For your diaryFor your diaryAs many of you will know I have recently arrived back from a two week voluntary placement in Kamazinda Children's village in Uganda. The group consisted of 16 people and was led by Rev. Aaron Walker who is my cousin.
While we were there the group took part in a lot of different activities in and around the village. Some of my most memorable were digging up a termite mound, sports with the children of the village and shopping at the market stalls. One experience I found very moving was the feeding programme in which we visited some of the most impoverished houses in the area to give basic foods and other essentials. The people of Uganda were very welcoming and we had lots of fun with the children. The money we took with us was used to buy medicines for the clinic, a 1,000 litre water butt and seeds for the farm school, as well as food for the feeding programme. I very much enjoyed my time in Uganda and am sure it is something that I will never forget.
Daniel
War does not determine who is right - only who is left' - Bertrand Russell
At our service this morning, Mel gave Peter B a job to do. Never before in the history of Harvington Baptist Church had anyone been asked to take our 'old' green hymn book and count all the words on it. Peter made a good start and got to the end of hymn number one when due to a range of interruptions from an unruly congregation he kind of gave up. Actually he was quite relieved! The challenge Mel had set for Peter required perseverance of a high order. None of us doubt that Peter could have counted all the words but to what end?
Mel was encouraging us to think seriously about persevering in prayer. The message for me was that if we are serious in prayer, God will get serious with us. And we need 'serious' prayer both for individuals and all that the Church is endeavouring to do.
We are privileged as a church to have Ben living and working amongst us. He has a number of ideas and one of these is about prayer. To come quickly to the point, a suggestion is that we might set some time aside for prayer before the service on a Sunday morning. Possibly 9.45 – 10.30 with a cup of tea or coffee thrown in! Not everyone will be able to make the time or indeed every Sunday but if the opportunity is there perhaps some of us can make it a worthwhile new venture for the church. So many, so much, needs prayer –as Mel said we need to get serious about it. I would hasten to thank all of you who are serious about it already.
At our church meeting on 11th September we will be discussing Ben's suggestion for Sunday morning prayer. This is an opportunity to think about the pros and cons before a decision is taken. We all need to be in on the discussion and in on the decision making. My sense is that God wants to continue blessing us and to enlarge that blessing. Be encouraged!
Once again I want to thank our friends from the chapel for taking the oldies out for a lovely Wednesday afternoon in July.
We went to the lavender farm at Snowshill, where we all sat down to a lovely cream tea in the barn and afterwards walked through the fields. For years I've been in the gardening club and I never knew there was a white lavender, but really I liked the purple, pink and blue the best.
On the return journey we were taken through some of the local villages, with their beautiful cottage gardens. As you know I am a lover of flowers and trees, so this pleased me greatly.
Once again many thanks and God Bless
Irene
Christmas 2006 - Just to think about!
Many of us sigh and think 'oh no, not already...............' As we see the signs of commercial Christmas appear in the shops around the end of August, so just imagine if you will, that its the end of November!
To be serious, lets enjoy the autumn first, then remember that I know have the little catalogue illustrating this years Christmas cards on sale form the Baptist Missionary Society World Mission. Many of us support our favourite charities when we buy our cards, but if your list has grown again, or if you want some bible verses, I can order some for you (they come in packs of 10 from £3). There are also cards in Welsh and pretty note cards at £4 for 8.
The proceeds from the sale of every pack will go to the work of B.M.S World Mission which currently supports around 320 people working in over 40 countries across 4 continents, so its a very worthwhile cause!
Please ask to see the catalogue at any time - Vicky
OK - one to get you thinking - they are all girls names, bring this sheet to the harvest breakfast and an autumn bouquet to the one who gets them all .........
E.g. almost normal........................................... Norma
VA in the USA.................................
Two thirds of a mouth organ..................................
Daily appearing in the east........................................
Chainlink.......................................................
J.M. Barrie made her famous....................................
Grouse food............................................
Ascended....................................................
Forever coming between the reds and the greens...........................
A bit of a whinger...........................................
Toto was her pet.........................................
Appearing in each pupil......................................................
Practically perfect nanny...................................................
'There's only one way under high heaven to get the best of an argument, and that's to avoid it.' Carnegie
When asked to write my testimony, I always start with excitement before getting bogged down with all that has happened in my life. That is not to say I have had an amazing, fun and full life but one that for the most part has been displeasing to God. I would like to say that having been dedicated at Dorford Baptist Church I became a Christian at 9 was baptised at 16, married at 26 and called to ministry at 28. Unfortunately, though all these things happened, somewhat of my life story is covered up.
