out the hard way that it was still alive so I now prefer to chop the heads off”. He produced a knife and cut off their heads. He asked us, “Did that bother anyone?” One man put his hand up. It seemed strange for that particular man to put his hand up as he worked in a slaughter house. He said that although he works in a slaughter house, the thing that bothered him was that he had never seen it done like that before. In a slaughter house it is more like a factory and the animals are stunned before being killed.

This was not the end of our cross cultural experience that day. The leader showed us how to get the feathers off and then he said that in some cultures, men and women do not sit together to eat and they do not sit at tables. He got the girls to cook the chickens and some vegetables and make what he called a soup with them. In my view it was so thick that it looked more like curry. We were indoors and we had to sit on the floor in small single sex groups round a plate that contained the soup. We each had to pick from the plate and eat using our hands. This was a new experience for all of us.

My own mission experience has become the home office, but in that simulator we were given a glimpse into possible problems for those who go abroad. The leader chose one of the girls and they did some role playing. She played the foreign missionary and he played a high ranking government official who came accused her of a lot of things that were not true. This went on for what seemed a long time. At the end of it he asked her how she had felt while he was interrogating her. She said that her heart was thumping. She was nervous even though it was not real. He concluded by saying to all of us that you have to be ready for things like that, and he was not exaggerating by playing a high ranking government official. Sometimes missionaries may meet the top people of the government of the country they are in and not necessarily on the best of terms. This was a warning to us all. I greatly love respect and admire the Wycliffe Bible Translators. I have friends among them and I would love to have joined them, but I thought that my complete lack of any talent for languages was a barrier. I had tried this at university and failed. I therefor never applied to join Wycliffe. However I did see a need to be involved in mission somehow.

My first short term Opportunity

One morning the mail arrived and I set it aside thinking that I would read it later, but I was overwhelmed with an urge to open it and I felt that there was a letter in there that had something to say about Dunfermline. I am not in the habit of having such urges and this is the only one that I have ever had, so it is ,so far at least a unique experience for me. I tore the letters open and scanned them looking for just one word. “DUNFERMLINE”. To my amazement, I found it. I was on the mailing list of Youth with a Mission Scotland and the letter had come from them. They were having a summer of service with a certain church in Dunfermline and they wanted volunteers for it. I knew the pastor and his wife having met them some years previously when he was pastor of a Pentecostal church near my home. I decided to put myself forward. I had never done anything like it in my life.

The church met in a community centre. I went there and there was small team from YWAM who would lead the mission. Some of them came from the USA and there was a girl from Canada. This made them stand out as meeting people from overseas was not an everyday experience in Dunfermline. The main thing I remember is that we went door to door to talk to people and we distributed leaflets. We also had a daily children’s club full of activities suitable for children. I was very moved in one meeting as I had a little girl sitting on my lap and she managed to get her hand up my sleeve and she was stroking my arm. I asked her if she wanted to get down and she shook her head, so I let her continue to sit there still stroking my arm. Later, I told one of the girls on the team about this and she suggested that perhaps the little girl did not have a father and had no idea what a man feels like.

The volunteers on the team came from various towns in England. In Dunfermline, English people stand out and have to expect to be the butt of humour. In any team, it is important to respect one another and my humour came into question. I was asked if I did not like Americans. Fortunately I was honestly able to say that some of my friends are Americans. This marked the end of the matter. I realised that this was in fact a cultural issue as the man who asked was American and he graciously accepted my explanation and did not expect me to go around apologising to everyone. Looking back I think he realised that the English would understand what I had said and would not be offended. In missions we are challenged and what is OK to some people may not be OK to others and could cause offense. We need to be sensitive and forgiving.

There were however issues on the team. When you have short term missions, the people who participate are usually young. The girls are attractive and I expect the girls would say that they find the boys attractive. This is natural, but it can be problem. One is there to be part of a team serving Jesus Christ and those who we are trying to reach should see that and not be distracted by seeing who has taken a fancy to who and is flirting with them. A local man on the team was doing just that. I said nothing about it; I thought it was obvious to everyone. He talked about how it was lovely to be with people his own age. I thought that was code for the girls being his age. I also noticed that one team member brought cake for lunch one day and was shown a lot of appreciation. The next day someone else did the same thing and was also shown a lot of appreciation and I thought that this local man would one day come in with a cake to get the same appreciation. I was right, he did, and I thought that it was all about impressing the girls. I was also right about his behaviour being noticeable as one day the team leader made a statement. He said that he was not going to discuss this but he had asked the man to leave the team. We did not see him again for the rest of the mission. I however did meet him again when I was unemployed and on a job training scheme. He was also on it and some of the things that he had to say disgusted me and one day he went as far as to say to girls some disgusting things about me that were not true and were a joke. I was sitting at the back of the room and all the girls turned and looked at me. He stood at the front with a big smile on his face. He thought what he said was funny, but I thought that if anyone ever found out that he had any connection with a Christian church, it would be very damaging as I think the church needs to be seen as set apart from the word, which he clearly was not. He really believed that the story he had made up about me was funny and did no harm. It confirmed to me that when he had been on the Summer Mission, the leader had been wise to dismiss him.

On another day a girl asked him in front of everyone else what he did at the weekend and he said, “Believe it or not, I went to church”. I took a mental note of those very words he used. Evidently he realised in that statement that the things he said were not compatible with his behaviour. I did not remind him of how he had got put off the mission team, but I expect my presence was a reminder to him of that. It was to no avail,. I felt embarrassed as there I was a believer in Christ and there he was also claiming to be a believer but publicly coming out with a lot of filth. We believers need to hold our lives in check and ask ourselves the question, is my life in accordance with what I say? In my opinion, this man was deluding himself and questions needed to be asked as to whether he had true saving faith. I heard him repeat some of the things that people had said to him at church that he had found encouraging. I suspect they never heard him say the things that I heard him say. I think he had one face for church and another for every other occasion. I have not seen him since and if I did, I wonder if I would know what to say. I hope that I would say things that are truthful and wise to him if I did.

Looking back I can see that people are accepted into some missions’ short term on the basis of what they say about themselves and in most cases what they say is sincere and true, but in some cases the person has deluded themselves and need to re-evaluate their lives and find out if they truly belong to the lord. People should be accepted at their face value, unless evidence about their behaviour says otherwise. I hope that man has done this because what I saw of him was appalling and a liability to his church.

