It’s Spring, and time to sort out all the items stored over winter in the greenhouse. Throw this, scrub that, wait – five robin chicks in a moss-lined flowerpot. Stand back and let the parents get on with it. The babies get bigger, their mouths get wider, and soon it is time to leave the nest. Mum and Dad get through the break in the glass, with four of the young ones. But the biggest cannot make it and in the struggle falls, wedged between bits and pieces with its open mouth against the glass.
Seeing Mother trying to feed it through the glass, Free Church Pastor Jim Beveridge, whose greenhouse it is, throws a towel over the trapped chick and carries it to the middle of the lawn where frantic Mother quickly catches up on missed feeds and, more importantly, takes it to a similarly coloured log where it blends in nicely.
There are many people with an invisible barrier between their needs and the provision of those needs, said Pastor Jim at the Squeeze Breakfast Club on 3rd May But Jesus broke all barriers between us and God through His sinless life, His undeserved death, and his miraculous rising to life again. Ask Jesus to smash your wall that prevents you reaching out to God, Pastor Jim advised. To emphasise this, he took a hammer and noisily smashed a pane of glass, (safely wrapped in a plastic bag).
David’s round-up of the strange things that people do, included the man who ran out of petrol on a cold night and lit a fire inside the car. He later told firemen that he put the fire out when the smoke made him dizzy!
It must have been the sight of all those colourful scraps of fabric that drew the Mums to the banner-making table, where they cut and snippd, sewed and glued to make a collage representing the declaration of Jesus “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.” (John’s Gospel, chapter 14, verse 6). This is an ongoing project, certainly for next month’s Squeeze.. The less ambitious were delighted with the ease of producing patterns with stencils, or decorating ready-made biscuits and making lemon-flavoured sweets.
More than three-quarters of the world’s hungry live in rural Africa, according to the UK Food Group. A picture presentation on their behalf during the Breakfast Club focused on two examples; smallholders in Ghana, growing and processing tomatoes, and small milk producers in Zambia, who sell their produce locally. Their livelihoods are under threat from the increase in Economic Partnership Agreements with the European Union, opening 80% of their markets to subsidised imports. Question your Euro MP’s attitude when he or she calls for your vote, advises Laurence.