History

Pharisee!

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Not all Pharisees remain Pharisees

Last time we considered how Job¹ changed his mind when he met God.

I want to look here at how another man was changed when God met him.

When he was a young man you would have said of him that the world was his oyster. We only know a little about him, but this much is clear, if he had been alive today it would have been straight As at GCSE, A* at A level and his choice of a place in the best university. He was a man of great learning. He could have gone anywhere he wanted to go. But there was one thing that stopped him.

As well as being brilliant, he was religious. You would probably say he was a bit of an enthusiast, a fanatic, but that is perhaps to overstate it. He was certainly a good man. You could trust him. He took his faith seriously. He was a Jew, and not only was he a Jew – well listen to his own words:

[I was] circumcised on the eight day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, concerning the law, a Pharisee, [concerning zeal, persecuting the church,] concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless².

He wanted to live in a way that pleased God, so he did everything he could to keep the law of God. He studied the law: he was taught by one of the greatest teachers of his day. He joined the strictest sect of his day, the Pharisees. Note: pharisee does not mean what we mean by it today. He thought that by doing this he would earn his way into heaven. That was the common teaching of the Pharisees: Do good and you shall live by it.

Saul did recognise however that he had sinned. The law said: you shall not covet, and Saul saw that that condemned him. But he also thought that these other things were worth having – being a Jew, being a Pharisee, keeping the law in all external matters, and that they would count for more than the mistakes he had made.

This all changed when Jesus died and rose from the dead. His disciples taught that good works would never get you into heaven, you had to trust the one who died on the cross, and had been raised from the dead. Saul hated that message, just as those before him who had crucified Jesus. He wanted to get to heaven on his own merits, and in any event, the Messiah would never have let anyone crucify him. His zeal as a young man hardened into a fanatical hatred, and he set about persecuting the church. He thought that he was doing the right thing and that this would earn him favours with God, until one day when bent upon destruction the Lord stopped him.

Listen again to what he said:

At midday I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun shining around me and those who were with me. When we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice speaking to me and saying: Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? I said: Who are you, Lord? And he said: I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting³.

Saul then understood. Jesus is the Messiah. The one who died on the cross had been raised from the dead. If that were so, then the other things that the disciples of Jesus taught were also true. He would not get to heaven on his own merits, he had to trust in Jesus who died for sinners. So years later, we find him saying to others who were beginning to think that they could earn their way into heaven:

We have no confidence in the flesh…[all those things] that were [supposed to be] gain to me, I have counted loss for Christ².

His way of thinking had been changed, just as Job’s was. Job had to learn that God could do as he pleased with him. Saul did not need to learn that, he knew it. But Saul needed to learn that, even though he was a good man, even though he kept the law in every way that he possibly could, it was not enough. He was a sinner, condemned by the law, and that the only salvation there was was in Jesus Christ. It was his encounter with Jesus that changed his way of thinking.

Now what about you? Where do you stand? What needs to be changed in your way of thinking? It is only when we change that, and say to Jesus that we shall follow him, that we can be saved.

¹ See Job, Paul and two thieves
² Philippians 3:3ff
³ Acts 26:13ff

Scoffer?

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Are you ready for the day that is coming?

Do you wait for Jesus Christ?

Coco has already tried to turn your thoughts to four people who met Jesus. For three of them it was a life changing experience. The Bible tells us that a day is coming when all men will meet him. Rev 1:7 – Behold he is coming with clouds and every eye will see him, they also who pierced him. Coco has more to say about that day another time, but for now, let us think about the fact of his coming.

Peter tells us that even in his day men scoffed at the idea that Jesus Christ would return to this world and bring it to an end. 2 Peter 3:3-4. We have plenty of men around today who scorn this whole idea, and prefer to believe in the fables of what pretends to be science, but is really just old fashioned atheism wearing different colours.