Having done a summer of service with YWAM, I also did a discipleship training week. It made me do some soul searching, especially about family relationships. I do not say it changed them, it just made me focus on them more. It was during that week that we were given the news that the OM Ship MV logos had run aground off the coast of Chile. We prayed for them and the safety of the crew. I could not have imagined then that some of those people on board would one day be people I would meet, work with, befriend and dearly love. I think that in prayer we should pray for those who are our brothers and sisters even if we have never met them. We are commanded to do so and we have no idea what wonders the lord will do because of those prayers.

One of the other participants at the discipleship training week had what we commonly call a powerful testimony. By that I mean that he had been a gangster. A dangerous man who had committed armed robbery and he had come to a point where he trusted the lord and changes into a gentle man. I do not however envy such people. They have usually suffered some personal tragedy’s and it would be easy for some non-believers to hear their testimony and dismiss it because they think that it is all very well for them, they were criminals and I am not. I do not need Jesus. No testimony should be belittled. People need to hear testimony’s of all sorts from people who were not criminals. People that everyone can relate to as being people like themselves who discovered that they had a deep need to be forgiven for sin and found it in Jesus. I did consider joining YWAM, but decided not to, as I had a problem. Their discipleship training school was in the Netherlands and it was clear that one had to travel from the place one would be staying to the school by bicycle. I have never owned one, and consequently, I could not ride one. Nor could I find someone willing to teach an adult how to ride one. My lack of capability at this meant that I did not go through with the application. I now see Gods hand in that, but I did not at the time.

At one point, I considered joining London City Mission. To get a taste of this I joined their voluntary evangelist’s team. I stayed in their base. Like most missions they had a rule about dating. We were not allowed. Just like the YWAM mission, I could see that there are good reasons for this, but it is struggle when you are young. We had bunk beds and in the dorm there were conversations that went round this subject. One man would say, “ I think there is something happening between Joe and Susan” These names are fictional and only given as examples. Then other would join in by expressing their opinion. All the men were in their 20s and I was slightly older at 31. I could understand what was going on in their minds as I felt the same, however after listening to them I put a question to them, “Why do you do this”. One man said “We cannot help it”. I was an honest answer, but I asked the question for two reasons. First I thought that the conversations which were only speculation made things worse for them and second they speculated that there was an attraction between two people and my own experience told me that this was not likely and that the two people were only friends and both of them understood that and speculation would put their friendship under pressure. Somehow as young people we had to be focused on Jesus while coping with natural desires. It was difficult.

Each day, I would be sent to different London City Mission base. I think some of them were very much like churches in terms of the meeting and activities that went on. Others were places where people went to survive. London has a large number of people living on the streets and they have acquired skill in how to get by. They would come to LCM to get fed. The gospel would be preached to them before they got fed and the preaching was not a monologue. It was a discussion, which could get heated. The impression that everyone on the streets is foolish and of low intelligence does not fit the reality. Some of them are good debaters. Life on the streets is harsh. Some of them suffer from disease. At one base a separate toilet for the staff was kept as some of them suffer from venereal disease. This was a lesson to me.

I became good friends with one man at the Voluntary Evangelists base and we are still friends today. He encouraged me to go to another mission. I will come back to that later.

I applied to join London City Mission and attended the interview. I was turned down. With the benefit of hindsight I can see why and they were right to do so. I was of course disappointed. Part of the reason that I applied is that I wanted to preach and had considered the church of Scotland ministry, but I could not agree with them on infant baptism which as a minister, I would have been required to practice and believe. I was looking at alternatives where I thought this would not be a problem.

I do think that the week I spent with LCM was good for me. It gave me a realistic view of mission and I left having made a friend.

My own church acquired a new minister, and with him came something we had not had before. Summer Missions. We had several of these over the years, and I participated in all of them. They were led by Scripture union Scotland by a man I grew to respect. Just like the YWAM mission we had children’s activities every day. We got large numbers attending. I think mothers were just glad to have things to send their children to during the holidays. One of the activities was a daily drama that would contain a biblical truth. I have always thought of myself as a thespian and I performed in these. I dressed every day as a large bird called Percy and wore a different colour of tights every day so that in a quiz children would be asked, what colour were Percy’s legs today?

Many of the team for those missions came from Northern Ireland, and there were others from Dunfermline. One local girl stands out in my memory. She proudly said to me one day, “I Mixed”. Her face was beaming with a big smile. This was a major achievement for her as she found mixing with other people difficult. If it were not for her telling me this, I would not have known. Some people have more social difficulties than others and for her she was confronting her fear and she won. I have a lot of admiration for that. The things I found enjoyable and easy were a challenge to her and God used her in that situation. If she had convinced herself that she could not do it, she would never have attempted it and experience the joy of triumphing over her fear and thus being able to say to me and to other with a big smile, “I Mixed”.

Some of the team were members of the church. I think those SU missions brought us closer and gelled us into a team. I am still in touch with some of them and I love them dearly. I do not think it is just coincidence that those who participated in the missions were the same people who attended the weekly prayer meeting. The prayer meeting was their starting point. It drove them on to more commitment. There were also those who because of old age could not take part in the missions, but they steadfastly prayed for them.

It was not all plain sailing. . For some people they do not like things that are new. Some would pop up and look at what was going on and leave. On refection I think this was curiosity but was disturbing to those of us running the mission, but as people of grace we had to tolerate it without being too negative when challenged. I found that it is true that a gentle answer turns away wrath. The missions were popular and widely supported by the congregation as could be seen judging by the prayer at the weekly prayer meeting. They attracted very large numbers of children. I expect many parents were glad to get their children out of the house during the holiday season. It was a learning curve for the church. It was a chance to go out into the parish and do something rather than expect people to come to us.

I also value the lessons I learned then. In OM we work with local churches, we do not come in and take over. We esteem the church, and see the church as Gods instrument to reach the world. We therefore work in partnership with the church and provide them with resources. I learned this before I joined OM from Scripture Union.

When we were planning the SU missions, those of us who were members of the church were very much part of the planning process. Scripture Union did not come in and dictate to us. This taught me how vital partnership is . It creates a good balanced relationship, and leads on to further things. The first of those scripture union missions led on to the rest of those missions and provided me with experience.

