Diary w/e 31 Mar 18

Sun 25 Mar

Christ Roberts adult Sunday School on Christ's resurrection means glorification. Morning service highlight was the baptism of an Afghan convert. I love to see a Mohammed being baptised. That is a special thrill. He is a penniless asylum seeker twice refused leave to stay so surviving on friends' charity. Often such men, for they are men not women, are employed for a pittance in the black economy - restaurants etc. Our dinner guests were Zimbabwean and Singapore Chinese British. This couple came to us after an internet search for Presbyterian so I am vindicated in my insistence she years ago that our name should be IPC not West Ealing Community Church or some such. The English may not know what the P means but other nations do.
   In the evening my Bulgarian friend Hristo was my driver to Harmondsworth Immigration Removal Centre. This is my seventh year of regular preaching there but due to health problems I had not been for nine months. Lively as ever. I preached Mark's account of the triumphal entry. My captive audience were from Nigeria, Ghana, Namibia, Tanzania,South Africa, Jamaica, India, Brazil, Colombia and Poland. How someone from an EU country is detained I know not. One never asks. I love preaching with audience participation. Rhetorical questions do not go unanswered. I was pleasantly surprised to find no-one there had heard me preach before so all the men had been detained there less than nine months.

Mon 26 Mar

3Km walk today, my first with a Staffordshire Bull Terrier. Lovely quiet dog .. but then we met no canines. I am told that Max (Named after the Roman emperor) hates dogs but like people. Quite the converse of so many people who love dogs but hate people. I like both. But not cats.282 and E5 there, 105 back. Interesting conversation with my first ever erudite and thinking Sikh. Met a lady from Dominican Republic speaking broken French. Never heard of it. Like pidgin English?
Sold our ladies wardrobe and dressing table to a Tamil man who will pick them up when my ladies have assembled the IKEA replacements.
Last two weeks 19 and 24 Km walked.

Tue 27 Mar

Chris Roberts on Thomas and the resurrection at Ealing lunchtime talks. Pastoral visit then an hour to drive to here for a cardiology nurse appointment. All well.
40 minutes wait at 6:30 for an E7 and 30 for an E10 returning from Ealing Tweetup. Not a happy evening.

Wed 28 Mar

2Km round Marnham Fields, the nearest open space. A dump for London's rubbish until 1932 when purchased by the council and later given a lot of deciduous planting.

Thu 29 Mar

Full house of eleven elders at early prayer.
4Km Sutherland Road to Blakesley Avenue to Drayton Green then E11 and E10 home. Then lunch in Ruislip.

Good Friday 30 Mar

Good Friday service - five Presbyterian churches together at out Ilford church. About 200 of us packed the hall. Very wet and slow driving back. A very wet walk in Marnham Fields. Surprised there is no gate on the south side at all.

Sat 31 Mar 

I could spend nearly £40 to see Leeds at Craven Cottage on Tuesday but why risk my brass to get miserable?
Easter Saturday lunch Cooking my signature tandoori chicken for 11/15 of the family - three generations ages 7 to 71.