Weekend Report

Susan, Kate and I survived a shopping trip on Saturday. Yes, we finally took the plunge and did some Christmas shopping. Our carefully planned strategy took us into Derby early-ish before the crowds.

In the shops, we were subjected to Slade and "So here it is, Merry Christmas, everybody's having fun". Didn't feel like it. We had fun in spite of the Christmas shopping.

Or we were subjected to John Lennon's conscience-striking, guilt-inducing, finger-pointing "So this is Christmas, and what have you done?" I thought, "We haven't bought our Christmas presents, that's what we haven't done!!"

Stopped for lunch in Subway...

As you can see everybody's having fun...

...'specially me...

Well, Susan tried...

I just like that picture!

Well, we survived, made it home, had a nice cup of tea.

ooOoo

Yesterday morning, we were at Woodlands for a baptismal service. Two teenage girls were baptised. They are both from Christian homes so have been well taught. They gave good testimonies, the best I have heard at Woodlands, I think. Every blessing on you, girls!

ooOoo

On Sunday afternoon we had a visit from the Heron family. I forgot to take a picture before they left this morning, so here is one from the web:

David and Helen are old friends of ours from university days. They have been missionaries in Peru for a number of years now and currently based in Lima. They are back in the UK for their summer break. Read about them here. Their three girls are wonderful and Kate had a great time with them. It was good to catch up, but all too short - they had to go to Scotland this morning. Good for them, bad for us.

ooOoo

Derwent had a Carol Service last night. I led, though readings were done by others, and I preached on John 1:1-14, with the main focus on 1:12.

Though there was a congregation of 30+, and a couple of new people one of the members had brought, I was disappointed at the response. The church had distributed 1500 copies of the December edition of Evangelical Times, which is deliberately evangelistic, with an invitation to the Carol Service, around the area. But it looks like not a single person had responded to it. We can only hope that a secret work of grace is being done somewhere.

ooOoo

That's it! New week ahead...