Category: Airbnb

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Presumptions

Wow! Have I been learning about presumptions of late! As you know we are renting rooms via Airbnb which is a very open site which says encourages people to give a profile about themselves so both host and guest sort of know what they are letting themselves into. patentlawpic858Well when we had a Malaysian girl staying for a month and working at the local hospital I had decided she must be a nurse. No she was a trainee doctor and a fascinating person too. Just last week we had a French guy book in for him and his girlfriend so I just presumed they were both from France. No she was from Russia and he was studying in UK. Again a mistake made. Then our latest guest, I could not quite make out the name but for some reason had decided that we had a man staying. Imagine my surprise when I met this lovely woman.

I am never sure how I make these presumptions but I know we all do. We have boxes we put people in and for some reason that is how we view the world. I am sure some of it is because it makes life easier in the broad sense. But I also think this is where we can make so many mistakes. I have often had people say to me that I am nice for a Christian or that I don’t behave like a Christian. I remember once when living in Belfast and going to a lovely church that was really into reaching out to the people who lived in the more deprived part, which was actually where we lived, one of the ladies being supported saying that she couldn’t believe I was “church” as she said. Why? It was her presumptions. I couldn’t be a Christian, be “church”, if I lived where she lived, spoke like she did, let my kid play with hers maybe. But that was something that was holding her back, and many like her from getting to know God.

I also think in this run up to this EU referendum we have to down to personalities and that euthen gives rise to presumptions. If Boris supports Leave then it will look like “x” but if Patrick Stewart supports Remain then it will look like “y”. Why do we think that? Because our preconceived ideas cannot cope with certain people being in certain camps and then us joining with them.

How do we get beyond that? I think we need to be aware of it. So I need to be aware when I make a presumption about one of our guests that I have done that. I need to look at why I my first thought for a Malaysian girl coming here to work in a hospital was that she must be a nurse, that I couldn’t imagine a French person going out with anyone other than another French person, and that somehow the wording on things make me decide gender.

Just recently Airbnb has been pulled up because of prejudices from its hosts – which actually is a silly thing to pull the company up for. It is basically a forum to help people find cheaper accommodation not an employer. And also its host rating system is based on those who stay not on those who don’t. There are a few people I would have liked to have given 1 stars to who never got back to me, or who stayed with us but did not do reviews for us, but that is not how the system works. Ok so its not foolproof but the ratings do work ap22304414966_wide-555ee6d2536f14d3ced3468bd4730e9843676057-s400-c85for when people stay so … But the point is we do not know where the prejudices from these hosts who have refused come from. Perhaps when they see that someone is of a different colour, race, religion, sexual orientation they have some presumption of the character of that person. Should legislation force them to have these people in their homes? I don’t think so. We cannot change people’s hearts by forcing them. I know if I was forced to have someone in my home I did not feel comfortable with for whatever reason I would not behave well. I have had one or two that I have wondered about beforehand but have let them stay and all has been fine. But that was my choice not a law telling me I had to.

So how do we change people’s preconceived ideas? We can’t. As with everything we can only change our own. But then we can share with others in a kind way. We are part of a Bible study group that have their own presumptions about things. We cannot tell them they are wrong but we can say about those we know who are different colour, race, religion or sexual orientation to us, but also we have to accept these people as lovely people and not be prejudice against them. In fact I think this is one of the hardest things to deal with – not being prejudiced against people who have prejudices we disagree with. If we do not love the gun toting right wing fundamental then how can they ever change?

My presumptions could lead to prejudices which could lead to me not allowing people into mayaangelou101310my home, not let me speak to people in a supportive way, and I need to be aware of that. The only person I can really change is me but the only way I can do that is by being aware.

