Intercontinental Church Society

July 2013 visit to the UK

Phillip outside the 'Trip to Jerusalem' © Ricky Yates — Phillip outside the ‘Trip to Jerusalem’ © Ricky Yates

On Tuesday 2nd July, Sybille and I returned to Prague from our eight day holiday in the Orlické hory. The next afternoon, having managed to wash, dry and iron all our dirty clothes, I was off on my travels again, heading for Václav Havel Airport, as Prague Airport is now officially known, in order to spend the next five days in the UK – only my fourth visit there since moving to Prague nearly five years ago.

As on my previous visit just under a year ago, I flew with the budget Hungarian airline Wizz Air, from Prague to Luton Airport. Having landed at Luton on time at 15.30, collected my bag, got through passport control, remembering to say ‘Good afternoon’ and not ‘Dobrý den‘, I set foot outside the airport terminal, to once more experience a country in which I feel less comfortable, the longer I am away from it.

Before I fell asleep that evening, I had three ‘I know I’m in the UK’ experiences. The first came once I stepped aboard the shuttle bus to take me from the airport, to the car park at Slip End where I was to pick up my hire car. I had to listen to a long announcement all about what to do, should the bus be involved in an accident or catch on fire. All this for a five minute bus journey! Sadly this is health and safety gone mad, coupled with lawyers who offer to sue anyone you can think of to blame, for anything that might ever happen to you.

The second experience occurred that evening, after I had driven from Slip End, up the M1 to Nottingham, and met up with my son Phillip and his girlfriend Lisa. Whilst we were sitting in a pub restaurant around the corner from where Phillip lives, I overheard a bit of the conversation taking place on the table next to us. “They’re talking in English”, I thought to myself. It took a few seconds before it registered with me that this should not be surprising as I was actually in England 🙂

The third experience was a very positive one. Having finally worked out how to log on to the wifi network at Phillip’s current home, I accessed the BBC News website, to catch up with the day’s news events. It was a great pleasure for once, not to have any advertising anywhere on the site, because I was accessing it in the the UK, rather than in the Czech Republic.

Me sitting alongside Castle Lock on the Nottingham Canal © Ricky Yates — Me, sitting alongside Castle Lock on the Nottingham Canal © Ricky Yates

Phillip kindly took Friday 5th July as a day of his annual leave, and spent it taking me on a walking tour of Nottingham. In many respects, it might be better described as a pub-crawl of Nottingham, though it was a very warm day so we did have a good excuse 🙂 We visited the ‘Trip to Jerusalem’ which claims to be the oldest inn in England. And we had lunch in a most pleasant location, sitting alongside Castle Lock on the Nottingham Canal, outside ‘The Navigation’, where Phillip took this picture of me.

A heron looking expectantly for his lunch! © Ricky Yates

After lunch, we walked along the canal towpath to where the canal rejoins the River Trent. On our walk, we passed this heron, sitting on the base of a bridge parapet, no doubt on the lookout for his lunch!

We then walked across the main bridge over the River Trent to the Trent Bridge Cricket Ground and the neighbouring world-famous Trent Bridge Inn. Banners were already out on nearby lamp posts, advertising the commencement of the Ashes Test Match series against Australia which was due to begin here on the following Wednesday. But as we enjoyed a pint sitting in the TBI, the sport on the TV screen was tennis, as we watched Novak Djokovic win his Wimbledon semi final match against Juan Martín del Potro.

Later, we joined Lisa and some of hers and Phillip’s work colleagues, for another cool beer/glass of wine outside in the Friday evening Nottingham sunshine. My thanks to Natasha, (I hope I remembered the name correctly), for taking this photo of the three of us.

Myself, with Ian's mother & step-father © Ian Margieson — Myself, with Ian’s mother & step-father © Ian Margieson

I spent the weekend of 6th -7th July, staying with my daughter Christa and son-in-law Ian, at their home in Daventry, Northamptonshire. Christa did ask me not to post a photograph of her here on my blog, so instead, here is a photograph taken by Ian, of me and his mother Eileen and step-father Barry, sitting on the decking at the rear of Christa and Ian’s home. The reason for the computer on my lap was to show some photographs – I wasn’t working, honest!

Having said that, I did have somewhat of a ‘busman’s holiday’ on Sunday morning. I preached at two services – in St. Mary the Virgin, Wilby and St. Nicholas, Great Doddington, on behalf of the Intercontinental Church Society (ICS), who have financially and prayerfully supported the Prague Chaplaincy since 2000. These two parishes on the outskirts of Wellingborough, in turn, support the work of ICS. It was wonderful to meet people who faithfully pray for us in Prague. In turn, they enjoyed meeting and hearing me in person, rather than just knowing of me through a photograph in the ICS magazine.