But do you know God has left us plenty of evidence that Jesus will return, quite apart from what is written in the Bible where we have for example, in his own words:

The Son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect him. Matthew 24:44

And the testimony of the angels after went into heaven: This Jesus who was taken up into heaven from you will come in a similar way as you saw him go into heaven. Acts 1:11

In the same place that Peter reminds us about the scoffers he goes on to remind his readers about Noah’s flood. The great flood that covered the whole of this planet about five thousand years ago. Only a little while ago we heard about and saw the results of a tidal wave spreading out across the Indian Ocean and Bay of Bengal. The flood that caused brought devastation and disaster to millions of people. But that was a small flood compared with this one. You may also have heard recently – Coco doesn’t know how widely it has been published – about a meteorite of immense proportions which crashed into the gulf of Mexico thousands of years ago. Some scientists have been able to identify the effects of this strike, before which the recent one in SEA becomes insignificant. Quite how they do this amazes Coco! Huge amounts of water were thrown out of the Gulf onto the adjacent land as well as sending tsunami out. The water dragged fossil bearing rock off the land and into the sea and left behind mud deposits now solidified as much as 15 feet thick. But again that was little compared with the great global flood which destroyed life on this planet and left mud deposits all over the world thousands of feet thick. They are what we call the sedimentary rocks.

But Peter tells us: Men wilfully forget this, that the heavens and earth were made of old by the Word of God, and that that world perished being flooded with water.

Every – well so far as Coco is aware – culture has a record of this flood. They differ in the details which is to be expected having been embellished or corrupted as they were passed down. It is good for us that we have had a written record of it preserved. The Bablyonians have a record. The people of South America have a record. The ancient Greeks had a memory of Atlantis, the lost city that perished in the sea.

But men wilfully forget this. They deny the flood despite the abundant evidence for it, in the history and culture of men and in the very rocks of which the surface of this planet it made.

Why do they deny this? Because if this flood did take place, if God did judge the world by water, then they must also acknowledge that he is coming again to judge the world the next time by fire.

If there was a flood, and there was, then there is a judgement to come. We do not know when it will be, but coming it is. Are we ready for it? There is only one who can prepare us – the judge is also the saviour who died for our sins to put us right with God. If we are right with God the judgement will pass us by.

Christians persecuted by Islamists, says Prince Charles

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This post has been obtained from an external source which does not permit its pages to be embedded here (at least Coco had not successfully found a way to do it), it has been necessary to take a suitably edited version of the original page to embed here. As a consequence updates made by the writer may not appear here. If you find anything that is different in a significant manner, please notify Coco using the comments section below. Thank you.

Norway’s secret

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The northern passage

It is well known that an important ingredient in Norwegian culinary preparations is chocolate, but what are the origins of this practice?

We have to delve deeply into the oral traditions of the Lapp and Inuit peoples for the answer.

A typical traditional recipe (Finnbiff – Reinsdyrgryte – Reindeer Stew) prepared for the Norwegian palette may be as follows:

20oz reinsskav
5oz bacon sliced
3oz goat’s cheese
1 carrot, chopped
2 sticks of celery, chopped
1 onion, chopped
2 or 3 cacao beans roasted, cured and finely ground
sufficent red wine		1 gill milk
2 gill rømme
7oz mushrooms, sliced
5 juniper berries, lightly crushed
5 cowberries
1 bay leaf
1oz fine meal for thickening

It is often thought that chocolate was introduced into the diet of Europeans only after the discovery of the New World by Columbus in 1492. But if this is the case, how is it that we do not find the same culinary use of chocolate in the kitchens of southern Europeans, by whom we include anyone who lives south of the coastline of the nordic countries, excluding Denmark? In the deep south of Europe garlic takes the place of chocolate and as we move further north onions slowly replace garlic as a favoured flavouring in many recipes. Is it merely then a matter of geography, and what grows well in the different climes? Well, it is fairly obvious that it is not the case. The cacao plant from whose bean chocolate is derived is no more suitable for growing in the Nordic regions than it was in the Aztec empire, which also had to import it from their neighbours.

Looking into oral traditions we find however that long before the southern Europeans ever dreamed about opening up the northwest passage, there was a northern trade route much like the Silk road across Asia. The trade route was not always accessible, but when it was it provided a valuable resource in the northern regions and the route along which the beans of the cacao plant were able to travel.