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accepting adventure Airbnb belief dog faith God life plans St Kevin trust

I Know The Plans I Have For You …

KevinIn Sunday’s Abbey of the Arts email there is a look at Kevin, a Celtic saint, who lived in Glendalough and was said to have put his arms out the windows of his cell to pray and whilst he had his arms outstretched a bird nested in his upraised hand and he stayed still till the chicks had left the nest. A crazy story but what I like about it this idea, that Christine runs with of plans and how our plans can change. I am sure Kevin’s plans were not to spend three months with his arms outstretched but he did.

In the email Christine says “How many times in our lives do we reach out our hands for a particular purpose, and something else arrives?”

And then goes on to encourage us reading to think of how we react to the unexpected when it arrives.

For me this is encouraging. I don’t think we came here with a plan but there was rough idea. What has happened is different. I think for me, with some of the things I felt I was getting when journalling about the coming year was about getting a calling to this town and getting involved with local church, etc, having some kind of therapeutic writing ministry, and working in local schools a couple of days a week. This has not been the case.

Mind you Sunday for me at church was a bit like that. Ian had gone off with his younger

13327518_1313771811971118_5335999616240931755_n
Me second from the left

sister climbing in Snowdonia and I decided to visit the local Anglican church. We had been three or four times before so it wasn’t something new. I had seen a spiritual director on Thursday and one of his suggestions had been to just go to a church building and sit in the back. This was my plan. Dog was walked, husband was out for the day, I would just go and sit for an hour and let the service wash over me. That did not happen. Apparently, even though this church has no young families it still does a family style service on the fifth Sunday of the month. It was all low key but the vicar’s plan was that a few people in the congregation would be dressed up to be paraded down the red carpet as an example of honouring and encouraging people. Well some how I got pick in my corner of the church and was dressed up and walked to the front of the church with four other people, all of us giggling away. Not what I had planned but part of His plan?

It seemed to say to me that we have to be willing to put out our hands, to turn up, and just wait. We had expectations about being here but they are very different from what we expected. The Airbnb is going great but we keep getting an overspill of people who come to this area to work who want accommodation. So a room that we had not expected to use because it still has some stuff that needs to make it to the loft, is being used already. My time of going out to work hasn’t happened because I do need to be home to clean, to do the admin, to be here to welcome people when they arrive.

 

540x293_20141228_d7cd1636aea23361de15710d6933b6f3_jpgIt is about being willing to stretch out, to just be and then let God. It is trusting that He does know that plans He has for us but it isn’t like I feel we hear in many churches. I have often heard in sermons that God has plans for us and we need to go and find them and make sure we do them. It is back to us making sure we “get it right”. But now I am hearing through this story of Kevin and Christine’s thoughts on it that we just need to stretch out, to be willing and ready, and just let God sort those plans out.

So no it was not my plan to go to church and be all dressed up, but I do think it was God’s. I just showed up and said Yes when I was volunteered. The same is true for us with the Airbnb and our home. We put our house out there and then we wait for God to sort out who it is He wants staying here.

So much simpler!

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Wait!

21132434-coastal-foamy-seawater-surface-after-the-storm-polluted-dredged-from-the-seabed-sand-stock-photoI’ve been pondering this word all week. I believe God has given me a picture of me being like sand on the sea bed after a storm and that I am just to wait until things settle, find peace in who I am and where I am. I love it but …

And here is the big but … for how long? It got me thinking about Jesus’s disciples waiting in the upper room. We all know the rest of the story. We know how long they had to wait and what happened next but they didn’t. Jesus told them to go to Jerusalem and wait for the Holy Spirit. Yet we also read that when He first appeared to them He breathed the Holy Spirit on to them. I wonder how many of them wondered what they were waiting for! But also I wonder how many of them didn’t wait and just went off and did. You know at this point they know Jesus has upperroom777711risen from the dead and that He says that by following Him they will be connected to God the Father. So … what was there to wait for? Again remember we know the end of the story they didn’t when they went to wait. They did not know that the Holy Spirit that would come then would give them the power to have the courage to go out and defy the authorities, to risk death for what they believed in. It is easy to say that this manifestation of the Holy Spirit helped them heal, etc but when Jesus sent the 77 out whilst he was still alive they came back saying that they had been able to heal and cast out demons. What more did they want? And yet 120 of them waited and …

