This morning we have our interactive children's vigil with a brilliant script written by one of our folk.

There are at least two different  three-hour vigil services i could go to, and I ought to go the evening one, as it's being hosted by a church new to the whole idea of shared Holy Week worship.  I have a 'problem' with Good Friday evening services... Jesus is dead folk, dead and buried, the discpiles have fled... A Tenebrae could be very effective, but woe betide anyone who takes us back before the death or, worse, tries to pre-empt Sunday!

Enter the pain and bewilderment if you can.  Spare a thought for all those who today will weep for lost loved ones, or who will be recipients of bad news.  Don't rush to resurrection - it needs the empty, aching void of waiting if it is to be real.

Adults

For the first time since poverty trends began to be monitored, the number of people living in extreme poverty has fallen in every developing region.

Give thanks and praise for the progress that is being made on ending poverty, an for everyone who is
involved in this effort (that includes you!).

Rejoicing tempered with reality I think... it is indeed excellent news that the number of people living in extreme poverty is reducing, but what about those in less extreme poverty?  As the news reports the latest Eurozone crisis, and as some UK banks continue to need government bail outs, as more high street businesses go under, it is clear that all is not what it might be.

There has been plenty in the news about changes to benefits, concerns over defence spending, collapses of businesses in the retail sector and so on.  Outside of the IF Campaign there has been almost no mention of the government agreeing to maintain its commitment to overseas aid.  The UK government gets criticised a lot (and I suspect more up here than further south) but it/they have an impossible task to perform.  If I understand correctly, the UK is the only nation still committed to giving 0.7% to overseas aid... so that is something we should be pleased about, whatever our political or personal views.

Thank you God

For all efforts to respond to the complex challenges of poverty and its consequences

Locally, nationally and internationally

Help us never to forget that whatever we do, or fail to do, for the least of these

We do, or fail to do, for you

Amen.

My pledge

Today - one prayer

Total - £43.80, nine prayers, some thoughts and one e-petition signed

No lunch time service of reflection today, instead we will be holding an evening communion-cum-Tenebrae, a service of shadows, in which increasing darkness symbolises the night of Jesus' betrayal in Gethsemane.  I love the growing intensity of the week, in which we are carried inexorably towards the cross, swept along on a tide of events and emotions until we stand, speechless and powerless at the Place of the Skull.

Lots to do twixt now and then, but it is a privlege to be entrusted with this service.

Adults

Worldwide, around 215 million children work, many full-time.

Give 10p for each child in your family who has time to play.

OK, This week I am having an every increasing sense of deja vue - each time I read the challenge, I think "I've done that one already, haven't I?".  Oh dear, am I turning into Theresa of Avila with an amazing forgetory?  Or can I just blame it on long-term chemo-brain?!  A not terribly thorough back track through posts, and a google search suggest that I haven't already done this one, so either I am becoming prescient or losing the plot totally (or both!!).  Maybe I need a bit more time to play myself?!

Anyhow, children in my family with time to play - that'd be all the under eighteens, so three nieces, two nephews plus one great niece... making a total of six.

My pledge

Today - 60p

Total - Total - £43.80, eight prayers, some thoughts and one e-petition signed

Today's lunchtime reflection moved us on again in Luke, with extracts from Luke 21 and the heading 'Signs of the Times'.  Another well attended gathering and some thoughtful and thought provoking reflections.

On the grounds that I was exhausted, I ducked out of the evening service tonight, spending time instead preparing various bits of props for Sunday.  Let's just say cat food trays, tissues, barbecue skewers and egg shells (sterilised) will feature in some way on Sunday morning.  Now I'm just waiting for my glass tealight holders to finish being dish-washed and I'll be as ready as I'll ever be for tomorrow's Tenebrae.

An early night is called for methinks!