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Editor’s note: After way too long away from the blog (we blame getting married and all that!), we’re back! Anyone still there?? My wonderful wife Beth and I are now here in the Gambia together. Here she writes some thoughts about where home is...
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| Buying fish at Bakau beach: a touch different from Tesco |
Growing up, the classic musical fairytale film The Wizard of Oz was a real favourite of mine. I especially loved the famous final scene where Dorothy, desperate to get out of the strange land of Oz and home to Kansas, taps her magical ruby slippers together at the heel, repeating over and over, “There’s no place like home… there’s no place like home… there’s no place like home…”. For Dorothy, in that moment the place she wanted to be, above anywhere else in the world, was home.
It’s a feeling I’m sure lots of us are familiar with - a longing to be home:
So I wonder where you call home?
There are a handful of places I've come to call ‘home’ over the years, here's three:
Fajara, The Gambia! My first home as a wife. Complete with coconut trees, cockroaches, crickets and an (as yet) unidentified family of noisy creatures that live in our loft. (Ahem, another advance warning to our visitors…)
Despite the creepy crawlies it's been a joy to make a new home here in The Gambia.
Of course, I’ve felt the weight of leaving behind various homes in the UK; I've felt it especially over the past few days as I've scrolled through various snow-day pictures. There's even been snow in my beloved CORNWALL!
Despite the upheaval, and despite missing a few snow days, it has been fun setting up home here.
There's been the physical stuff:
And as I've enjoyed making a new home here, and at times longed for my homes from previous years, I've been prompted to ponder what God’s word tells me about ‘home’.
And of all the verses I've come across, this one has grabbed me most:
As a British citizen living overseas one must apply for legal residency. Here in The Gambia we've finally managed to sort out our residence permits. After many hours in tiny offices full of (mostly) friendly immigration officials we now legally reside in The Gambia. Phew.
As part of this process a foreigner must also register for a legal document aptly named an ‘Alien’s Card’. To reside in The Gambia legally I must hold a card that tells me, and any immigration officer who asks to see it, that I am an alien here.
Huh. I'm an alien.
I'm not a citizen of The Gambia.
Even though I currently live here and work here, devour chicken yassa and drink litres of wonjo juice here, I am not a citizen here.
And some days I feel it more than others...
Often these things make me chuckle. Sometimes they make me long for ‘home’ in the UK.
It’s true, I’m not a citizen of here. But actually Philippians 3:20 tells me that I'm not a citizen of the UK either!
Yes, I hold a British passport. Yes, I love tea with a custard cream, I enjoy a good G&T, and I highly approve of queuing. (I’d really like Gambian drivers to approve of it too in all honesty.)
But to which country do I actually belong? The Bible tells me I belong to God’s country. I’m a citizen of heaven. Heaven is my Home. And if you’re trusting in Jesus heaven is your Home too!
The American evangelist Billy Graham, who passed away just last week, was oft quoted as saying; ‘Heaven is my home, I’m just travelling through this world’. He was so right! Our homes here and now are small ‘h’ homes. We’re just passing through them, the way we might stay for a night or two at a hotel or a holiday cottage.
Our big ‘H’ Home is still to come. And if we take God at his word, we know it’s going to be awesome. (See Revelation 21!)
I’ve found Philippians 3:20 a wonderful truth to ponder over the past couple of months. It’s a truth that, on good days, has helped me to thank God for my new little ‘h’ home here and, on harder days, to thank God for the hope of my big ‘H’ Home to come.
Perhaps it might be a truth for you to enjoy too?
If ‘home’ feels like a hard place right now, if it’s a place of mess (literal, emotional, relational, spiritual), if it’s a place of conflict or sickness, poverty or tiredness, remember this beautiful truth: heaven is your Home. Keep on looking to it and longing for it.
It’s not easy to look to it, especially when everything around us seems to scream, ‘Here is home! Home is right here!'. I don’t find it easy to look to my big ‘H’ Home. I think that’s normal, but God knows our hearts and he’s given us his word to help us. Passages like John 14:1-6; Hebrews 11:1-40; Isaiah 35; Revelation 21-22 are packed full of truths to help us think about our Home. Revelation 21 is my favourite! Why not pick one of those passages, read it and tell yourself, ‘This is where I’ll be soon!’. Much like you might take time to look at pictures of your hotel or holiday home online, take some time to think about what it might be like in your heavenly Home. Imagine it: a place of no sadness, no sickness, no anxiety, no stress, no depression.
Perhaps you feel too weary to read much. Sometimes I feel that too. These songs have been a wonderful encouragement to me over the years, and I believe are a real gift to help us fix our eyes on on heavenly Home: There is a Higher Throne, Christ is Enough, Amazing Grace (beautiful Soweto Gospel Choir version!).