Visiting a ship

I attended a bible study on Friday evenings that was run by two American couples from Florida. One day one of them asked us if we would like to go and visit a Christian ship. I thought that was a good idea so I decided that I would go. I thought it would be interesting and I would be going with friends. I do not remember much about it, except that the port was not far, so it would have been Leith. However that visit has in recent years taken on a new significance to me. I have done some checking and I discovered that in those days the OM Ship MV Doulos was in the Northern Hemisphere and I am convinced that the ship we went to visit that day was the Doulos and I now realise this was a small step God used to bring me into contact with OM. At the time I did not see that. Sometimes God leads us in his providence to what will be our life’s work in small steps. This has been my experience, and for me, the Doulos was one of those steps

Keith Green Memorial Concert

I had met a couple who had given me some printed articles from a ministry called, “Last Days Ministries” I found much of what they wrote impressive and I subscribed to their regular newsletter. The Founder was a man called Keith Green who died in a plane crash. He was a musician and singer and he had released a number of albums. After his death there was a series of Keith Green Memorial concerts. He had been filmed at what proved to be one of his final concerts and it was this film that I went to see in Edinburgh. While I was there, I bought an album and I picked up some more printed material. I did not know it then, but this was another contact I had with Operation Mobilisation. I stuffed the printed material into the album sleeve to keep it all together and when I checked that material a good number of years later, I noticed that operation Mobilisation had been one of the sponsors of that concert. Therefore, I had met OMers face to face, but was not aware of that.. This was another step toward me joining OM. One of the articles I got from Last Days Ministries was called, “Why You Should Go to the Mission Field”. This has caused some controversy, but again, the content of it was a step toward me joining OM. I did not have any mission agency in mind at the time, but I was thinking about missions.

The Shelter

I read a book by Floyd McClung called “Living on the Devils Doorstep”. Half the book is about his experience in Afghanistan and the rest of it is about his life in the red light district of Amsterdam. My intention was to read the book purely for my own enjoyment. I quickly found out that God had another and better plan for my reading of that book

My sole reason for reading the book was that I had read books by the same author and enjoyed them. I finished the book and then I got a letter from the man who befriended me in London City Mission. He wrote that he was now working in a Christian youth hostel in the red light district of Amsterdam and would I like to come out there and work with him. The first thought that entered my mind was one of panic.. How could I do such a thing? I had just read that book about the place. It sounded terrible. How would I cope? Was it not dangerous? I could not do it. However, once I had time to think, I realised that reading a book is all very well, but experience is quite another and if I turned my friends request down out of fear, I would not really know what I was saying no to. I was a member of the youth hostels association, so I had some experience of hosteling. I decided to go to Amsterdam over Christmas and see what it was like. I would then make my decision.

CHRISTMAS AT THE SHELTER

That Christmas was interesting. I was away from my family and in a strange environment where the only person I knew was my friend. On Christmas day there was a dinner for staff and their guests. I was invited to it. It was in the snack bar. I sat down at the table and there was a small object wrapped in Christmas paper at each place. I took the paper off the one by my place and found what seemed to me to be a strange small white object. I thought it might be edible so I tried a bit to see what it tasted like. It tasted foul. The General Manager addressed us and told us that at Christmas we think of gentle Jesus meek and mild and we love that. It seems nice, but there is another side to Christmas that is not nice. We call it Easter and it is not nice to think of Jesus death and blood. He said that the Christmas wrapping paper on the things at our places was like Christmas. It was attractive to look at but the object inside was like Easter, Ugly. He then said that the things in the paper were tulip bulbs and he had seen someone attempt to eat one. ( I knew he meant me) He said that the tulip bulb is ugly, but if we plant it in the ground, it grows into a beautiful flower. So likewise Christ’s death is ugly, but if we trust him to save us and forgive our sins then we will have eternal life that is like the beautiful tulip. At the end of the Christmas period, I made the decision to volunteer to join the shelter staff for a few months. I thought that the things I was afraid of were not things that I could probably cope with.

This was a big adventure for me. Apart from flying to Amsterdam at Christmas the only flying I had ever done was in a light aircraft when I was child. My father brother and I had flown round Blackpool tower. Flying to Amsterdam to work there, was the biggest thing I had ever done. I flew into Schiphol and walked to the shelter. When I stepped through the entrance, I introduced myself to the receptionist. There was another man in reception behaving in a manner that made me think that he was going to proposition her. She told me to put my bags into the space at the back of reception. It was a passageway with shelves to put the bags on. I went into it and put my bags on a shelf, but I was also doing my best to keep out of site of the man in reception but listen to the conversation to find if my suspicions about the man were correct and if so, I would have to help the receptionist. I could not make out what he said to her. I did however hear her clearly. She said, “This is a Christian youth hostel, we do not do that here”. The receptionist stood her ground and the man went away. This was my introduction to life in Amsterdam

I think my time in Amsterdam was the making of me. However it was not what I imagined. I thought that I would go there, work hard, witness to unbelievers and be part of a Christian team in which we would all love and support each other. I found out within two or three days of my arrival that would not necessarily be the case. Any team consists of individuals with varying personalities and I quickly found out that four girls were very annoyed with me and had gone to the general manager to complain To this day, I do not know who they were and I never asked. The general manager came to me and told me that there were four girls who had complained about me, they thought that I was weird. I can be very sensitive and I found this news extremely hurtful. There was a manager whom I felt I got on with. He came from the USA and I went and poured my heart out to him. He listened to what I had to say at great length. I had no idea why people were so opposed to me. I had not been rude to anyone, I had not made a pass at any girls, in fact as far as I was aware, all I had done was be friendly. This was a lesson in how the devil attacks. He sometimes attacks from within, and when you do not expect it. The American manager said, “The same thing happened to me when I came here. People said that I was the loud mouthed American”. I was so relieved to hear him say that. He knew what I was going through and was sympathetic. He went to see the General Manager. When he returned he said that he and I would meet with the general manager. The three of us met in the courtyard as the office was not free. By this time I was even more upset and I was crying. I still could not see why people were doing this to me. The American manager asked the general manager if there were any specific things said against me. He said yes, and he listed them. I have forgotten what most of them were, but I remember three of them. They said that I was weird and I talk too much and I could not do the Job. I thought that the last allegation was unfair and unfounded. I was too hurt to say that at the time, but that is what I thought because at the point of the discussion I had not actually started the job so nobody had any experience of working with me. Both manager went away to discuss the situation and after a while the general manager came back out to the courtyard. He had made it clear that when he came back, it would be with his final decision. When I saw him coming toward me, I had no idea what that decision would be. I could be going home. However, he said, “I have listened to what D has to say, and I have reached the conclusion that he is right. He says that you have more good reasons to be here than he has”. I was deeply touched by that remark. It was a joy to hear it. He said that he would close the shelter in the afternoon and there would be a staff meeting, at which I would give my testimony and they would be told that I was staying. This he did, and all of the staff met in the snack bar. I gave my testimony with all my might and at the end of it, I said, some people think I talk too much, but I promise I do not do that all the time. I do listen to people and I will listen to you. It was my way of challenging them to look at what I do. To give me a chance to prove myself to them.

