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THE NIGHT GLOWED GOLD[1977]
Not many days after deciding to follow Jesus my friend who had been a believer for years telephoned to invite me to a prayer meeting that was to begin at 10 o'clock that evening. I thought this a little strange, but then again as the parties of my recent past never got going till midnight, why not?
Not until we sat down did I discover to my horror that although the night clubs of the town closed religiously at 2 in the morning, church went on way past dawn. Half an hour later I had prayed every prayer I could think of - blessing myself, my friends, the nation, the world - and there was still 8 hours to go. The old-timers were praying out loud for fifteen minutes or more without saying the same word twice and included a wide selection of Bible verses in their passion to persuade the Almighty. But not me, by midnight I was face down on the floor, not at all lost in deep contemplation like some, I was actually fast asleep and only a gentle kick to the ribs some hours later ended the appearance of holiness.
A few dedicated souls were still in the room, the man that was praying at midnight was still praying what sounded suspiciously like the same prayer. Another man was hitting discordant notes on the piano and crying time and time again, "Come Holy Spirit, let the glory of God fall." What could he mean? And then it happened.
If I had been asleep I was now wide awake, my eyes like saucers, the hair on the back of my neck standing on end, for I could hear a distant swishing noise as if a wind were coming. I could swear that I felt the breeze. The sound like an Underground train as it approaches the station was getting louder, coming nearer and through the narrow windows I could see the dark night turning golden with an unnatural incandescence that grew brighter by the moment. "Fall, glory of God," the pianist shouted.
Amen they all replied as one, as the swishing noise reached the door and the golden light streamed into the room. My soul quaked and my hands shook forwhatever glory was, it was coming and there was no escape - but why were my nocturnal companions not terrified? There was a reason.
As the sound of the rushing wind reached a crescendo and the golden light bathed our facesI prepared to meet my God, but in somewhat of an anti-climax it was the council lorry that passed by, the one that cleans the streets at night by with its yellow warning beacon flashing and it's huge brushes revolving. A minute later it turned the corner, leaving the night as still and as dark as God always intended, except for the insomniac pianist and his unconnected chords. With less than three hours to go till the final amen, there was only just time for me to stop shaking.
SINGING WITH HORSES [1981]
Have you ever wondered a circus goes to in the winter? Probably not, but for the International Outreach team in 1981 it was a burning issue. Perhaps burning is not the right word and instead we should say said freezing because once October was past, anyone who came into our 3000 seat circus big top was treated to sauna like temperatures at face level whilst their feet, ankles and legs turned numb as the cold irresistibly rose through the ground. So what did the circus people do ?
It was quite appealing to discover that some of the travelling big tops wintered in southern Europe where the temperatures were kinder and the audiences not so hard to find. It only took a small leap of well-intentioned but totally misguided faith to turn this fact into the ‘word of the Lord’ and it was not long before thirty-two men, women and children were sailing across an unusually calm Bay of Biscay on Brittany Ferries service from Portsmouth to Santander, destined for Barcelona fully convinced that revival for Spain was contained within their souls. The logistics and the customs regulations not to mention the eye-watering costs meant that the big top languished in winter storage back home, but by now that previously crucial matter was a mere detail.
Perhaps the first cup of tea that was made in the out of season holiday apartments rented from the Señorita Rosa in her Casteldefells agency was prophetic of the bitter experience that was coming. Unknown to us the water in the tap was sea water, the milk was sterilised and the thirst-quenching gulping of the two together did all that the tempestuous Bay of Biscay failed to achieve.
It took about two weeks for the novelty of blue skies and pleasant temperatures to wear off, and only slightly longer to find out that even if we were carrying ‘revival’ the deeply divided and widely separated churches of Spain were not interested in a foreign version of the blessing. The preachers had no pulpit, only ‘Frontline’ the music group led by Clyde Sandry and Ray Bevan found a welcome here and there. An empty diary stretched interminably before us whilst people back home eagerly waited for good news in return for their support.
Who has the word of the Lord to be here? “Not I,” said one as we gazed across the sprawling city of Barcelona from the heights of Tibidabo, the mountain that locals believe was the setting for the devil’s temptation of Christ. “Not me,” said another and another as all eyes turned to the last possible candidate for the blame, a man who some months earlier had made some rather confident predictions from the same spot. “Brothers, I wasn’t serious,” he said as he visibly withered.
It was not long before some of the team went home yet those who remained for a while longer discovered that God had another agenda altogether which had more to do with His mission into the souls of we rather proud, insensitive and over-enthusiastic young men, than our mission to bring the revival that had eluded the Spanish church since the Reformation of the 16th century that had changed the face of the rest of Europe forever.
