SUNDAY/MONDAY

Sunday..........
I went to the 10.30 Service at Emmanuel, Fr Gary's first Sunday.  He is very nice and has a lot of positive qualities, although Fr Clark is missed by the congregation.  The music was particularly good, we had a hymn that Rosalyn had written, and the choir solo was very good. I hope Fr Gary was impressed.

In the afternoon it was session 7 of Rosalyn and Barbara's Nutrition Class, only another two to go.  And in the evening I went to University Baptist.  At the moment they have a Biblical Studies Professor from OBU giving a series of talks on the minor prophets.  It was good to be briefly back in a theology studies environment.

Monday....A group of us from Emmanuel went in the church bus to Temple Israel, a synagogue in Tulsa, where we had lunch and four ministers, from the Methodist, Unitarian, Jewish, and Fr Clark from Emmanuel, each gave a presentation of their religion's sacred texts.  It was good to see Fr Clark again.

Fr. Clark speaking.  It was a lovely synagogue, we were shown round. It was a long journey to Tulsa, not quite 24 hours but I felt we'd gone a long way and must be halfway to Tennessee.

This is a photo from Saturday night's supper at the church hall.  Fr Gary is the bearded guy on the right.

In the news......You might have heard of this on your own news.  There are tens of thousands of protesters rioting at the state capital of Wisconsin over the Governor's budget cuts.  The Unions are also in the mix somewhere, it is a bit over my head as we don't have the union power that is being threatened here - I think Margaret Thatcher saw them off - but they don't have a socialist party here, so their workers don't have the protection - the health care and pensions - which we have, and which are being threatened here.  

It is only a matter of time before these protests and riots spread to other states because they are all teetering on bankruptcy.  Wisconsin has a $3.5billion deficit, and others are as bad.  The US itself will run out of money on March 4th.

This evening, Monday, I am staying overnight at Emmanuel with Sharon.    Emmanuel is hosting the Family Promise programme.  There are two families - two mothers, one with one child and the other with three.  It was difficult leaving Bubbles, especially as I'd been out a large part of the day, but I'll stay in with her tomorrow.