The ancient Lapp peoples, just as other ancient nations, conducted trade for resources which they could not otherwise obtain, across sometimes difficult and dangerous terrains, though terrain is not an entirely accurate representation of the northern passage. One of their near neighbours are the Inuit people of what is now Canada. As soon as the northern passage became available they would be able to cross the ice and exchange valuable commodities for what they saw as a far more valuable commodity, the fruit of the cacao plant. In many ways this trade was similar to the spice trade, in particular of cloves, conducted between Europe and the East Indies.

The northern passage was formidable in its difficulty and the dangers it presented. The traders who used it could have been forgiven for giving up at any point to return back to their homes, but they were driven on by the lingering memories of the delicate and pungeant aromas of roasting and curing beans which filled the air during the dark winter months.

Arriving among the Inuit people trade would begin. The Inuit had prepared for this day by obtaining sacks of beans from their southern neighbours the Cree, who in turn had obtained the supplies from the Hopituh Shinumu (Hopi) and their neighbours just north of Mexico. The Lapps never met the Cree, except perhaps for the odd individual who had taken up residence among the Inuit, but that was a rare occurance. Such were the hardships of life among the Inuit, the Cree, who for the most part were nomadic, preferred to move south in the winter to follow the flocks and herds on which they depended, and few there were who would remain in the north for when the Lapp traders would arrive.

The Cree did not understand why anyone would be so keen to obtain the beans, which they considered to be quite disgusting. They had themselves sought to use the beans as food, but the methods of preparation used gave them the impression that they were not eating food but the ground in which the food grew! If ever, in their minds, a fruit deserved the name ground nut, then the fruit of the cacao plant did. If the beans were not good for food, of what use were they?

The Hopi had tried to explain to them that there was a people to the south, the Aztecs, who, so it was rumoured made a drink out of the bean, which was considered to be most desirable and indeed the chief drink among the rulers of that people. The Cree listened politely and bought the beans anyway. In the minds of the Cree, the story about the Aztecs, was probably nothing more than a marketing ploy to talk up the value of the beans. But the Inuit were prepared to pay well for good quality supplies of beans, so as spring came the Cree would travel north with their precious cargo of beans to exchange them for pelts, oils, and most prized of all the dried fish which provided an essential supplement to their diet.

The Inuit in turn would carefully store the beans over the summer whilst they awaited the arrival of the Lapps later that year when the northern passage once again became passable.

Histerical noteOver the years 1519 to 1525 the price of the cacao beans to the Hopi fell. News had begun to reach the Hopi of the arrival of ‘popoloca’ among the Carib people a few years earlier and there was much speculation as to whom these people were. They then heard that the popoloca had been the cause of some serious disruption in the Aztec empire which had reduced the demand for beans from those who had previously paid tribute to the Aztec rulers. The greater availabilty of beans therefore reduced the price. They sought to retain the old trading levels with the Cree, but the news could not be held back indefinitely and eventually the price fell. This was good news for the Lapps, but meant that profits from the trade fell for the American merchants, even though the quantity of beans traded increased. In 1585 the situation appeared to reverse. There was suddenly a shortage of suitable beans. The following year few beans could be obtained. The Lapps obtained their last major shipments from the crop which had originally been harvested in 1585 in the winter of 1586 and which they subsequently delivered home in the spring of 1587. Thereafter only very small quantities, and at a very high price, were available. Some years later news filtered across the European continent to the Lapps through the Norwegians that in Spain, and a few other parts of southern Europe, the nobility, princes and rulers were drinking a liquor called chocolatl, which was made from the ground, roasted and fermented beans of the cocoa plant found in the newly discovered meso-america. It was considered to be a most desirable drink and endowed with considerable medicinal properties. Extraordinary, they thought.

Wales – the curious incident

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The curious incident of which you have probably never heard

Ils disent que vous savez quand vous êtes arrivé dans la civilisation pour l’eau, puis on vous donne avec votre café. A Vienne, ils servent un verre d’eau avec votre café.

That of course is nothing to do with the following narrative, but it makes an interesting, if not arresting opening. The incident described in the the following notes arose on a bright sunny day in the early summer of 1982°. It is not an original invention.

It seemed as if it was going to be a quiet day. PCs Dai Bach Selwyn Jones and Llewellyn Robert Evans had been allocated traffic duties outside Newport on the approach to the tunnel going towards Cardiff. The traffic moved slowly for some hours, occasioned by a significant event at Pontcanna Fields just shy of Cardiff Arms Park. It was anticipated that the fields would be full by 15h when the event was to start.

