Today we remember the life of Tony Stevens.

Tone died suddenly on Palm Sunday at a railway station. He died knowing he was in the arms of his creator, and no doubt he was excited at the prospect of finally meeting him face to face.

Tone was a friend, mentor, discipler and genuine guy who, although challenging and awkward on occasions, was a fantastic man of God who will be missed in so many various ways by so many various people.

For me this will mean missing the weekly phone call to ask how things ‘really are’. For quite a few years, Tone has decided that I needed a mentor like him. I’ll’ be honest, I used to groan sometimes when he rang, and other times I would just give the right answers to get him off my back; but already this week I am missing that phone call. It really is true that sometimes you just don’t appreciate things that happen until they stop. Well now they have stopped! There is a gap, and it is painful knowing that it is a gap that just can’’t be replaced.

Interestingly on those days I gave the right answers to get away Tone seemed to know and would grab me on a Sunday morning in church, or phone again to ask for a lift somewhere so he could talk to me in the car. In previous years he has been there and caused me to realise truths like: I was not having a faith crisis, but merely walking through another desert on my journey with God. More recently, when thinking of leaving SEITE, it was Tone who reminded me that I was clearly called and needed to honour that calling of God. To leave, he said, would be denying all those people that had sponsored me and been praying for me; sound advice from a mature friend.

I will miss the cheeky grin, the half joking jibe to pull me up short, the laugh, the solid eye contact and challenge; most of all I will miss the excitement he had for others, the potential he saw in them, and the belief he had in their ability. I’ll cut the crap – I’’ll miss the belief he had in me!

The departing of Tone is sad for us; St. Mark’’s will be strangely lacking, but heaven will no doubt be an even livelier and funnier place with one of its latest guests.

One of Tone’’s frustrations was his inability to mess about physically with old age and disability holding him back. He is now free of them and is dancing and running as much as he wants. That is a great picture!

Bye Tone – see you again when we join you!

Blessed are You, O Lord our God,
King of the universe!
At Your word night falls.
In Your wisdom You open Heaven’s gates.
You set the stars in the vault of Heaven.
You created night and day.

Blessed are you, O Lord,
At whose word night falls.
All nature listens to You,
Because You hold it all.
And know you hold Tone.

(adaptation from the Talmud)

Went with Tom and Beth this evening to the holy ground of Priestfield to watch the womens England team beat Austria 4-0.

Their is a skill gap, but the atmosphere was great, it was one of the biggest crowds we have seen this season at Priestfield and 4 goals, 3 in the last 5 minutes, made it an exciting game. The group 5 table looks good for our women and wouldn’t you just have loved to be at the England Hungary game with a 13-0 victory!

Some people near us left 10 minutes before the end – they must be gutted! I have never understood those people who consistently leave matches early; they must miss loads of goals and it is at these key times that quite often games are won.

I guess its similar in our Christian journeys – those that stick see the full benefit, those that bale early have a ‘what if’ or ‘if only’ wondering outlook. That thought has only just come to me and as it has gone midnight I am going to think more of that later and come up with analogies from football to illustrate faith … I feel a SEITE presentation coming on!

A double world cup victory is the prediction….what’s that I hear …

Three Lions on a shirt
Jules Rimet still gleaming
Thirty years of hurt
Never stopped me dreaming

Many of you know that I have a Burmese father. This is an event that I’m probably not going to be able to get along to but if you are in the area and want to hear how you might best support the people of Burma as they attempt to receive justice why not go along? If you can’t get there, have a look at the Burma Campaign website to both inform yourself and see how you can make a difference.

The people of Burma experience some of the worst injustices in the world, and yet world governments sit quietly and observe, multi-national companies continue to invest with a Pilotian claim that the blood is not on their hands, and while they do men, women and children are abused, murdererd, raped and treated as sub human. If this country was seen as a threat, real or imagined, or had oil to sell I wonder if governments, well GB and USA, would be so quiet?

