Jamie Fehr

A year ago good friday I was in Cordoba, Spain checking out the Mezquita. It might as well have been lifetime ago. A lot has happened since then and I am really grateful for this online record that I have from which I can remember the twists and turns that life has given me.

Normally, I would try and deliver some sort of status update on Friday, but today and this week have had a very different tone for me and warrant a different more journal like entry into my public thought space.

In the last weeks I have been reading through the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke (I haven’t made it up to John yet) and just today I again watched The Passion of the Christ and I’ve just been struck by the love and compassion of Jesus. Jesus indiscriminately performed miraculous healings, he ate and hung out with his societies lower caste, and above all bore incredible pain as an innocent man on our behalf. I find it impossible not to be moved by the Gospel account of his life.

But he didn’t just die on the cross, he resurrected himself. And it’s that detail that commands me to action. Christians are to be the salt and the light but even more so Mark 16:17-20 says that miraculous sings and wonders should accompany believers. As a matter of fact, as far as I can tell from my reading of the Bible, it should be unquestionably clear when someone is a Christian.

Yet it’s so hard. I struggle taking even small steps of faith and am easily distracted by the lure of affluence. How can I eat so much more than I really need to on a regular basis when there are so many hungary people? How can I justify the purchase of new clothes when it wouldn’t take me minutes to locate someone dressed in tatters? I really feel compelled to be more personally involved in the lives of those in a state of physical need.

Anyway, it’s nearly past the hour at which I no longer permit myself to proof read and publish and I want to conclude saying that in accordance with God’s imperative given to the Israelites on countless occasions I really feel compelled to begin a (personal) Spirit Revelation Journal/Faith Portfolio of sorts. Providing me a firm historical reference of how I’ve seen God active in this world.

Nepotism noun

The practice among those with power or influence of favoring relatives or friends, esp. by giving them jobs.

I knew of the existence of this word pretty much describing how things work in my hometown but I forgot exactly what it was. So last night when I was talking with some spanish people about exactly this concept, my memory was triggered. They call it El Echufe or being plugged-in, as in an like an electrical outlet.

Today I realized that it was Friday and that normally on Friday’s back when I had some sort of schedule or routine (well over a year ago) I would write some sort of week in review. In part it was so that people I care about could know what I was up to but mostly it was so that I could know that I was indeed doing things.

So it is with great pleasure that I inform you that I am officially now back at my old job in sunny Southern Spain. Yes, things are back to “normal” even though I don’t really believe that normal exists, and routine has returned.

My last status update took place at the end of January and at that point in time I still didn’t feel like I had been guaranteed an exit from the bitter cold that was gripping the region of Northern Alberta. I had plans (sell car, finish paper work, get passport) but the only detail that did come to fruition was the return of my passport. My car still hasn’t been sold (I don’t think), I still haven’t finished all my paperwork, my flights were a porqueria and I don’t have a visa to actually be in the country yet (God bless diligent Spanish customs).

Which brings us to right now, I am active in number of different things here at work and in the community: I am involved in improving our arabic outreach site, our work website, our spanish youth discipleship site (which needs to be finished this month, we’re praying that that happens), a work bible study, a church bible study, and a weekly Campus Crusade gathering. Suffice it to say that I sometimes feel I am without time to breathe. Yet, like my character seems to dictate, one step at a time, and everything seems to be coming together.

Also worth noting is that in the last four weeks I’ve participated in two ALL night events, one was a video game party and the other was Star War from five in the afternoon until nine the next morning. And with Easter just around the corner I won’t be surprised to find another on the agenda.

So with the concept of routine in mind I don’t feel that any that I’ve developed so far is going to last. It appears as though I am going to be moving to Morocco for a yet to be determined time later this month to learn the Arabic language. Details are slow in coming despite my imminent departure (Deja Vu anyone?) so it’s on that note that I conclude this update.

I do in the future hope to be more regular in posting things, but with time being such a difficult fish to catch and routine on the chopping block I wouldn’t hold my breath.

If ever you talk to people about God, eventually you’ll come across someone who says that they don’t believe in God but in science. And honestly I believe that to be the biggest cop out there is. Firstly, who doesn’t “believe” in science? Science isn’t a religion and scientology is a cult. To say I don’t believe in Science would be at least as ridiculous as saying I don’t believe in gravity.

People like that need help.

So what is this science in which people put there trust? As best as I can figure it’s discovery of the order of the universe. Science can never and will never answer philosophical questions like why do I exist? where did everything come from? and my favorite; why something rather than nothing?

Even the fact that there is an order to the universe that we can study, to me, speaks volumes; if everything that exists happened by random chance, wouldn’t we have nothing but randomness to study? And how profitable to mankind would be the study of our completely selves. No. Order exists because it is made to exist, in every instance study-able you will find that when left alone things fall into a state of disarray. Growing up, my room would never become clean or organized just by leaving it to time and random chance.

