A GREAT SERVICE...

...at Church this morning again.  I was wondering what photographs I would take and once again, lots “dropped into my lap”.  

As I looked around, I saw that the children sitting in the seats behind us had a variety of things in their hands - I’m not sure what the rainbow coloured “fidget” board was meant to do, except that it was obviously to be fidgeted with!  Perhaps an upmarket way of “popping bubblewrap” - the little girl holding it didn’t sit still for long enough for me to ask the question!  At the other end is a magnetic Rubik’s cube - who knew you could get one of those?  I can’t even sort out an ordinary one, let alone a magnetic one!

Then looking forwards, I saw this beautiful headdress and dress worn by a Nigerian lady - when I told her how beautiful her hat was, she told me it was a scarf and she could show me how to make it - sadly, I never saw her afterwards to find out!  Next to her is another Nigerian lady with beautiful hair and beads that took my eye.

Sadly this morning, we had a couple of power outages, which was unfortunate, but our speaker today just carried on - and his theme was “Don’t worry and don’t let things happening in the world overwhelm you.”  He preached on Matthew Chapter 6 and we were reminded that “where our treasure is, there our heart will be also.”

We sang some great songs and shared Holy Communion together - in our Church we don’t have wafers, but a proper loaf of bread that is broken and shared but we do have individual glasses as you can see.  

It’s strange how a sound can take you back in your memory to something many years ago.  Back then, and I’m talking over 60 years ago, we had pews and there were metal holders for the glasses all along every other row - so when Communion was about to start, you moved into a row with the glass holders - we couldn’t do that these days, because we have far too many people, which is great.  There was always that sound of glass touching metal that I remembered from my young days in this Church.  However, we now have chairs except at the very back where there are still a few pews, so the sound is different - in fact, there is hardly any sound as the glass is inserted into the wooden hole in the back of the chair in front!  Just a little aside and perhaps a sign I am getting old, remembering things from my youth.

At the bottom of my collage is Bob the Cow, into which you may remember, money is given by the children, who are now on their way to buying a 4th goat.  Next to the cow are the offering bags used during Communion for the Fellowship Fund;  money which is given to be distributed to those in need within the fellowship.  It’s a fact these days that not many of us use or carry actual cash, and we always forget to bring some, but hopefully, there are still those who do remember.

Some great news this morning was the engagement of Emmy and Jonny, so after the service, whilst we were having coffee, I asked Emmy if I could take a photograph of her beautiful ring.  This shot doesn’t really do it justice - it looks like a beautiful snowflake of diamonds and amazingly, the stone matches Emmy’s nail polish - a sheer coincidence she told me!

Then there is this lovely little rainbow bag that G was carrying - I would quite like one of those myself!  I had taken a little box with some clementine segments and grapes so that I wouldn’t be tempted to eat a biscuit;  G and her sister, R, helped me eat them - their Mum did say that she fed her daughters but how could I refuse?!

I said on Thursday that I had brought home the very messy box pertaining to the Prayer Table, to sort out.  Well, that was done yesterday afternoon, after purchasing a basket from the local hardware store.  They weren’t actually for sale, but I asked the owner nicely and he said that he would let me have it for the same price he paid for it - so kind of him!  The messy box is now a tidy box with bands round the various booklets and others put into folders - as you can see in the last photograph in my collage - I just hope it will stay like this.  

So a good morning all round, apart from the power outages, which must have been annoying to the Visual Team and those watching at home, but it was good to be worshipping with God’s people in our Church.

Afterwards, for the first time this year, we went out for a drive after Church - it was a beautiful sunny day so we went looking for snowdrops and did find a few - which were beautiful - see my extra collage.  I love the two stone figures that we knew were in a very large garden on our route, so I stopped to take shots of them and as the sky was such a beautiful blue with the winter trees almost ready to show us their Spring colours that and they had to be in my second collage too. 

We are blessed to live in a county rich with beautiful flowers and trees, which certainly brought joy to our hearts, as did seeing red-legged partridges, kestrels and red kites - but then the rain started, and it was rain of Biblical proportions, so we made our way home.  

We are going to try not to worry this week and trust that God has everything in His control.  Bless you all - have a great week.  M xx