Campaigns work – please join the campaign. I received this email today:

Freedom for Burma

Come and hear Burmese democracy activist Charm Tong of the Shan Women’s Action Network speak about the situation in Burma and what the international community can do to help.

Other speakers include Ben Rogers – Christian Solidarity Worldwide, and Mark Farmaner – Burma Campaign UK. Chair; Guy Craft, SOAS Student Union.

Speeches will be followed by Q&A session.

6-8pm Sunday 23rd April – KHALILI LECTURE THEATRE – SOAS, (Russell Square
Building) Central London.

Organised by SOAS Student Union, Burma Campaign UK and Christian Solidarity Worldwide.

Nearest Undergrounds ­ Russell Square (Piccadilly Line), Goodge Street (Northern Line), Euston or Warren Square (Victoria & Northern Lines).

Buses: numbers 7, 68, 91, 168 and 188 stop near Russell Square; 10, 24, 29,
73 and 134 stop on Tottenham Court Road (north bound) or Gower Street (south bound).

ENTRANCE FREE

Charm Tong Biography
When she was only seventeen, Charm Tong, along with other Shan women active on the Thai-Burma border, founded the Shan Women¹s Action Network (SWAN), an organization dedicated to stopping the exploitation of and violence against women and children.

Three years later, recognizing that their lack of education leaves Shan youth more vulnerable to being trafficked or lured into exploitative activities, Charm Tong founded The School for Shan State Nationalities Youth. The school works to empower and build the capacity of the students to become leaders in their communities. Burma human rights and democracy movement now views the school as a model for training young people in human rights. The school also provides English-language lessons and computer training to Shan youth as well as those from other ethnic minorities.

More recently, Charm Tong became instrumental in launching a campaign to bring attention to the systematic use of rape of Shan women by the Burmese
military. The campaign, based on a report called ³License to Rape,²
received considerable international attention. The Thai government feared that the campaign would threaten its ties with the Burmese regime, however, and closed down the SWAN office. Even with rumours circulating that SWAN members have been targeted for reprisals, Charm Tong remains undeterred. ³I promised the women who have endured this brutality,² she says, ³that I would speak out about all the horrible acts against them.²

Charm Tong¹s courage is legendary. She first testified before the United Nations Commission on Human Rights at the age of seventeen and she once lobbied a resistance commander to allow SWAN activists to educate women in areas under his control.

Chang Tong has received several awards, ranging from the Marie Claire Women of the Year award to the Reebok Human Rights Award.

In October 2005 Charm Tong had a 50 minute meeting with US President George W. Bush.

³The military has done lots of things to damage our hearts, our beliefs, our souls, and our rights,² she once wrote. ³It is difficult for people to forget all kinds of violations that the military committed. There are still more and more violations of human rights in Burma, especially in the rural and border areas. The best thing we can do is to fight with our hearts and minds, so that we are not in fear and pain.”

Was this message forwarded to you by a friend? If you are not already a member of the Burma Campaign UK e-mail network, and would like to receive these updates directly, you can subscribe by sending a blank e-mail to burmacampaign-subscribe@topica.com

Today has been an interesting day. A day when I have asked on more than one occasion ‘what’s it all about?’

I always find it weird coming back from a long time away to my normal (if there is such a thing) pattern of work. There is always a sense of excitement, not knowing what the time away may have thrown up, what issues or events are waiting to pounce on me. Often, there is a mountain of emails, but there were only around 40ish which was a pleasant surprise. Obviously others took time off during the week too! Always, these days throw up a good amount of stress as, although I like to work spontaneously, I also like to have a bit of control on that spontaneity!

Today has been one of those days where I have just had to catch up with what is happening in my world and that of others. Today has been a day to listen, to learn, to reflect and a day to decide what to do based on just partial knowledge. Today has been a day of arrow prayers and actions. I cannot claim God’s great direction, but I can say I prayed and did stuff and prioritised in a way that seemed right.

