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Bachelor boys Arnold... |
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...and Paulo. |
It’s high school graduation season in Trinidad and, so far, we’ve
been invited to three of them, for various teenagers in the youth group, as
well as a lunch on Wednesday for the son of some old family friends. So you
could certainly say that the week has been a qualified success. Did you see what I did there?
With so many other things to attend to over the past few weeks, we
hadn’t really factored in the usual spate of certificate-bestowal, and so we’re
increasingly glad for the extra time that finishing at FT a week ago has
afforded us over the last seven days. We have been rattling through a fairly
extensive to-do list, with Amanda looking to clear the laundry backlog, I
looking to clear out our cupboards, and both of us attending to the
presentation we’ll be giving, God-willing, from January onwards – we were keen
not to have that hanging over us during the Christmas holidays. In the
meantime, I’ve been getting my first emails from Cornhill Scotland indicating
the arrangements for the new term in January. It’s starting to feel very real
now.
A fair few pictures which will be included in our presentation were
taken on Sunday, which was another really encouraging day for us as a church.
As mentioned last week, a course called ‘The Culture of Blessing’ was organised
and overseen by a couple in the church in the afternoon. Between the morning
services and the afternoon event, we had a big lunch together. And the course
itself was of great benefit to us all. It focused particularly on the huge
impact, for better or worse, that our words can make. It was a great message
for the church to hear, in a culture where people can be a little less
restrained with the tongue than back home. Inevitably, the last exercise
required us to act on what we’d been learning, so I ended up having to telling
a chap how much I loved him and listing all the things that were so great about
him. At first, the two of us could hardly have been more petrified if we’d been
forced at gunpoint to attend an X Factor finalists concert. But we got there in
the end – and some kind of wonderful it was, too.
Sunday capped off another busy weekend at church, which on Saturday
included the end-of-year party for the Bible Explorers’ Club. However, Amanda
always prefers to go that little bit further, and so on Wednesday evening she
took her teenage girls’ class out for a meal. Indeed, our evenings have more or
less disappeared as we aim to spend a last few hours of quality time with as
many people as possible. Last night we were out with our Bible study companions
Carlos & Carla, tonight my bandmates have invited themselves over after
youth group for some pizza (in fairness, they’re bringing the pizza) and
tomorrow we’re planning on a meal with our fellow youth leaders. From Monday
onwards, we’ll doubtless have to tell people to take the musicians’ approach if
they want to see us, as we have a lot
of packing to do.
One item we were delighted to stroke off the to-do list was the
installation of the church’s new air conditioners, supplied by LAM Canada, which
had been purchased about a month ago, yet had lain dormant in the church for
nearly two weeks since their delivery. Wednesday afternoon proved a useful
‘test event’ (Brazilian football tournament organisers, take note) in the shape
of the end-of-year party for the Community classes. 40 screaming, kinetic kids
proved no match for our new walk-in freezer. Attending church will never have
been such a refreshing experience.
Prayer
- Right. Things are now, as one might put it, very much 'on'. We have six days to organise our house, get round all the people we need to see, and pack our possessions into four suitcases. Pray for good progress and for patience with one another – these things can get a little stressful!
- On Thursday, we begin our long trip to Scotland with a bus trip to Santa Cruz, whence we hope to post one final entry on this here blog (our flights to Brazil, and then the UK, are on Sunday and Monday, respectively). Pray for safety on the road.
Praise
- Amidst the busyness of all these graduations, end-of-year events and special times at church, we’ve had really tangible reminders over the last week of the special relationship we have with our ‘faith family’, if you like. Life here can be pretty challenging at times, but the closer we get to furlough, the sadder we feel about saying goodbye to so many dear friends for a year. And that’s a happy problem, in our book.
- Give thanks, too, for the resolution of the air conditioner situation. We hope these will be a great help to the church, where Sundays can at times be oppressively hot. Pray too that the more pleasant conditions will encourage more people to come along and be part of our community in Christ.
¡Que
Dios les bendiga!
Craig
& Amanda
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