There is a great deal of waiting in this journey, so much unknowing. There are whole seasons when they feel impatient and confused about why they can’t find the place they are seeking so diligently. Yet it is the very journey through the shadows that is required to make the desired discovery. – From Abbey of the Arts email about Brendan the Navigator – May 15th 2016

The above quote came in Sunday’s email from Abbey of the Arts. It talked about Brendan dancing-brendan-the-navigatorthe Navigator who set off on a peregrinatio, a journey with no direction just trusting that God would lead. In his journey he goes round in circles a lot and realise at the end that he has to let go of self to really see God, and of course sees God in where he is. Yet he sees more. He is hungry in his wanderings and his waitings and his going in circles to wait for what God will reveal.

At the beginning of the year I did a few journallings and blogged on them about the vision and the expectation of things but it feels like there is a waiting for something. It does feel like the journeying through the shadows but for what and for how long. I know this sounds strange when I can say that our room rentals are going amazingly. We have bookings on both rooms through till September. But I know that the room rentals are only a stepping stone to fund this waiting period. I wonder how the disciples funded their waiting period? Who paid for the room they were in? Did they sleep there? Who paid for their food? 120 people is a lot to feed each day! Or did some of them only turn up the day before because it was a celebration time and got the same gift of the Holy Spirit? So many details not told!

So for many this time of Pentecost is a time of excitement, of giving praise for the waiting-for-godbeginnings of the Christian church, for me it has been a time of really looking at these amazing people who were willing to wait and wait for an undetermined time not knowing what would happen next. This waiting is not like waiting for Christmas, or your birthday, or a holiday. Then you know when the date will be. You can count down to it. What would it be like if you didn’t know when something was going to happen and then still waited?

I wonder if the disciples wondered if they would be there forever? I can associate with that. I do wonder if I will be here in this resting/waiting place forever. But then I feel that I have to be willing to accept that as maybe those early disciples did. Maybe they were more than content to just wait because Jesus had told them to?

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Be Prepared

be-prepared-boyscoutsSo this is a boy scout motto but also something Jesus said and that was repeated in James’ letter toward the end of the Bible. Jesus said to be prepared because we don’t know when He’s coming back and we should always be ready. James said not to make our own plans because we didn’t know what was round the corner, which to a point is like be prepared for anything.

As you know we have a room that we rent out on Airbnb. It has been bit slow going, as actually it was last year where we use to live – though we have had a whole month with a lovely girl from Malaysia staying which was fun and helped us to see if we were ready for long term lodgers. Anyway she left on Friday and from then we had another Airbnb guest for 2 nights, a young friend who we hadn’t seen in ages and my daughter staying. I spent yesterday washing sheets and towels. And of course the housework didn’t

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Not our backyard though

get done much over the weekend because of friends and family staying so we were doing things, and it was my birthday. So yesterday I started to catch up and today was supposed to be the day for getting on. Well the sun is shining and I just wanted to do other things but I did bits and pieces. I was debating whether to make up the beds, trying to decide if it was better to leave them for a booking or having things sort of ready. I stopped to have a drink having done over an hour’s cleaning and checked my phone. There was a booking asking if I would accept it for tonight!! Well I had prayed earlier in the day that God would send people and had looked at the spaces on the calendar. So I said yes. This did mean that I had to push on and get the Airbnb room cleaned and sorted and also the bits of the house that our guest would pass through. He is arriving within the hour. I had 2 hours to get things sorted.

7eb393d8579853a90ed8c076c79bcd23But to me it very much said to “be ready in season and our of season.” We have chosen to use the Airbnb and, hopefully rent other rooms too, to make some money so that I can stay home and write and be here for whatever. But today I was almost not ready. It has been a bit of a rush, but not too much as I do have time to write this.

