Tall Skinny Kiwi

YWAM - Around the world in 80 days

Last night I did some teaching and storytelling at the YWAM Oxford base, just north of Christchurch, NZ. The 50 students were mostly from a new initiatve called "Around the world in 80 days". Participants in this DTS (Discipleship Training School) buy a round-the-world ticket and try to change the world wherever God leads them. Its full on nomad-itinerant-Spirit-led-wanderer stuff. I like it!!!!!! Thanks Noah and Kate for the invitation.

We had a fun time. My kids loved being there also. Really cool people. These guys are the "couch-surfing apostles" that I predicted a decade ago.

If you were there, please keep in touch with me and let me know how your travels go, esp. if you keep a blog like I suggested. That piece on "global nomads" I read was from my blog - right here. That other piece I wrote will come out in a book soon.

Christmas Day

So its Christmas Day, the day we remember the birth of our Saviour Jesus Christ. This one is the biggie of the year for us. My wife is making raspberry turnovers and sausage souffle for breakfast as her family has done since she can remember.

Last night we did a Polish tradition for Christmas Eve. No Polish here. It was Teresa Kwon, a Korean-American from Texas that brought it along. Its called Oplatek and its a wafer that gets broken and eaten piece by piece as it goes around and the final piece gets sent off to absent friends. She said a blessing also. Nice touch to an English Christmas that is welcoming Polish and Lithuanian immigrants to a new land. After that, we ate a southern BBQ meal with brisket and beans and potato salad and chicken.

Later on today we will drive down to Chichester to be with friends for the day. Our families are scattered in America and Australia [Merry Christmas everyone] and beyond so we are forming some temporary family for the day.

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Feast of St Ambrose - Dec 7

Today is the feast day of St Ambrose, the famous bishop of Milan. Veal Chop Milanese is the recipe for St Ambrose.

Costoletta alla Milanese (Veal Chop Milanese)
4 veal chops salt and pepper
1 egg 1 cup bread crumbs
6 tablespoons butter

Have the veal chops cut about 1/2 inch thick. Beat the egg with one tablespoon water and season with salt and pepper. Dip the chops first into bread crumbs, then into beaten egg, and again into bread crumbs. Melt the butter and fry the chops for about ten minutes on each side--until golden brown. Serve on a hot platter with slices of lemon dusted with chopped parsley. [link]

Want some light reading to go with your veal? Check out the online Ambrose library here.

St Nicholas Feast Day

Ah yes. December 6. St Nicholas, bishop of Myra and the inspiration behind Santa Claus. This one slipped by but Bea Marshall got on my case for not mentioning it, and rightly so. She also told me what her family does to celebrate:

"It's one of the highlights of sdvent for us marshalls - on st nicholas eve we make speculoos biscuits with the kid's friends and read the st nicholas story while drinking hot chocolate. then we hang up our stockings and get gold coins in the morning on st nicholas day."

Fantastic! A recipe for those biscuits, known as Speculaas, Speculaus, St. Nicholas Cookies, Kris Kringle Cookies, or Dutch spice cookies is here (American) or here (international).

Advent Conspiracy

"Advent Conspiracy is an international movement restoring the scandal of Christmas by worshipping Jesus through compassion, not consumption." The conspirators behind this include my friends Chris Seay and Rick McKinley. Rick says "A lot of churches are participating in taking back Christmas by telling a better story with our Worship." Check it out and get involved.

Technorati Tags: advent, christmas, religion

St Andrew's Day

Today is St Andrews Day, a day to remember St Andrew, one of Jesus' disciples. St Andrew's feast has been celebrated with various kinds of food in Scotland over the years ranging from wild hare, singed sheep' head, haggis, and fish because Andrew was a fisherman when Jesus called him to follow. Some say any good Scottish food will do.
I have always been attracted to St Andrew because we share the same name, and because his first impulse when Jesus called him was to go and find his brother.

Technorati Tags: religion, st andrews day

Harvest Festival

The Baptist church down the road from us is having a Harvest Festival which is popular among Protestants, although the timing is unsure. Harvest Festival usually at the end of the farming year and it is similar to the Jewish Feast of Ingathering. Its a time to bring in the food produced on our land and symbolically offer it to God. And, of course, eat a little of it. Some churches, like the Baptist churches I grew up with, had a table in the front of the church which would fill up with all kinds of bread. Nothing else, really, just bread . . but then it was an urban church and there were no farmers around.

This Sunday, the church is having a potluck dinner to celebrate Harvest Festival and we are bringing along food to add to it. That way we all get to eat together.

In USA and Canada, this is a national holiday and its called Thanksgiving. It occurs at the end of November and we always celebrate it because my wife is American and so are our kids. I am traveling this Thanksgiving and will not be at home so what we are doing this morning is making a COMPLETE THANKSGIVING FEAST, including turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, sweet potato and brown sugar dish, etc, and bringing it along to the potluck at this little unsuspecting Scottish Baptist Church. It might freak them out a little, but not as much as when i brought a rare EYE-FILLET STEAK on a bed of garlic potatoes to the potluck last year.

Some history from Wikipedia

"The modern British tradition of celebrating Harvest Festival in churches began in 1843, when the Reverend Robert Hawker invited parishioners to a special thanksgiving service at his church at Morwenstow in Cornwall. Victorian hymns such as "We plough the fields and scatter", "Come ye thankful people, come" and "All things bright and beautiful" helped popularise his idea of harvest festival and spread the annual custom of decorating churches with home-grown produce for the Harvest Festival service."

Not sure what we will do or what you will do but I am thinking today is a good day to think about God's provision from the earth for our needs. Here are some prayers.

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