I received a phone call first thing this morning from Sylvia. She and her husband Alfred had been colleagues when I worked in Mission for Christ way back. Sylvia's voice betrayed her emotion and my first thought was that something had happened to Alf. But it wasn't Alf; it was their third son, Leison. An accident at work had caused a large heavy oak beam to fall on him and his skull had been crushed. He was not expected to live; we were asked to pray for all the family, especially his wife and their children.
Much of the rest of the day was taken up with phone calls to mutual friends with more requests for prayer. Later, after another phone call from Sylvia my phone calls were to pass on the news that he had died this afternoon. This is the second time something like this has happened and I still could not find anything special to say beyond the promise of our prayers. Esther, his wife is not a committed Christian but so many in the family are and I pray that they might be able to comfort Esther with the comfort they will (I pray) receive from the Lord.
Struggling to get my personal accounts in order and ensure I have claimed the expenses I should have claimed seemed far more mundane than usual. It does not feel a very productive day today. I collected my car from the garage. The Astra that I use for work is now 13 years old and has over 102,000 miles on the clock. Recently it has been depositing oil on the road - mostly in front of my neighbours homes, to my embarrassment. The garage had fixed one cause a few weeks ago but it seems that was not the only source and a bolt on a bracket had worn. The car has run up more bills than I want recently but it is still in general good order and the engine is good. It has seemed wrong to take up the car scrappage scheme but perhaps it is becoming uneconomical. I'd better pray for wisdom.
The School Assembly on Monday went well. I was asked to speak on "Forgive us our sins" - not an easy topic for the younger half of the 4 to 11 year olds! Had a quick chat with my colleague who is following up next week with "... as we forgive those who sin against us".
The Tuesday presentation on rural mission to the Free Churches Group in London was described as helpful, informative and entertaining by the Chairman. A lot of interest was shown and I will have to follow this up as soon as I can. The talk outline was requested by the Secretary and will go out in the minutes.
On Wednesday I went to Stoneleigh, Warwickshire, for the Editorial Group for Country Way. The current issue looks attractive and will be out soon. We are now hard at work on the autumn issue which will coincide with the ACORA+20 special conference.
Yesterday we had a useful Church Meeting at Yelvertoft. I am hoping to start a monthly Messy Church as soon as possible and seeking help from churches in nearby Rugby. I value your prayers for this important opportunity in mission. We don't have the manpower to manage on our own, but we do have the potential children, the physical resources and a very real need.
That's the news on the week, but it is all rather overshadowed by those two phone calls from Sylvia and my thoughts are with her and Alfred, the rest of their family and especially Esther and the two youngsters.
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