Maybe ‘home’ is a place you love to be right now; a place of refuge and rest, friends or family and fun. If home is a place of contentment then thank God for his provision! But remember, you’re just passing through. Live in your ‘home’ now in light of your ‘Home’ to come. I guess that might mean all kinds of things. Here are three:
I get that. Sometimes I struggle to believe it too. But I do believe. I believe it because God’s word tells me it’s true.
Jesus, the most compelling man ever to have lived, promised his followers, “In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you.” (John 14:2). I don’t think he was lying. And I don’t think he was mad. I’m convinced he was telling the truth. There’s a perfect Home in heaven for followers of Jesus. Wow.
‘There’s no place like Home.’
When at last we arrive in heaven, the place we were made for, we will know, really know, we are finally Home.
We will feel it with every fibre of our being. The total relief, the utter joy, the deep rest, the intimate company of our glorious Father God - we’ll feel it all and we’ll thank our God who brought us there by grace through faith in his precious Son.
Until then, let’s enjoy our homes, share our homes, hold loosely to our homes and above all keep on reminding ourselves and reminding one another of our Home to come:
It’s a feeling I’m sure lots of us are familiar with - a longing to be home:
- After a long day at work, as you’re sitting in a meeting that was supposed to finish half an hour ago…
- Or when you’ve heroically battled your way around the supermarket and you find yourself standing in a queue for the slowest checkout in the shop…
- Or when you’ve spent a term away at university and you’re desperate for some good food and clean laundry…
- Or when you’ve been away on holiday and your mattress there felt like it was stuffed with rocks (that's a warning for any visitors who may stay in our spare bed this year)…
So I wonder where you call home?
There are a handful of places I've come to call ‘home’ over the years, here's three:
- The Vicarage: The house I grew up in. Full to the brim with 5 children, 6 dogs and 4 cats. Never quiet. Always fun.
- No. 2 The Close: My parents’ house now. Currently filled with 2 dogs, 2 cats, chickens, a grandchild or two, a roaring fire and, if you're there by 6pm, a G&T.
- Troy Court: The Leafe residence. I moved in as a temporary measure and ended up staying for 18 months. Spicy food, fizz, 80’s music, late night discussions around the kitchen table. And that was just Sunday nights.
Fajara, The Gambia! My first home as a wife. Complete with coconut trees, cockroaches, crickets and an (as yet) unidentified family of noisy creatures that live in our loft. (Ahem, another advance warning to our visitors…)
Despite the creepy crawlies it's been a joy to make a new home here in The Gambia.
Of course, I’ve felt the weight of leaving behind various homes in the UK; I've felt it especially over the past few days as I've scrolled through various snow-day pictures. There's even been snow in my beloved CORNWALL!
Despite the upheaval, and despite missing a few snow days, it has been fun setting up home here.
There's been the physical stuff:
- Sanding shelves,
- Arranging furniture,
- Unpacking boxes,
- Drilling holes,
- Decanting rice, flour and sugar into multiple glass jars (both because it’s aesthetically pleasing and because the bugs here get EVERYWHERE).
- Getting to know the neighbours (for us here, the friendly local Imam, and Modou, the boy who looks after the compound across the road);
- Finding our local shop (owned by Barry who, despite the name is very Gambian, has a beautiful wife, more children than I can count and sells THE most delicious bread I’ve ever eaten);
- Seeing how many people we can fit around our dining table (current record 13).
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| Christmas lunch around our dining table. The record 13 sadly went unphotographed... |
And as I've enjoyed making a new home here, and at times longed for my homes from previous years, I've been prompted to ponder what God’s word tells me about ‘home’.
And of all the verses I've come across, this one has grabbed me most:
“… our citizenship is in heaven …”
(Philippians 3:20)
As a British citizen living overseas one must apply for legal residency. Here in The Gambia we've finally managed to sort out our residence permits. After many hours in tiny offices full of (mostly) friendly immigration officials we now legally reside in The Gambia. Phew.
As part of this process a foreigner must also register for a legal document aptly named an ‘Alien’s Card’. To reside in The Gambia legally I must hold a card that tells me, and any immigration officer who asks to see it, that I am an alien here.
Huh. I'm an alien.
I'm not a citizen of The Gambia.
Even though I currently live here and work here, devour chicken yassa and drink litres of wonjo juice here, I am not a citizen here.
And some days I feel it more than others...
- When friends in the car start talking in their local language, and I have no clue what they are saying (I’m still struggling in the early stages of Wolof!);
- When I arrive at school to take the morning assembly and the kids outside shout, ’Toubab!’ ‘Toubab!’ (White person! White person!), no matter how many times I tell them my name;
- When I try on some beautiful clothes made from local fabric that look GREAT on my Gambian friend, but that look slightly bizarre on me.
