THE BLOG HAS MOVED!

So if you've been waiting for months for me to update this blog, it's probably because I've switched over to WordPress. So you've been missing out!

Check out www.roundtheball.com -- and make sure you change your bookmark. (Oh, and www.darrenprince.com should be forwarding there too!)

See you on the other side!

To Explore is To Walk . . .

My first day in London I woke up at 6 a.m. ready to go -- it was 10 p.m. back home, so when I hopped on line it was fun to catch Paul Nix on iChat and realize that his Wednesday was ending just as my Thursday was about to begin.

I did a few things around the Foreign Mission Club and then jumped on a couple buses to meet the Hayes family at a cafe near Shoreditch. This began an entire day of walking around in the Southern End of Hackney -- in Haggerston and Hoxton. Haggerston is a really amazing place of giant housing estates surrounded by parks, the Hackney Farm, the Regents' Canal, and in close proximity to Tower Hamelts, Bethnal Green, a bunch of bus lines and even the subway. A great spot really -- especially as we consider both life in a housing estate AND wanting to set up an office/training & formation center for future staff. This area of Hackney has the right mix of poverty as well as accessibility to the rest of London.

It was a great day of exploring, talking, visiting real estate offices, even getting inside a few of the flats we could potentially end up in. (You gotta thank John Hayes for that -- he's got a nack for walking right up to people on the street and becoming such instant friends that they're willing to show their house off to some foreigners right on the spot!) I called home to Pam encouraged to tell her that I think we've really found the ideal location -- I see parks, schools, churches, and the obvious need of the neighborhood (the area we looked in was ranked 3rd "deprived" in all of the UK.)

We must have covered miles and miles today -- my feet were sore with just the amount of walking we did. To explore like this is to walk -- you have to get your good shoes on for missionary endeavors like ours.

Today I'm feeling even more excited about beginning life here -- I can see it taking place right before my eyes. This is going to be really good for our family. And it's the right move for us in terms of ministry too.

Landing In London

Yeah, some of you didn't quite know about this trip . . . sorry about that. I'm here in London without Pam, which loses some of the drama you might be used to: the saga of leaving the kids behind, the thrill of exploring new terrain with Pam, the heightened sense of specialness just traveling with her. This trip felt, well, like an ordinary old trip without the rest of the family this time around -- which means I sorta forgot to tell the rest of the world it was happening.

Except -- there isn't anything ordinary about this trip at all. We've now officially decided to move here later this year . . . and everything looks so different when you're exploring a place you know you'll one-day call home.

Yesterday I landed at Heathrow about 1:30 and took a long Tube ride out to Highbury/Islington where I'm staying at the Foreign Mission Club. That probably sounds like a swank joint where missions types gather for jazz and cocktails, but it's more like a very simple boarding house for people who come through town "on Mission" as the Brits say. Rumor has it some folks you might know of, like Andrew Murray, have stayed here once or twice. And walking the halls I do suddenly feel like I've stepped into the same turn-of-the-century missions world I encountered staying at the Mayfield Guest House in Kenya.

I joined up with the Hayes at their place in Hackney and we ate a great Indian food dinner on Broadway near London Fields before walking through a few different parts of the neighborhood at sunset. In general, I'm really struck by the beauty of this City: the green parks, the old trees, the open spaces and the quaint cobbled side-streets. At the same time, I'm some what daunted by the ominously towering housing-estates (read: housing projects.) I try to picture our family living in a flat in one of these giant monstrosities and it feels, well, suffocating. Maybe knowing there's a park -- not to mention a huge, beautiful country -- not that far away will help. But for today I'm wondering how our little four-some (plus Peanut!) are going to make the transition into London-life.

So much about this area attracts us -- and so much of it will, well, have to be a God thing . . .

Christ Keeps Coming

(Many thanks to those of you who keep checking this blog regularly--it's fun to get feedback from you. And if you're new to this site, thanks to our recent newsletter, welcome!)


Wanted to share an Advent poem with you I wrote several years back:

CHRIST KEEPS COMING

Christ keeps coming!
not in stables or hay-beds, so to speak,
but in other flesh
He makes His incarnation.

Look! In the darkened city-street
a huddled gathering joins hands to pray
“Christ keeps coming!”

Taste! The burning tears
of a struggling baby-boy – now gone.
but faith has made its home.
Christ keeps coming!

Hear! The middle-aged couple
weary of making a crippled marriage walk.
There in the darkness of their fears
they clutch each others’ hands to believe:
Christ keeps coming!

Touch! The shoulder of a lonely junkie,
dead five times before,
now kneeling by her curbside bed
grasping a crucifix in desperation.
Christ keeps coming!

Smell! The bombed out village;
refuges returning to their massacred memories.
There, in the rubble of their leveled home
the widow bends to find her book of prayers.
“Christ keeps coming!”

Hold! The dying man, gasping for his final breath
aching for life without disease,
rolls back his eyes and breathes, “Remember me.”
Christ keeps coming!

Born into our worried mangers,
our neglected stables,
resting behind our inn of hurts and heartaches
surrounded by the beasts of our undoing
there He lays –
power to ease, amend, heal and soothe
in infant hands—uncommanding.
He lingers in our dung heaps.

