Teaching Apocalyptic Literature...

I know it sounds scary right! I've got back to Slovenia safely after spending the last week in England. I was back to attend a conference run by the Proclamation Trust for women in ministry. The theme of the week was Teaching Apocalyptic Literature which was both daunting and immensely helpful. We were staying at the beautiful Hothorpe Hall in Leicestershire. To be perfectly honest I wasn't really looking forward to the conference, mainly because of the timing. I was a bit annoyed that I'd just got settled again into my routine in Slovenia after Christmas and then within a couple of weeks I was back on a plane!
The conference was well worth it and I'm now hoping to be able to go to the next one. Now to the apocalyptic stuff. Before we went everyone had to prepare a talk on a passage. I was given Revelation 5 which for those who don't know is all about Jesus and how worthy he is. To be honest I think I got off quite lightly. As I was on the children's work stream, my talk also had to involve visual aids. This is where I am very thankful for technology and the ability to show a powerpoint presentation on a tablet. I'm not sure I would have been able to fit scrolls and lambs into my carry on...

I won't go into huge detail into what we learnt but it was challenging and thought provoking looking at passages from Revelation and Daniel. The overarching theme was to keep going, to endure because God has already won the victory. He has overcome Satan, sin and death. We don't need to worry about what is ahead because if we trust in him we know he keeps his promises of new life. We know that he has done all the work and we can rest in him and in his promises.

What was very interesting for me personally was being able to take a step back from my work here and actually think it through and evaluate. When I'm in the middle of a situation I tend to just deal with whatever is in front of me. It's not that I bury the hard stuff and don't acknowledge it, it just doesn't seem to affect me that much. Taking a step back and being able to talk things through with other people made me realise that actually I am in a difficult situation. Work in Slovenia is very slow and obviously it is draining living and working in a culture and language I'm not yet fluent with. It's ok to acknowledge that these things are hard. I think this is probably signalling the end of the honeymoon period here. I'm not homesick or feeling culture shock etc, I just think I'm in a better state of mind. I still love the work and life here, I know I'm where God wants me to be, doing what he wants but it's ok not to love every second of every day.

In the end, it's not about me and what I'm doing here. It's about God and his work. Yes it may be slow and difficult at times but whatever the situation we should keep going with God because he has already won the victory.

Post Christmas...

I know I'm quite late in saying Happy New Year but I'll say it anyway. It feels a long time since Christmas and the holidays and it hasn't helped that I've had the flu since I came back. I've found out since that lots of people caught it at the church I went to on Christmas Day. I fell ill on New Years Day and am still not properly well, I still need naps in the afternoon! Despite this I've just about managed to keep going with everything I've needed to.

Our Christmas events at church all went very well. We had a stall in the square outside the building we hold our church services in. I helped out for an afternoon and was quite pleased with myself for only speaking in Slovene. It may not have been brilliant linguistically but most people understood what I was saying. We were handing out free literature including New Testaments. I was surprised at how willing people were to take them. We also handed out leaflets advertising our Christmas service on 23rd. Unfortunately we only noticed at the last minute that they all said 2017 rather than 2018, oops...

The Christmas service went really well. The church was packed out which is always encouraging. We had a lot of visitors including families of church members but also some people that we had spoken to at the stall. It was very busy time for me as I was playing 2 different instruments in the service and I was trying to help get everything set up. The kids performed both a nativity play and then a rap. They were really good and everything seemed to go to plan. Please be praying for the visitors we had that they would be thinking about the gospel message they heard.

The week after that was a whirlwind for me as I travelled back to England and spent time with friends and family all over the country. I was so grateful to see everyone and also that my flights were all good. I had been stressed the week before I flew because of all the trouble at Gatwick but thankfully it was all sorted before I flew. It was a really encouraging time seeing everyone and I really appreciated being able to go to church and understand everything that was going on. I had the opportunity to share about my work with my sending church in Swindon. It was quite interesting for me though to discover that I was more than ready to come back to Slovenia. I had a lovely time and it wasn't that I didn't feel at home in the UK, it's just my home is here now. I missed wide streets, mountains and my own bed! I think it's a good sign though that I've settled here now especially since I'll be here until summer 2020!

The next big thing that will be happening is that I'm actually going back to the UK next Sunday for a Proclamation Trust conference for women in ministry. I will be travelling with another missionary in my church.  I found out this week that I'm expected to prepare a talk. My passage is Revelation 5 and as I will be on the children's stream, I have to prepare it with visual aids. This is made slightly more challenging when I have cross country travel to take into account... Please be praying for us as we both prepare our talks and for our travels. Please also pray that we would be blessed and have a fruitful time of learning.

