SPIN LIKE THE WIND-the blog of Nigel James.

GRUMPY OLD MAN

Atlanta, Georgia. Home of Coca-Cola, Ted Turner, CNN, the Braves, and of course Third Day. I'm over here with the band working on a book for a few days and staying in drummer David Carr's new house. His basement alone has about nine rooms in it, and I think I'm going to need a map to find my way around the place. David and Jennifer's 4 year-old boy Ethan has given me the guided tour.

Yesterday's journey from Heathrow started well enough with my now almost customary upgrade to business class from United Airlines, but it went down hill from there. I've compiled a list of some of my pet hates, most of which occurred yesterday:
Cabin crew who are impolite to passengers
Passengers who are impolite to cabin crew in the first place
Queueing for 2 hours to get through immigration and customs
People who queue jump
People who can't fill in forms properly
Immigration officials who don't know the meaning of the word 'efficient'
Missing a connecting flight
Walking miles between 2 terminals to find out which flight I've been put on
Sitting in a plane for 3 hours on a runway
Arriving in an airport without my bag
... now I'm in such a bad mood I might as well get a load of other pet hates off my chest..
People who drive too slowly
Smokers
People who think they know it all
Spitters
Christians who narrow down the gospel to their own shallow understanding of it
Big Brother
Automated phone help lines.. press one for a frustrating 35 minute wait
Airport tax on airfares
American TV versions of British comedy series
Junk mail- paper or electronic
The parking in Cardiff city centre
The parking in Penarth town centre
And don't even get me started on the difficulty HSBC bank have in transferring £1,000 to India.
It's frightening really but I can be a grumpy old man without much difficulty-just ask my wife.

GOODBYE TO VINOD AND HIS PICKLE

It's 11.30 at night and in 2 hours time I drop our Indian friend Vinod off at Cardiff Central Bus station as he begins his journey home. He'll be taking with him his almost finished jar of Indian pickle. He's had pickle on toast, rice and pickle, pickle sandwiches... but then he discovered McDonalds, ice cream, Kit Kats, and crisps. It's been a month of new experiences for Vinod; first time out of his city, first time overseas, first time on a boat (across Cardiff Bay), first time eating with a knife and fork, first time eating pork and beef. He also met many new friends and endeared himself to everyone who came into contact with him.

Today has been 'great' - a word he's been using a lot. Joining the Ignite team for our monthly prayer morning was a special blessing and we collected £265 for him to take back to the Pastor of the first Ignite church in India. Then this evening he played for the Christians in Sport cricket team against BBC Wales Sport Dept. This was only the second proper game of cricket Vinod has played, the first was for Glenwood church in Cardiff three weeks ago. For Glenwood Vinod was out for nought, but tonight he scored five runs and looked good! His future won't be as a Test Match cricketer though, Vinod has a passion to become a doctor and a pastor so that he can bring healing to Indian people physically and spiritually.
Gill and I will miss Vinod and have enjoyed the privilege of sharing our lives with him, and love the way that God brings people together in the body of Christ. We are fund raising to build a school in the village of Unduspuram near where Vinod lives so we have a long term commitment to his cousin Pastor Prasad and Gateway ministries, and I'll see Vinod and Prasad again in September when I lead an Ignite expedition out to the city of Rajahmundry and the surrounding villages. Until then... Vinod we love you and pray blessing and protection over you in the name of Jesus. May He bring your dreams to reality.

LOVE IT OR LOATHE IT..

Whether you love sport or hate it, you'll need to have been very ingenious to escape it over the last few days. The England football team crash out of the world cup in another 'man sent off/injury/penalty shoot out/we woz robbed debacle', Wimbledon tennis rolls on with a male Brit into the second week, but for me the saddest sports stories were from cricket. Legendary England fast bowler and radio commentator Fred Trueman died of cancer, and the Sri Lankan team inflicted a 5-0 whitewash over England in the one day series. So outclassed were England that they were lucky to come second, lucky to get 'nil' etc etc.
To compound matters, the manager of Wolverhampton Wanderers, the football team I support, has resigned. Apparently, Glen Hoddle felt the board couldn't give him the financial backing he needed to transform the team from being the Championship's draw specialists and make a push for the Premiership.
I often wonder why God created sport- the sociologist Peter Berger said that the ability to play games and have fun was an indication that we are here by design and not by accident. Sport surely gives us relief from the world's problems, but lands us with a whole new level of passion, pride, hope, expectation, despair and even worship. Watching the Glamorgan cricket team beat Somerset in a pulsating Twenty20 game on Friday night alongside Gary, Vinod and Val, I was living every ball of the game and getting especially nervous near the end. It reminded me too much of some of the real match situations I'd been in when playing cricket, the elation of winning and the bitter taste of defeat.
It's not that I'm disinterested in the world's problems, of course not... but when I woke up this morning and began to read the Sunday papers over breakfast, it was the sports pages I turned to first.
It was ever thus and always shall be!