The general manager was going away with his family for a six week holiday. Before doing so, he promoted the girl whom I had first met in reception to the management team. I found I got on well with her. I am so grateful for that because we became friends and because the allegations against me had all come from women, I needed the reassurance that women trusted me, and in the conduct toward me that I got from that girl, I could see that she trusted me. To this day I am still grateful to her for that and I am still in touch with her. I really needed her at that point in time. Sometimes she would smile at me and call me Georgio. I really enjoyed that.

As time went on, and I worked chiefly in the snack bar, I found that I forged good relationships with people. I hope that those who opposed me learned a lesson. Give other believers a chance. Do not judge them quickly. You may be saying no to someone who only wants to love you, befriend you and will do anything to help you.

The red light district is as you would expect full of prostitutes and people dealing in drugs. I felt that all around me was the devil showing me how he can do his worst and bring people down. One evening I was standing in the reception at the shelter talking to a man who was sitting behind the desk and it was a warm night so the doors were open to cool the place down a bit. A large party of tourists passed by. The man at reception also saw them and he said to me, “That really annoys me. The come here to look at other peoples pain”. I thought that what he said was so true. In our hearts, if we are being honest, we all look on other people’s pain. All the prostitutes and the drug users started out as someone’s daughter, son sister, or even mother or father, and they have been reduced to their present desperate state. They need to know that Jesus loves them even if it seems nobody else does and everybody else wants to use them.

One day the General Manager was talking about the guests whom we kept 20 beds for who were in fact homeless young people. They would try to break the rules and get things run their way. For example when the main meal ran out at night, they would come late knowing that they would get burgers. Living like that is not good for anyone so it was decided that the agency who gave funding to keep them at the shelter would be told that if they did not turn up for the main meal on time then they would get nothing and the agency should communicate this to them. When they were told this, they all turned up for the meals on time. Sometimes those youngsters would divide and conquer when they wanted something they should not get. They would take advantage of those who were more likely to give in and let them have a burger. The general manager was aware of this and said to the staff, “You need to work together. When one of you says no to them, you all say no”. We needed to be seen to be consistent. They needed to learn that there was another better more disciplined way of life than the ones they led. The general manager said, “Some of you think that it you are nice to them, you will win them for Christ. You won’t. They laugh at you” it was then that he went on to say that we all needed to work together. If one of us said no, we all had to say no. I have found that this is a vital life lesson when you are in a team. You need to agree on what is permissible and stick with it, work together and support each other.

MORE GLORIOUS FOOD EXPERIENCE

I found that the Dutch are very fond of yogurt. They put sugar, and fruit into it and have it for breakfast or lunch. The also eat lot of bread. Every day in the staff room the table would be decked out with bread, cheese and ham for lunch. These meal times were good for community life. We got to talk to each other without any guests being there. I think those times were just as important as actually getting to know guests. Relationships are often started or strengthened over meals. It was a time to relax and talk to one another.

Evening meals were interesting. I can honestly say that I loved every one of them even when I had no idea what we were about to be served. What we got sometimes depended on who the cook was that night. There was one man who came from Egypt and when it fell to him to be the cook, I thought it would be interesting. Whatever it was that he cooked; it was served between two things that looked like small poppadum’s. It was spicy and delicious. It was a reminder that food is a cultural issue, and you can learn a respect for other cultures from it. I also found that I had a taste for a very sweet desert called VLA. It was smooth as it glided down my throat. I also discovered very sweet caramel biscuits called Stroop waffles. If you are ever in the Netherlands, I recommend these.

PROSTITUTES ARE HUMAN

One day, I was standing in reception when a woman walked in. She was dressed in white, her skirt was short and a lot of her clothing was lace. She had a small white hat on her head. I thought she looked like a fairy without wings. I also thought that her skin was off colour so she was ill. She seemed to know some people. I stopped one of the shelter cleaners and asked her who the fairy was. She said, “Oh she is one of the prostitutes”. That prostitute sat down and smoked and talked to people in a way that most of us would regard as normal. It was clear to me that she had come in to do just that. To have company with no strings attached. Perhaps there was something about the shelter that attracted her. She certainly would have been aware that she could not tout for business in there and she made no attempt to do so. I could see her as a human being sitting there and not as a prostitute walking the streets. I think the district strips people of all semblance of humanity and degrades them. Here I was looking at this girl and I could see beyond all that to someone who had a need for Jesus.

Sometimes I used to go to a ministry in the district run by Youth With a Mission Called “The Cleft”. Most of the time when I went there, there was a prostitute walking about outside. On one occasion as I was approaching the cleft I saw her, and I could see a red mark like a big horizontal line across the back of her legs. I thought that the only thing that could make a mark like that would be a car bumper. I discovered later when I discussed this that knocking over prostitutes with a car is to be expected. As the weeks went by and I kept going to the cleft I would see the same girl outside and each time she seemed more and more ill. One day I went to the cleft and there she was inside it sitting at the back at a table with her face on the table. She was crying. People arrived for the meeting and it got started. The girl left during the course of the meeting. A young man led the meeting and he said, “I feel I should say something about the young lady who was at the back. My wife has taken her to hospital”. I never saw that girl again, but I hope she discovered the love of Jesus at the cleft. She was clearly very seriously ill.

I said that a lot of relationships are forged over meals. One of the most memorable ones was in the evening when the American manager who was helpful to me came with another man and a woman. I recognised the woman as being a prostitute who walked the streets at the back of a Christian café that I sometimes went to. They introduced her as their friend. I knew that she would not have been invited as a guest for a meal unless they were working with the scarlet cord ministry to get her out of prostitution. These men must have known what she was, so I respect the fact that they in their introduction gave her dignity.

The next day I went to the Christian café and there she was walking the street. She stopped me and said, “Would you like to have sex with me?” I said, “You do not recognise me do you” there was a moment’s silence. I said, “You had dinner with us last night”. There was another moments silence as she processed this information. I am sure that in that instance she realised who I was or at least realised that I would not be a client. In the weeks to come she was booked into the shelter as a guest and I never saw her walking that street again. I do not know what became of her but I am sure that at the time the scarlet cord ministry would have been involved with her.

I met the woman who ran that ministry. She was the former manager of the shelter and from time to time she would come in. I had imagined that a woman running such a ministry would be young, and energetic, and not like this little old lady which is what she was. However, I could see that I think those girls saw in her. A mother figure. Someone who would keep them safe and love them.