As the fields were about 20 minutes down the road from Dai and Llew, they anticipated that the road would start to clear by 1430. They were off duty at 1500 in any event, just in time to catch the France Wales kick off. Little did they know that their lives were about to be changed by events taking place in England.

In England transport arrangements to Cardiff had had to be rearranged. Due to an upgrade of the Western line from Paddington and associated overnight engineering works running late, there were no trains running to Cardiff that morning. The Pope had been expected to travel to Cardiff by train that day, but now a private chauffeur had to be arranged. The same chauffeur thought that he had allowed plenty of time, but had not taken into account the event in Cardiff.

They left on a pleasantly empty M4, with the usual disruption around Heathrow. Slough was remarkably quiet and they were making good time. Our chauffeur and the Pope chatted, and as they did so the chauffeur slowly began putting two and two together. He became a little troubled, and remaining quiet for a time waited for the Pope to nod off, which he hastened by putting the car into smooth mode and increasing the inside temperature slightly.

He called his office and listening to the reply his worst fears were confirmed. He was taking the Pope to Pontcanna Fields where a capacity crowd was expected. He had heard of the Fields, and was aware that events there cause significant disruption in the Cardiff area, not to mention on the approach roads.

As they proceeded traffic became heavier. Passing Reading, only a little of the traffic moved aside. At Swindon they came to a standstill. The Pope was awakened with a start. The chauffeur quickly restored the climate control in the passenger compartment.

Quid agimus?¹ the Pope asked, quite forgetting himself for a moment.

The chauffeur, not lacking a classical training, could still remember enough Latin to reply, though in English: ‘We have a small hold up just now, but there is still plently of time.’

The traffic cleared, and they moved on at a reasonable rate.

It was at 14h that the Pope asked how far they had to go. ’60 miles that is all. We have enough time.’ the chauffeur replied.

That was true, as the Fields were only a few of minutes off the motorway and the Pope did not have to appear at 15h. The driver had however not mentioned the M5 junction, nor that there was a toll to pay at the bridge. Then the problems arose. They were in a queue, travelling at 30 mph.

‘How far?’ ’40 miles’, the best estimate of the time required was 46 minutes, but there were only 30 minutes left.

As soon as the road cleared the Pope shouted out: ‘Put your foot down, driver.’ But no, it was more than our chauffeur’s job’s worth to do that.

The discussion continued, but the driver would not give way. 70 was the most he could do, it was after all had been said the speed limit.

Eventually, the Pope told the driver to pull over. ‘Get in the back!’ he barked ‘I shall drive.’

He figured that at an average speed of 130 they would be there on time, but that required a top speed of 150, which should be quite comfortable in their car.

They moved off. The Pope slowly built up speed, discovering how easy a Mercedes S class was to handle. The chauffeur in the back protested, but to no avail. The new driver was not going to listen. ‘The law will be after us if you don’t slow down.’ the chauffeur cried out.

They had reached the bridge. The chauffeur knew that they now had to stop to pay the toll. He however had not reckoned with the Pope. There was an automatic gate through which it was possible to drive straight through, if you had made appropriate arrangements before hand. The Pope headed straight for that gate, he had no intention of slowing down despite the now 40mph restriction. The chauffeur closed his eyes fearing the worst.

His aim was good, the Mercedes flew through the open gate at 135.

Dai and Llew had seen the road clearing and were themselves thinking about the end of their very uneventful shift, when news came through of a car which had passed through the toll without paying. Would they be ready to intercept it, if it continued on the motorway. The report failed to mention the speeding offence that had also been committed.

They expected to wait eight to ten minutes, but some five minutes later they saw the Mercedes approaching. ‘Forget the missed toll’, Dai said to Llew, ‘let’s get that one and take him back to the station with us.’

They raced off, on what was then an almost empty road. It takes a while to catch up with the Mercedes, but after a harrowing four minutes they turned on the blue lights and sirens and flashed the car down.

The Pope thought he was making good time, only six miles to go in as many minutes. Then they heard the sirens. ‘What did I tell you’, the chauffeur cried out ‘Now you will not even get to the Pontcanna Fields.’

