William P. Charters 3,May 1922 - 1 June 2011

My dad's funeral is to be held today, at 3:00 p.m. at Emmanuel Church, Lurgan. The following history will be included in the last two pages of the order of service:

Bill Charters was born on 3, May 1922 to Robert Danford Charters and Edith Armstrong. He was the third of four children, the others being Pearly, Bobby and Edie. They grew up in East Belfast. It was the time of the great worldwide Depression. Their family certainly wasn't well off, their father died early of TB, but their mother supported the family by sewing setee covers. She took the children as often as she could to Cregagh Hall to attend their evangelistic meetings. That left a lasting impression on young Bill.

Later, after surviving the German bombing of Coventry, Bill joined the RAF, where he was a member of ground crew, maintaining radios for bombing missions. Some of his friends became pilots -- some never returned from their missions. Once, he found himself alone in the control tower when a whole squadron of American bombers was requesting permission to land. He had no option but to guide them all in, which he did successfully, even though he hadn't been trained for it. Early, during his time in the RAF, he was invited to hear an evangelist, where he made the decision to follow Jesus.

When the War was over, Bill was kept on while his friends were decommission. However, he realised that this was in answer to prayer, because he was to be sent to India. He had prayed for a chance to engage in missionary work. While in India, he, along with a few other soldiers, worked with a local missionary during their off time, making treks to various villages. Bill came away from there with the desire to be a missionary to Tibet.

Once decommissioned, Bill attended Emmanuel Bible School in Northern England. After some time back in Belfast, where he renewed his relationship with Cregagh Hall, and became acquainted with the WEC prayer network, Bill joined WEC with the intention of going to Tibet. However, Tibet suddenly got taken over by China, and was no longer an option. Someone suggested Thailand, so he went there instead.

In Thailand, Bill joined the WEC team, that then consisted of six, including Rosemary, and her mother, Hazel Hanna. Love blossomed, and after a few short months, Bill Proposed to Rosemary.

The two worked as team, making treks to distant villages via foot-path and river, passing out leaflets -- many of their adventures are documented in Rosemary's book, Cracked Earth (available on-line at www.scribd.com/doc/32454882/Cracked-Earth and in No Turning Back, by Nancy Ashcraft (www.scribd.com/doc/56941684/No-Turning-Back ).

Their son, Robby Charters, was born four years into their marriage.

Dissatisfied with the quality of the literature they were passing out, Bill launched into a career of writing, producing testimony leaflets. Bill and Rosemary began producing a regular journal patterned after two similar regional WEC publications, called Soon. Later, they added to this a journal targeted to churches to encourage them to look outward, pattered after Leslie Brierly's Look to the Fields. In addition, Bill and Rosemary translated several books into the Thai language. These ministries continued until the passing of Rosemary, who succumbed to Cancer on the Thai field in 1990.

Not long after that, Bill was invited to teach at a small Bible School in Pak Chong, in North East Thailand, Christ For Thailand Institute. He kept that up until his retirement, however, slowly phasing that out, spending half of each year (the cooler half!) in Thailand, and the warmer half in Lurgan, where he had settled.

Bill's last trip to Thailand was in 2008, when he sent one more time by Emmanuel Church. There he helped a friend, Jim Arnold by translating Bible training material for a small Bible School in Chiengmai, Northern Thailand.

In 2010, Bill's health began to deteriorate. It began with a heart attack in May, and later, developed a fast spreading form of cancer in the thyroidal. By the time it was detected, it had already lodged itself in the lungs. He went to be with the Lord on 1, June, 2012.

My Very Long Bio

In case anyone wants to know my life story -- here it is...

Christmas News

The holiday season finds us ensconced in N. Ireland, in a nice house with a big back yard, in N. Belfast, which is now fully furnished; Abie is in school; and Pontip has begun her role as a staff member of YWAM Belfast. Her work will begin in earnest when the DTS starts in mid-January. I'm still job hunting, but we are now receiving benefits that will keep us going until I start work.

Thanks to some fellow YWAMmers living not far from us, we found a nice integrated school. Both of their kids go there and they give Abie a lift as well. Their youngest, Eilice, is in Abie's class.

Much to Abie's delight, God saw fit not to back me up when I told him it doesn't actually snow much in Ireland! We've had an early snow. The picture below was taken today in front of our house. He's also made new friends of some of our neighbour kids who happened to be out throwing snowballs.

