Rejoice!  Norman Kember, James Loney and Harmeet Singh have been freed.  Checkout BBC website at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4836218.stm

Checks and balances - the next BBC headline is that 15 were killed by a suicide bomb in Baghdad.

For the joys and for the sorrows, for the best and worst of times, for this we have Jesus. (Kendrick)

We rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn.  We remember the family of Tom Fox and the former captors of the men now freed: all God's children needing our prayers.

OK, so you may be too young, or too cultured, to remember the awful song (by Fiddler's Dram?) I plagiarised for the title, but it seemed fitting for reflecting on the first outing we organised for our PLUS+ Club (senior citizens' mobile lunch club with a plus, referred to by Social Serivces as 'the wrinkly pub crawl club').

A lifetime of organising camps and outings for Girls' Brigade made this an absolute breeze!  We loaded up our 32 seniors from three pick up points and took a slightly scenic route to Denby.  After an hour and half's browsing in the shops, we enjoyed a two-course lunch and then a tour of the craftroom before another three quarters of an hour to spend more money in the shops!  The sun shone (pleasing those whose dodgy theology had allowed them to request it!) and a good time was had by all.

Thinking back over the day, it was a good mission initiative.  We had failed miserably to fill the coach from our club members (more on that in a minute) and had opened the invitation to friends at 'Dibley + 1 mile' Baptist Church, Age Concern and the WI!  This was great as it brought us into to contact with new people and we were able to share with them something of the ethos of PLUS+.  I also had the opportunity to chat to one of the guides in a similar vein.  Nothing heavy, just mentioned that as a church group we wanted to serve our local community and alleviate issues of social isolation among elderly folk.  All good stuff, and maybe a bit of 'seed sowing', who knows?

It was interesting reflecting on which of our members did and did not come on the trip.  We know that in each sheltered complex there is a good programme of social events, outing and holidays and that many of our folk are part of those networks.  But not those who came on the outing to Denby - we had picked up the waifs and strays, those with mild dementia, the gruff, the awkward and the unlovely who aren't part of the 'in crowd' who enjoy a good social life.  They came along, did their own thing and were embraced by the wider group.  This, too, is mission.

We ran at a loss, we came home exhausted but happy.  People were asking when the next trip would be and where to (Dobbies World in June!) and I do believe that a smile was discernible on the face of God.

Didn't we have a loverly time, the day we went to Denby?  A beautiful day, we met God on the way, and all for £15 you know!  On the way back we shared a good chat, and talked about the next trip, finding the Lord in our senior friends as the wheels went round!

Today I had one of those messages on my answer phone where you are asked to call someone back and you know it can only be for one reason.  Rachel had died after struggling with cancer for three years.

I wrestled long and hard about posting - was it too crass, too insensitive, too soon?  Should I use her photo - even though I got it from the web, publicly accessible, available for anyone who typed her name into a Google search? 

Eventually I decided to, and I apologise for any who are offended or affonted by this decision.  While at college, a conversation about tutors evoked the comment from a Methodist student "Everyone loves Rachel."  Perhaps now the world should be told?

Rachel was my personal tutor in my first year of training for ministry.  A vital role, supporting people through the bizzare process of adapting to college and church life after holding responsible positions in secular professions.  Meeting with Rachel was always pleasurable, usually fun, and at times a much needed refuge from college or church life.  Rachel never made you feel small or silly, she never contradicted your views, yet enabled you to see others too.  The one-to-one support and encouragement of students was Rachel's forte, and many benefited from her gentle, loving tutoring.

But Rachel was no plaster saint, she had a mischievous sense of fun and an enviable ability to take off accents.  With a passion for justice and equality, Rachel  inspired similar qualities in many of her students - at the same time as making some of us feel far better about our own housekeeping skills!  A lover of cats and gardens, deeply in love with Africa, a competent pianist, Rachel was a woman of many parts.

The last three years have seen twists and turns in Rachel's health - yet, publicly anyway, she remained cheerful and positive always wanting to hear our news, to encourage us in our ministries, to support us in our doubts and fears.

