Monday, 17th October, 2011
The Cross
A whole group of us trooped over to the building after the service yesterday. The main reason was to deliver the cross that you see in the picture. The cross has been made by a friend of the church - a wonderful Flemish gentleman called Bruno. He and his wife have been visiting the church during the summer holidays for the last couple of years and we've got to know and love them both.Bruno is a carpenter by trade and wanted to make this cross as a gift to the church. The wood came from the Ardennes and was transported over 250km to his workshop before being brought back yesterday. The cross stands nearly three metres tall. You can't see them too clearly in the photo but there are nails in the cross at the places where they would have been on Jesus' cross. Bruno told me that he had used himself as the measure for where to put the nails. It was, for him, a stark reminder of Jesus taking our place.
Alain has been continuing his work at the church over the last couple of weeks. He has finished the plastering all the way round the hall and, honestly, the quality of the work is exceptional. We have to work out how to fill in the bits at either end of the hall that are above the level of the side walls. Asking Alain to do the plastering means hiring in some scaffolding and, above all, making sure that he is safe working at a height. OK, it's not like working on a skyscraper but even a fall from two or three metres can be bad and would be best avoided!
It's very hard to convey in a photo exactly how smooth the walls are. As we were walking round yesterday admiring the work (yes, we were admiring it!) someone pointed out that before starting the plastering in the church Alain had never really done any plastering. As we say here "Chapeau!".
The final photo is a bit off topic. As many other churches are also doing, we are taking part in the Belgian version of Operation Christmas Child. The church kids spent some time last week decorating a whole pile of boxes and we're going to be filling them up and sending them off in the next month or so. Take a look at the website and see if you can get your church (or any other organisation) involved too. It's quite a small thing, but it makes a difference. The kid holding the box is Oliver, my 2nd kid. Jo, kid 3, didn't want me to use his photo...
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