Yesterday after prayer meeting, Nick dropped a bombshell – “bad news”, he said. “The soil has just been delivered and we need to get it off the road asap. You’ll have to do the Good News Club today.” Which I did, though not without some complaining and panicking first! I had to lead the worship, teach the lesson, run the outdoor activity and suggest the indoor colouring or drawing activity. Thankfully Nick is still in his 10 Commandments series, so I didn’t have to come up with an actual lesson plan (with all of an hour’s notice), I simply taught on the 7th commandment. It went really well, I thought – the 15 kids paid attention, asked the right questions, and were well behaved (except for Aaron who had to be told about 5 times to keep quiet). I digressed a bit and taught about dating and unequal yoking, and looking at paintings in art galleries when you already have your own painting…but they got the point. Spent some more time cleaning the house after that while Nick went for a quick swim with the boys. He and two other men from the church had worked hard for about two hours shoveling dirt off the road and wheeling it into our back yard, where it will stay until we get around to dressing the lawn and deciding where the rest of the soil will go. This soil comes from Steve and Maureen’s country house, where they are doing building operations.
Last night was the St Helena 2006 Street Carnival Parade. Wow. I think about 80% of the country turned up to either be in the parade, or watch from the sidelines. The parade started from the hospital at the top of town and worked its way down to the docks, taking about an hour to get there. Our house is on the main street, so all we had to do was wait on the wall outside until it reached us, then we walked with it so the boys could experience the action. I have never seen such a colourful parade – people dressed themselves up in bright colours, and flowers, feathers, balloons, tinsel and beads…it was awesome. There was the local fire truck decorated with banana and palm leaves and balloons and dancing girls, and pumping out party music. There was a Ninja Turtle, a fire breather, a slinky pink peacock, a fairy or two, along with the general St Helenian public dressed up in odd getups. We stayed with the parade some of the way, and then went ahead to the bottom of town where there was a boerie-roll stand set up, and got our supper before the rush started. We suspect many people were going to patronize the stand, and we wisely beat the crowds. Pudding was soft-serve ice-cream from the adjoining stand, but by then a long queue had already formed. A South African girl and her family are visiting the island on their yacht, and she did a fire-spinning stint. We walked home at about 7, looking in on some shops on the way home – it’s a nice atmosphere on a Saturday night, with most shops open until 8.30 pm.
The service at Head o’Wain this morning was recorded for a radio broadcast. Nick diverted from his series on John to preach a topical sermon on marriage, which he preached at all three chapels today. It was excellent, and we pray that many marriages will be helped as a result. He touched on content from Gary Chapman’s “Five Love Languages” which is a worthy read for any married couple. Today we were blessed with onions, potatoes, tomatoes, eggs, cabbage, carrots, fresh parsley and courgettes, from three different sources! Never underestimate the value of an onion…
We heard today that the RMS St Helena has lost one of her engines, and will be delayed by a day and a half - instead of arriving on Tuesday morning, it should dock on Wednesday at 3 pm. I’m sure my parents are as disappointed as I am.
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