Often these things make me chuckle. Sometimes they make me long for ‘home’ in the UK.
It’s true, I’m not a citizen of here. But actually Philippians 3:20 tells me that I'm not a citizen of the UK either!
Yes, I hold a British passport. Yes, I love tea with a custard cream, I enjoy a good G&T, and I highly approve of queuing. (I’d really like Gambian drivers to approve of it too in all honesty.)
But to which country do I actually belong? The Bible tells me I belong to God’s country. I’m a citizen of heaven. Heaven is my Home. And if you’re trusting in Jesus heaven is your Home too!
The American evangelist Billy Graham, who passed away just last week, was oft quoted as saying; ‘Heaven is my home, I’m just travelling through this world’. He was so right! Our homes here and now are small ‘h’ homes. We’re just passing through them, the way we might stay for a night or two at a hotel or a holiday cottage.
Our big ‘H’ Home is still to come. And if we take God at his word, we know it’s going to be awesome. (See Revelation 21!)
I’ve found Philippians 3:20 a wonderful truth to ponder over the past couple of months. It’s a truth that, on good days, has helped me to thank God for my new little ‘h’ home here and, on harder days, to thank God for the hope of my big ‘H’ Home to come.
Perhaps it might be a truth for you to enjoy too?
If ‘home’ feels like a hard place right now, if it’s a place of mess (literal, emotional, relational, spiritual), if it’s a place of conflict or sickness, poverty or tiredness, remember this beautiful truth: heaven is your Home. Keep on looking to it and longing for it.
It’s not easy to look to it, especially when everything around us seems to scream, ‘Here is home! Home is right here!'. I don’t find it easy to look to my big ‘H’ Home. I think that’s normal, but God knows our hearts and he’s given us his word to help us. Passages like John 14:1-6; Hebrews 11:1-40; Isaiah 35; Revelation 21-22 are packed full of truths to help us think about our Home. Revelation 21 is my favourite! Why not pick one of those passages, read it and tell yourself, ‘This is where I’ll be soon!’. Much like you might take time to look at pictures of your hotel or holiday home online, take some time to think about what it might be like in your heavenly Home. Imagine it: a place of no sadness, no sickness, no anxiety, no stress, no depression.
Perhaps you feel too weary to read much. Sometimes I feel that too. These songs have been a wonderful encouragement to me over the years, and I believe are a real gift to help us fix our eyes on on heavenly Home: There is a Higher Throne, Christ is Enough, Amazing Grace (beautiful Soweto Gospel Choir version!).
Maybe ‘home’ is a place you love to be right now; a place of refuge and rest, friends or family and fun. If home is a place of contentment then thank God for his provision! But remember, you’re just passing through. Live in your ‘home’ now in light of your ‘Home’ to come. I guess that might mean all kinds of things. Here are three:
- Enjoy it, because it’s a gift from our generous God. Enjoy your comfy sofa or your great view, take delight in having a bubble bath or a hot shower (I'm genuinely enjoying showering Gambian style here!). Thank God that you can walk through the front door and close the door behind you after a long day!
- Share it, because we’re blessed in order to bless others. Eat delicious food or watch a film with friends, have a cuppa and a custard cream or a G&T with a neighbour. See how many people you can fit around your table!
- Hold loosely to it, because it’s only temporary. It's not easy to work out if we're holding too tightly to our homes now but answering these questions might help us to see if our grip is a little too tight: How would you feel if you had to leave your current home? How does remembering that it’s only temporary make you feel? If the thought of leaving our homes fills us with dread, then maybe we could ask our heavenly Father to help us hold a little more loosely to what he's given to us.
I get that. Sometimes I struggle to believe it too. But I do believe. I believe it because God’s word tells me it’s true.
Jesus, the most compelling man ever to have lived, promised his followers, “In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you.” (John 14:2). I don’t think he was lying. And I don’t think he was mad. I’m convinced he was telling the truth. There’s a perfect Home in heaven for followers of Jesus. Wow.
‘There’s no place like Home.’
When at last we arrive in heaven, the place we were made for, we will know, really know, we are finally Home.
We will feel it with every fibre of our being. The total relief, the utter joy, the deep rest, the intimate company of our glorious Father God - we’ll feel it all and we’ll thank our God who brought us there by grace through faith in his precious Son.
Until then, let’s enjoy our homes, share our homes, hold loosely to our homes and above all keep on reminding ourselves and reminding one another of our Home to come:
“Tis grace that brought me safe thus farAnd grace will lead me Home.”
(from ‘Amazing Grace’ by John Newton)
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| Our Gambian home |