We'll be spending Christmas day with my cousins, along with their family, and my dad. They've been a great help in getting us situated.

Here's wishing everyone a very blessed Christmas and a happy and prosperous New Year!

Marketing Pepe

The book has been released for close to a month now. That is no guarantee that people are buying it. On one hand, the publisher and the editor did a lot of work, first in selecting it, then in helping to further turn it into a marketable product. At least, I'm confident it's something people will buy if the right people told them to buy it. It's not just me, then, who thinks it's a good book. But it will require marketing. That's where I am now.

Since it is an ebook, the obvious place to do that is on the Internet. I've submitted it to a few reviewers, whom I hope will help. I'm also tweaking my web presence so that search engines find me via key words people will be likely to use. There are also banner exchange services, and the web rings.

I've posted a new page just for Pepe: http://uk.geocities.com/Pepe_the_novel@btinternet.com Like this blog page, it rewards visitors with a chance to download free stories, novellas, etc. I'll soon re post some of my comix somewhere to add to the list of freebies.

Now, the obvious question: How does someone who hates consumerism go about marketing a book? Would it be like a Communist or a Nazi using the democratic system to campaign for the abolition of democracy?

I do have to live with myself, but I think there is a sensible answer: That's to recognise that our whole culture has been so moulded by the forces of consumerism, that probably the only way to totally avoid it is to become Amish. We're affected by it in ways we don't realise. However, if we pinpoint what it is about consumerism that we don't like, that is ugly, that is displeasing to God, we can carefully avoid some of the pitfalls without going off to live in the hills, and maybe even sell a book in the process.

Yeshua praised the man in his "parable of the unjust steward" who used filthy mammon to make friends of this world, saying, "The sons of this world are wiser than the Sons of Light". Recent study shows that Yeshua's use of the term "sons of light" could have been a reference to the Essenes, who would have been every bit as anti-consumerist as the Amish.

To steer a straight course, there are two things we need to avoid, 1: hype, and 2: worldliness. Marketing has been with us for thousands of years. Yeshua wasn't against markets. He only cleared the Holy Temple of people who were doing it in the wrong place while ripping people off. Hype is ripping people off, because it's stretching the truth, which is in effect, lying. I don't have to lie to say I think Pepe is good quality reading material. The other thing to avoid is worldliness. Consumerism has all but made a religion of "loving the world", in direct opposition to the Kingdom of God.

So, the only other question is, how heavy to market my book without boring all my friends...?

Political situation in Bangkok

A friend in Northern Ireland who works for a newspaper, asked me to send him a bit on what's happening here in Bangkok. The following is what I sent:

My dad left Bangkok on Tuesday, on the 13:45 Thai International Airways flight for London. I had to be at work, so I couldn't see him to the airport, but I got a phone call from him shortly before boarding time. All was well. He had taken a taxi to the airport, which is not far from our house.

My worst fear was that employees of all the state enterprises had planned to go on strike on Tuesday in support of the Democracy protest, and in retaliation for a bomb that had gone off at the government house (occupied by the protestors) killing one and injuring a few others. I didn't know if Thai International Airways was one of the enterprises that would be affected by the strike, so I had advised my dad to leave the house earlier, so as to ensure that he would be checked in, in case there were problems (long lines, etc.). There was no problem. He boarded, and they took off.

Probably while his plane was somewhere over Central Asia or someplace, I had put Abie to bed, and had actually fallen asleep, my mobile (which I use for an alarm clock) signaled that I had a text message. I use the service of one of the local English newspapers whereby they text the major headlines to my phone. I never get a text so late at night, but the text read that the airport had been closed, due to the protesters blocking the enterances. That was a bit disconserting. I was very glad my dad had left when he did, but apparently, about 10,000 other travellers weren't so fortunate.

As I said, we live close to the airport -- in fact, right under the flight path. It's cold season (Thai winter, making it feel like summer in Ireland), so the wind blows from the North, so the aeroplanes take off over our house this time of year, making it very noisy. That's been one of our major complaints about the house we're currently renting. However, for the last two days, it's been very peaceful!

However, we're not close enough to the airport to notice any activities or hear explosions or anything like that. The school where I teach (and Abie attends) is close by. Everyone just talks about it -- that's all.

