New beginnings

Today was very exciting because we had a service of dedication for our new church premises. (You will have to forgive me if I repeat myself here, but I can never remember whether I have said something on the phone, by e-mail, on Facebook or on my blog). Anyway, our little church group has been meeting in a bar restaurant for a year now, ever since it started just before I joined. A church in Mazzaron, further along the coast towards Murcia, decided to run an Alpha course in Huércal-Overa, and when it finished, the people wanted to go on meeting regularly, so the church was born. Like the one at Mazzaron, we are part of the Victory Church group, whose main vision is church planting. They now have churches in over 40 countries. We are led by Trevor and Sue Miles who are both trained pastors. We still have regular joint meetings with Mazzaron, and visiting preachers from there, but in the main we are self-contained now. Each Sunday there are around thirty of us, all fairly aging of course, and our numbers fluctuate depending on who has visitors, and who is visiting UK. We are all English except Mateo who is Spanish, and he plays the keyboard. He is a professional musician, and he is gradually learning our English hymns from Trevor's CDs. He plays them by ear, and reads them without understanding all the words, but his English has improved massively since he has been with us. He has an English wife who teaches Spanish and they only speak Spanish at home. They are a lovely couple and a real asset for our time of worship. We have known for some time that we need to have our own premises so that we can hold a mid-week Bible study, and other events for the wider community, but it has not been easy to find anything suitable. However, just before Christmas we heard of a hairdresser who was about to close her business, and when Trevor went to look at it, it seemed to fit our needs perfectly. He had to work fast to secure a lease on it, as some restaurant owners also had their eye on it, but with the help of Mateo's wife as an interpreter, and an agent who was sympathetic to our cause, we were successful. So for the past few months we have been busy fundraising, and making plans, so when the hairdresser moved out last Wednesday, we were ready to move in! A small group of our menfolk did some DIY, fixing lights, replacing floor tiles where a counter had been, removing a sink, and other such tasks, while a group of us ladies scraped beauty product posters off the wall, cleaned mirrors, scoured the kitchen area and swept and mopped the floors. We had sufficient funds to order 60 good quality, comfortable chairs from England and 'Jimbo the Scot', (the man who moved our furniture over here for us who just happens to live next door to the Palms where we have been holding our services), transported them back here free of charge, and they arrived on Thursday afternoon, along with five big, folding tables. Then a friend of Trevors, who is an electrician and computer buff, came and fixed our projector in the ceiling and ran the cables above the ceiling tiles, so we don't have to keep taping them to the floor any more, and he set it all up so we can project from a laptop onto the screen. We then found a home for a wooden cross made by a man from our group, hung curtains that another church member had made, and had a few trial runs at arranging the chairs. Then we called it a day as we were all very tired. On Friday, just a small goup of half a dozen or so, went back there. The new floor tiles were dry so we swept and mopped through again, set up a table across the entrance to the kitchen ready for teas, and set out the chairs for todays service. We needed all sixty of ours plus twenty or so borrowed from the cafe next door, but we managed to get them all in. As well as the main room and kitchen, we have two toilets and a small room which will be a quiet room, but which, for today, became the place to set out all the food for a buffet tea after the service. So we put up a block of the other four tables and spread white cloths on them so everything was ready. At the last minute a man arrived to put up the sign above the door. It has a real 'church feel' to it now, and it is lovely. Today we got there early so we could put out all the food as it arrived - contributions from all our members. The tables were groaning under the load and it all looked lovely, and almost every bit was eaten! There were just a few cakes left that we will finish up with our coffee after the service tomorrow morning. The service today was wonderful. The room was full, with all the chairs taken and a few people standing at the back. Trevor led it and Sue worked the computer for today. The message was given by the International director of Victory Churches, who has a church in Rugely, and the dedication of the building was led by pastor Andrew from the Mazzaron church. Another man from there sang a beautiful solo called 'Watch the Lamb'. It was very long and it told the story of Simon of Syrene taking his sons to the passover and being ordered to carry the cross for Jesus. I think nearly everyone was in tears at the end of it. We had a good time of fellowship afterwards while we enjoyed a lovely buffet, and then we had a big group photo taken outside. Another lady from the congregation made a beautiful celebration cake which was cut at the end of the service and shared out with our tea. We are lucky to have so many talented people among our membership.There were plenty of helpers so we soon had it all cleared away and ready for our first service there tomorrow. Let's hope we go from strength to strength.

I will add a few more photos on my gallery (along with the Good Friday ones that I haven't had time to do yet!)

Does my head look tiny in this??