Therefore, I pose that the fact that science is a fact points a tremendously obvious finger at intelligent design and would love to hear from anyone with a counterpoint. The more pertinent issue what there being a God indicates.

Before you begin reading any of this truly harrowing adventure I would like to assure you that this story does indeed have a happy ending. I can say that because it’s my own story, it happened to me and I am currently living it’s happy ending.

While the stories setting is given away in the title it really begins much sooner than that at my first airport on the long and arduous but above all, cheap, journey from my hometown in Northern Alberta to my destination in Southern Spain.

I arrived at the airport rather promptly at a dreadfully early 4:30 am. After arriving at the check-in counter I was immediately informed by a rather flustered looking check-in counter clerk that one of my original four flights was cancelled. She claimed however that she had worked it out by finding a second flight from Chicago to Boston, that left only an hour later, leaving one hour for me and my bags to catch our connecting flight out to Dublin.

That was all well and good, an hour would be ample time I thought to myself and quickly made my way through customs, security and on to the aircraft for a very uneventful flight.

Upon landing in Chicago I was immediately filled with dread. It was dumping snow and the cloud ceiling was incredibly low. Conditions were far from ideal for flying. I’m never going to get out of here, I thought to myself. In the terminal I busied myself with sending emails and sorting photos and before long, it was time to board my next flight.

When I got on board the pilot came on the PA to assure everyone how fortunate we were as this was one of the few flights that was actually leaving. I breather a sigh of relief but was then quickly cautioned by another passenger that we hadn’t left the ground yet. He was right, moments later the pilot came back on to say that they had encountered a mechanical failure and that they were getting the maintenance team on it right away.

Any delay in the flight ate into precious minutes that I needed to make my next connection and before long 50 minutes was gone and we were yet to leave the ground. It seemed nearly hopeless. The maintenance team did a hard reset on all the planes electronics which solved the problem plane was de-iced and anti-iced. After which our flight took off a full hour (59 minutes, officially speaking) later than scheduled.

Yes, I was biting my nails. A few minutes would be enough time for me to get to my next flight but not nearly enough for my bags to do the same. That was a reality I was willing to accept.

At this point I think it hardly worth mentioning is that I didn’t make the connection in Boston. There wouldn’t be a story if I did. My hopes were officially dashed in the air when the pilot shared we would be landing a full half hour after my connecting flight had departed.

What next? I went to the Aer Lingus counter in the international terminal, as the were the carrier for my connecting flight. A helpful, young, Irish sounding lady greeted me there and informed me that it was not Aer Lingus’s responsibility to make arrangements for me, but rather United Airlines, as they were the ones who got me there late. She then offered to reschedule my flight for following day if if I wanted, just in case things didn’t work out with United. I said I would very much like that and found my way over to the United Terminal to see what they were going to do for me.

Apparently they could do nothing. The counter closed at 7:00 p.m. and it was then 7:15 p.m. and while I was able to find an ticketing employee there she told me to come back tomorrow. A 24-hour layover in Boston it was and I grudgingly accepted that reality.

In no way desiring to spend my next 24 hours in Boston Logan Airport I connected myself to the internet and found a cheap, out of the way hotel (Lord Wakefield Hotel) which ended up costing me more in taxi rides to and from than what the actual nights stay was. You live and you learn.

Waking up the following morning feeling well and refreshed (the hotel having provided me with complimentary toothbrush, toothpaste, and deodorant) and realizing that I had a full 10 hours until my next flight I decided to tour downtown Boston for the morning and part of the afternoon.

Details gratuitous to this story removed.

With a whole three hours to take off, I made my way quickly back to the Aer Lingus desk.

In short order I discovered that things weren’t as they seemed. As I was making my way to the desk I noticed that my flight was scheduled for an hour later than what the day previous’. Making a two hour layover in Dublin one. Thoughts of Deja vú were racing through my mind. Then again, how bad could an extra day in Dublin be?

When I finally did speak again with Denise at Aer Lingus she informed me that I was not scheduled for that flight due to the short layover and arrangements were made that I was to fly out on Lufthansa in less than two hours. I was already a little edgy from having been walking out in the cold and snow of downtown Boston for hours but when I was informed of what I needed to do in the proximate two hours, it was nearly too much: First, I needed to switch to Terminal C and confirm these arrangements with United, as they wanted my old paper tickets and were to print new information, then I needed to come back to the terminal I was in to retrieve my bags from Aer Lingus, then I was to to proceed to the Lufthansa check-in Counter on the other side of the terminal, and then I needed to clear security with it’s line stretching all the way back to where this race was about to start.

I took off running but was constantly being delayed by bad instructions and large, confused asian families. And after a blur of activity I found myself, a half hour to take off, having only just gotten to the check-in counter. All I had to keep me calm was the assurance of a really good natured Lufthansa employee who told me that although I was the very last person left to check-in for the flight that he was going to get me on the jet.

