A difficult weekend

18.2.13

On Thursday evening we had a text from Emily saying she had been involved in a car accident on the Isle of Wight.  Thankfully she was unhurt, just shaken by it – apparently a drunk driver had hit a car which then went into her car.  Although I tried to call her mobile from my mobile I couldn’t get a connection, which I found very upsetting.  It made me realise just how far away from everyone we are and how helpless we are in any emergency.  All I wanted to do was get on a plane and go to her but I knew I couldn’t and all we could do was pray for her and try to contact her via text and email.  We managed to Skype her briefly on Friday from the hotel with wifi and it was sad not to be able to give her a hug. L She was moving into her new flat on Saturday which was tricky without her car but we are so thankful that Mark’s cousin and her husband, along with her boyfriend’s parents all helped her move in – they were her surrogate parents for the day!  I hadn’t realised how hard it would be not to do the usual ‘mummy’ things and guess that is another part of the sacrifice of being here really.  Today we had an email saying she is really happy in her new flat and can at last settle down so we are really thankful for that news.  Her car has sadly been written off so we pray that someone's insurance will pay out so she can get a new one!

 The longest funeral in the world!

Then on Saturday we were instructed to attend a funeral of someone who had been quite high up in the church here – it started in Georgetown at 9.30am so we got there in good time.  I assumed it might last about 2 hours or so as he was quite a well known man but could never have anticipated the length of it!  We were given an order of service as we walked in and yet it wasn’t until we had been there for three and a half hours that the service actually began!  The first part was one person after another giving a long wordy tribute to the man and after a while they all merged into one long drone!  There must have been about 40 people giving a tribute!  I was beginning to lose the will to live especially as we’d been sitting on hard benches and not able to stand that whole time!  Finally the service started and we finally left the church at 3.10pm – 5 hours and 40 minutes after we had arrived!  It is the first time I have been to a funeral and begun to wish it was my own!!  Ha! 

By the time we left we were ravenous and parched and dashed to get pizza and Pepsi! 

A sad accident

 On Sunday we heard that a young man from one of Mark’s chapels had been in an accident in which a 13 year old boy had been killed.  We went to visit the family and pray with them as they were obviously all in shock.  We also called in to see the young man in hospital – we are not sure what will happen to him once he is out of hospital but please pray for him and the parents of the young boy who was killed.  It was a sad situation but we felt privileged to be able to share with the family. 

A happy afternoon!

After the sadness of the above situation we had a happier end to the day…we had received a play parachute from friends in Lincoln (by Fedex and SO easy to collect!) and took it out to play with the Sunday school children in the yard out the front of the manse and they absolutely LOVED it!  They were SO excited!  The youth all came and joined in the fun and although we were very hot we had great fun too!  Also, some of the youth trimmed the trees for us that are apparently in the way of the phone line so now we wait to see what the next excuse is for not putting in a phone!!  Watch this space!!