Since sending the above to my friend, our school anounced that because we're in the emergency area, there would be no school the next day (Friday). At this moment (Saturday), we are down at my wife's parents' place. I hope school is back on on Monday.

Changes

It's about time the blog reflected a major change in my writer's identity -- to use my real name instead of a pseudonym. I guess when one is this close to being published, one begins to reconsider things like that.

Using a pseudonym is a good idea if one wants to cloak ones identity, not embarrass ones relatives or, if the title starts to compete with the likes of Harry Potter, go places without being recognised. I suppose in such a case, it would only be a matter of time before people discovered who the author really was anyway.

I'll also probably need to restructure the page to be more of an author's page. Perhaps I'll eventually need a new website. I've already changed the blurb. The facitious sounding one you see up there now may be only temporary, until I think better of it, or find a better one. The older one was descriptive of my intent for doing a blog, but it's probably better to let blog surfers judge by the content.

One positive reason for using my own name is just to give the Charters name a bit more notoriety. I don't know of any Charters (with that spelling) who have distinguished themselves. Some, using alternate spellings of the name, such as Chartres, and Charteris, have written books and such, but it's about time the name Charters got a little airing out. I think it's a Huguenot name, originally spelled Chartres, the same as the cathedral town in France, where they came from. There are possible connections with the Bourbon dynasty as well, but I don't think any of us have any claim to the French throne, or anything of that sort. Anyway, that's a bit far back, and you certainly wouldn't know it looking at the motley crew we are today. So far, though, I haven't been able to trace my direct genealogy farther than my great-grandfather, Samuel Charters, of Artnigros, who was a lock-keeper on the river Bann.

My Childhood Friend

A few weeks ago, my family and I had lunch with Beth, a childhood friend of mine. I had been in email contact with her off and on for a few years, but I hadn't seen her since we were teen-agers. Even then, it was for a brief few days. We had known eachother as play/school mates for a period of nine years, since I was five and she was three, until I was thirteen and she was eleven. Twice, during that time, her parents were my house parents, so they became like uncle and auntie to me. I was in email contact with her mother, who was supportive of some of my writing endeavours, until she passed away in 2004.

Anyway, she has opened a blog page for the purpose of telling of her trip, which she made with her two grown sons. The link takes you to the very last page, because you have to work your way forwards from there to get the story in chronological order. There's a photo of her son, Micah with my son, Abie, as well as one of my family in Lumpini Park, a favourite spot of ours when we were young.

Pepe accepted for publication

I've been offered a contract for my manuscript of Pepe. That is very good new for me, as it will mean I can soon update my resume to include a published work.

The publisher is an online company called Writer's Exchange. They sell their books on Reader's Eden.

I think I said something about online publishers a few entries ago. I won't be getting a big advance up front like the big New York companies give. It will be for electronic media rights only, unless I later exercise the option of POD (see my previous blog entry for what that means). As I said then, e-publishing is beginning to come into its own as a viable venue for becoming an established author. Some on-line books verge on being best-sellers in their own right. For authors looking for a place to publish their first novel, I'd recomend it. One online publisher I looked at warned that they accept only about 30% of their submissions. I thought "Wow! That's high!" A typical New York publisher, even one that accepts individual submissions, the rate is more like .1%. At that rate, one could have the best manuscript that was ever written and spend ones whole life fruitlessly trying to break in to the publishing field.

I don't expect to generate a big enough income to quit my day job very soon. However, that would be a blessing, as that would enable us to branch out into other types of ministry that are out of reach at this moment.

Anyway, keep your eyes on this spot for further news...

Blogsite, school, novels, etc.

I suppose it's about time for a new blog entry, even if I don't have anything profound to say that's going to blow the bloggusphere away. If I don't say something, then the next post below, entitled 'new look' is going to look funny on top with such an ancient date stuck on.

Speaking of 'new look', note the picture of me I've posted, which appears near the bottom of the page in the 'about me' section.

At this very moment, I'm sitting in the computer room of the school as I write. My four year old son has started school now. I hope he picks up Thai quickly. This is the best school for him in that it's bi-lingual. He can learn his Thai without forgetting his English.