10 minutes went by. I was still waiting for a boarding pass.

10 more minutes went by and I was still waiting for a boarding pass. The lineup for security was still incredibly long.

So finally, with only a few minutes to spare I was handed a boarding pass with my seating situation upgraded to executive class. My friend from Lufthansa then ushered me right to the very front of the security line and to the very front of what was left of the boarding queue. Wow.

When I got on the airplane I was greeted by acres of leg room and my choice of water, orange juice, or champagne. I did most Christian/Missionary thing I could think and celebrated with a small glass of superb champagne and ever since take-off the flight attendants haven’t stopped feeding me.

It’s going to be hard to go back.

With my tale at it’s conclusion, being told in the most dramatic way I could muster I would like to state that the most probable moral of this story is to check-in really late. You might get bumped a class. Yet for some reason I don’t believe this to be true, I would think it more likely that your flight would get re-scheduled.

With a mere two and a half hours left until landing in which to get a nights rest, I would like to thank Denise from Aer Lingus and an A. Ramcharan from Lufthansa for all their help in keeping my sanity and would like to add that United is comprised of incompetent and lazy employees. Sorry if that’s you, my opinion is incredibly biased.

Update: Map of the Adventure.

I am moving to Spain on February 6th. All the details are coming together. I have all the paper my organization requires taken care of (minus the RRSP fund setup), support money just rose to 100% today (and it could go higher), my car is nearly sold and for a decent price (in spite of it’s shoddy condition), my plane tickets arrived in the mail last week and after a brief conversation with the Spanish consulate this morning it would appear as though my passport will be returned to me in time for my departure bright and early on February 6th.

It really does almost feel like a little miracle. Praise the Lord! I look forward to saluting everyone from the other side of the ocean.

Now that 2008 and more specifically January are in full effect, I feel obliged to share a few things which I deem very pertinent to those who bother to read this.

First, I mailed off my application for residency in Spain to the Spanish consulate in Toronto in a traceable package that arrived at it’s destination at the beginning of this last week. A package which included my passport, so I am grounded here in Canada until this thing follows through, but as the lady in charge of visa’s there won’t be in until the 14th I don’t have any idea how long this will take.

Also worth mentioning is that I washed my car for the first time in nearly two years yesterday and while cleaning I would hardly say it was worth it, but now a day later and seeing it’s shiny brillance (and four unique tones of green thanks to various accidents) I must admit that I am duly impressed with how gratifying a clean vehicle can be and that my car entirely merited the effort expended.

That said, I now need to figure out what’s going on with my cars headlights, the only ways that I can currently turn them off (ever) it by:

1. disconnecting the battery
2. removing the headlamp fuse

Both options involve my going under the hood before and after every time I drive, it’s really more than a little annoying and in light of that I think on Monday I’ll take it to a garage and have them fix it for me.

And lastly I need to mention that I have been trying to make some extra spending cash by doing inventory at Nor-Alta Aviation. It’s a job that I never wanted to do and I am so glad that it’s nearly finished.

I wasn’t really waiting for 2008 because I knew that when it came I would feel guilty about how little I accomplished in the last year (I’ve only really worked four non-consecutive weeks since last April) and yet, now that it’s here I really do feel proud of all that’s happened.

I journeyed to the depths of the Grande Canyon, explored the intricate side-streets of Prague, ate fresh coconut with chili powder in Mexico, and fell in love with the city of Paris. A lot of people ask me how it works to have a job for less than half the year and to adventure the rest, but in all honesty I don’t really now how things have managed to work out for me. It starts with never having savings and being very scrupulous about one’s spending (which for me usually meant not eating) but as to draw out an actual plan that others could follow, no such thing could ever exist.

Most importantly however, I have been working on returning to the Malaga Media Center as long term staff. A decision I formally made on September 30th, and is nearly come to fruition which is the main reason why I write.

It has been a long three months of making preparations and this time, I plan on going with all the necessary papers in hand to be permitted to reside in the foreign country of Spain. So last Saturday I was genuinely elated to that I finally received the last and most important piece of the visa application, my letter of invitation. Which means that tomorrow I can send out my application and within 1-3 months it will be processed and I will either be permitted or denied entry.

Currently it would appear as though a Mid-February departure is about the earliest that I could be gone.

Also I would just like to extend a big thank-you to all those who are supporting me financially, I currently have 92% of the $2,578/month that I need to be out there and the last 8% I really don’t think will be a problem.

I just wanted to say that my home town, La Crete, just got it’s very first set of traffic lights this week. I anticipate that there are a lot of people who won’t know what to do and that they may cause more accidents than they’ll prevent.

Fortnight noun

A period of two weeks.

• informal used after the name of a day to indicate that something will take place two weeks after that day.

I first learned this word in high school english when we were studying a Shakespeare and while we don’t use this word that often here in North America, the english will nearly always use it when referring to a period of two weeks.