Ok, so I’ve had a few days in Oman with tom and his parents, which was amazing. We went to the top section, which is actually separated from the rest of Oman by a bit of the UAE and went to a hotel in the mountains. We went on a day’s trip on a Dow, a fishing/transporting people boat around a local type of fjord. We saw dolphins, swam in nice water (apart form the tiny weenie little jellyfish which prickled you a bit) and saw these ridiculously small villages (10 houses and sometimes a population on 25, in the capital of that area!) which you can’t get to apart form by boat. Crazy people. Anyway, it was very restful and let me see what a wonderfully creative God we have. I think some would find the landscape of grey and brown mountains slightly boring and there was no lush forest to walk through or paths to stroll up, but the majesty and strength you could see in the was phenomenal. I love this sort of landscape. It seems so old for some reason!
I had a longer think about what I wrote previously and tom and I chatted about it some more. We discussed how fundamentally although you say that you hold other denominations as equal, when they say something which makes you bristle, it is usually because you think they’re wrong. This must therefore mean that you think they are wrong and you are right, therefore making them unequal at a deep fundamental basic level of your consciousness. We then talked about the notion of needing to be right about things – an interesting human characteristic. It made me think about how different theologies might be right for different times and different places? Liberation theology works a bit like this I think. It makes me feel quite humbled in my views of Christianity around the world and challenges me about the in-built presumptions, beliefs, prejudices and biases I have. Can it be as equally right for me to believe one thing about Christianity as being the most important, non-negotiable and for someone across the other side of the world to believe something totally different, yet still believe in the same God. It makes me wonder what we can learn from other parts of the Christian faith that we ignore – we are all in the same stew after all.
We have a new digital camera – a fuji 440, which is brilliant. Once we manage to get some software on a computer somewhere we can download them and you can see some of where we were.
Ps Jacqui – the fish stank, there was no way you were going to get it anywhere near my mouth!

i really like coming to to Dubai to see Tom's parents. It's always a refreshing change to be in such a different, non-western environment and always challenging to see how Christianity works itself out differently in different cultures. It reminds me of something someone said recently, having spent some time at All Nations college where there were over 50 nations represented at once and noting how each would see something different of Christianity as being the most important and yet when they came otgether to worship they were all in one family.
I think in the Vineyard we talk often about being the turnip in the stew and that there are lots of other 'vegetables' which make up the whole. I do wonder though how much validity we give the other vegetables. I was so challenged today by Tom's mum telling us a story of the different ways in which different denominaitons of churches have embraced the tsunami tragedy - the church of england church is very much grace to all, explaning children dying in the waves as a natura;l tragedy due to the fallenness of our world and sending aid to everyone; and the churches of other origins, from Sri Lankia and Indonesia see the whole thing as God's judgement on the immoral behaviour of the muslims in the country. they are therfore sending the aid mainly to the christian churches, claiming that aid is being denied to them by the authorities. Her statement of 'how can a church of england minister know what really goes on in the countries and who doesn't hear the stories of fishermen forcing children to desecrate churches and stamp on cruycifixes as he doesn't spend time with these people, know what God thinks?' made me think. Her pastor has just gone out to the andaman islands for two weeks to a church he has links with to see what longterm aid they can offer.
There have been a few things in the ways in which prophecy and interpretation of scripture have been done in churches here recently which have bristled all of my natural instincts too, seemingly so wrongly translated and read. yet we see nothing but growth and God doing amazing things in those churches and through the people in them. It makes me wonder if we in the west take our theology, meaning the interpretation of scripture, too narrow-mindedly. I'm sure this will cause many to disagree, but it's just a thought. We get so caught up in dismissing things because they wouldn't stand the rigourous testing that we place scripture under and yet i wonder if maybe in doing that we are throwing out lots of God stuff. I know that the other denominations aren't perfect and they too have many disagreements about scriptural things (currently over whether or not Jesus turned water into wine or grape jiuce in one church here appreantly), i guess i mean as an overall whole i could be less anal in over-analysing things? Probably very badly put... i'll have a longer think and try to rephrase it.
On another notes of the tsunami side of things, it's been very good to get involved in the actual hands-on side of sending things out to the countries affected. Last night we were packing boxes of salted fish, and then loading them onto a truck ready to be collected to be put in the container, today counting money collected and this evening labelling bags of rice. I appreciate so much the aid organisations' efforts in western countries and being able to move so fast in delivering what is needed, but it feels good to actually not just give money, but also to help put the money to use in a practical visible fashion.
that's all for now. i will think longer on what i have said and reajust things accordingly...