The Cathedral & Abbey Church of St. Alban © Ricky Yates

With a few hours to kill before my flight back to Prague on the evening of Monday 8th July, I revisited somewhere that has a special place in my own spiritual journey – the Cathedral and Abbey Church of St. Alban, to give what is commonly known as St. Albans Cathedral, its correct, full name. Here, just over twenty-four years ago on 2nd July 1989, I was ordained deacon, and a year later on 1st July 1990, ordained priest.

The original Abbey Church was built on the site of where Alban, the first English Christian martyr, was put to death for his faith. It is quite a number of years since I was last here and it was wonderful to be able to both pray privately in the Cathedral, as well as to attend Evensong, before heading back to Slip End to return the car, and then to Luton Airport to fly home.

ICS Chaplains Conference in Switzerland

The Swiss Alps from my conference centre bedroom balcony © Ricky Yates

I spent the week, (Monday 29th April – Friday 3rd May), attending the annual Intercontinental Church Society (ICS) Chaplains and Families Conference held in Beatenberg, near Interlaken in Switzerland. ICS is an international Church of England mission agency seeking to make known the good news of the Christian Gospel to people who speak English, who find themselves living, studying, working or holidaying away from home in countries where English is not the main language. ICS mainly works in continental Europe and other countries that surround the Mediterranean, together with few far-flung outposts such as the Falkland Islands.

ICS has financially and prayerfully supported the Prague Anglican Chaplaincy since August 2000, their support allowing the appointment of the first full-time Chaplain in Prague, my predecessor Canon John Philpott. They have continued to be incredibly supportive during my time as Chaplain and it is fair to say that without their financial help, the Prague Anglican Chaplaincy might easily have ceased to exist.

SBT Conference Centre, Beatenberg © Ricky Yates

Every year, ICS organise a conference for all Chaplains and their families who work in Chaplaincies that they are involved with. The location of the conference alternates between continental Europe and the UK. I attended my first conference in April 2009, also held in Switzerland, but surprisingly did not write a blog post about it! I have missed the last three conferences, mainly to save the Prague Chaplaincy some expense with our financial position being so precarious. One of the nice things this year was that the governing ICS Council, agreed to subsidise the conference to a greater degree than in previous years, thus reducing the cost of my attendance.

Whilst the conference centre venue was excellent and its location absolutely spectacular, there was the practical problem of how to get there from Prague and get back home again afterwards. After considering the various possibilities, I opted to drive. I left the Chaplaincy flat in Prague just before 07.30 on Monday morning and finally reached the Beatenberg conference centre some ten hours later at 17.30.

The journey took me through four countries, (Czech Republic, Germany, Austria & Switzerland) and was almost exclusively on autobahn/motorway, with the exception of the crossing from Austria to Switzerland and a most ‘interesting’ crossing of a mountain pass between Luzern and Interlaken. Unfortunately, my journey took thirty minutes longer than it should have done when I struggled to find my way through and out of the western extremity of Interlaken, onto the twisty mountain road leading up to Beatenberg. It was very much a case of being so near yet so far 🙁

The conference itself had been well planned and struck a nice balance between prayer, worship and teaching, and the opportunity for some rest and recreation surrounded by spectacular scenery. The main Speaker was Canon Chris Neal who I had known and heard speak previously over ten years ago, when he was Rector of Thame and I was Rector of the Shelswell Group of Parishes, both of which are in Oxfordshire. His analysis of the world in which we are called to ‘bring the grace and truth of Christ to this generation’ was both incisive and challenging.

Another most helpful part of the conference was the opportunity to learn from each other. On two of the evenings, a series of workshops were on offer, led by various of my fellow ICS Chaplains. I had the privilege of helping to jointly lead one of them with my colleague Paul Vrolijk, the Chaplain of Aquitaine, France, entitled ‘Starting new congregations’. I shared my experience of starting the Brno congregation as Paul in turn, explained how he has started new congregations across the the three French départements that make up the area of his Chaplaincy. There then followed a series of questions and answers regarding the various issues involved. For me, it was an opportunity to both give, but also to receive.