Now I'm sorry there are no photos in this week's blog but (if it works) I thought I would share with you a video of the New Years fireworks taken from the rooftop of my building. Happy New Year all!

Preparing for Christmas...

It's that time of year! Christmas is nearly here and I'm getting very excited. This will also be my last blog post of the year. On 24th I will be flying back to the UK until 31st. It will be a very busy, hectic visit but I'm looking forward to it and hopefully I will be able to catch up with lots of people. Please be praying for me as I travel to England and as I travel around the country.

Christmas here is different to the UK. Although there is a Christmas market, events at church and lights all over the city, it just doesn't feel the same. I think it's the first time that I've really missed something from England. I'm not homesick, I just wish some of the traditions we have they also had here. Although there is no traditional food and no carols by candlelight, there are plenty of fun things going on. This week has been very busy for, hence why I'm writing this on Sunday rather than Friday. On Friday night we had a progressive supper with the youth group. We started at one house before moving to a second and then a third. The theme was Christmas around the world. The first house served us Indian food and we were told about how the host had become a Christian from a Hindu background. The second house was American. I've learnt this week that Christmas in America is actually very different to the UK. I just presumed it would be the same but in fact many of our traditions have not survived the crossing over the Atlantic. The third course was Australian. Although they celebrate during their summer, most of their traditions are from the UK so I felt most at home there eating mince pies and Christmas cake. It was a bit strange eating kebabs with them though...
This event was a good opportunity for all of us including the youth to hear about how different people became Christians and what things are like in their cultures.

The ladies at church also had an event yesterday. I gave a talk on the importance of Christmas to me. It was the first time I'd given a Christian talk. I'm not afraid of talking in front of people and you can probably tell from me writing a frequent blog that I quite like writing. I think the talk was appreciated but I wasn't quite happy with the way I gave it. I'd memorised it all but of course all the words disappeared from my mind when I actually came to speak. It wasn't nervousness but it's still different saying something in front of people rather than just by myself to my wall.
The rest of the event was really good and encouraging. We made these small models of Mary and Joseph and I was quite pleased with how mine turned out. When I say made, I mean we painted and assembled rather than actually doing anything with the wood. We had a good time of fellowship and ended with singing Christmas carols. Carols are fairly new to my church and so we tried learning the descants to a couple. It was such a joyful sound hearing all the different parts coming together.

This week we also have more events. On Friday and Saturday we will be having a stall trying to advertise the church and the Christmas service on 23rd. Please be praying that we will be able to speak to people and invite them along. Please also be praying for the service on 23rd. The kids will be performing a nativity (+ rap) and of course there will be lots of Christmas music and a Christmas message. Please be praying for everyone involved in all these preparations and that people will come along and hear about the real meaning of Christmas.

Anyway, if I don't get to see you in the coming weeks please have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Brexit Looms...

Whatever your political view you can't get away from it, Brexit is coming seemingly faster every day. As a British national in an EU country this is obviously quite an important topic. I've lost count of the times people have asked me what this will mean for me. Slovenes who know anything about it seem to view it with complete confusion. I personally am quite interested in politics and like to be informed about what's going on. I've kept up to date with the latest developments but there are still many big questions. It was in this light that I was

told about a meeting with the British Ambassador which would hopefully shed some light about what it would mean for British people in Slovenia. It was held in a 4 star hotel in the middle of Ljubljana. At the last minute I decided to change out of my hoodie and I'm glad I did! It felt very much like a business meeting for white middle aged, middle classed men! I was there along with my housemate and another friend and we were some of the only women there let alone under the age of 35. There was a cameraman filming the event and because of our demographic I'm sure we ended up being filmed more than most people. I found this photo on the embassy Facebook page, oh and look, we're speaking to probably the only non white person at the event. To be honest it was an almost complete waste of time. The only information we were given were things we could have read (and I had already read about) in the news. We were told that things will stay broadly (!) the same. Apparently the negotiations have been broken into parts and the issue of most importance was that of citizens rights (they kept repeating that). There have been negotiations about all the things to do with actually leaving the EU but nothing to do with the continued relationship between Britain and the EU. This means that any specific questions were met with the stock answer that those things hadn't been negotiated yet. One important thing for me specifically was being told that things will stay the same until the end of the implementation period which is in December 2020. As I will be leaving in the summer of 2020 this means that I don't really have to worry about anything unless I want to come back and hopefully at that point things will have settled down considerably.