‘Be quiet, my friend, and leave this to me. I understand that I must now pull over for your policemen.’

Dai got out of the car. He was going to enjoy this, he could ensure that the driver was kept at the station for at least an hour. Whoever was driving the car would after all have to wait for someone to take over after he and Llew walked off their shift.

He walked over to the Mercedes. Meanwhile Llew looked on. Everything appeared to be normal. Llew made his notes, as he usually did on such occasions and hoped that they would still get away in time for the rugby.

Dai came back, and fell back into his seat. Llew looked up. Dai was deathly pale; his face was ashen white, as white as a sheet.

‘Dai!’ he exclaimed.

‘Mae hyn i gyd i fyny gyda ni’², Dai replied in Welsh. Although normally their official business would be conducted in English, the horror of what just taken place meant he could only use his mother tongue, so we shall tell the rest of the conversation in translation.

‘That car’, he stuttered.
‘Who was it, Dai?’
‘You’ll never guess, Llew.’
‘It was Diana.’
‘No, Llew.’
‘Not the Prince of Wales either then.’
‘No, Llew’, said Dai his voice becoming weaker by the moment.
Llew was himself becoming a little disturbed by now. ‘The Duke of Ednburgh?’ he asked.
Dai shook his head.
‘Her Majesty?’
‘No, Llew, higher than that.’

Llew felt a little relieved, Dai was pulling his leg, but how he had managed to pull off that pale complexion he did not know. He would ask him later. In the meantime he thought he would play along with the joke: ‘Now then, Dai, don’t kid me like that’, he joked, ‘It was the Pope, wasn’t it?’

Dai summoned up his remaining strength before he would collapse back in his seat. ‘Llew’, he said, ‘the Pope.. the Pope was his driver….’

°2 June 1982
¹How are we doing?
²It’s up with us

Bitte, vergessen Sie nicht: Es ist gesagt, dass Sie, wenn Sie in der Zivilisation für die Sie erhalten dann Wasser zum Kaffee angekommen. In Wien, dienen sie ein Glas Wasser mit Ihrem Kaffee.

Courtesy of PLC, this version PC 2013

Orange

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Not chocolate orange

Whilst this post has been obtained from an external source and it may be possible to embed the source here, it is this particular version of the page that Coco wishes to display, hence a suitably edited version of the original page has been used here. More recent versions of the page have not contained the colour chart for example. If you find any significant changes other than that which should perhaps be reflected here, please notify Coco using the comments section below. Thank you.

Dawkins

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Disagreeing with Dawkins

This post has been obtained from an external source which does not permit its pages to be embedded here (at least Coco had not successfully found a way to do it), it has been necessary to take a suitably edited version of the original page to embed here. As a consequence updates made by the writer may not appear here. If you find anything that is different in a significant manner, please notify Coco using the comments section below. Thank you.

David

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It is with no little trepidation that I stand here, as I know I am among friends who knew David for longer and in a far more intimate way than I ever did. It was my privilege to meet him on only a few occasions but you had many dealings with him and I am sure you can, and would want to, tell me a thing or two about him.

However in those few times that we did meet it became quite clear to me that there were ways in which we were quite similar but also in those similarities quite different. You see there were things that we had in common with each other. So I want try to illustrate four things for us: his origin, his life, his change and his future.

Now as the very first thing of course you need to know is where he came from. You all know how forthright David was – he was never afraid to call a spade a spade. I would put that down to his origins.
And in imitation of him I shall be forthright also: David’s origins were in the promised land – that might explain something else I shall come to later – so I repeat: David’s origins, as everyone who was born there will understand, were in the promised land and so is his future. This is one of the things we had in common.

We were both Yorkshire born – and therefore as is well known about Yorkshire men, we have very deep pockets. So deep indeed that most of us cannot reach the bottom, but David had unusually long arms, and was generous in his spirit. So two Yorkshire men, but David had this over me, he was born in Zion, not one of the ridings of Yorkshire, but York itself. He was a Yorkshireman of Yorkshiremen. And you might add, and it showed!