Christ has died.
Christ has risen,
Christ keeps coming!

darren prince © 2006

Nana & Papa Dan

I pick Jesse up on Friday to drive to the Oakland airport and pick up my parents -- known to my kids as Nana and Papa Dan. The kids are jazzed to see their Orange County grandparents, and I'm pleased to have some more adult care-takers around the house for a couple of days. Luci has welcomed them by telling them all about the goats at the zoo -- and by wandering around the house being as cute as she can be by putting on her little purple flower hat and getting dolled up like she's headed out for a night on the town. Jesse is playing game after game of hide-and-seek, "creepy-creepy" and just being his cute, bubly self in general.

Today we make another zoo outing (yes, folks, that's 3 trips this week!) for more petting, brushing, and talking to the goats. We bee-line to the petting zoo which is soon to close as the afternoon sun grows longer. Jesse gets his wish and rides the train with Papa Dan. A fun time is had by all.

My parents have been great sports--taking the kids for most of today while I had a long leadership meeting at our church. They lugged the kids and the dog to the park, fed them lunch, and got them down for a nap. Our kids are wasted, but they're really enjoying their nana and papa.

While lugging the double-stroller up the stairs I feel my knees give a bit, and see my mom struggling to get the 45 pound Jesse up to the front door. No wonder your body starts to give out at 50, I note to my Mom . . . when you've been tugging kids around since you were 25, it's all just wear and tear!

Day Three, or is it Four?

Today was the first day I had a moment of pure exhaustion. It was after my second zoo trip of the week -- right after picking up Jesse from preschool. Luci had sacked out on the way home from the zoo, and got just enough sleep in the car to skip naptime later. Amdist Jesse's protests that he wasn't tired, I sank onto my bed and wondered how I'd make it from 3 p.m. to 7. Is this when you tell them to nap because YOU'RE tired? Hmmmm . . .

We met up with some friends for Naan N Curry tonight. On the way, Jesse said he wanted a mango lassi, and that he wanted to pay for it. "I'll pay for the mango lassi, and you pay for the food, okay dad?" Um, yeah sure. "Two boys are paying: you're paying for the food, and I'll pay for the mango lassi, okay?" Sure, you bet.

He drank two of them. I paid for both.

God in My Heart

I hire a friend to watch the kids while I'm at First Baptist tonight, serving dinner to the homeless and teaching a Bible study. (Side note: I got to teach on Genesis chapter 2 where God creates Eve as a "help mate" for Adam . . . in a week where I'm definately feeling that "it is not good for man to be alone," this was a great study to prepare!)

When I return home, the kids are sound asleep. All is quiet in the house.

Becca, the babysitter, shares with me that she gave Jesse one of the chocolate cookies from the freezer. After he ate it he said, "Wow, I'm so full!"

She began joking with him about where he would put another cookie if she gave him another one, since there's no more room in his belly. What about under your arm? Nooo. What about in your hair? Noooo! What about right here near your heart?

"Hey!" Jesse exclaimed, "I can't do that! God is in my heart and He doesn't like to be all messy!"

"Goats!"

For two weeks Luci has been focusing all of her attention on one thing: the goats at the San Francisco Childrens' Zoo. Pam took her a few weeks back and she's been eating, sleeping, dreaming and talking about petting, brushing and feeding the "goats" ever sense. Picture her grabbing your cheeks, focusing her eyes yours just to get your attention, and thrusting her lips out to pronounce the long "o" as her eyes widen: "Goats!"

I decided today to let her fulfill her fantasy: partially to let her live out her dream, partially to get her to stop talking about those dang goats. We load up in the car after walking Peanut to the park and head for the zoo. Arriving at the Children's Zoo and heading straight to the farm animals, Luci has her fill of feeding, petting, and brushing the goats. I am scrambling to make sure that neither of my kids are getting their sweet little digits bitten off by our barnyard friends. Jesse is in one direction fiddling with a lock on a giant barnyard door that reads "Employees Only" and sweet little Luci is pestering the heck out of an already bothered looking long-horned goat. It will be a miracle if we make it out of here without one of us ending up in tears.

Turns out the only tradgey of the day is that the gophers find the lunch I packed for us and manage to swallow the peanut-butter and jelly but leave the bag behind. Oh well. Lunch ends up being baby-carrots, green-puffs, a bananna, and an in-and-out burger on the way home!

Mommy in the Sky

We are on a walk together, the two kids and I, when Luci points up to the sky and shouts, "Mommy!" She is pointing to an airplane -- tiny in the distance -- and making the connection. Mommy is very far away. Mommy went on an airplane. That is an airplane. I miss mommy.

It's all there, folks.

Daddy, The Sun is Up

7:07 a.m. -- Tuesday
The dog hops onto my bed.

7:09 a.m. -- Tuesday
Jesse is at my beside:

"Daddy, the sun is up!" (that's his usual line)
"Mmmf. Two sons are up!" (that's my line.)

Jesse and I snuggle in bed for a few minutes. I'm soaking in the morning quiet before the flurry of activity. He's already being imaginative. "Daddy, I'm the snow and you're a pig." (Who the heck knows where that came from?)

By 8:30 I've packed a lunch, explained things to the babysitter, gotten both kids changed and dressed, boiled a pot of black beans for dinner tonight, and gotten out the door to get Jesse to preschool.

By 12:00 p.m. I've done all that plus attended prayer and staff meeting with my team, guided a Learning Community reflection on our InnerCHANGE commitment to community, and had a mini meeeting with a few of my regular coworkers. What a life.