WE ARE ALL ON A JOURNEY...

...whether we are at the end of our lives or at the beginning of a new life.

This morning at Church I was looking around for something to use as my Blip and saw some beautiful roses in the vestibule, just outside the sanctuary and decided they would make a lovely shot.  Then, just above the roses, there was a beautiful cross-stitch picture of “The Praying Hands”, made famous by the German printmaker and painter Albrecht Dürer.  On the cross stitch picture is a small plaque which says, “In loving memory of Olive Crafer, 1936-2023.”  Being fairly new members at Gorse Hill Baptist Church, I decided to ring Olive’s daughter, Melanie to ask who had actually stitched this when she told me that Olive stitched it for, she thinks, her own Mother’s 80th birthday in 1980, 43 years ago!  It is beautifully done and having been a cross-stitcher myself, I realise how much work must have gone into this - so thank you Olive - and Melanie for allowing us all to enjoy this.

Olive was a lovely lady and member of our Church, who would always stop and speak to us on her way out of Church and made us feel very welcome.  She was associated with GHBC for over 50 years, having attended for about 10 years from the early 1970s and even when she and her husband moved, whenever they came back to Swindon, they always went to the services with Melanie.  Apparently, Olive was a great Prayer Warrior so it is really appropriate that she is remembered by “The Praying Hands”.  Olive has now finished her earthly journey and is now with the Lord she served and is on another journey for eternity.

At the bottom left of my collage is a photograph taken this morning of Jake and Zoë.  Jake has been our Youth and Family Worker for the last 3 years and has made a great impact on many children both in the Church, those who attend the various clubs, and in local schools, but today was his last day with us before moving to a new job in Portsmouth in early July.

He and Zoë are starting out on a journey together, as they got married a couple of weeks ago and are going on their honeymoon tomorrow to Egypt - after his last school assembly - a trouper to the end - then when they get back they are, as I said, moving to Portsmouth, so another journey for them not only to another town but also to start their new life together as a married couple.

During the service, Jake was presented with a Lego Star Wars Darth Vader Helmet - I just hope that Zoë shares his passion not only for Lego but also for Star Wars!  

It was a great service led by Mark, with some good songs and a brilliant sermon from David Mildenhall, who spoke to us today about why we should read the Bible and what we should do with what we learn from reading it.  I took a few notes, but sadly, because of technical difficulties, the service couldn’t be live streamed, otherwise I would have listened again, but I asked David afterwards if he could let me have a copy of his notes and he said he would email them to me.  

I love listening to David as he is such an enthusiastic preacher, although it’s not his “full time job” but I would love to be in one of his lessons, as in his “day job” he’s a teacher so I’m sure he is just as enthusiastic doing that - in fact, we have some friends whose children were in his class a few years ago and even before we knew him, they always spoke about him in glowing terms.

After the service there was coffee, and cake left over from the party yesterday, then quite a few of us stayed to have pizza and salad etc with Jake and Zoë - but Mr. HCB and I left when they started playing a game, which involved quite a lot of thinking.  We were also quite tired, as we had been there since 9 o’clock, helping with breakfast before the service.  

Mr. HCB is hoping that if we have any rain, it comes today or in the night because he is hoping to go on a journey down to Bristol tomorrow, Tuesday and Wednesday to watch Gloucester County Cricket Club playing Leicestershire County.  However, he has seen on the BBC Sports page that they are off at the moment because of rain!  Such a shame after all this beautiful weather.  

I thought this was interesting, bearing in mind that our sermon was about the Bible:

The phrase"do not be afraid" 
     is written in the Bible 365 times. 
That's a daily reminder from God 
     to live every day being fearless.