The only thing Rachel ever nagged me about - and even at that, nagging is far too strong a word - was doing a research degree.  My protests that I already had over 20 letters after my name and really didn't need another set would not shift her sense that it wasn't just for me that I should do this, but for other women.  Always the gentle feminist, Rachel was not going to allow me the selfishness of saying I had done enough.  There is a small sadness that I never got to tell her she'd finally won, and that I did intend, finally, to enrol on a research programme, but maybe, in her way, she knew.

Rachel will be sadly missed by those of us who knew her.  Our lives have been enriched by her.  Some college tutors were known as great teachers, some as fearsome minds, some even as a bit odd, but everbody loved Rachel.  That, I think is as good an epitaph as anyone might hope for. 

And so we let her go to the embrace of God, in quiet gratitude and certain hope.

Today was the second 'date' of our church and the other little one a mile away.  This time they came to us.

It was great to have such a full hall - altogether there were 47 of us.  I know this because our communion trays each hold 24 glasses and there was only one glass left over!  There was a happy atmosphere, and a sense that the two congregations had mingled together quite well too.

The data projector projected, the portable loop looped and the heating heated.  This was good, because there's nothing like being cold or technology failing to cause frayed tempers and disastrous ecclesiastical dates.

On the whole people joined in well - the blend of old and new hymns was appreciated and the involvement of people from each congregation in reading the Bible passages seemd to go down well.  Most people even learned how to make a cross from a sheet of paper using only one tear (or cut) - we got some confetti in the process, but on the whole it worked.  If you need to learn how to do this then I suggest you buy the Across the World pack, as if I tried to explain it here who knows what might happen!

This was the last of our series on mission and took us back to the heart of our faith - the cross of Christ and the imperative to all would-be disicples to take up their crosses.  It's challenging stuff, but allowed us to be reminded that a cross-centred world view is as foreign in our culture as it was in Corinth (a scandal to Jews, a folly to Greeks) as well as recognising that the lives to be 'lost' in order to be found can be corporate as well as individual.

The after service tea and biscuits went well, and now feels like 'part of what we do here.'  Indeed the relief caretaker was pacing the corridors waiting for us to hurry up and finish so he could lock up!  (He was 15 minutes early)

I think it was a good experience and hope that a few more links were grown between our two congregations.  Still a long way to go to discover what God is calling us to, but an enjoyable stopping off point on the way.

This logo is now a common sight.  Wandering around Leicester city centre yesterday it was to be found in coffee shops (which I don't visit in Lent!) and M&S as well in the newly refurbished Just fairtrade shop; almost every supermarket was plugging fairtrade fortnight with a wide range of products.  What a long way things have come in the last few years as fairtrade has moved from the margins to being a major player in the UK marketplace.

In the evening I went with a couple of church folk to a Paul Field concert to mark the end of Fairtrade Fortnight (he is the writer of 'Lord make me a mountain', 'With all my heart I thank you Lord' and 'One of us, flesh and blood').  The audience was not large - perhaps fifty or so, sat cafe style in the Leicester Y theatre for an evening of thoughtful and thought-provoking music, first from support group Imaginary Friend (who had an interesting array of skeleton electronic stringed instruments!) and then Paul - who I now realise I first heard about 25 years ago when he was part of Network 3, the support act at a Cliff Richard concert, a trip arranged by my, then, RE teacher!

I found in some of what Paul said, and sang, echoes of much I hear in singer-songwriters of his age group, and which resonate with my own thoughts and feelings.  He is, he says, no longer concerned to please people, it matters not if the audience is 10 or 10,000, he has things to say about which he feels passionate (and that 'passion' has replaced 'energy' as he's got older) and he's going to say them, right or wrong, popular or not.

And he does!  One of his songs, exploring the relationship between 'church' (worhsip) and the 'real world' actually included a line that went something like 'do they give a sh*t?' (and, for the nice polite folk among us, the vowel was not 'a', 'e', 'o' or 'u').  How far Christian music has moved in 25 years!  And how much more real we have started to become.  OK, so I wouldn't choose to use that expression myself (and would not dare play that song to my congregation!) but they are sentiments I gladly echo.

It would be good for Fairtrade Fortnight to become redundant.  It would also be good if we could all do just a little bit to start giving a thought (much tamer word!) to relating our faith to our lives and our world.  Long live James 2: 26!