Last week I spent a fair bit of time going on about our financial struggles as a church, we made it to the end of the month but only just! A few days ago we received some funds from Vital and Ketly who received it from churches in the USA, So God is good and we now have enough to cover the november and december wages! So the pressure is off at least for a couple of months! Here it is the end of the school year in a week or so and that includes Christmas bonuses and double wages for the holiday months etc, so it was looking hairy  but God has been faithful! On a personal front I have been struggling with matters of the heart(I am not going to go into details! not here anyway!), but it has been a struggle discerning what is the right thing to do etc! I feel much more at peace and friends via email and facebook have been a real blessing (you know who you are!). I have felt upheld by the prayers of family and friends, in the words of Bruce Cockburn, sometimes the only thing that keeps us from falling is the prayers of strangers, or in my case the prayers of friends! My daily times of meditation and reflection on the word have been a lifeline with many psalms giving me words of consolation, especially Psalms 119(not all of it!), 40 and 27. Songs on my ipod have helped too, Bruce Cockburn functioning like David playing his harp to Saul to chase away his demons and Martyn Joseph’s, have an angel walk with her and Negative Vibes by Damien Dempsey : “Lord, won’t you give me the strength to be strong and to be true for when the devil gets into my head I feel so blue.”  What else have I been up  to apart from wrestling with angels and demons? My sermon on Sunday was a bit too intellectual  and I confused a few folk I think! I was preaching on Romans 8:18-27, on hope and how our hope is for the liberation and transformation of the whole creation, a new heaven and a new earth. It clashed with some people’s view of heaven and eternity, but clashes are good every now and then especially when they make people think! It is all N.T.Wright’s fault! But then again not many of them will have read the bishop of Durham! But preaching isn’t always about having nice warm feelings(I have had a few of them recently which were nice!) and sometimes the word can leave us with more questions than answers! I had a nice chat with Ricardo, one of the church members and he seemed to appreciate my sermon and acted like clarence the angel in It’s a wonderful life showing me how my presence here has and is making a difference in resolving conflict, supplying funds etc (if you haven’t seen the film, watch it, especially with christmas coming up, George (played by Jimmy Stewart) is feeling depressed and suicidal on a bridge and Clarence an old fat angel turns up and shows him what life in his town would have been life without him, if you haven’t seen it, you should!). In the after school programme my three little “angels” have been not too bad and even getting on with their homework and times tables, so feeling better equipped to deal with their unruly behaviour! Daniel sent me a couple of DVDs from the states (he was the music teacher who was here a few months back), we watched kung fu panda in spanish and then in english and it was a source of some much needed laughter! We have wall-e to look forward to later! Pastorally Maryorie one of our new mums (we have a few!) is feeling much better and less anxious and her daughter is doing well so that is encouraging as she was in a bad way at one point. Last night I watched the last game int he world series, the yankees beat the phillies 4-2 in the series, my side lost as I would support anyone aganist the yankees(the evil empire), being a red sox fan, we have a pathological hatred of the yankees (think Rangers v Celtic, Hibs v Hearts, Arsenal v Spurs etc).  It ain’t fitba but it is the next best thing! We had a bit of a storm last night, big hurricane warnings, but in the end just lots of rain (been sweeping my flooded balcony out this morning), all the schools were closed as a precaution so no kids today, hooray! My olds will be here in 12 days (no counting, honest ) so that is a cause of joyful anticipation and puts a spring in my step as I wake up in the mornings! I am going to do the same as last week and keep it a wee bit shorter as I was beginning to try your patience with my long sermons! Go well and don’t worry too much about me, I’m OK, well as OK as I ever am! Love Stu x