I have really felt God saying to me that this is His vision for our home and for it to be my role to prepare it but today I was tired and was thinking of other things. Yes I am blessed that to a point my day is  my own but within that I do have to remember, and have been reminded, that I am meant to keep this house up together for guests coming.

Sometimes I think we all get caught in a rut and get lost in other things, some just other people stuff, that we forget our calling, our vision, and for me that can be the ordinariness of the vision. Mind you for most of us – Christian or not Christian – our callings are to be there for each other, to love each other, to support each other. So for me this afternoon has been a reminder.

And strange though it may seem just doing what I am meant to do has brought me back closer to God. No I haven’t read my Bible or done anything great but I have done what He has said I’m meant to do.

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Belief/Faith

51fazfvcuql-_sx322_bo1204203200_I have just started reading “The History of God” by Karen Armstrong. I’ve been wanting to read it for ages but have been nervous about it in case it made me lose my faith in God. I have really only read the introduction and already it has strengthened my faith. Not because she talks about God in a way that makes one want to believe but from her opening paragraph which talks about the difference between belief and faith. She says how she believed in God, enough that for a while she was a nun, but she did not have faith in God, and that none of her studies ever brought her to that place. Even the Bible says that there are many that believe in God, even the devil believes in God, but he does not have faith to live for and with God. Until reading this book I had often pondered what that meant – the the devil to also believe and why Jesus was condemning about it. Now it makes sense.

I believe as part of my journey I have gone through the believing stage but that, probably peace-in-chaosdue to the things I had to walk through from 2012 I have come to a place of faith in God. I wrote a piece back in January when I was struggling with all the moving stuff and said that I had reached a place where I could really trust in God. Yes true, but I also feel that that was where I went from believing in God to being willing to live a life of faith in God.

Being a practical person I have to know what that means 🙂 Well as an example; we went to a church this Sunday where the sermon was about letting go of hurts, habits and knowing your time is God’s. It was about believing it’s ok to do that with God. But for me, as I chewed it over with these thoughts in my head I realised that I have faith that if I let go of some of the hurts and fears I have about life, other people, etc and also deal with habits that are not ok, that I will still be an ok person, faith-3still be loved unconditionally by God, still be able to function. And you know it doesn’t matter if that person hurts me again because I’ve let my guard down, that’s ok. And it doesn’t matter if I do lose it again, reverting to that habit of temper tantrum, because God loves me unconditionally. I have faith that God loves me, but also I have faith in the fact that He doesn’t just love me because I’m ok, He loves me when I’m not ok. I have faith that if I didn’t ever change that would be ok.

So I have faith and trust that God has a plan for me, for us, for my family and friends. I have faith that if it doesn’t work out how I want it to then God is in control.

I have a lot of crazy beliefs that maybe I’m trying to make fit – like how I view God, what I’d like God to be. In fact what has struck me is that we, whether Christian or not, spend a lot of time trying to work out what we believe or not about God and yet very rarely have the faith to let those beliefs go. I don’t really know what God is like. I don’t really know what God wants me to do. I have to trust the still small voice in me and have faith that God is bigger than that still small voice.

So it sounds like semantics but I think it is more than. I think it is easy to jump up and down in church, or read liturgy or however one does church, and say I believe. Like Jesus have-faithsaid even the devil believes all those things. But how much faith do I have to trust in God? And I believe this is what I have been learning over the last few years – that it doesn’t really matter what I believe or not. In fact there could always come along something that shatters those beliefs. But am I willing to have the faith to live my life for God?

