Sunday, December 26, 2010

And to Boxing Day

Went to Zac's at lunchtime where the faithful who had prepared dinner yesterday also catered with fry-up and leftovers today. They are very generous souls who give up their Christmas lunchtimes to feed the homeless and those who don't have anywhere to go. Not a huge crowd yesterday apparently but those who were here needed to be so it was well worthwhile. Similarly not that many turned up today - although maybe word got out that I was in charge of the bubble and squeak ...

The best thing about it though was that I saw Glenn and his son, Isaac, over from Australia. Glenn and Ros and their family lived here for a couple of years but then went home two and a half years ago and started a Melbourne Zac's Place in a church foyer - and have just acquired premises outside Melbourne as a proper base for Zac's.

Glenn was telling me that one of the things he learned while he was over here that when someone gives up drugs and gets clean but then relapses and maybe ends up in prison, he/it shouldn't be regarded as a failure to be given up on. Rather it's a mistake, another end and another beginning.

He and Ros are a fab couple and I hope and pray that Zac's Place in Yass will be a huge success story, changing many lives - and I know it will be. (You may recall a story I related about Glenn when he washed the feet of a homeless woman.)

Since coming home I've watched the final part of The Nativity, the BBC 4-part adaptation, which was excellent. The final scenes were amazing (even if biblically inaccurate) with the sense of awe they created, and brought home to me the wonder of God in human form.

And from the sublime ... Younger Son and I played BeatleHero, which is like GuitarHero but using Beatle songs. I aced the vocals, scoring 100% nearly every time! (On Easy level and choosing easy songs but nevertheless ...)

And now I'm going to carry on with my Christmas jigsaw. I have to admit that I am getting emotionally involved with the characters in the scene. I have labelled them Young Master, Little Lord, Nanny, Brave Urchin, Ragged Child and so on. The poor little waifs with their noses pressed against the toy shop window while the Little Lord is pushed along in his perambulator by his starchy Nanny. Life is so unfair!

2 comments:

Glenn said...

It was great being able to share some Christmas with you all at Zac's. One thing but we are from Canberra not Melbourne. John Smith, Concern Australia and all the God's Squad crew in Collingwood have Melbourne sorted.

Liz Hinds said...

oops! I get my Australian cities confused!