If I have any little gripes, it would be that many of the ‘worship songs’ that we sang, were totally unknown to me. We also sang them with the words projected onto a screen, rather than having the printed words in our hands. I have no problem in doing this and can see the value of people not needing to hold books or leaflets in their hands. But the screen onto which the words were projected, almost totally obliterated the congregational view of the cross on the wall at the front of the chapel, which I found disorientating to say the least. And I do wish that several of my ministerial colleagues would be able to offer extemporary prayer, without needing to constantly use the word ‘Lord’, as a comma 🙂

From l to r, Rev'd Richard Bromley, Rev'd Clive Atkinson, Ven Julian Henderson © Ricky Yates — From l to r, Rev’d Richard Bromley, Rev’d Clive Atkinson, Ven Julian Henderson © Ricky Yates

The conference was also the first opportunity to meet the newly appointed Mission Director of ICS, Rev’d Richard Bromley. It was also his first real opportunity to meet most of us as he only took up his post at the beginning of this year. Also present, was the Chairman of the ICS Council, Ven Julian Henderson, along with several other Council members. Between them, they are now providing firm leadership for ICS after a somewhat rocky last couple of years.

I hope both Richard and Julian will forgive me posting this photograph of them both, which was taken during a fun ‘awards ceremony’, held during the Thursday evening celebratory dinner. They were two of the three nominees for the award for having the least hair on the top of their heads. I was actually surprised that I wasn’t nominated in this category as well 🙂 . However, by the almost unanimous vote of the audience, the award went to Clive Atkinson, the Chaplain of Vevey and Château d’Oex in Switzerland.

The view from Vorass after our climb up the mountainside © Ricky Yates

The views all around the conference centre were absolutely stunning as I hope the accompanying photographs show. On the Wednesday afternoon, Mark Collinson, Senior Chaplain in Amsterdam, acted as Sherpa and guide to a group of us as we climbed up the mountain behind Beatenberg, to Vorsass where we enjoyed some well-earned refreshments. However, I could not help contrasting the price I paid for my 0.5l of beer on a Swiss mountainside, with what I would normally pay in a bar-restaurant in the suburbs of Prague – four times the price 🙁

The intrepid walk group of walkers, awaiting our well-earned liquid refreshments © Ricky Yates

The return journey back to Prague went smoothly and took nine and a half hours including stops. I made a slight detour from the route I had taken to get to the conference, and successfully added Lichtenstein to the the list of countries I’ve now visited. Whilst there, I filled up my car with petrol as it is reasonably priced because of relatively low taxation. So my car, which was originally British (it is right-hand drive), but constructed in France (it is a Renault), which is now registered in the Czech Republic, was filled with petrol in Lichtenstein, which I paid for in Swiss Francs 🙂

The Swiss Alps at 06.00 on Friday 3rd May. What a view to wake up to! © Ricky Yates

A deputation visit for ICS

As mentioned in my previous post, part of the reason for UK trip was to fulfil a deputation visit on behalf of the Intercontinental Church Society (ICS) who both prayerfully and financially support the Prague Chaplaincy. This was organised earlier in the year when Sybille and I had originally planned to spend two weeks holiday in the UK. Therefore on Sunday 18^th July, I was the preacher and celebrant at the 9.45am Eucharist at St. Luke’s Parish Church, Goostrey, Cheshire.

I had originally asked Phillip if I could borrow his car & drive myself from Derby to Goostrey. However, in response to my request, Phillip kindly offered to come with me and be my chauffeur. We set out early at 7.40am as although the journey should only take just over an hour, I wanted to allow time for any hold-ups en-route and arrive at the Church in good time.

It was only when we had been driving for about ten minutes across Derby, heading for the A50 to Stoke-on-Trent, that I realised my cassock alb & stole were still hanging up in the wardrobe of the guest bedroom in Phillip’s house! For years when Rector of the Shelswell Parishes, taking my clerical robes with me in the car to a service, was a matter of habit. Almost two years of only having one Church and therefore being able to leave them hanging in the vestry, very nearly caught me out. A quick return journey to collect them meant we left the house for the second time at 8am. Fortunately, there were no delays on the A50, A500 or the M6 and we safely arrived in Goostrey soon after 9am.

St. Luke’s, Goostrey have financially supported the work of ICS for a number of years. My task was therefore to thank them for that support, explain something about what ICS does, and in particular, say something about the life and work of the Prague Chaplaincy. But I also had my normal Sunday task of preaching from the biblical readings set by the Lectionary for that Sunday.

Earlier in the week, when I looked at the biblical readings, I discovered one those wonderful coincidences – what I often call ‘God-incidences’. On the front cover of the current ‘ICS News and Prayer Diary’ are words of St. Paul, “Christ in you, the hope of glory. It is he whom we proclaim….” Colossians 1. 27-28. What was the New Testament reading set for the day? Colossians 1. 15-28 containing those very words! This wonderful ‘God-incidence’ enabled me to give an exposition of the biblical text whilst at the same time quite naturally saying something about the purpose of the Prague Chaplaincy and the support it receives from ICS.

