We hit the ground running as Mark's sabbatical came to an end and it's great to be back into hopefully fruitful ministry and work and a lot of travelling around!
At the beginning of June I attended a Methodists in World Mission conference in Derbyshire on the theme of Latin America. It was great to network with people from all over the country (and world!) and inspiring to hear about the enormous church growth in places like Cuba and Brazil. The keynote speaker encouraged us to plant the seed of the kingdom here so we can see similar fruit in our own nation. One of the highlights of the weekend was a Latin style carnival evening when we had a go at learning to dance and learnt more about the culture and traditions of some of the Latin Amercian countries.
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| My carnival outfit...it'll come in handy if we get invited to any parties during the Brazilian Olympics!!! |
The following weekend we attended the wedding of my goddaughter Lizzie which was a wonderful time of fun and celebration and catching up with old friends...and the bonus was it was a beautiful sunny day!
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| Scrubbing up for the wedding! |
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| Having fun at the disco |
Then last weekend I travelled to London for a meeting of the Easter Offering Service task group, planning a service for next Easter to raise funds for world mission across the country...I'm having to really concentrate as next year I'll be chairing that task group so was really working hard to take it all in! From there I went to straight to our Methodist Women Executive meeting and we spent the day dealing with business and looking ahead at our future strategy and vision which was exciting.
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| The Highbury Centre, Islington where we held our meeting |
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| Hard at work thinking and discussing...Mark said it looks like we were planning an invasion! |
From London I whizzed down to Portsmouth to visit a dear friend and join in with a quiz and curry fund raiser for Ovarian cancer...a wonderful evening of fun and frivolity!
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| Julie and I on a little walk around Emsworth |
Phew! I am just loving the variety of my life and all the different places, people and experiences and I haven't even properly started yet! I'm so thankful to God for the way he has guided me into this new role and full of excitement about the years ahead as I discover where the path will lead me.
I close with a quote from
St. Francis of Assisi, used by the Nicolas Lowe children's home in Buenos Aires
(for whom we had our offering at the mission weekend)...'Start by doing what is necessary, then what
is possible and suddenly you're doing the impossible.'
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