We rushed home from India in that tiny window before the COVID-19 lockdown.  Two years later our belongings followed us, thanks to a small army of kind people who packed everything up for us.  Ever since our home has been piles and boxes—especially my study—because we were planning to move house, one with more space.

But that didn’t happen…

So, because we are staying where we are, we needed to make some changes, starting with my study.  We rented a storage unit nearby and moved things across to it and then went to work. After so many years of things being in different places, it has been fun building a study with plenty of shelves and sentiments—and with everything in one place.

A Latin-Zimbabwean collaboration

A guest speaker early on in my time at Carey was (Auntie) Dr Beryl Howie —I’ve written about her here — a family friend from our Indian upbringing. A quiet legend. She held up this card and told her life story through it’s truth—”the solution is found in walking with God”. I asked her if I could keep it and then I framed it.

Once, as I was leaving Harare, I fell in love with this painting. I have always wanted to juxtapose it with Auntie Beryl’s testimony—and now I have! They just need Psalm 119.32 as a caption underneath: I run in the path of your commands, for you have set my heart free.

I love the tenderness of Jesus in his post-resurrection appearances. The way he is with people draws me back. The lingering in John 20. The walking in Luke 24. The waiting in John 21. 

A Stott Shelf

It is not silly hagiography. He had his faults. And yet one of the most gracious workings of God in my life was to bring me into the orbit of the influence of John Stott in my molten years. It has been a frequent theme in this blog. I dream of buying every book that he wrote—and I’ve made quite a good start, don’t you think?

I must have given his Thessalonians commentary to someone. Yikes. I gotta rectify that situation! … “1 Thess 1 is what we know about you; 1 Thess 2 is what you know about us”… Love it. Classic Stottian clarity and simplicity on which my soul has fed for years. The little photo to the left is John Stott speaking at a pastors’ conference in Deodars, a conference center in Mussoorie (ca 1970), where Barby and I were based in our childhood. Barby’s Dad hosted him and gave me the photo. Enlarge it, if you can. A beautiful, warm smile—and with hands in his pockets!

A Preaching Collection

Apart from the first five years as a pastor, teaching preaching at the college/seminary level has been the common denominator in my working life. I’ve been doing it every year since… 

…and accumulated a few books along the way.

Two of my grandchildren, Micah and Amaliya, came across and helped me put all of them in alphabetical order. Having a little pocket money on the table necessitated counting them.

361.

A Rare Text

Not so long before my father’s death, my parents commissioned someone to chisel this verse onto some wood for me. That makes it special all on its own, but it is also a verse that demonstrates how well they know their boy and his vulnerabilities.

A Leadership Corner

I always thought I’d like to have a crack at teaching a course on leadership. So I’ve collected resources over the years. I’ve blogged frequently on the subject. But this ship seems to have sailed, probably because the Lord knows I have still too much to learn! 

A Clock and a Frame

—and both with a link to China.

In our years in pastoral ministry in Invercargill, an elderly couple turned their hearts towards us. Part grandparents for our little family; part elders for us in our little church (they were members elsewhere). Norman & Amy McIntosh, veterans with OMF in different parts of Asia. When each of them died, I had the incredible privilege of speaking at memorial services for them. Well, Norman made me a clock…

On one of my first visits to Hong Kong in my current work, there was an artist present. On the final day he asked each person for a favourite verse. I handed-in mine—“But the Lord stood at my side and gave me strength…” (2 Tim 4.17). Then he stayed up pretty much all night and created one of these for each of us. It went straight into a frame.

A Daughter and a Dad

I’ve told this story here. The photos were framed a few weeks before we left India. I was very keen to be reunited with them. They made it home again and now they are a scene in my study.

The one on the right says so much about my Barby—and similar things are communicated in a photo of her Dad, all those decades ago.

A Commentary Wall

The years in theological training at TEDS, near Chicago, had a couple of unexpected outcomes. One was the way it helped me discern what writers are worth reading—and the other is the love it gave me for a good commentary. I’ve been guided in my usage by this Denver Seminary resource for more than 20 years. In preparing sermons, it has always amazed me how much imagination can be let loose while reading an academic commentary. While the cardinal sin for a preacher is to reach for them too early, not far behind is the sin of not reaching for them at all…

An Preaching Club Ushirika

At the heart of the Langham Preaching ministry lies the preaching club: small groups of preachers together—praying, resourcing, preparing, preaching and holding each other accountable. This is the means by which their preaching is being transformed. 

In Latin America, the preaching club is called an escuelita. Across Africa they have shifted recently to using a Swahili word, ushirika. 

My son, Martin, returned from a visit to Uganda with this painting for me. 

Only much later did I realise what it is. 

It is an ushirika!

A Compulsive Behavioural Reading Disorder

Ahh, my books on the fascinating history of cricket in South Asia, a story divided by partition but now united on my shelf…

nice chatting

Paul

Encore: a letter left unwritten

I’m not sure how I came across this slip of paper.

Barby’s Dad must have had a few things on his mind to tell me, but they were never written down.

Now, from time to time, I like to imagine what he might want to say to me…