GOD CHOOSES UNLIKELY PEOPLE

I believe that God chooses people, and sometimes he chooses the roughest people. There was one man staying at the shelter whom the staff knew as being a notorious criminal. However, he seemed to want to make himself useful around the shelter by doing practical jobs, such as carpentry. It was as though he wanted to make a good impression. He was often in staff quarters doing some work. The general manager did not approve of this. He wanted the man to know that he would be loved and appreciated for being himself and not for the things he could do, so his work in the staff quarters was terminated.

One day he disappeared and nobody seemed to know where he was. Eventually we found out that he was in prison. He and felt the weight of sin and that God wanted him to go to the police and confess to his crimes. This he did, and he was sentenced. When he came out, he had a crew cut. There came a point where I was due to leave Amsterdam and return home, and people wanted to pray for me. When the opportunities arose for people lay hands on me and pray he was the first person to come down the aisle and do so. God had impacted his life. I have no idea where he is now or what he is doing but I hope that he is still going on with the lord.

BAPTISM

I had wanted to be baptised. I thought this was biblically correct, but I belonged to a system that did not do this. I had prayed that I would have the opportunity to be baptised, but I could not see how this could be done. There was an Englishman on the shelter staff, who had first come as a cleaner, became a Christian, left and then returned as a member of staff. The general manager announced that he was going to be baptised. At a later meeting it was again announced that he was going to be baptised and if anyone else wanted to be baptised with him, they should see the general manager. I was excited. This was my answer to prayer. I was baptised with three other men and two women in a chapel that had a small baptismal pool. The pool was so small we had to bend out legs to get under the water. It was however glorious. We all gave our testimonies prior to going in the water and as each of us was brought out, those at the meeting would sing a song that we had chosen. I had chosen a song that I had only recently heard at the shelter called, “Give Thanks with a grateful heart” I was thankful, so I wanted that song. When I hear it now, my mind goes back through the years to the shelter and to my baptism

THE GOD OF SURPRISES

I had hoped to be a minister in the Church of Scotland. To my surprise God has taken me down a different path. In order to enter the Church of Scotland I studied for a degree. I went to Glasgow University and entered the Arts faculty. There was a compulsory language requirement and try as I would I could not pass it. I transferred to the Open University where I finally got my BA. Having done this, I now thought that I was in a position to apply to the Church of Scotland, so I wrote a letter to the head office to obtain the forms. The person who replied was my former minister, who asked to see me. He had left the church to take up a post in the Church of Scotland offices in Edinburgh. I agreed to meet him at his home.

He told me that while he thought that I had a remarkable teaching gift, he did not think I would be much of a pastor, but the decision about applying or not was mine. On refection whether he was right or not, is debatable. I had spent a year regularly visiting a ward for geriatrics previously and one of the men on the staff commended me for this and thought that I would be a good pastor. I reasoned that if I were to apply to the church of Scotland, I would need the support of my former pastor as he knew me better than anyone else, and any support he did give me would be a qualified one. He had shown courage in speaking to me in the manner he did and for that he still has my respect. This meeting with him was god ordained. It is unusual for a letter such as the one I wrote to land on the desk of one’s former pastor. I do not know anyone else for whom this has happened. I also thought the Church of Scotland look for people who are slick and do not necessarily look for people by applying biblical principles. I do not consider myself to be slick, nor would I want to be. I therefore decided to start looking at missions. I reasoned that if God wanted me in missions then he would want me in a mission that I knew a great deal about. THIS TO MY SURPRISE WAS NOT TO BE THE CASE

Choosing a missions organisation can be surprising.

I had some knowledge of a number of mission agencies. It had become clear to me that I was not suitable for the Church of Scotland and for that reason; I started to look at missions. I thought that I knew a lot about the Wycliffe Bible translators and I had read a good number of books by Youth with a Mission. Surely if I were to be in missions, God would want me to be in one of them. I had also spent a week with London City Mission. That was another possibility. I applied for London City Mission, but was turned down, and one by one I did not consider myself suitable for other missions. This realisation was a deeply hurtful experience.

I cannot remember how I came to be in receipt of the OM monthly newsletter, but I was. I had thought about the ship ministry, but thought that I could not cope with sea sickness and I had considered Love United Kingdom Evangelism, but thought that in the long term I would find the atmosphere claustrophobic. One day, the OM monthly arrived and as usual there was a prayer diary was on the back. There was a prayer request for people to come and join the home office team. I therefore prayed for other people to go and join the team. It did not occur to me to apply myself. The next month, the monthly arrived again and once again there was the same prayer request, but this time, there was an insert that had details of the jobs. When I saw that, I thought that perhaps I could do it. I applied to join. OM was the mission that I knew the least about. I did not actually know anyone in OM. I applied, and a date was set for me to come for a series of interviews. At that time the railways were having strikes and I did not want to find that they were on strike on the day that I needed to travel. It was for that reason that I went on the coach. A woman had said that she would meet me. I arrived at Wrexham bus station and there was no sign of her. It was evening, and there I was in a town in North Wales that I had never been to before wondering who was going to meet me. One by one I asked ladies at the bus station if they had come to meet me, but none of them had. I had been given an emergency phone number. I decided to call it, so I went into a phone box. I called the number and explained the situation to the man who picked up the phone. At the end of the conversation the man asked me to give him the number of the box I was in so that he could call me back. I did this, hung up and stood outside the box. Meanwhile a bearded man got into the box. I said, “If you do not mind, I am waiting for someone to call me back”. He said that was ok, he got in, and shut the door. Then he opened the door and said, “I do not suppose you are George Falconer by any chance? “I said, “Yes I am”. He said, “I am C M, I have come to meet you” He shook my hand, took me to a car and off we went. We arrived in the village where he took me to a house where I was going to spend the evening and left. As it was late, I went to bed and I thought, “I do not know anything about the couple I am staying with. Getting to know them may be important. In the morning I had breakfast with them and they told me what they did in in the office. The man said that he was the administration manager. That seemed to confirm my thought that getting to know them was important. I approached joining OM with fear and trepidation. I had felt hurt being turned down by London city mission and not being right for the Church of Scotland and backing out of other missions. I resolved that this would be the last time. It OM turned me down; I would never apply to a Christian mission again. This was a firm decision in my mind. I had a series of interviews that day; one was with two ladies in the personnel department, another with the field leader and another with the administration manager, the same man whom I was staying with. In the afternoon the receptionist came to me and said, “They would like you to go back up the stairs to the personnel department. “I thought that sounded bad. I thought, “Oh No, what has gone wrong this time? Why do they want me to go back to where I started this morning?” I went up the stairs and took a seat. The personnel manager sat in front of me and asked me, “What do you think you would find most difficult if you joined OM?” I thought for a moment and said, “Living by faith” By that I meant things like support raising.. She said, “We think we can make you an offer”. I was shocked and she could see that I was. I thought I was going to fall off the seat. She said, “What is wrong?” I said, “Nothing, I am just surprised, I thought you would want to take a couple of days to think about it”. She said, “We do not believe in waiting, when we think we have the right person” I had started that day in state of gloom and trepidation, but I went home full of the joys as though I was on cloud 9. I am sure that this was an answer to that prayer, for prayer it was when I had said to the lord, “If they turn me down, I will never apply to a Christian mission again.”