The Goostrey congregation were warm and welcoming. They are currently in an interregnum as there previous vicar had to retire because of ill health and his successor is yet to be appointed. Therefore having me come and cover a Sunday for them was particularly appreciated. Whilst the liturgy was familiar being ‘Common Worship Order 1 in contemporary language’, just as we use at St. Clement’s, Prague, one unfamiliar task was having to publish banns of marriage, something I haven’t done for over two years. Whilst I can conduct a legal wedding here in the Czech Republic, this can only happen once the couple have completed legal preliminaries with the local Registrar, not after the publication of banns of marriage in Church by me!

The return journey to Derby went smoothly after which Phillip, Charlotte and I enjoyed a Sunday pub lunch at the ‘Seven Wells’. Whilst I have now quite happily lived without a television for nearly two years, I do just occasionally wish I could watch the odd sporting event that appeals to me. Therefore, I did thoroughly enjoy spending the rest of Sunday afternoon, watching the final round of the Open Golf Championship from St. Andrews on Phillip & Charlotte’s TV and seeing the young South African golfer Louis Oosthuizen, become Open Champion for the first time.

A visit to the UK

Phillip & Charlotte 1 — Phillip & Charlotte at Matt’s birthday sports afternoon © Ricky Yates

On Friday 16^th July, I set out to make my first return visit to the UK since moving to Prague nearly two years ago. The five day trip was part holiday – spending sometime with my son Phillip in Derby; and part work – fulfilling a promise made earlier in the year to undertake a deputation visit for the Intercontinental Church Society (ICS) who prayerfully and financially support the work of the Prague Chaplaincy.

As usual, the wonderful Prague public transport system got me from the bus stop, five minutes walk from the Chaplaincy flat, to the front entrance of Terminal 1 at Prague Airport, in little more than thirty minutes. Much more surprisingly, my Easyjet flight was taxiing down the runway at 10.45, exactly the time it was meant to be departing from Prague. Less than two hours later, we landed in the UK though, because of the one hour time difference, it was only 11.40 BST.

I flew into the rather incongruously named ‘Robin Hood Airport’ which serves Doncaster and Sheffield in South Yorkshire. At the end of 2009, Easyjet ceased to operate out of East Midlands Airport, the airport that serves Derby, and passed the Prague – East Midlands route to bmibaby.com. In their wisdom, bmibaby.com have suspended their Prague – East Midlands flights during July and August, presumably because it is more profitable to use their planes to fly British tourists to the Costas in Spain or the Greek islands during this time.

At UK passport control, I had great difficulty stopping myself from saying “Dobrý den” to the immigration officer, instead of saying “Good morning”. This was a problem I continued to have during the following few days, adjusting to the fact that I could actually speak in English and be completely understood. That I needed to say “Thank you” and “Goodbye”, not “Dekuji” and “Na shledanou”.

It was equally strange once I met up with Phillip in the airport car park. I got into the front passenger seat of his right-hand drive (RHD) car, in that respect no different from being in my RHD car in Prague. But he then proceeded to drive on the left-hand side of the road! After nearly two years of travelling or driving on the right-hand side of the road, that took some getting used to once again.

A forty minute drive down the M18 and the M1 got us to Derby. After Phillip had purchased a few things from Morrisons supermarket, I tried to get some Sterling currency out of the nearby ATM, using my Barclays Bank debit card. I had deliberately transferred funds from my Czech bank account to my UK Barclays account to be able to do exactly this. My attempt to withdraw cash was declined – a security measure because I hadn’t used the debit card in the UK for nearly two years! So, before proceeding to Phillip’s home for a late lunch, we drove to a branch of Barclays Bank plc where I duly produced my passport and debit card with the request that I be allowed to withdraw my own money! I was extremely glad that I had arrived in the UK on a weekday rather than a weekend.

During my visit to the UK, I was asked several times whether there was anything I missed about the UK now I lived in the Czech Republic. My answer was always negative – as things currently stand, I don’t see myself living in the UK again in the foreseeable future. But on that Friday evening, I did do two thoroughly enjoyable things which it would not be possible to do in Prague.