I'm still trying to publish my novels. At least I have three on the market, which increases my chances of getting one published. I have all of them listed here. Also, I'm going with the internet publishers, which now seem to have a better future than they did before.

Transitions

It's been a while since I blogged. A lot has happened.
Since the entry entitled "We Moved", I have landed a job as a school teacher at a bi-lingual school. I've been teaching there since the end of October.
We really have a lot to be thankful for. About a month and ten days after leaving my job as a software tester in Belfast, I stood in front of a class room full of primary school students and began my attempts to fill their heads with the English Language. The previous blog post, the Christmas Poem, was written for the Christmas program. Five of the best readers in second grade read it in parts while I accompanied them on the violin. It seemed to go over well.
We've also moved to a two bedroom condo in a nice quiet clean neighbourhood with very reasonable rent.
I've also updated the "About Me" blurb on the right.
I hope I'll start being a bit more consistent in my blog posts from now on.

We've moved...

No, not the blog page, not the websites, but us, litterally.

We now live back in Bangkok. We arrived on the 20th of September.

I won't tell you of all our adventures of getting here, of our overweight baggage in Dublin, the fact that some of it is still lost in Bangkok's brand new. modern. efficient. etc., airport, etc. etc. But we're here.

Actually, I'm sitting at a guesthouse's internet PC in Kuala Lumpur, where I've applied for the type of visa I need to work in Thailand. I should be teaching English at a bilingual school soon.

Now, the little blurb you see immediately to the right of this entry is out of date.

Abie's Lullaby

What follows is the lyrics to a lullaby I made up for my son. The inspiration is another song that my Grandmother used to sing to me (she also sang it to my mom and my aunt), about a nest in an old oak tree, and the wee birds asleep in it. Abie likes that motif so much that when I launch into a different song, he says, "Birds in the wee wee nest?"

I don't just want to sing the same old song to him yet again, so I made this one up. As you can see, you can just keep singing it as the second stanza leads right into the first stanza again. The tune is a slow Irish style one:

there is a bird in a wee wee nest
up in a tree where he lays his head to rest
there the bird's papa does sing so sweet
he's singing a lullaby to put the wee bird to sleep

he sings of a boy in a wee wee bed
up in a bedroom he lays his sleepy head
there the boy's papa does sing so sweet
he's singing a lullaby to put the wee boy to sleep

he sings of a bird in a wee wee nest
(etc.)

Transitions

For the moment, the "About Me" collumn to the right is almost up to date. Abie is now 3 years and four months. However, it's about to become even more out of date in the near future. In September, we plan to move back to Bangkok. I hope to locate a teaching job there before we leave, but even if we don't, English teaching jobs are easy to find for native speakers of the language -- many of them good paying. I will go on working at my present job (as software tester) until a few days before our departure. My wife, Bless, hopes to become involved in YWAM ministries in some capacity. She has worked in leadership and administration with YWAM for 15 or so years. However, she'll try to do it part time, so she can spend time with Abie.

We've already moved out of our own rented house into my dad's place in preparation for the bigger move.

That's all for now...

Pepe -- the complete rough draft

Well, there it is. There's still work to be done in editing and making it a reading experience that will be enjoyed by all, and acceptable to prospective publishers. I would like it to be readable by the same age group that reads Harry Potter. That, all by itself, probably means a lot of re-editing.

There are two aspects of this book that I feel are blogging material. The first is the subject, the life of a homeless street child.

Ever since viewing a film reel in my Bible School Missions class by the Salician Fathers, entitled Gaminos, the subject has interested me. I'm grateful to the professor of that course for making sure that I got a private viewing of that film, as I had actually missed class that day. Gaminos was set in a Latin American capital, I forget which one. 'Gaminos' is the local Spanish term for street kids. The film was about the work of a Salician Father who used to go out to befriend the children of the streets. He told about how he had to be careful not to come on too strong, or he'd lose them. Because street children are fiercely independent, they are sensitive to any attempt to institutionalise them. His whole work had to be one of 'no strings attached.' If nothing else, he'd simply get them things they needed, or befriend them when they were in trouble, even if they went right on living on the streets. Once they were confident of him, some of them consented to move to his shelter, with the full understanding that they could leave whenever they wanted.

