I keep being surprised ...

.. by the chapel folk here! Today was the funeral of the mother of one of our members. Her Mum lived a good hour's drive away and a small service was held in their local Chapel of Rest for her friends and carers. An hour later there was a service in the crematorium just half an hour's drive away from us. Nine friends from our chapel (about half our usual congregation) joined the very small family group for the service. I am only aware of one of our ladies having actually met her Mum! But around here folk gather around to love and support those going through a tough time whether it is the loss of a loved one or any other family difficulty. I am surrounded by a lovely bunch of folk.

yesterday we shut up shop...

...just for the morning. We decided that we would not hold our usual service in the chapel but drive over the border into England and join in the service of one of the other churches in our Rural Churches group, where we heard Judy Cook speak about her work as a missionary in Thailand. I met Judy on her last visit back to the UK but this time she brought four of her fellow workers with her. Their English was far better than my Thai!
Hopefully I will meet Judy and her co-Thai-workers again next weekend when we are all planning to be at the Baptist Assembly.
One of our members who would not be able to cope with the journey and longer service went to our chapel to forward any who had not realised the change - or to give them the option of returning in the afternoon when we had our quarterly service of prayer for healing.
We are small in numbers; usually around 15 - 20 on a Sunday morning but 11 of us went to the morning service and 10 came in the afternoon. I'm not usually someone who counts heads, as I'm just as happy preaching to three or four as I am to fifty as I believe that those who need to hear what I believe God has given me to say will be there, but it was encouraging to have a good turn out for something different!