An Appointment!!!

Wonders will never cease! I actually spoke to Chris, our social worker today. And she's coming to see us to start our assessment!!! Next Wednesday!!!!

Please excuse the excess of Excited! punctuation, but this is a considerable and momentous thing.

There is a snag. She is going to do a health and safety check on the house. Which means we need to do some tidying up. Because she will probably want to see all of the house, not just the lounge we keep orderly visitors. Ho hum...

Playing in streams

Saw some good friends at the weekend. A fantastic time was had by all. Playing in streams...

Coffee with friends...

This morning, I have been for coffee with a friend. On this occasion, a fellow church leader who I meet with about once a month.

I like coffee shops. I do some of my best thinking and praying in the semi-anonymity of a coffee shop. Away from the busy-ness of home, where there's always something else to do and spending time with God, or just pondering, requires resisting the temptation to switch on the computer, or just put some washing on first... Just me, my Bible, my journal and a cuppa. Refreshing, reviving, relaxing.

Equally lovely is coffee with friends. I'm not great at small talk, mind. Not very good at remembering the names of other people's children or where they were about to go on holiday. I like big talk. About dreams and visions and God and life and politics and church and society. Learning from one another. Growing together.

I heard someone say recently that 'pain is inevitable, but joy is not' I guess that could sound a bit morbid. I didn't think so. It made me think that it's worth making sure the joy happens...

We've heard from Social Services!!

I am very easily excited.

We had a letter from the social worker who will be assessing us, (doing our 'home study') on Saturday morning. Her name is Chris. She writes:

"I am sure that you are keen to get started with your assessment.." (Where on earth did she get that idea??) "...and write to ask if you would give me a call on the above telephone number to arrange a a suitable time for me first visit.."

Andy wanted me to wait until he'd had chance to buy a bag of gravel for just outside our front door, where he had been putting his cigarette butts. I'm afraid I declined rather firmly to be delayed by the purchase of gravel.

I rang this morning. She's not in the office until Wednesday.

Oh well.

Random Visitors....

Our church is in the middle of town, along a sort of back street, that is busiest at night, when people are out drinking and clubbing. It's usually quite quiet in the day. Over the last week or two, we've begun to get random people dropping in. We're planning to start a sort of drop in / church thingy on a Tuesday tea time, beginning in May. We prayed about it last Sunday, and, as previously posted, ended up spending an hour with a homeless guy.

Since then, every time we've been open, someone has dropped in. Usually someone who would be an ideal candidate for our up-coming Tuesday thing, called 'Wings'. At a meeting on Tuesday, someone called Kay stuck her head round the door and told us she thought we were doing marvellous things and that God would guide us. She came in for a few minutes and talked about how God had helped her and that she's not having so much trouble with her mental health currently.

Then on Wednesday night, we were having a Nightchurch meeting. About 12 of us sitting round chatting, and a drunk bloke called Patrick asked if he could come in. So I said yes of course, and made him coffee. And he sat through most of the meeting, probably fairly bemused. At one point he went to answer a phone call, and I heard him telling the caller that he was in a church, and that we were nice and not brain-washing him. Then he came and sat down again and asked everyone to tell him what their favourite films were.

This afternoon, it was a heroin addict and his friend that came in. Andy was able to provide expert drug advice. I was able to provide coffee and cake.

Crummock Water

Andy and I visited a friend in the Lake District recently, and she's just sent us some photos of our walk round Crummock Water. Just the most beautiful place...

Worship and Kebab

We had a great time at church on Sunday. Tracey, from an excellent band called 'Tall Trees' came and led an evening of worship. We don't have any musicians amongst us, but Tracey comes about once a month with her guitar and her passion.

Usually at church, one tries to do a bit of everything every time. So a bit of worship, a bit of prayer, a sermon. But it occurred to me that there is no law that says one has to do everything every week. So I decided that this week we would just do sung worship (well, and tea and cake of course), with space for prayer and for people to share thoughts and readings ad hoc if they wanted to. And it was very lovely. Usually we meet from 4-6pm. But by the time we'd overrun a bit with the worship, stayed around and chatted and drunk more tea, the last of us didn't actually leave the building until quarter to eight!!

As we were leaving a homeless guy came over and began telling us his life story. So three of us went with him to the kebab shop and opened up the church again so he could have his take away in comfort with coffee. Interesting evening...