A few years later, in Thailand, I lead a few co-workers in opening up an evangelistic centre in the South. When we moved in, we realised that a couple of homeless people were living on the premises, a man and a boy. Since they weren't related, we invited the boy to stay on with us. He did for about a week. In that time, he stole my heart.

He went away again after that one week, but that experience forever changed me.

My first (unpublished) novel, The Emissary, about the Apostle Shaul, involved a fictional first century street boy as one of the main characters. He first appears in the prologue, so you don't have to read very far. It's on line.

Much later, I got the opportunity to work for a year at a Catholic centre located in the biggest slum in Bangkok. That place is the inspiration for Mercy House, one of the main settings in Pepe. Fr. Antonio, Mother Clara, 'Madam Zudu', Phil Grub and Tony Ryan are characters inspired by real people I met there. Actually, Tony Ryan is me. The Bangkok slum is also the inspiration for Dockyards Community where Pepe lived.

Because the story line involves many other aspects, such as politics and royalty, I couldn't set the story in Thailand. I do want to be welcome back there. The social problems of the city of La Fonta, particularly the homeless children, slums and gangs, are a synthesis of Bangkok, Moscow and various Latin American cities. The level of corruption in my fictional country is much greater than I believe exists in Thailand. The monarchy is based on European traditions. The fictional nation of Cardovia would be somewhere on the Mediterranean, but it isn't stated exactly where.

The other aspect that bares blogging is that it is a parable of the Kingdom of God. The book is targeted to the secular reading audience, hopefully including young fans of Harry Potter (though it won't remind you of Harry Potter in any way). However, in the course of the story, Pepe realises who he really is, and with help, regains the throne, and the nation becomes an almost utopian paradise (The actual events in the narrative are not to be taken as a statement of my view of eschatology, however).

When he realises who he is, and becomes the rightful king -- though not yet crowned as such -- he is given a stone, called the Stone of Cardo. It has powers that are as effective as the purity of his heart. At its most intense state, it can potentially destroy evil, along with anyone who refuses to release his or her evil ambitions. Good things begin to happen, but only at the rate determined by the purity of Pepe's heart. That represents what I believe to be the life force of the church, and answers the question as to why the church is so ineffective in transforming society today, and what we must do to regain our cutting edge.

I've mentioned Harry Potter twice already. I do hope to reach a young audience, knowing that older people will read it as well (the intellectual reading level of an average adults is actually quite low). However it definately not in the style of J.K.Rowling. It's probably more like William Gibson. Making something something so Gibsonian readable by 10 year olds, will probably be the main challenge.

I believe it has enough action evenly paced throughout to keep people reading. I did learn that lesson from reading Harry Potter. Thank you, Ms. Rowling

Pepe

If my blogs have been scarse lately, it's because I'm in the middle of a writing project. It's a novel about a homeless street boy, who, unknown to him, is the rightful king. It's set just a bit into the future, but it's got a fairy-tail element to it. I hope I'm skillful enough to make such an unlikely mixture of sci-fi and fairy-tail work.

I may post the first chapter here soon.

My home church

The fellowship I attend, Emanuel Christian Fellowsihp in Lurgan, is neither Messianic (Jewish) nor Emergent. It does have its good points though. The pastor is a lorry driver. If he walked up in the foyer and shook your hand, you wouldn'd guess he was the pastor. He also believes in sharing his authority with a group of elders, and one of their priorities is equipping all the believers for ministry. They also have the beginnings of a cell group ministry. They recognise that many of their attenders need to come out of themselves and interact in one anther's lives.

To me, being Emergent and/or Messianic are means to an end. Since ECF seems to have got half way there without their help, I won't complain (anyway, who, among the best is any more than "half way there" anyway?)

The premesis that ECF occupies is an old supermarket shell, which extends into the area under the shops on High Street (actually called Market Street). A large part of that, they plan to use for a drop-in centre to minister to the needs of the diss-affected youth in the area. They are also located right on the dividing line between the two communities (the Roman Catholic and Protestant), which they feel is strategic.

The most current problem, however, is not between the two communities, but between two of the Protestant para-militaries, the UVF and the LVF, which looks like could erupt into a gang war affecting the peace of Lurgan. Last night, there was a special prayer meeting at ECF for this situation. One of those present felt lead to blow a shofar (ram's horn). Others had words, including one that it could be a time of shaking that will awaken many of the churches from their complacency.