Firstly, en-route to the city centre, Phillip and I purchased our evening meal from a Fish & Chips shop. We then walked slightly further on to the County Ground where we ate our fish and chips, (in Phillip’s case, pie and chips), whilst watching a day/night Twenty20 cricket match between Derbyshire CC and Northamptonshire CC. However, one less enjoyable, (though expected), thing was paying £3.00 a pint (0.568 litre) for a beer whilst watching the cricket when a 0.5 litre beer in most Prague bars would cost no more than £1.00.

The following day, Saturday 17^th July, Phillip and his girlfriend Charlotte, had been invited to the birthday celebrations of Matt, a university friend of Phillip who, like Phillip, has stayed on in Derby after graduating. Matt kindly assured Phillip that his Dad was more than welcome to come along with him.

Matt lives with his heavily pregnant wife, in the village of Hilton, just to the west of Derby. For his birthday, he had invited various friends, his brother and sister, together with their respective boyfriends/girlfriends, to a picnic lunch and a sports afternoon on the nearby village playing field. So, after sandwiches, crisps and other goodies, accompanied by a variety of liquid refreshment, we spent the afternoon playing rounders and kwik cricket.

Afterwards, I returned with Phillip and Charlotte to their home. We quickly ate a stir-fry and got washed and changed before we rejoined the others in the centre of Derby where the birthday celebrations were resumed and the following two pictures were taken.

Phillip & RY Derby — Father and Son © Ricky Yates

Phillip & Charlotte 2 — Phillip & Charlotte © Ricky Yates

More about my UK trip in my next post.

On holiday – but in Prague!

The yellow spire of St. Clement's Church seen from Letna Park © Ricky Yates

Once again, I have to start by apologising for not having posted anything here on my blog for over a month. The main reason for this has been a real sense of uncertainty about my situation because of the financial difficulties the Prague Anglican Chaplaincy has been facing. However, things are now looking a good deal more secure, not least due to some generous additional funding being immediately provided by the Intercontinental Church Society (ICS) and the likelihood of further help from one or two other sources.

However, as Sybille’s and my contribution towards keeping costs down, we chose not to attend the ICS Chaplains & families conference which took place in Sussex, UK last week, as the Chaplaincy would have had to meet both the cost of the conference and our travel costs to get there. This decision also meant that our original plan, of spending two weeks of my annual leave in the UK immediately following the conference, also had to change. So instead, after celebrating the Eucharist on Sunday 4^th July at St. Clements, I’ve been on a stay-at-home-holiday (vacation to my US readers) here in Prague.

One of the real difficulties of being a clergyman living on-the-job is that it is very difficult to be ‘on holiday at home’ without work inevitably intruding. However, other than answering a variety of emails and fielding a couple of phone calls, I’ve managed pretty well so far. And next week, I am going to the UK, but just for a long weekend – more about this in due course.

These past five days, I’ve set about trying to completely clean our flat, room by room. I don’t just mean running the vacuum cleaner across the floors and giving the furniture a quick wipe with the duster. I mean giving every room a really thorough clean! Therefore I’ve had my stepladder up from the cellar to enable me to reach and dismantle all the light fittings to remove a variety of dead insects and dust. It has also enabled me to clean the tops of wardrobes and the ledges above doorways.

For the first time since they were made and hung in January 2006, I’ve taken down the curtains a room at a time, in order to wash, dry, iron and re-hang them. They now seem several shades lighter, hopefully due to losing dirt rather than colour from the fabric! As I feared, the curtains have also shrunk a little. Fortunately, it is nothing too dramatic and no doubt they’ll drop a little in the next few weeks now they’ve been re-hung.

One very good reason for carrying out this cleaning exercise now is that finally, we are no longer living next to a building site. Our flat was built as part of the first stage of what the developers describe as Residence Podbaba. Ever since we moved here nearly two years ago, the fourth and final stage of the development has been under construction in front and at the side of our apartment block. Cleaning anything, especially the outside of windows or our balconies, was virtually a waste of time as within twenty-four hours, everything would once more be covered in dust from the building site.

About a month ago, the building work finished, paths were laid and the grounds landscaped. Therefore, whilst the curtains have been down, Sybille has been busy cleaning the windows and I’ve washed down all three of our external balconies.

As part of this cleaning exercise, we have also tried to look once more at our possessions, especially things that have gathered dust through lack of use. Have we used this item in the nearly two years we have been here? Are we likely to use it in the coming months? Jesus’ words recorded in Luke 12 v15 have been resonating once again. “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed: life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”

Two rooms remain to be tackled as part of this major cleaning exercise – the kitchen and our joint office. The latter is the most cluttered and therefore the most difficult to both clean and sort out. I promise to provide a further progress report in the next few days…….