The Reps

I was encouraged by a visit from the OM Scottish Reps to my church. They came to the prayer meeting to tell the church about the work of OM. I became very good friends with them and I think to the church, their visit marked a turning point in my life. The visit certainly in my mind brought to the fore the reality of what I was doing. It was a visible contact with OM both me and the church

Austria

I decided to participate in one of our short term mission. I wanted to see what they were like and to do something I had not done before. I had never been to Austria, so I opted to go there. There was a training conference for a few days and then we were divided into teams and sent to different parts of the country. I went with a team to Villa. For all the time I was there, it was very hot. We worked with the Open Air Campaigners who taught us how to do scetchboard. Basically you do some simple paintings in a street where there are a lot of people, such as a shopping centre. As you speak to a crowd. In this way the gospel can be preached. I do not speak German so as I painted, I needed an interpreter. I got on well with one man in particular, so he did this for me. We also went to an old people home where one of the girls addressed the residents and told them what countries we all came from.

Austria, is a very catholic country and churches that are perfectly good Christian ones are thought to be sects. The team I was with worked with a Baptist church. A boy suggested that we set up a table to give tea and coffee to passers-by and in this way we could talk to people. I can tell you exactly how many people stopped. Just one. The lady who stopped was elderly and she spoke five languages one of which was English. She could see other people passing by on the other side of the street and she said to me, “They will not stop. They think you are a sect. I know you are not, but they think you are.” She told me that she had been a secretary to the British Army during the occupation after the Second World War.

I learned from one of the other men on the team that the Austrians have a sense of shame because of the war. The men on the team were staying with a couple. The woman was English and she said that the Austrians had no sense of their own identity because of the war. It has left scars that have lasted for generations.

On the way back to the UK, I flew with a couple of girls and a boy whom I had met at the training conference. They had been on one of the other teams One girl said to the other. “Tell them your news” the second girl said nothing so the first girl told us that the second girl had become a Christian. The second girl had gone to Austria, thinking she was a Christian and discovered that she was not and had been converted. This came as a surprise to the boy, but I was not surprised. I was old enough to know that there are many people who think that if they go to church and believe some facts that makes them a Christian. It does not, you need to actually trust Jesus and surrender your life to him and it is this sense that we need to believe in him. So many people believe about him, but not in him. I am pleased that this girl became aware of that and was converted.

THE Americans

One evening some years before I joined OM,my brother and I went out to a concert at our local theatre. It was a group from the USA called, “His Ambassadors” they sang Christian songs. It was a lovely concert and there was one man in the group who had an amazing voice and could hit really high notes in a song called, “Jesus is the cornerstone”. The next day we were in church and there was a man sitting in front of us. My brother said, “Do you see that man? He was with that group last night. He was not on the stage with them, but he was with them. I realised that the man was probably American and meeting an American in Dunfermline was special, so when the service ended, I followed him to the door and started talking to him. The man said that Salvation was a free gift. There is nothing you can do to earn a gift. In order to get it, you just have to receive it. This turned my life around. I now knew what the gospel was and I was saved. He invited me to a bible study and I went to it in his home on a regular basis. Over time, another couple came and I felt close to the second couple. I learned from all of them that one should make the gospel clear, and get that message over to people that salvation is not earned, it is given to us by God because we are sinners. We cannot save ourselves. Jesus has taken sin upon himself and died in our place and now he is alive and offers salvation to us if we trust him.

They called the bible study RANCH. This was a movement in the USA and all of the Americans came from Florida and had attended Florida Bible College.

At one of the bible studies, one of the Americans presented “The Charismatic Movement.” In the lord’s providence, shortly after this study, I encountered the charismatic movement, and I was ready for them. I am not going to get into any controversy in this blog, but I will say that one bible study made me realise that I had to get to grips with what the bible actually says and not what other people or books tell me it says. I am what has come to be known as a conservative evangelical and I have stuck firmly to this since the night of the bible study

Two more couples from Florida arrived. One day I was in the kitchen of the home of one of the families when I saw some tracts on the counter top. I found them interesting. They were published by “Last Days Ministries” I got the contact details and subscribed to the last Days Newsletter. I found that the articles in them helped my spiritual growth. One of those articles was title, “Why you should Go to the mission Field” this one was by far the strongest influence on me, and over time eventually led me into OM

The Arabs

There were guests in the shelter form Israel and there were also Arabs. In one staff meeting the General Manager said that we should watch our guests as some of them came from countries that were at war with each other. I read the Israelis and the Palestinians into that remark. There were times when Arabs would lay out a prayer mat, especially at night and pray to Mecca. Where possible, members of staff stopped them doing this. I have to say however that most Arabs are lovely people. There was one in particular I got to know. Let us call him P. He loved to sing Arab songs. He loved to discuss matters of faith and he was a very gentle man. We loved him. I got to know some of the other Arabs and this caused me to do some self-examination. I realised that my theology had a fundamental flaw. God had promised to bless through Isaac. However I failed to take into account that God also promised to make Ishmael a great nation. I thought that if only Israel of old had done the job properly when they went in to claim the Promised Land they should have exterminated all these people at the time and then the Arabs would not exist. I realised that I questioned their right to exist and I was horrified at myself. I was trying to portray the love of God to them and at the same time thought they should not exist. If any Arab were to believe in Christ, then just like me he too would be a new creature. He would be grafted on, accepted by God and be a Jew in heart. I therefore had to be wrong. I think that as Christians, if we find ourselves in a situation where we find that what we have been taught, or what we think does not comply with what the bible actually says, then let us be honest with ourselves and change accordingly. I had never met Arabs before and therefore what I had thought of them was sheer fantasy and far from the truth. They are part of God’s creation and he wants Arabs to trust in him.

To this day, I have no idea why P was asked to leave the shelter, but he was. I saw him one day and he was perplexed and asked me why there was no more shelter for him. I could not answer the question, because I had no idea that he had been asked to leave. I am sure however that it would not have been done without a good reason. I can only hope that what he learned in the time that he was at the shelter has born fruit in his life. I felt sorry for him. I had got to know him as a fellow human being and not just as an arab.