I was going to follow that with a “I wonder what that looks like” but in fact faith is like the verse from James of not planning and preparing but of taking today as today – being Mindful!! – and accepting what is and walking in that. So on the practical at the moment for me that is being here in my room, praying, writing, reading, cleaning, welcoming others, supporting and being me. As it says on my new businesses cards I am:

airbnb host, writer, historian, researcher, life coach, mentor, encourager, CWTP facilitator,  prophetic intercessor, reconciler, member of Interweave, dog walker, coffee&wine drinker and friend

At the moment that is me. I am having faith in the fact that this is the life God has for me and so I am laying down any hopes, oughts, shoulds, not worrying about what other people think, but I am laying out what I am and who I am and having the faith that God will walk with me as I try to walk with Him.

have-faith-in-what-will-beAnd I do wonder if that is the core issue with faith as opposed to believe. Believe is a mind thing that does move to the heart too, but Faith is a heart thing that has to move to the  mind. I do have to have faith that God sees I’m doing my best as much as I have faith in Him to lead my life as I believe He would want me to lead it.

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Are You Ready?

Oh my! I’ve just managed to do a huge mistake and have lost a whole post. I will try to 2722781233_31c8f5e721rewrite but am not sure if the words will come again 😦

It is based around these song lyrics.

 I see the King of Glory coming on the clouds with fire
Are you ready
are your lamps filled with oil
have you some in reserve?

clay-grafted-lamp-jar-oil__71949_1and the feeling that at times I feel like I am ready but am not sure I have anything in reserve, but as I wrote the piece that I have lost I have realised that I have more in reserve now I don’t have boundless energy than I did when I could keep going for days.

I am learning that the only way I will be truly ready is to have things in reserve but I need to know where those reserves come from. Since my last post things have been ridiculously busy. As well as back to back Airbnb guests we’ve also had friends and family staying and in the gap in between we went car and furniture shopping. By Friday I felt like I had nothing left but I had to look at what held me.

There are a number of things: one is that I do have to remember to move into the Presence of God because that is where I do get refreshed and when things are busy it is hard. I need gods-presenceto remember that I am an introvert and so being with people will exhaust me and I need to take time to be alone. It is one reason why I love the Anglican service because it does just do the same old same old and it can wash over me and revive me. I also need to realised that I have friends I can check in with.

I have been invited in by a couple of people to get into what I love – spiritual mapping and intercession. Yes I am well ready for that but I felt something wasn’t fitting. And the above song lyrics kept buzzing in my head. So I again remembered that I have friends in reserve so I emailed a couple. They are wise people and they know me. Their response was not to say that I wasn’t ready but that to deal with the issues we were thinking of looking at we needed a larger company. In reality to fight a battle you need the whole army involved, or as this is more a spying out the land you still need the

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26th battalion Middlesex regiment – photo from 19th century called “spying out the land”

whole company of scouts otherwise things will get missed and the enemy could come up from behind. It wasn’t that I wasn’t ready or that I didn’t have things in reserve but that it would be foolish to go without the whole company.

See this is what I came to. That I do have loads in reserve but those reserves make me move slower than I use to. Before I would go crashing about, feel that I was being held back, not appreciated, but now I am content within myself to wait. Like I said at the beginning I feel like actually there is more in reserve because I have the maturity (?)/humility(?) to be wise and know that I am ready with more in reserve to stand the course. 120104_1timothy6_12

 

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Easter Saturday

tumblr_inline_mkj5cj217t1qz4rgpEaster Saturday, the space between death and resurrection life. The hard place to be. For those first followers of Jesus it must have been so awful because they did not know for sure that Jesus would rise again. We do so we go about our daily lives, do some DIY, go shopping, eat, drink, etc. For the Christian now I believe that Easter Saturday, and often even Good Friday, has lost its impetuous. But in our own lives Easter Saturday can be very real.

I feel like I have been in that place between death and resurrection life for a long time; probably since I finished my job in December

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Found this picture when googling for “liminal space”. Wonder if this is why God’s put us so close to a beach?

