So, yesterday morning I walked into church to the sound of rushing water - and discovered icy torrents cascading down the concrete stairway adjacent to my office.  Suffice to say I breathed a very large sigh of relief when I discovered my office was dry and flood-free.  It was all hands on deck to locate stop valves, place buckets under the main flow and await the arrival of the plumber to isolate the mains supply outside.  A day later and the plumber is due to arrive any time to try to attempt a more permanent cure...

More happily my shiny new toy arrived - I had promised myself a laptop with the money I was given in various leaving gifts from my old place, plus a cople of fees for 'ocassional offices'.  It is sparkly and lovely and once I've finally managed to get it to talk properly to my ADSL modem all will be well (I suspect the issue is in how I set up the modem originally rather than the laptop but my computer nous is very limited...).  My trusty old desktop (complete with much laughed at 15" CRT monitor!) will continue to serve at church for the foreseeable future, so all is well in all sorts of ways.

Today, having to drink coffee from the coffee shop (and take avantage of their facilities as there are none at church...) and catch up on what didn't get done yesterday is keeping me from too much mischief.

All of this gains a lot of perspective when the news comes in of the Haitian earthquake.  What matter that running water (of the usable variety) is over the road and not in the building where I work?  What matter that I can or cannot connect my new toy to what a friend once wonderfully called the 'inter-web-thingy'?  Life and death continue all around us and inconveniences are reduced to their proper size.

Last Sunday we sang an old children's song 'remember all the people who live in far off lands' as a connection to the idea of folk who serve God overseas, especially in this case through TLM.  The final verse says 'God bless the men and women who serve him overseas,' and this seems an apposite prayer for today, as emergency response teams travel and arrive in a land torn apart by seismic disaster to bring hope and help in whatever way they can.

PS anyone who is thinking 'well, hey that's just you and buildings....' just recognise the hand of God in calling the right girl for the role!!