I became a Christian at 9 after a Sunday school class involving our feet being washed by the Sunday school leader Mr Leach. I was greatly moved by this man Jesus, whom I was expected to worship but yet humbled him by washing the feet of the disciples. Who was this Son of God who did such disgusting jobs as washing people's feet. I announced to Mr Leach that I would like to become a Christian. After the session ended, we both prayed asking for my sins to be forgiven and requesting Jesus to be in my life. It was a very early Christian experience with which I was filled with the Holy Spirit and wept for ages.
Having given my life to the Lord, I became something of an evangelist. Managing to worship God in almost all I did whilst remaining popular. I invited many of my peers from school to join us at Church and they did so, many also becoming a Christian. As I grew older I started to want to experience the things my non-church friends were doing. I started smoking which despite many efforts I only managed to give up 13 weeks ago. I started drinking heavily and smoking cannabis. All this I reasoned was OK with God as I was still saying my prayers and going to church. It wasn't though, as I was living a lie. I was baptised at 16 and I carried on living this 'dual life' for a few months before I had to choose what side of the fence I wanted to live on. After a bad experience in Church (which I won't go into here) I stopped going and as a result my faith diminished slowly.
The big turning point for me was when I went to university in London. I was a Dorset lad who was in the middle of the city with a large student loan in his account. I never went to university to study I went to party and party is what I did. After year 1 I was 9000 in debt, pretty much addicted to amphetamines, and a shadow of the person I once was. I gave up university because I could not afford to go back and I started to work in the pub trade. I was supposed to be earning to pay of my debts, which now I was no longer a student were in need of paying. Unfortunately the money went on having fun. I had a group of friends I used to drink with, a group I used to smoke cannabis with and a group I used to get high with. All in all this led to a life where I was very rarely compos mentis. I got in serious trouble with the banks, because ignoring them seems to not work, so I got a large loan to pay off the debt. Instead though of paying it off in full I squandered a lot of it on revelry.
The pub trade took me too many places and kept me on the straight and narrow to a degree. But at the age of 24 I realised that I was throwing my life away. I had suddenly become someone who was always drunk, stoned or high who if allowed to straighten up for a moment realised that he was not very happy at all. I left the trade to take up care work. This did not take away the partying, but did lead to a more settled life. The partying led to one good thing as I met Ez. We got together and moved in pretty much straight away. We continued going out but the nights were becoming less frequent (especially the harder drugs). As the nights got less and I was not on drugs as much I realised I was not happy. I was able to look back and realise that I hadn't been happy since I had been about 16. I had lots of friends, lots of stories, but I wasn't happy in the deeper sense i.e. Content, fulfilled etc.…
To cope with this, I would just get drunk or high, but it was obvious a decision would have to be made soon regarding my life. Would I stay with Ez and settle down or leave Ez and get back to my old ways. I decided the latter. I split up with Ez and was going to go back to sleeping around, drinking and drugs. I was going to be Ben the legend not Ben the soon to be husband. Ez had other ideas though… The day I broke up with Ez she said a prayer-asking god into her life. The moment she did, God told Ez that everything would be OK and to come and see me and sort it all out. She did and we got back together. We then went on an alpha course where Ez committed herself and I recommitted myself to Christ Jesus. In fact the moment I went through the doors of the alpha course I felt like I had come home. I was accepted for being me and loved by complete strangers with no expectations. I no longer had to get drunk or high to be happy, I had inner contentment and fulfilment that only comes from knowing Jesus Christ as lord and saviour and being filled with the Holy Spirit. Ez and I were married a month after Alpha and Ez was baptised a bit later.
I always felt that I was called to ministry when I was younger, and as soon as I was living as a Christian the call came back. How could I though, someone who had done so much wrong, who threw everything given to him back in the face of God, who had done drugs and treated people badly especially women. Because God loves me. In church we talk about grace a lot, well my story is one of grace. I did so much wrong, I was embarrassed of the church, and I was horrible and nasty. But as soon as I said I was sorry, God ripped up all the bad stuff and said don't worry about it, I love you, its forgotten. In fact don't just come back into my family go into the ministry as well, because I love you and I am going to work through you.
And here I am, in Harvington training to be a minister. It is not the route I should have taken but I have learnt many valuable lessons on the way. Though I have been forgiven I am still upset by a lot of what I did (especially the ways I treated people), but I thank God because when I was running away from him as fast as I could, he stayed exactly where he always was. Close and waiting to bring me home. Praise the lord…
Ben
September 2006