Three things happened yesterday that tend to happen once a year around this time but don't always coincide.
1. It was what we might call hay fever sufferer. By now it is quite mild but there are usually two or three random days that are really bad and sometimes this happens on the Lord's Day. Yesterday was quite bad. Actually preaching is okay as mind triumphs over matter and I almost never sneeze during a sermon.
2. In Childs Hill we are always saying goodbye to people especially to the seminary students we are allotted. Yesterday was Thapelo's last Sunday with us. The Roks family have a few more Sundays but I took opportunity to pass on some gifts (including a copy each of the collection of papers on limited atonement From Heaven He Came and Sought Her) and to publicly pray for both students.
As it turned out we also had the widow of a former seminary student, the first to be with us from Madagascar, with their two children. They are currently living in Gloucester. It was nice to have them back.
3. Usually about once a year we take a photo of the congregation (see above). This is always a little bit frustrating as who is there is rather random. I can think of at least ten people missing from the above shot, which shows about 40 of us (39 I think it is). I think we are about 14 nationalities (English, Welsh, Dutch, South African, Tswana, Nigerian, Ghanaian, Malagas (visitors), Jamaican, Indian, Pakistani, Sri Lankan, Filipino; we could add Anglo-Japanese, Anglo-Italian, Anglo-Dutch if we were being pedantic).
There were a decent number in the evening too. In the morning I preached on repentance. While I was at the IPC Conference I bought Sinclair Ferguson's little book on repentance of about twenty years which I plundered to put together a sermon from Proverbs 28:13 and Psalm 51. In the evening we were again in Matthew 19 looking at the impossibility and possibility of being saved.
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