It strikes me that days like this must have been common place for the early Christians. We often romaticise the time and I regularly hear, in the charismatic wings of the church especially, that ‘it would be great if we could get back to the early church way of doing things!’.

I reflect on that and think that we are – just as they argued and moaned about things, we seem to be doing quite a good job of imitating them! I don’t think, however, this is what others are meaning! They are meaning an atmosphere of great worship and spiritual gifts.

We romanticise thinking all this was great, all was powerful, all was exciting; whereas in actual fact I wonder whether it wasn’t all just a bit stressful and laborious with power struggles, misunderstandings, and genuine, but raw, desires to do right. Rather than going along with established methods, these people had to invent the new, they were starting afresh, dealing with things as they came, making mistakes, reflecting and then trying again.

From our 21st century outposts, we look in and wonder how they got it so wrong sometimes, but they did and God still honoured them, still blessed them, but more importantly … still totally loved them.

Today as I sit and ponder my inefficient use of time, y mistakes, my undone tasks … I can sit assured that God loves me no less or more than he did before I started!

That is what it is all about!

The KICK world cup site launched today full of competitions and stuff. Why not go and have a look!

KICK is a YFC initiative using football to share faith with young people. The KICK idea always excites me as God is clearly so into football, and here is YFC realising that and using God’s game to help further mission.

This is such a great example of the outworking of missio dei – seeing that God can and is touching young people in the world of football and just going with it and joinng in!

(If I now had the skill to play the match of the day music in the background it would be there!)

The Gills have done it!
Yesterday we beat Bradford 2-1!
6 wins in a row, last achived in 1982, secures our place in League 1 for next season.
The mighty Gills are on their way back!

It was great being with you for the week – thanks for being top people, and see you in a few weeks at the lovelly King Charles!

There were lots of funny comments from the week that I wanted to put here, but I can’t remember any aprt from this:

sitting in the cathedral behind a priest a fellow, to remain nameless, student said whenthe priest stood ‘He seems to know what to do in the church so I’ll follow him’. The priest turned round and was Rowan Williams!

If you remember others please post them in the comments.

All the best plans go wrong!
You may be wondering why I stopped the daily blog reports from the residential, you may have thought I was slain in the spirit for 4 days, or drunk from malt, or you may not give a … hoot! For some reason the powers of Kings school put a halt to my blogging – I could not et online, which was a shame as I had loads to write.

On to a few highlights from the rest of the week:

Day 5 – Wednesday
We had a really informative day with Delbert Sandiford from Southwark Diocese looking at racism awareness.
During the afternoon we were given free time and Sarah and the children came to visit for a few hours. It was great to see them, but really really painful to wave goodbye from a Canterbury car park. I was surprised how sad I felt and realised it’s usually them doing the waving. The rest of the afternoon saw a quiet ‘Rob the Recluse’ in his room watching some DVD.

During the evening we visited Pinocchios for a meal. Good people to spend an evening with, but not great food so I won’t be going there again! We then caught a couple of beers before not being allowed back in to the cathedral grounds and having to walk miles (I exaggerate) to another gate.

Then more table football … Rob and Jeremy still so easily the champions!

Quote of the day Delbert:
‘we can only see others through the prism of our own culture, and God is present in all cultures and heritages’.

Day 6:Maundy Thursday
This was probably the worst day of the week, looking at denominations. I’d like to say interesting – but I just don’t care! I’m not saying I don’t want to know what others believe, just that I am not interested in hearing how they all started. Today was difficult, and in the last lecture I fell asleep 4 times, hopefully I didn’t snore… but I think I might have woken up just before I stared to dribble!

Football and whisky in the evening – Rob and Jeremy still champions!

Quote of the day … ‘you’ve only got 12 churches!’ but can’t remember what it means – sorry it’s an ‘in joke’!

Day 7: Good Friday
This day I got my essay dome during the afternoon and Gills won their 5th in a row!

