Ducklings & Lambs!

We are still enjoying Springtime (with the exception of some extreme attacks of hay-fever) and are now enjoying the added excitement of newborn lambs and ducklings. How could a town named Ducklington not have ducklings? Yesterday was their first appearance in the village pond and we enjoyed watching their proud, little Mum attempt to keep them close to her. No doubt, many more will hatch out soon and the pond will be filled with these little guys.

Life in the UK continues to intrigue us, but as we have written in earlier posts, ministry has become much busier. We participated in all of the activities of Passion Week which ended in the silent March of Witness to the Market Square in Witney. We walked in silence behind a young man holding a very large cross high in the air. The only sound was the solemn beating of a drum. It was a though the whole town stood still for those moments. This is a yearly observance that has taken place in Witney for generations.

Once in Market Square, we enjoyed a wonderful worship service led by a praise band from one of the Community Churches followed by several Scripture readings by pastors of various other churches and a message by the pastor of the Congregational Church. Almost all of the churches in Witney were involved in this very evangelist service which drew about 200 people to the square. We found the reactions by the people on the street to be quite interesting. Some stopped and stood in silence as we walked up the High Street from the large Methodist Church to the Market Square. Some came out of the stores they were shopping in to see what was going on. Some continued walking along the sidewalks trying not to long at us. Some giggled and tried to act as though they didn’t see us.

One of our elderly church members has been in the hospital in Oxford for the past 5 weeks and we have managed to make 3 trips to see him. The first 2 weeks we drove our car (which can be an exciting experience in Oxford!), but this past week we decided to take the bus from Witney. The bus instantly became our favorite mode of transportation as we sat on the top deck and enjoyed the intense green of the English countryside. Another couple from the church, Bill and Lynette Nichols, asked if they could go with us and we were thrilled to have them since they are seasoned bus travelers as well as being quite familiar with Oxford. We have enjoyed 2 other day trips to Oxford since we’ve been in the UK, but being there with Bill and Lynette was not only informative but lots of fun and very entertaining as well. They are a delight!


Bill & Lynnetta at the Radcliffe Camera which houses 600,000 volumes of the University of Oxford Library

We are still amazed at the things we are learning about the roots of Christianity as we know it today. The city of Oxford was at the center of the English Reformation and one of the most solemn experiences we have had was walking around University Church of St. Mary the Virgin where Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury (and author of the Common Book of Prayer), was tried for treason under Queen Mary I (Bloody Mary) because he would not recant his decision to become an Reformist. He was rushed from St. Mary’s to Broad Street where the fire was already waiting for him. That was in 1556. Just a year before, two of his friends, Catholic bishops turned Reformists, were also burned at the stake in the same place – Nicholas Ridley and Hugh Latimer. Latimer was reported to have said to Ridley as they were tied back to back at the stake and the fire was lit, “Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man; we shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out.” Those words came true as the fires burned over 300 martyrs on English soil during Mary’s reign. She hated the Reformers and would stop at nothing to put a stop to their cause. But, in the end, Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer’s love for God’s Word and their faith in the ability of Spirit-filled common folk to read it prevailed.

Both of us were struck by the busyness and bustle of the city of Oxford as people walked back and forth across Broad Street over a silent grouping of stones laid in the shape of a cross in the middle of the street that now mark the spot of those executions. The cost of following Christ has been great down through the years, but last Friday, walking from St. Mary’s to Broad Street and then standing there in that spot seemed to make it a bit more of a reality to us. It makes the work we are doing here even more serious to us. The Christian faith has experienced great turmoil on this soil and today is no different. Our co-workers at Henley-in-Arden told us of a Lent service they attended where the speaker actually told his audience that there were many important “gospels.” The most important one today is the “gospel of Global Warming.” Oh, really?! Shocking, isn’t it? How many ways can man find to take the focus off of Christ and put it on something as ridiculous as social agendas or environmental concerns? So, we are more and more convinced that the greatest need in churches in the UK is solid, expository teaching from passionate preachers. After all, isn’t that what the above mentioned men gave their lives for? It seems counter-productive to draw people into churches where rubbish is preached. Therefore, Dennis is beginning a series on Progressive Sanctification that will probably continue until we return to Texas.

The people of Ducklington Baptist are sensing how vital their relationships with one another are going to be if this little church is going to grow. It is vital that those around us in the village see how desperately we love one another. We definitely sense that progress is being made in our relationships at both the Mums and Dads and Tots days. We are planning an all-family picnic on May 3 which is a bank holiday here. Dennis will grill some hot dogs and we are going to organize some fun (AWANA) games for the little ones.

(Oh, by the way, speaking of AWANA . . . we were invited to attend a Good Friday service at a Baptist in the small village of Arlington about 15 miles from here. It is only about 5 miles from Fairford Air Force Base which is where some of our US troops are stationed if they are in the UK. There has been an AWANA program on that base for some time and the pastor’s children at Arlington have been attending there. The American couple who runs that program are soon to return to the U.S., so they are going to move the AWANA program to Arlington Baptist so that the pastor and his wife can take over the leadership of it. It will be the first ever AWANA program to be run by a British church. We have been invited to go over and help with the kick-off night in May. We will plan to incorporate some of those great Cubbies and Sparks games into our
Tots Picnic in a few weeks.)

So, we continue to be thankful for all of you who faithfully cover us with your prayers. God is certainly at work here . . . but not in the way we thought He would. The church has selected the AIPM couple who will replace us. Their bios are quite impressive and they have done missionary work in the UK previously, so you can begin praying for Bryan and Paula Brewer as they prepared to leave their home in Illinois for 6 months to come and minister here in Ducklington.

We love you and miss you all.