Poor Chico is not making much improvement since his accident. His foot is still 'dead' and floppy and he drags it around whenever he walks. We are struggling to keep any form of bandage on it. He was good with the splint for a day or two, but once he got his teeth into it, he wouldn't leave it alone, and in the end we had to take it off because the sharp corners were dangerous. We go back to the vet twice a week for a vitamin B injection and to have his foot dressed again, but she is running out of ideas too. The yellow bandage on the original splint was a special 'No-chew' one, but he took it off in the end. When she ran out of that she used a strong red sticky bandage but he liked the taste of that one!! He also chewed at the soft dressing at the tip of the splint, and then he wouldn't stop licking between his toes, so they got very red and sore, and infected. Last night I had to cut what remained of his splint, off, because his foot was swollen and it made the bandage too tight. We weren't due to go to the vet until tomorrow but we took him this morning and she decided not to renew the splint. Instead she did a big soft dressing over his entire foot, and used lots of strong sticky tape to cover it. Without the protection of the hard plastic splint, this would soon wear through if he dragged it around outside, so we have kept him indoors for most of the day. The vet covered it with some 'Bitter paste' and she was a bit non-plussed when he started to lick it off in the surgery! She said she tasted it once and it is really horrible. In desperation we also paid a deposit to borrow a new soft, wide collar, which you can see him modelling here. As you can see, he is not impressed, and it is so soft and flexible, I am not sure it would be a lot of use if he decided to really have a go at his foot again. So we have taken it off again for now, as we would like to get our deposit back on it, before he chews that up too! Anyway, he seems to have decided that the paste doesn't really taste very nice so he has not licked it again today. He is a bit subdued now. I think the bandage is big and cumbersome for him, but he'll have to put up with it for a while. We'll see whether it is still intact in the morning! I am not sure how long we will go on like this for. She said to give it a month to see whether it would regenerate, but that doesn't look very likely to happen.

I have completed another lace project. These little squares all look fairly similar, but they do all use different 'stitches', and I am learning to combine them in different ways. Ignor all the threads at the corner. It isn't a tassel; I just haven't has time to sew them all in yet! Pam told me where to find a shop that sells proper thread for bobbin lace, and I used it for this piece. It was much better to use, and being very slightly finer, it shows up the detail of the pattern better. I am now just starting another two-colour square, with yet another different variation on the twists and weave. They get harder each time, but I am beginning to understand how it all works, so I can put my own mistakes right when I need to. Hopefully I will be ready to start on a bigger project soon.

Easter came and went quite quickly. It was a little disappointing as we had been expecting JIm, Jo and the children to arrive yesterday, but technical problems to do with Jim's change of name, meant that his passport was still not ready in time. They now hope to come in June. Santa Semana, or Holy Week, is taken very seriously out here. Their main celebrations run from Thursday to Sunday, and Monday is back to normal. The shops were mostly closed on Maundy Thursday, and all of them were on Good Friday, so I had to do my big monthly shop on Saturday and it was very busy, (by Spanish standards anyway). Good Friday was clear and sunny so I decided to go to the mid-day parade in Garrucha, just down on the coast. We had visitors last year and we took them to the one at Turre, but the Garrucha one was much more formal and solemn. There were three large 'tronos', carrying a statue of Jesus carrying the cross, Saint Joan, and Mary. (The village church is the church of San Joaquin or St. Joan). The penitents who carried the tronos were all dressed in black and white. Many of the girls went bare foot all the way (2½ hours in the sun, over hot asphalt roads and cobbles), and some men wore dark glasses or were blindfolded. The tronos were very beautiful with huge banks of flowers, and big candles. Each one is the responsibility of a separate brotherhood, and each brotherhood had it's own band which marched behind them. The music and noise is indescribable. One band all had a smart black uniform with gold braid trim, and there was one little boy of about three or four who had the full uniform on and he marched the whole way, presumably with his dad, playing on a little trumpet. He was lovely. Between the brotherhoods there were women walking who wore black dresses and the high mantilla draped in black lace, pinned up with a diamond studded cross. They were very impressive. The whole procession left the little church on the hill, and slowly wound its way down to the main road. Then it went through the shops, and down to the sea front, along the prom and stopped at the entrance to the port. As Garrucha is a fishing village the port is central to all their activities. Here, all three tronos lined up side by side, and one by one they were lifted up high in the air. They are very heavy. The one with Mary on had nineteen men along each side as well as extras in the middle back and front, and an English man whose friend was one of the bearers, told me that there has to be an average weight of 75kilos for each bearer, and if necessary they add extra weights to make it up to this! It was a really hot day and some of the men were struggling to make it back up to the church again. When all three tronos were outside the church, a man gave a short impassioned speech. I couldn't understand much of it, but I couldn't hear him properly. Then the tronos were manoevered round and backed into the church through the large wooden doors at the side. The church had recently been refurbished, and on a sign outside it said, 'Construction of a house for the royal and ancient brotherhoods of our father Jesus the Nazarene, and Saint Mary of Sorrows.' Although I am unsure about all the extravagant statues which come close to idolatry, it was a very moving and solemn occasion. I didn't go to an Easter Sunday procession this year as I went to a very nice service at my own church. I will put a few pictures of the Good Friday parade on here, and some more in a folder on my gallery. Feel free to take a look.