What a party!

What a fantastic afternoon we had yesterday. As I mentioned on Wednesday, a group of us from the church helped out at the Residents Association Christmas Party for the elderly.

It was one of those events that you never know how it will go. It was organised by the team, they had hired a singer from Bristol and had invited us to partner with them. An event that draws together people from different avenues can be tricky, but this one was not. There was good hearted banter as we set up for the event; the singer was excellent and really worked with the crowd of around 40 that had gathered; and the team from RFC were outstanding in doing everything and anything that was needed as well as chatting to the guests.

Highlights included Andrew using his charm to help the guests feel at ease so he could take their photos; Hannah dancing with one of the ladies towards the end in a jive type dance; seeing Sam do what she is great at i.e. making people feel welcome and loved; Kay was a hero in the kitchen helping Barbara (one of the residents association) to make sure there was a flow of tea and coffee, mulled wine and juice; Joseph, Gary and Tom all served brilliantly on the tables and made sure that everyone had what they wanted; Tim Rooke bringing in a couple of his young people to give out presents.

However the biggest buzz was probably seeing a majority of the guests smiling and dancing at the end as we had some rockier songs sung by the singer. To me this said that the event had been a great success. Maggie, who had done a lot of the organising was thrilled with how everything had gone.

I returned home at about 6pm on a complete high, knowing the presence of the Holy Spirit. I know that being out in the community was great for all of us who went and the guests were greatly impressed with the people from our church who served. We may not have preached the gospel, but I do believe we loved with the love of Jesus and that we will have more opportunities to do so with this particular group.