RAIN OF BIBLICAL PROPORTIONS, BUT...

...it didn’t keep many away from Church this morning, which was great.  Mr. HCB and I were there early, as usual, as we had collected quite a lot of goods from our local Morrisons Supermarket yesterday ready for the Bags of Hope and the Community Fridge - and not only us, but lots of others had been collecting too, which was evidenced by all the produce in a room at the back of the Church.  We certainly won’t have to sing the song “Yes, we have no bananas!” because there were boxes and boxes, and even more boxes - and then when we were leaving, someone turned up with another six boxes.  Perhaps some of us need to start making banana bread and selling it in the Community Fridge café!  

Because I’m there early, I like to wander around and see what takes my fancy for my Sunday Blip - unfortunately, I didn’t get a shot of our speaker, Mick, who is a Chaplain in the Royal Navy - but both Mr. HCB and I did have an interesting chat with him, prior to the service.  

I then wandered a bit more and had a chat with quite a few of our children - and you may remember that some of them often have interesting jumpers with slogans on them.  I liked the one worn by one of the twins today that said “Stronger than I think” - and I hope that she will always think that - because so often we, and even adults, can feel that we aren’t that strong - but with God on our side, we are definitely stronger than we think.

Another child, from the same family, carries a notebook with her so I had a chat with her and asked if she was still doing lots of writing.  She said that today she was doing maths, so I had a look inside her notebook and surprised myself that I could still do adding up in my head!  We then chatted about learning our “Times Tables” and it was great to hear them being able to answer quickly when I asked certain questions.  It’s just good to get alongside our children and find out what they are doing at school and after all, we are part of “the big family of God” within our Church.  They were talking about the different “houses” they were in at school, how they got “house points” or “merit points” and again I surprised myself by remembering which “house” I was in at school over 60 years ago.  

The last shot I took of a tee shirt was worn by M - who is a staunch Tottenham Hotspur supporter - along with his Dad and brother - so he and Mr. HCB often do a “High Five” to one another because Mr. HCB supports them too!   However, they were all a little disappointed that the game won’t be on the TV today - but having checked the score, Mr. HCB has just remarked that his team is losing - oh dear! :-( 

M was delighted to see he was “on the big screen”, so you can see I took a photograph of the two of us watching the Worship Group getting ready for the service.  I then thought it would be good to take a shot of Ross - rather than just his foot, which was all you saw a couple of weeks ago - who was the drummer this morning and a great job he did too - and I did ask his permission for this to go on my Blip today!  

The daffodils  were beautiful and of course, it is always good to see these beautiful harbingers of Spring, and after the dreadful rain and wind of the last few days, a very welcome sight.

Mick’s sermon was very good when he spoke about the disciples meeting Jesus on the road to Emmaus but didn’t recognise Him.  The title of his sermon was “Somebody is going to have to talk about Jesus” and he had 4 points:

Presence:            Jesus walks with us
Prayer:                 Jesus talks with us
Proclamation:    Jesus explains to us
Persuasion:       Jesus convinces us

Mick said that in sharing our faith we should simply be faithful in telling what God has done for us - something that many of us do when we meet people in the Community Fridge café on Mondays and Thursdays.  

So all in all a great morning with some good Worship songs.  It was still raining very hard when we left Church and now nearly three hours later, the rain hasn’t let up at all - perhaps we ought to think about building an ark!  

We are, however, glad to be indoors in a warm home - and think of all those who don’t have power.  Have a good week and stay safe - Spring is coming!  M xx