Nos Frères Français

Nally and I are building up our links with French Christians, through our Barnabas Fellowship of Churches (BFOC) connection. The situation of believers in France is unlike that in England. Here, we are respected by the local community and have freedom to express our faith very widely. There, on the contrary, there is a lot of suspicion and little understanding of the goodness of the Gospel. My prayer for France is that God will open the hearts of the people. So much hatred and bitterness has been sown in their lives over the centuries, by kings, bishops and whoever. What are the keys that will unlock the treasure chest for that nation? God really has a mighty harvest for France. Que le Seigneur verse Son Esprit Saint sur la nation!

What's in Season?

A couple of weeks ago, I went out and picked from the hedgerows six pounds weight (about 3 kgs) of blackberries. I noticed that the harvest this year in Cambridgeshire isn't particularly good. I have been blackberrying for three years in various parts of England. In comparison with 2005 and 2006, this year is decidedly poor. It makes one wonder what wildlife will make of it, as they really need wild food, unlike me who can shop in Tesco or Waitrose. Anyway, Nally and I together have got two demi-johns of blackberry wine on the go. There is now a dark, purply liquid frothing away in the containers. It should provide us with 10-12 bottles in a few months' time. My next project in this vein of the free harvest of the hedges, is hawthorn berries. They are currently colouring the bushes with a swatch of blood red, reminiscent (as St Cuthbert had it) of Christ's passion. I understand, from reading C.J.J. Berry (First Steps In Winemaking), that hawthorn berries can be made into wine. You need 2.25 litres of them for a demi-john. So off I go!

Toffee Apples and Send A Cow

On Thursday, I will be taking part in a meeting of Churches Together in Ely (CTiE). My part there is to help with planning our involvement in the Ely Apple Fair (Saturday, 20th October 2007). We have the idea of selling apple-related produce to raise money to support struggling farmers in two-thirds world countries. Send A Cow (SAC) is a charity that exports fruit trees to Ethiopia to encourage agriculture there. We are preparing a stall with information on SAC.

I am particularly (perhaps zanily) enthusiastic about the idea of making a hundred toffee apples in various flavours of toffee to sell, neatly wrapped in cellophane. They've got to be from locally-grown, organic apples. Yesterday, I recruited a Christian brother to help me with this work. I want to reassure him - don't despite the day of small things, this will be worth it - and lots of fun as well.

I reckon that, when the people of Ely see the churches taking positive action about an issue they (Elyans in general) can understand - like helping overseas farmers - they will take more interest in our message than if we do things that mean nothing to them.