The morning saw SEITE students attending the Liturgy of the cross in the cathedral. I am always telling people that they need to step outside their comfort zone. Today, I did just that! I was disturbed by lines of people queuing to kneel at and kiss the cross. I could not fathom what was happening, but I could see that for others, who I have come to care about and respect, were involved in a very deep and meaningful worship act.

This evening we went to the pub and I was able to ask some of these friends what was happening. Through this I was able to understand a little more of why they see this events as personally important to them. If the church could have the level of dialogue that we had in Simple Simons that night, with mutual trust, an honest desire to understand, a commitment to question without offending and a genuine desire to remain friends – then maybe we would see less schism in the church.

One of the beauties of a course like SEITE is that it gives this opportunity to learn from people from other traditions. Today I was able to ask and learn, when before I probably would have dismissed and forgotten. The difference, I think, is observing people you are starting to know and value as friends, because then it is a lot harder to dismiss pratices as you naturally wish to understand.

The evening saw Rob and Jeremy, yet again, win table football and so obviously this is a good omen for England in the world cup this year!

Day 8: Saturday!
My birthday – yahoo!
People sang Happy Birthday at breakfast – ahhh that was nice.
I gave away all my spare specsavers vouchers to people who did not believe I was 41!
I was given a really nice card and little birthday cake form my initial years students – they are all cool!

It was great to get home after a good lecture from Jane Williams and just rest and relax with Sarah and the children – well I opened some pretty cool presents really in the DVD, CD and book line. The we went out for a curry that evening which was just wonderful – the New East India in Gillingham is simple the best curry house!

Coming home has been great. I have really missed the family and I feel like I have missed a week of theirs. They feel like they have missed a week of mine. It seems more and more that separate lives are becoming more of a reality which I am uncomfortable with, but not sure what to do about it. Maybe that’s just life?

Anyway … that was the week away – thanks to those of you praying.

It was great to be there, a great privilege to be in Canterbury over Easter week, and a great bunch of people to be able to spend it with – the photos will be in flickr very soon!

Today was mission project day. For the past 6 months as a group, a few of us have been putting together a presentation to answer the question

What is a missionary church in the 21st Century?

The presentation to the rest of our year group and the external examiner went really well. All the presentations from each of the 6 groups were unique and great works of collaboration.

The experience has been great. On occasions it has been hard work, but on the whole it really has been a pleasure working with this wonderful group of people. In only 6 months we have grown to love and trust each other as well as work together on a pretty good presentation.

It’s great to have new friends and I hope they will continue beyond our time at the SEITE community.

Quote of the day:
‘sometimes we may need to throw the baby out with the bath water; sometimes we do need revolution rather than evolution, sometimes we play too safe and need to push out with new ideas … which means chucking out old ones!’ (David Peacock, external examiner)

A good day yesterday on different models of church, ending with a look at the fresh expressions video and a discussions based around it.

Exciting to see and hear fellow ordinands stressing how important it is to either to seek to develop new forms of church or bless and release other people to become involved in fresh expressions. It can be both as well of course.

WE had evening prayer in the crypt of Canterbury Cathedral and came across an excellent art installation for Lent, ‘All Flesh is Grass‘ by Charlie Miller. This is excellent installation of 300 perspex casks and well worth seeing if you are in the area.

This work celebrates the tiniest of objects of creation in Britain’s most important ecclesiastic building. The Dean of Canterbury, the Very Revd Robert Willis said “Works of art help us to reinterpret the spaces of this amazing Cathedral Church. Canterbury has long been associated with pilgrimage and this work shows the imprint of many human lives passing through this place. It is illustrative, not only of the Parable of the Sower, but also of the pilgrim path to Canterbury.”

A great surprise to end the day.

The day then ended with another table football competition and alt whisky tasting!

Quote of the day:

The church should be the true Israel; a blessing to the nations. Are we a blessing to the community we find ourself in?