ON MY WAY

I joined OM, and got a coaches down to London, where I would get on a bus hired by OM to take all of the new recruits to the Netherlands, to a Christian centre called “Deborn “ There I was on that bus, on my way to the Netherlands with a whole new life in front of me. My journey there was slightly different to everyone else. We travelled overnight and stopped at the OM base in Zaventem in Belgium for breakfast. The personnel manager said before we met the Zaventem team that they would try to recruit us and then she added, “Remember, you are all spoken for”. I found this to be true, they did try to recruit us.

After breakfast someone told us that there was a disabled man driving to the base. He needed to go to the airport to pick up a passenger and he needed someone to accompany him. Would one of us care to remain behind to do this? As I had experience of living with a disabled relative I decided to volunteer to do this. Everyone else got back on the bus. I waited to meet the man, and he arrived. His name was Jonathan McCrostie and he and been a leader in OM for many years and had been injured in a motor bike accident. He needed me to go into the airport arrival lounge to meet a passenger. I did this. the Passenger was another OM .leader called Peter Magnusson. Thus I met two of the long term leaders in OM on my first day.

I got to the conference centre and I thought that the whole thing was wonderful. I loved being there. I met people who have gone on to be friends to this day. It was exciting to see people from so many nations going out to the mission field. In one session the leader of the Dutch work talked about an Englishman whom he admired. He told us that the man was 56 when he joined OM and he never let anyone say anything negative to him. He mimicked the Englishman by hitting his chest and told us that when the Englishman was on the ship, he would say, “I am not sick” and then he mimicked him vomiting. After this session I went back to the dorm I was sharing with two other men. Reflecting on the session, I said, “I would love to meet someone like that”. One of the men said, “You probably will meet him, because his wife works at the Quinta”. He was right, I did meet the mans wife and I met him several times. He was just as enthusiastic as people claimed.

One of my regrets from the training conference is that I did not take the contact details of a man I met. He came from the USA and one day he said to me, “I am a Red Indian George, you know the Woo Woo woo kind, “as he put his hand to his mouth and made the sound that red Indians do in Hollywood Wild West films. In the years since I have come to realise that man was very rare. In the USA, Christians among Native Americans is not common and reaching out to them is challenging. I have often wondered where that man is now and what he is doing.

Every evening we would socialise by having chips (French fries) and mayonnaise. There I was standing among complete strangers with a bag of chips when a woman walked over and helped herself to one of my chips and smiled at me. This is a very unusual way of introducing yourself and making friends, but in our case it worked as we are still friends and I have tormented her over the years by reminding her about this incident

After the conference, we returned to the United Kingdom to join OM UK, there were others however who returned to the UK to join the ship which was in Belfast. On the ferry coming back most of us were very sea sick. Once back in the UK, we were on a coach. There was a black girl who I knew had been violently sick on the ferry and who was going to join the ship. She knew that she would be traveling from a place in Scotland called Stranraer. She asked me what Stranraer was. I knew what she meant by that question, so I did not tell her that it is a port or a town. I told her that it was a ferry. Her eyes rolled. She had just been very ill on a ferry and I had just told her that she was going on another ferry to join a ship for two years. I have often wondered how she coped.

Those of us going to the Quinta got off the coach and into a mini bus for the last leg of the journey. It was dark and we were tired. The road up to the office and accommodation seemed so much longer than it really was. I was shown to the flat I would be living in which already had one occupant, and one of the programmers I had arrived with who came from Germany would also be living in the flat.

THE INDUCTION

I have seen a number of people join the team over the years and seen the inductions they get. I now realise that my own was special as unlike most people, I did not join the team alone. I joined with a number of other people, and a week-long induction programme had been created for us. I think this bonded us together. It was a shared experience for us just like the training conference had been. A number of people on the team had been chosen to lead us in sessions, and the woman who was in overall charge of the induction, was not in fact the woman who was supposed to be doing it. She had stepped in at the last minute due to illness. I think the induction for me was a nice, slow steady start to help me begin to adapt to my new circumstances. Most of the men who joined with me were computer programmers who had joined to write the new software that the resourcing offices needed. I have never seen an induction like it since. It was unique, and a very special time for all of us.

THE EARLY DAYS

I found the early days at Quinta difficult. I suppose that all of us who find ourselves in new situations find the start difficult. I had been afraid that I would suffer the same rejection in OM that I did at the start of my time at the shelter. That did not happen, but I did encounter other more subtle difficulties.

Then telephone system was strange. When anyone phoned in to speak to us, the phone rang, as did the one in the girls flat across the landing and the one in the corridor. One of my flat mates was very concerned that if his friends from phoned and one of the girls next door picked up the phone, his friends would get the impression that the girls were living with us, which they were not. I thought he was right, but we had to live with the situation. That is not the case nowadays.

The men I shared the flat with were OK, but I did not feel close to them, and I expect they felt likewise. However we all did our best to get along and this largely worked. However, I found that if I went out to a meeting and then came back, there would often be a visitor in the flat whom I was not expecting who had come round to see one of my flatmates. This was usually another member of the team and consequently someone I worked with. However if I was tired the presence of the visitor made me feel that I had no choice. I could not do what I really wanted to do which was go to bed. In fact I felt that although I lived in the flat, I had not chosen these men and they likewise had not chosen me. I had no sense of home. One of the men served his time with OM and left and someone else moved in. One never chooses ones flatmates and this contributed to my feeling of not having a home. As people left and others moved in, by feelings of not having a home got worse. I reached braking point. I went to see the field leader and poured out my feelings to him. To my amazement he had an answer. He told me that the house he and his wife were in was going to be split into two flats. I could have one of them and live alone. This happened and one day he the field leader told me that he thought that I had improved by living on my own. I certainly felt better because I had more control. I will always be grateful to him and his wife for doing that because I do not think that I would have lasted in OM for as long as I have without it. I now think that there is a time when flat sharing has difficulties but it is also fun when you are in your twenties or perhaps early thirties, but at thirty-eight, I was past that point and needed a place that I felt was my home. I also see Gods providence in these circumstances. I had no idea that I would get a place that I would be happy with on the day I spoke to the field leader, but the answer was already in Gods providence on the way.