Secondly in his life, he went to school in Harrogate, but being a bright pupil they sent him away for a better education elsewhere. He was trained as a proof reader – now part of my training involved proof reading as well. This is no mean task. It requires great care and concentration and a huge attention to detail. Now I was really only ever an amateur, and the proof reading we were taught to do was of a fairly rudimentary nature – enough for sets of company accounts. David’s work for the National Library for the Blind meant dealing with whole books – a monumental task.

Thirdly he also came from good socialist stock. For him that led to service as a councillor for Egremont for several years. He wished to serve his fellow men, and in this he is to be applauded. Another way in which this could be seen was in his love for Israel. That was a political love by the way. I know hardly anything about that so must say nothing more and not speculate on what it actually meant in practice.

Then fourthly a change came about in his life. As it did in mine. The change for me came at a rather younger age than for David, but it was just as radical for us both. Let me tell you more about this:

Now you know I was being a Yorkshireman when I said earlier that David had been born in Zion, but let me now be serious about it, and be an elder of the church in Putney. David was really born in Zion you know. And that we have in common too.

You may know the hymn better than the Psalm from which it comes:

Glorious things of thee are spoken, Zion city of our God!
He whose word cannot be broken formed thee for his own abode.
On the rock of ages founded, what can shake thy sure repose?
With salvation’s wall surrounded, thou may’st smile at all thy foes.

See the streams of living waters, springing from eternal love,
Well supply thy sons and daughters and all fear of want remove.
Blest inhabitants of Zion, washed in the Redeemer’s blood.

Saviour since of Zion’s city, I through grace a member am,
Let the world deride or pity, I will glory in thy name.
Fading is the wordling’s treasure, all his boasted pomp and show.
Solid joys and lasting treasure, none but Zion’s children know.

David lived for sixty years as an atheist. But he came to Pocklington Court. Here he met Maggie, and when he met her and she told him that she is a Christian his response had to be that her Christianity would do nothing for him. But slowly he saw what this really meant. He had lived a good life of service, but one day he asked the question, was it all for nothing?

He had lived 60 years of vanity. His atheism and his socialism did nothing for him. He saw that the treasures of this world are indeed fading. He began to see his need of a Saviour. He was a sinner, who stood condemned before God. But there was a Saviour, and his heart began to cry out for him. One day at a service in Putney Peter Bines was speaking and David’s questions about John’s gospel were answered. A few days later he asked for Ernie Heron, who was our LCMary at the time to visit him for a talk. Ernie only had half an hour to spare the next day, but Ernie found he had far more important work to do than that which he had otherwise planned. Here was a sinner, David, wanting to get right with God. They talked. They prayed. David’s heart was opened. Understanding came and before Ernie had left he became reconciled to God through the work of Jesus Christ on the cross. He became a believer. He became a Christian. He was born of Zion. He began to know solid joys and lasting treasure.

He was soon to be tested! He fell and broke his arm. But what a change there was. The old man who would have raged against this injury and inconvenience now accepted it humbly from the Lord. That is not to say that it was easy for him, but instead of anger there was acceptance.

This could also be seen in his future. He was not ready to retire, but there was the prospect of redundancy as his employer planned a merger with another organisation. Would there be room for him in the new one? Many would worry over this, and the old David would have done so, but again he saw the Lord’s hand at work and was able to rest in him, who knew what the outcome would be and look to the Lord to provide for the future. He was beginning to learn that the provision of God removes all fear of want.

Of course as this change was taking place in David, he and Maggie were getting to know each other and had found in each other companionship and mutual affection. You would have seen they way they pulled each others legs. They certainly did not pull any punches when it came to correcting each other. When David was converted, this could now be given much freedom of expression. Of course David was still a Yorkshireman, and as they are want to be quite blunt about matters, he got down on one knee and proposed to Maggie. Well, Maggie, typically in a fit of pique decided that if this Yorkshireman were daft enough to ask her, then he would just have to live with the consequences of her saying yes. And so they
were engaged.

Shortly after that David asked to be baptised. It was thrilling to hear from him how the Lord had worked in him and brought him from atheism to Christ. He was a changed man. We laid some plans for classes to consolidate his knowledge and understanding. But it was not to be.

Soon afterwards the Lord took David home. Maggie blessed the Lord, who gives and takes away. There was no baptism and no wedding. But David was at home in Zion with the Saviour whom he had come to know and love.

