The Past Week

About a week ago I wrote that this would be a quieter week for me that would enable me to catch up on various jobs.  Well, that has been partly true, and it is important to build such space into our lives and certainly into my diary that has a tendency to fill up with activity.  I never know what might come in by post, email or phone calls.  This week gave some opportunity to help one person doing an MA on rural evangelism and another person doing a sabbatical and looking at church planting in rural areas.  Here's a snapshot of other activities this week..

On Sunday 30th June I was in Gartree Prison with three friends from Theddingworth Congregational Church.  I think that it's amazing that from a very small village church such a valuable ministry and mission reaches both within and from the village.  As usual there was a great welcome.  The prison holds over 600 men serving life sentences; about 12% attended the service with many staying on afterwards for fellowship and discussions.

In the evening the team met up again with others at the village chapel for fellowship and prayer.

Monday was bank holiday and the relative quiet enabled admin work to be done.  One of the activities this week is exploring our website.  While the current site has many advantages it is relatively expensive and many of the potential uses of the website are not being used by the members of the Rural Evangelism Network for whom it largely exists.  So I have acquired two new websites and started to build up material as an opportunity to compare what we have with something much cheaper - and possibly simpler.

Tuesday brought with it my regular visit to the prison for the choir practice.  We have a concert planned for the end of July and have to work hard to get everything up to standard.  It's a mix of Christian and secular songs.  I was on my own for the music side and we managed to get a huge amount of work done in 45 minutes.  Some items clearly will not work and will have to be dropped.  But Tuesday afternoons is not just about music - it involves interaction at a personal level with the men during and afterwards over coffee.  "I was in prison and you visited me".  Evening is our weekly home group with lots of laughs, some lovely worship and discussion on part of Colossians 2.

Thursday is my day for Yelvertoft.  I visited several people including one couple where Ken has had a severe stroke and is cared for at home, limiting Joan's ability to get out.  In another couple it is Millie who has had second fall and had to spend two days this week in hospital.  She has Altzheimers and the fall seems to have exacerbated the condition.  It will take a while for her to get over the physical affects of the fall and we will miss them from our meeting on Sunday.

It was good to see the front doors of the church being repaired and re-varnished.  I also had a meeting with architects to discuss wheelchair access for the church, which is badly needed.

The countryside around is gorgeous.  Many of the fields have been used for growing oil seed rape.  The pollen is really annoying but the blaze of yellow brightens up the land.  Now we have had masses of blossom, meadows with buttercups, roadsides with masses of cow parsley in flower.  What a wonderful week this has been to live and work in the countryside.

On Friday Doreen and I left at mid day to go to Stoke on Trent for the funeral of Leeson who died in a tragic accident last week.  We were glad to be there to support the family.  It was good to meet up with them all and with several other old friends who were also there to lend support.  We had quite good journeys and managed to get back to Leicester in time for the Area Executive meeting for Congregational Churches where decisions were made to help fund two young people on a mission trip to Zambia, and to part fund two Christian women in their training as counsellors, and to celebrate what God is doing through these churches.  It is good to see how those who attend increasingly value these precious times of fellowship.