Do not be naïve

Within months of my arrival I saw how there are some people who will exploit Christians. A man came claiming to have been a missionary in Macedonia. He was a good public speaker. He was introduced to us by a man who works for another Christian company. What he had so say sounded credible, but on checking on his background we were strongly advised by someone in Macedonia to have nothing to do with him. He was a con man who took advantage of people. I think that because of my experience at the shelter I was not shocked, but some were and it is a lesson that we need to be wise in our dealings with people. Most people are sincere and are who and what they claim to be, but this could not be said of everyone.

BEING THE MAILROOM MANAGER

When I started as mailroom manager, I did not have a handover from my predecessor as he had already left the team. Those in my department, between them taught me the job. I learned how to operate the machinery and when I was studying for my degree with Open University, I learned how to use a computer and in particular, email. I found right from the start in OM that this was very valuable experience for the office.

I was not only sending out many letters on behalf of OM UK but also for other fields. I had spent some time when unemployed training for office work and part of that was how to be a receptionist. Again I found this experience useful for filling in at reception in OM UK. I can now look back and see Gods hand in how he had led me to that point, giving me training and experience for joining OM even if I did not see that at the time.

I found the filling in at reception increased my knowledge of the people and work in OM. From time to time, I would go with others to help out in Open days at our Love United Kingdom office at Halesowen. Several of our team would go. On the first occasion I did this I happened to be walking through reception behind another man who came from my own team. The phone was ringing and there was no one at the desk. The man who was in front of me picked up the phone and started to say, “No, no, I don’t know, I don’t work here”. He put the phone down, looked at me and said, “That was someone called D” D had phoned the Quinta many times and I had spoken to him, though we had never met. I therefore knew who he was. I was shocked. I said, “What! He’ the boss of this place, he will wonder what is going on.” I have subsequently met D many times. This incident made me realise that I had learned things just by answering the phone. God was broadening my view of mission work.

OM has changed over the years, to meet new needs and demands. It means that people in it have adapted. I have had to adapt many times and to go on and on doing so. I think the culture in the office has changed very much for the better. We used to make do, but now we look good. Our publications have far more work put into them now to produce them and make them look good. We offer an even bigger range of ministry now than we did when I started, and in a small way I have been a part of it all. I realised that we had to change one day when I saw the material that another mission agency was producing and our own seemed poor compared to it. We brought people into the team whose professional background enabled us to make the necessary changes.

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Changes in me

I have come to realise that in any Christian ministry, there are going to be times of conflict. This requires forgiveness of one another that is deep and not just polite outward appearance. I think my experience at the shelter was my school for learning this, but it applies in any sphere of Christian life. One of our core values is “Living in Submission to Gods Word” At first that may seem easy, but when conflicts arise it is surprisingly difficult as we impulsively strive to get our own way. To qualify the core value that I have just mentioned, we say “ The Bible is our default reference in making decisions, resolving conflicts and determining the conduct of our life and ministry together”.

Most of us go to church, then we go home never to see other members of the church until next week or the next meeting. In missions we see each other every day, and all our little faults that annoy others come out in a way that in church life they rarely do. In mission where we live with each other every day, there is nowhere to go away and hide so conflicts do need to be addressed. I am pleased to say that in my own case, it has not happened often, but never the less, it has happened, and my experience at the shelter prepared me for it. I said in the section about the shelter that I did not know the names of the girls who complained about me and I did not ask who they were. I chose deliberately not to ask because I did not want to feel a grudge against anyone I was working with. At the time, I thought this wise and I still do, but it is more normal to know who is in conflict with you and as believers we need to live out what the bible has to say and it needs to show.

I find that one does not learn this lesson as one off. One learns it again and again in different situations and you never know when a conflict may occur. One also needs to try not to be the cause of unnecessary conflict.

I trust that I am just as enthusiastic about serving the lord as I was when I started. However, I have come to realise that enthusiasm is not enough. Serving the lord is a marathon, not a sprint. One needs to have the end goal in mind and that is to remain faithful to the lord until the day we meet him face to face. We need to be wise and lay before him all of our life’s experiences that have come to us in the lord providence and learn from them and change our conduct, or strategies or plans accordingly. I had to change my plan. I said at the start of this discussion that I wanted to be a Church of Scotland minister, but that did not happen. Instead I am in missions. I always was in missions, even when I was in my first job in the Co-op supermarket. Mixing with other people taught me how to talk to them about my faith. It also taught me how they think and I still deliberately meet with people who are not Christians and befriend them as I still want to be used of the lord to reach the lost even if it is not always through the organisation that I am a member of. Some of my meetings with non-believers come through church activities that are aimed at non-believers and others are through being a member of an amateur theatre company.

I hope that I am more patient with people than I once was. At the scripture union at university, I would have been the first to jump in and strongly state a point of view on some subjects and my point of view in my mind was the one and only right one. This was not always a wise approach. One needs to be gentle with people if one is going to persuade them and even if they do not agree, one must not lose sight of the fact that there are people one is never going to agree with but never the less God has chosen them just as much as he has chosen me and they are still my brothers and sisters in Christ. Peter once asked Jesus how often he should forgive his brother, would seven times do? He could not see that if he was counting, then he was not really forgiving, so Jesus said seventy times seven. He did not mean this as a mathematical formula, he meant that he should go on forgiving and I have found this to be true. There are some people (and I may be one of them) who are a brother or sister in Christ but they are a trial on your patience. However, somehow you have to get along and I think this is what Jesus meant. If we are to be witnesses to the world, we have to demonstrate Love for one another, and Love is not sentimental, it is practical.

I think that I am more aware of first impression than I once was. When I arrived at the Quinta, I met a lady from Barbados. We became friends, but it was not until she had known me for some time that she told me that her first impression of me was that I would not like her. It was only as time went by that she realised that I was a lot more friendly than I at first seemed to be. When she told me this I thought back to how I felt on the day I met her. I was very tired and just wanted to sleep. I was not aware that this gave her the wrong impression. I will not say that I always get this right, but I do say that I am more aware of first impressions than I once was.

My Vision.

My vision is to serve God in a fashion that would not be possible if I were in a regular Job. This is not to demean regular jobs. Most Christians are in regular Jobs and rightly so. It it were not for people in regular jobs supporting me, I would not be in a position to do the things I do.

I have a vision that the things I do, say and write should have a Godly impact on the lives of others. Many have been good influences on me and I seek to do the same for others.

Where possible my vision is to be a support and encouragement to others in their ministry for the lord.

I hope that this blog is as honest as it can be but does not defame anyone and that it will give the reader a realistic view of what being in missions is like. It is fulfilling, but it comes with a price. One must be focused on the end goal and that is to reach out to people, and it is people who are important, not strategies or projects.

As to how God will use me in the future. Perhaps that is another blog.