As with all meetings of this kind where you give people the opportunity to ask questions there were many that were either pointless (what colour will the passport be?) or not to do with Brexit (The Catholic church won't let me spread my wife's ashes in England!) At least we got given light refreshments at the end. The food was all canapes in little trays. You basically got one mouthful with every little tray. My housemate decided to use this opportunity to provide herself with dinner. She ended up basically following waiters around getting more canapes although she did pretend that she was getting them for other people...

I'm glad I went to the event, at least I know a bit more about what things will be like until I go back to England but I also know that the news is still a pretty good source of the information I need.

Settling in for Winter...

The weather is finally starting to turn and autumn is on its way out. I feel that this is a terribly British way to start my blog post this week but I won't apologise because I've learnt that Slovenes talk about the weather quite a lot too. I guess that's one of the reasons I like it here so much, it feels similar to England!

It has been a warm November and so I've been ignoring the fact that it gets much colder here than in the UK. My British housemate keeps telling me that I just need to survive winter in Ljubljana. Apparently it gets dark, depressing and cold. With temperatures set to drop next week to just above 0°C I've finally had to face the fact that I need to be better prepared. With emergency shopping off my list, I've been able to focus more on that fact that Christmas is coming! I've been aided in this by my other housemate who has been watching Christmas films since the beginning of November!

You may think that I'm early in talking about Christmas but the truth is at church we started thinking about it a few weeks ago - what the music will be, what the kids will do etc. I've discovered that working for a church means planning things well in advance! It's the unglamorous side of being a missionary, a lot of my time is spent in planning, admin and organisation. This is my current pile of books and notebooks. They are all in use and they all have a different purpose! (If you can't see, there are 16 on the pile).

Life here has been continuing much as it has been over the last couple of months. I've been very encouraged by the one to one/ two meetings I've been having. I've been having good discussions and lots of questions with the teenagers and with the other lady in the church I've been meeting with. I've nearly finished the studies on Proverbs and the book Battles Christians Face with the teenagers. It has been good to hear what they think on each of the topics and good for me to be reminded of what God has to say on each of these subjects. My plan now is to alternate between studying a topical book and a book of the Bible. We will therefore move on next to a book called What Do You Think of Me? Why Do I Care? by Edward Welch. I managed to read it in a couple of hours this week and it is a helpful Biblical insight on how we view ourselves, how others view us and most importantly how God views us. I hope it will be a useful topic for the girls I am meeting with. Please be praying for them as they are seeking to live as Christians in a culture where so few others are.

One answer to prayer for me has been that I've been able to start making Non-Christians friends. Until recently everyone I knew either went to my church or were friends with my housemates. Although they have all been very welcoming I wanted to get out of the Christian bubble a bit and make friends of my own. I have somehow found myself in the position of getting to know people who work with the Slovenia and Ljubljana rugby teams. It is not as popular here as in the UK as can be seen in the picture of a game between Slovenia and Andorra. It has, however been a bit surreal for me as I have found myself amongst the players, coaches and officials. Last Saturday was especially interesting as I assisted my friend in filming the match on a camcorder. We had to climb up an unattached ladder (whilst carrying a cup of coffee!) to a wooden platform that had big gaps between the slats! My friend kept forgetting that she was filming and that everything she said would be caught on film. Every so often she would ask me what was going on and so now there is official footage of me trying to explain rugby... Anyway, it's been really good to get to know a new group of people. Please be praying for me as I seek to be a good witness to these people and that God would give me opportunities to speak to them about the gospel.

Celebrations...

This last couple of weeks has been full of celebrations. It's always nice to write about the fun things that are happening here. I guess the biggest piece of news (if you hadn't already heard) is that I've been asked to stay in Slovenia for a second year. This is a very quick plea for prayer and support. I still need to raise the finances to be able to stay so if you'd like to help please let me know (s.re.deacon@gmail.com). I am really excited to be staying here longer as I feel like I've only just got here and settled in to the work I'm doing.

Another (reasonably) big celebration for me was my 30th birthday last weekend. I certainly don't feel any older or wiser but maybe that will happen more in my 30s. I was really grateful that both my sisters and one brother in law were able to come visit me and see a bit of the life I'm living here. I had a brief (1 day) holiday in Venice with my younger sister which was lovely but she kept telling me off for comparing it to Ljubljana (oops). We were very fortunate with the weather but after we left Venice was hit by big floods. We definitely came back at the right time!