It is in Psalm 87 that we read: The LORD records as he registers the peoples: This one was born there [in Zion].

David was privileged to have been born a Yorkshireman of Yorkshiremen, but he was reborn of the Spirit of God through the work of Jesus Christ a child of Zion. His future is indeed in that land of glory which shall be revealed when Jesus himself returns for David and his people.

BusTop

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BusTop was first fashioned to adorn the streets of Middlesbrough town early in the twentieth century. Made of cast iron standing aloft on poles of pressed steel, they must have been welcome site to the many tourists who came to that town to admire them.

Their attraction for visitors rivalled that of the famed Transporter Bridge which was, rather sadly, ‘over the border’ and the beauteous attraction of Albert Park which stood alongside the once resplendent Dorman Museum.

Sadly BusTop was retired from service when the authorities thought that Middlesbrough no longer belonged to the North Riding. Of course we know otherwise.

Taking advantage of the disruption of its ancestral home BusTop has been travelling extensively bringing joy to whomever saw it in whatever place it may have been found. Its preferred location would still be on the corner of Oxford Road and Thornfield Road standing proudly ready to be admired by any weary traveller who happened to come by; and who knows, but if one day in the restoration of the ancient counties and towns of England the gracious blue poles will be returned to their rightful places and the people of the town will once more be able to look with pleasure whilst they wait forever at their very own BusTop.

Baptised

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On 24 May, SOSylvia Osborne was baptised by immersion on confession of her faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

On that occasion she was asked the following two questions which she answered in the affirmative:
Firstly, ‘Are you trusting the Lord Jesus Christ alone for your salvation?’
And secondly, ‘Do you promise, from this time forth, the Holy Spirit helping you, to strive to obey the Lord in all things?’

During the evening SO recounted the following as to how she had arrived at this decision:

Nearly five years ago my life changed completely. I had an accident and my injuries are permanent. I live on my own on the first floor. This is important as you will see later. About two years ago during Lent, I had a desire to worship the Lord our Father. So great was this desire that I knew I had to go to Church. The problem was this, I cannot walk very far. I used to look out of my window on a Sunday morning and see someone drive up to pick up a little old lady who must have been a neighbour. Feeling sure that she was being taken to Church I decided that the only option available to me was to run to the front door and ask if I could go with them. This presented me with several problems: because of the accident I could not run and going down stairs is a real problem.

  • … I didn’t know what religion they were
  • … would the car already be full?
  • … and of course would I be welcome?

This left me with a feeling that I knew I would have to go out and find a Church for myself. Several weeks went by, then something incredible happened. Usually when my doorbell rings I do not answer it. One reason is because the stairs cause me a problem, secondly because it takes me so long that whoever is at the door gives up and goes away. However, on this very special occasion I did manage to answer the door, the visitor did wait and when I opened the door I met with EHErnie, the London City Missionary. He spoke about our Heavenly Father for a while on the doorstep but because I was beginning to feel achy and needed to sit down, I did something very stupid. I didn’t want EH to go in case he never came back again, so invited him up for a cup of coffee, but at no time did I feel threatened.

We talked for over an hour and then prayed. Before he left me he suggested that there might be a woman from the Church who could come and give me Bible Studies. I had no paper on which to write my telephone number, so I ended up writing it on a little scrap of an egg carton.

EH left, but a few weeks later I received a phone call from GEGill. Some may call it a coincidence but this was around the time of Pentecost. GE started to visit once a week, every week, and still does. Through these studies it became obvious to me that I needed a Saviour. It was during one of these visits that GE asked me if l felt ready to confess my sins and to accept Jesus Christ as my Saviour and Lord. I was ready and I prayed to the Lord, asking him to forgive me for my sins and make me his own.

That was about eighteen months ago, during which time I have been able to attend the Church services. I was immediately received with great love, for which I thank everyone. I have now come to the point in my love for Christ Jesus that I feel it is right to show my commitment to the Lord by being baptised as he has commanded. It was during the baptism of TSToni Smith that I decided to take this step of obedience. Since that time I have spent the intermediate months in preparing for today.

I greatly look forward to being a valued member of this Church.

SOSylvia Linda Osborne 8 November 1952 to 5 January 2000her families: Jennings and Osborne