Curiously, perhaps the least likely to find a way forward in Spain, I was in fact welcomed by Eduardo Bracier, the British director of Barcelona Youth for Christ who needed some help with his accounts, which was something I could do. Two or three times a week I caught the RENFE train into the Estación de Sants and then took the Metro to the YFC offices in an old, old building on the Gran Via where I sat with Eduardo who opened his books and his heart.
“Are you ready for a coffee?” asked Eduardo one morning. I said yes without looking up as I was engrossed in facts that I could not understand and figures that did not add up in any language. A knock on the door followed shortly afterwards, it opened and a slim young lady something of a super-model in appearance with long dark hair, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt came in balancing a tray with her free hand. I looked up momentarily distracted by the rattling of cups only to hear the unspoken words, “This is your wife.”
The door closed again but the thought lingered so recalling the story of how one of the Pentecostal pioneers leaped through an open first-floor window rather than face an unexpected temptation I fought it with every known spiritual weapon. When that failed I would submerge it beneath the memories of a ridiculous, juvenile and short lived sort of marriage in my teenage years, an altogether humiliating failure that I was in no hurry to repeat. And that was that, decided, done, finished. Amen, except to say it wasn’t Amen at all.
Some weeks later when an inner quietness once again reigned supreme I saw an advertisement for a ten day subsidized summer language school in the centre of Barcelona and I wanted to go. By this time all but one of the team had returned to England without leaving behind the predicted revival and whether it was the guidance of God or me not wishing to face the music back home, I asked to stay for a little longer. Learning the language seemed to be a good idea.
What you don’t know is that I was someone that you will never find in any ‘How to Do Missions’ text book, past or present. In 1981 I was into my fourth year as a single-parent bringing up two very small boys who were and still are the only good that came out of my teenage years. Faith had brought a sense of responsibility and together with a good dose of Yorkshire stubbornness I had fought for them ‘tooth and claw’ battling prejudice, well-meaning social services, understandably biased magistrates and my own very real male inadequacies. Now I need someone to look after James and David in the mornings while I went to the language school, but the team had gone home.
Forever the behind the scenes match-makers, Eduardo and his wife Estér, still our good friends to this day, leaped at the opportunity. In a by the way moment Eduardo casually informed me that he had found a ‘someone’ to help and asked if he should call ‘them’ in. As the ‘someone’ came in that notorious, wicked ‘thought’ burst out from its solitary confinement in the deep recesses of my mind and came to life ready to say, “I told you so.” The ‘someone’ was Pilar who was taking a year off from teaching to be a volunteer with Youth for Christ.
In the mornings I would take the boys to meet Pilar and go on to school to learn maybe ten words in the next ten days. We met again at 2pm which is lunchtime in Spain, in the CiutadelaPark next to the Barcelona Zoo. Pilar would bring us each a bocadillo, a sandwich and we would sit in silence on a shady bench because Pilar could speak no English and my vocabulary in Spanish was little more than hola, playa, servicio and gracias, that is hello, beach, toilet and thank you.
That summer Pilar seemed to have an air of unhappiness about her that needed no words as her eyes said everything. Curiously one morning my own Bible reading seemed to be more for her than for me so at lunchtime I opened the English Bible alongside Pilar’s Spanish Bible and pointed to the verses. In this strangest of ways we began to communicate and when the language school came to an end lunch and tea continued until in one deeply romantic moment I translated a phrase not found in Romeo and Juliet, “Do you think that God is saying anything to us.”
Roughly speaking we did, and so to kill or cure the idea because by now I was fearing divine judgment at any moment, we said that we would ask our church elders to say Yes or No. In Pilar’s case these were staunch Brethren believers, anti-pentecostal to a man, and in my case the elders were those dreaded Pentecostals, less than sympathetic to more or less everyone else, but to the Brethren in particular for doctrinal reasons best known to the forefathers. If there was ever to be a test of God’s will this was it, yet incredibly both sets of elders thought our being together to be a good idea and wished us God’s best.
At this point I somehow came across a cassette of love songs by a Hispanic singer, Kent Leroy. One or two in particular seemed to express what I would want to say so with a Spanish dictionary in hand I laboriously translated the lyrics word by word struggling only with one indistinct line, was it cabello or caballo? Get it wrong and I would ask to sing with her horse rather than stroking her hair.