This week has been very quiet as many of my normal activities were cancelled. The schools are on holiday and also there have been two national holidays. Both these holidays have great cultural and historical significance. Firstly the 31st October is Reformation Day. I love the fact that in a Catholic country Reformation Day is celebrated and is much more important than Halloween. The reason for this is down to one man: Primož Trubar. I don't have space to go into too much detail here but essentially he was a reformer in the 16th century who was also responsible for writing the first books in Slovene. Reformation Day is a great opportunity for gospel witness and that's why I found myself helping out with and event run by IFES last week. Lots of different organisations came together to run stalls offering everything from magic tricks to free literature and cake and coffee. We were trying to generate conversations with people passing by. My main job for the day was to hand out leaflets about the beliefs and life of Trubar. I'm not very experienced/ good at street evangelism but even I managed to have one good gospel conversation with a student. I'm praying that he will read the literature he was given and that he will want to find out more.

The second national holiday this week was on 1st November which was All Saints Day. This is where people remember the dead. As far as I'm aware (any Slovenes reading this please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) the roots are in Catholicism. People go to the cemetery to light candles at the graves of their family members. I believe that this comes from praying for the dead to help them through purgatory more quickly. It is now more cultural than religious and everyone seems to take part. We went to the cemetery later in the evening and every grave had at least one candle lit on it. Everywhere you looked there were thousands of candles blinking in the darkness. It was very beautiful but at the same time very sad. I know that not everyone there was praying for souls in purgatory but many would have been.

I went with a couple of Swedish students with Slovene ancestry and for them it was about remembering their loved ones which is something I don't think we do much in England. It was a solemn occasion but very interesting to witness. What I did find odd though was the stalls selling hot food. (Buy your roasted chestnuts before you go visit the graves.) I think though that this day reflects the Slovene culture quite well: understated but beautiful.

Learning New Skills...

Life continues on here and time seems to speed up. I can't believe I've been here for almost 6 months now. It doesn't feel that long but at the same time I'm starting to forget what it's like to live in a country where I understand everything that's going on!

In the past couple of weeks I've managed to establish some sort of routine with all the groups, sessions, lessons and Bible studies I'm involved in. The one to ones are progressing well and I really feel like I'm getting to know the teenagers a lot better. One thing that has helped a lot is that they all love to read! One family is like the library for the church. Their books get passed around from household to household and I get to join in with this. Firstly as most of you will know, I love to read anyway and I actually really enjoy teenage fiction. Secondly it helps me to engage with the youth because it means I know what they're talking about and what they're interested in.

One area of church work I'm involved in but not yet written much about is the music. I have been learning music since I was about 4 or 5 and have been involved in music in church since I was a teenager. Over the past couple of months though I have become more passionate about music in church and congregational singing. I have been influenced a lot by the work of Keith and Kristyn Getty. They wrote a book a couple of years ago called Sing! which has been really helpful for me as a musician and for someone involved with music in church. It's not just for musicians though, it addresses why singing (whether you're musical or not) is so important in the church. The Gettys have also started putting on conferences each year addressing these ideas from a Biblical perspective. I was able to watch the live stream of this conference in Nashville a few weeks ago. It was based on the Psalms and for the first time I really started to appreciate how amazing it is that God has given us a songbook to use.

In my church, the lady in charge of the music also has been influenced by the Gettys. We have been watching videos of last year's conference and it has been such an encouragement to both of us. It's great that I can have someone to talk about these things with.
Although she is in charge of the music in church, I am able to be a sounding board for her ideas and I try to help her where I can. One job I've taken on is starting to prepare carols for Christmas. Carols are fairly new to my church although they have been translated into Slovene. What they don't have, however, is all the different parts and harmonies that go with the tune. As a flautist, every year growing up I was given the descant part (the high bit some ladies sing in the last verses of some carols) to play and so I know these parts very well. I volunteered to write out the music for 3 carols with this extra part. The music itself isn't the difficult bit, I have to try and make sure the words in Slovene fit in correctly and sound right when they're sung. One strange consequence of this work is that I've been starting to get in the Christmas mood and so spent a lot of yesterday afternoon listening to Christmas songs - it's not weird is it?


I've also been given the opportunity to learn a new musical skill this week. Many of the girls in church play the ukulele. Last Sunday I was lent one to see if I can teach myself and then join them in playing in church. Between the ages of 7 and 13 I learnt to play the Spanish guitar - that means playing tunes not chords. I think that knowledge is buried deep in my brain because I seem to have just been able to pick up the ukulele and play it. It's great! I may well be annoying my flatmates (sorry if I am) but I am really enjoying picking up the music for hymns and songs and playing and singing them. It's also quite therapeutic and gives my brain a rest from learning a difficult language and preparing Bible studies. Now I just need to work on developing calluses on my fingers...