2014 and got to grips with dealing with my grief and pain and reordering my life without sister, father in law and some friends. Even with this house move I have blogged about being in liminal places, inbetween times. I do pop my head above the surface at times, like a crocus, but then it stops again. Actually that space between the end of something and the resurrection of the new isn’t a clear one day thing as it is in the Christian calendar. I believe for each of us it is a long slow journey. I was journalling all this when I checked my emails to see Day 50 of 100 days for 100 years of history, a prayer for Ireland initiative. Steve Cave says so much better what I am feeling but he says it for a land that I was only praying for last week:

Here are some quotes:

I can’t help but feel we are still living in Easter Saturday here; we know something significant has happened with the transition to politics instead of terror, but we haven’t yet experienced resurrection to something new. We’re still fighting, albeit it is usually now just with words.

we’re still in between what has happened and what we still long for – it’s still Easter Saturday to an extent and we’re waiting for resurrection.

For me, for us, so much has happened but when Ian says “what are we here for?” I have to vulnerability21answer honestly “I’m not sure.” Yes we started our Airbnb rentals yesterday. Yes we have had friends and family up. Yes we have met up with some people here that could be friends. Yes I did feel my heart get majorly lifted and healed last week whilst we were praying about hearts in Ireland. Things did change. I do know something significant has happened, that I am in transition.

What do I long for? I often wonder if I am ready to ask that of myself? I do want to write, but am struggling to do much more than blog and write emails to friends. I do want to get back into praying for the land of Europe but can feel that is a “wait” word. I do want to run a hospitality house but I find it so hard at the moment and find that things can really gallery_write_gallerystress me out. Like with these first guests – it turns out that the radiator in the Airbnb room doesn’t work. Ian sorted them out, got them to move rooms, etc but I was upset by it all and couldn’t come up with a solution. I still feel weary; weary that I don’t want to do anything at the moment. I am down to start work with an agency doing temporary schools work, but I’m not sure if I should.

I do feel like I am still in between what has happened, the healings and the moving, but am still in that waiting place. It is very much that whole thing, as I have blogged so much before, of waiting, not pushing, but letting God. It all goes back to trusting Him. A wonderful learning curve!

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So We Start

1405623476-airbnb-logo-explanationToday the vision starts to happen. We have our first Airbnb guests staying, a lovely Catholic Polish couple and baby. We also have a long time friend staying too. How will it work with friends and guests staying? Who can tell? But this is what we’re here for.

So far we’ve had both our kids come to stay and have had 2 friends come for lunch; one a friend I went to university with who has moved home to Chester, and another a friend who lives in Bristol but who’s parents live in Liverpool. But this is the start of the real thing, of combining our lives and friends and family.

Over these past few days there has been a lot of preparation going on for our guests.

sodialr-white-home-security-system-photoelectric-wireless-smoke-detector-fire-alarm-0
ours don’t look quite like this but you get the idea 🙂 

Practical stuff like fire alarms, fire blankets, new locks, etc so the house is all fire safe. We also prayed together. I had been praying round the house as I had been cleaning but we prayed together this morning. Now it is up to God. We cannot make anything happen. In fact it is going to be odd because the way the house is we may not see our guests after we have welcomed them in. In fact with this couple we only knew they had gone out because their baby’s car seat was gone. It really is going to be up to God how much contact we have with these people.

We do have a woman coming for the whole of the month of April. Hopefully we will get to meet with her. During that time we already on the calendar have friends come for meals over that time. Who knows what else?

introvertFor me it will be tough because I am still needing introvert time after an amazing Interweave time in Dublin. I love getting together with those people but do find that I am needing lots of down time after; to assimilate what has gone on, to read the emails that always follow, to listen to the things I believe God has been prompting me, and also just because I need that time alone to recover. Also this week we have my husband’s sister and her partner coming so again that will take away my recovery space, and we have to do important things like get living room furniture, because we will need that private space at the front of the house, and also get another car. So it will not be a calm week. I do need to be careful I do not spend my time wishing away what is going on here. I know this is the vision, to have friends and family to stay. There is no way God has given us this magnificent house

heart_on_recharging_by_ezhika
if only it were so simple!

to keep to ourselves. But also I need to find a way of finding space to recharge and to write even with everything going on around me.

It is going to be a time of wisdom, of ceasing what is there, and enjoying what God is up to with us and through us. And trusting that He does know best.