The day came and as Pilar carried our bocadillos to a sunny hillside no words were required to interpret her inquisitive looks at the tape player that I was carrying. As we sat down the curiosity edged towards suspicions of madness as I said, “Escucha” - listen. I pressed ‘Play’ and my Hispanic minstrel sang his heart out, praising either horses or shiny hair, it didn‘t seem to matter which. “What on earth is this man trying to say to me,” thought Pilar. It all went very quiet.
We had known each other for maybe six weeks and if we could have got married right there and then we would have done so. This however was late 1981 and Spain was only just emerging from the dictatorship of General Franco. Pilar was no longer the obligatory Roman Catholic, I was a foreigner and a protestant so we could only be married with the permission of a judge. Only a few years earlier Protestants were still being buried outside the city in unconsecrated ground and although the law had recently granted religious freedom to all prejudice still ruled the day. On top of that Britain and Spain were at permanent political loggerheads over Gibraltar and the Falklands war, Las Malvinas, was brewing.
The judge was politely cool and asked for all manner of papers from England, each one to be translated by the court appointed agency at considerable cost. Every submission triggered a further judicial delaying tactic until eventually we marched around the Port of Barcelona courthouse in prayer and laid hands upon its ancient walls commanding the will of the Lord to be done.
New Year 1982 opened wearily as the juez looked the latest paper up and down through his half-moon glasses, and solemnly gave his verdict. “Bien, bien” - fine, he said offering a momentary relief, “Señor, if you will now bring me a new copy of your birth certificate authenticated with the Seal of State, I will marry you.” Flying home on British Airways yet again I knew it would be easy enough to get the certificate but the seal was another issue altogether as I suspected the judge already knew. Inevitably no-one knew the answer and the impasse was only broken when someone suggested that a rather posh lawyer just down the road might be able to help so I walked the two hundred yards from Talbot Street to Clarendon Street and in so doing moved up ten rungs on the social ladder just by turning the corner. I admired the new Rolls Royce parked outside the unmarked door as I nervously pressed the button not knowing who would answer.
It seemed that the staff had gone home and I was faced by the man himself in all of his distinguished splendour who enquired my business. Without comment he asked me to follow him into his professionally opulent office and explained that yes he did know what the Spanish judge was asking for and that there were three such seals, two of them in London, presumably I thought in the National Archives. “The third one” he said with an understated flourish, “ is here in my safe. We will show this . . .” followed by a rather less than complimentary comment upon the Spanish legal system.
We were married in the Barcelona civil court just a few days later with the best wishes of the juez. The real wedding took place in La Iglesia Bautista del Pasaje Gayola the following Saturday at 4pm before a packed congregation of Pilar’s family and friends from YFC and YWAM. Dignified in a black gown the well known defender of the evangelical faith Dr Antonio Conessa Martinez, a beautiful man who had paid dearly in the Franco years for his beliefs, conducted the ceremony. Pilar looked radiant in white yet as the moment approached she shook so much that her flowers became more of a video than a bouquet, at her side my aging Marks and Spencer washable beige suit looked far less impressive.
Having spoken at length Pastor Martinez asked us to stand and he moved into the traditional wording of the marriage vows, all in very eloquent Spanish of course most of which I did not understand. Nevertheless when everything went very silent and the eyes of all were fixed on me, I guessed the question and said “Si” -Yes, I do. To this day I still wonder whether I said Si to Pilar or Si to agree to pay the church mortgage or maybe Si to buy them a new organ!
Pilar had no such doubts.
THE DAY TIME STOOD STILL[1982]
For a brief and totally unexpected moment, was it thirty seconds or thirty minutes, probably the former but it felt like the latter, either way time was suspended. Had anyone walked in would they have found me there ?
Pilar and I had married not eight weeks earlier in the crowded Iglesia Evangelica Bautista in Pasaje Gayola, an insignificant narrow street that ended only yards from Gaudi’s world famous Sagrada Familia Cathedral in Barcelona, Spain, still unfinished then and now after some 120 years of meticulously detailed construction work that leaves visitors open mouthed in wonder. The Iglesia Evangelica was a rather less noticeable.
A three-day, probably best forgotten honeymoon followed in the discomfort of an unfurnished apartment in Salou kindly loaned to us free of charge for the occasion by the then director of Youth of Christ, Eduardo Bracier. Eduardo was in fact really Eddie Brasier from South Londonbut it had taken even this native Briton a few weeks to penetrate the disguise. Upon our return from the local Costa and not being able to fit a marriage into the walk-in cupboard where I had lived for the past year, unable to seat four persons at the same time and with a live electric cable hanging loosely in the shower enclosure, we rented an apartment with a shiny wooden floor in the Calle Casa Pujolet in Horta. It was there that one day that the telephone rang perhaps for the first time.