A thought for today

Chinese Whispers

Chinese whispers — or telephone in the United States — is an internationally popular children's game, in which one person whispers a message to the ear of the next person through a line of people until the last player announces the message to the entire group. I believe the game gets its name because what started out making perfect sense often sounds like Chinese by the time it has reached the end of the line.

I introduced this game at the PhD Cafe yesterday  ...  yes, even super-intelligent PhD researchers need moments of utter silliness!!

Our games started with a phrase in Mandarin provided by Chi and we worked our way through the languages of those present  ... Arabic, Lithuanian, Malayalam, Creole, Swahili, French, etc. The multi-cultural aspect of our game made it harder as the phrase passed through so many strong and varied accents.
My favourite round was in Sinhala which started it's whisper journey as the word 'Ayubowan' which is a greeting meaning 'May your life be longer', but it somehow translated in to 'Are you open'.

Garden(ing) Party

Queen Elizabeth II has 'Garden Parties' but having recently moved to a house with a large and rather over grown garden I decided to have a 'Garden(ing) Party'.  
A HUGE THANK YOU to all those who so willingly came along and hacked away at things (despite the plethora or woodlice!!!).  You all did such a sterling job  ...  and here's the proof.

About 9:30pm we 'broke fast' with those students who are in the month of Ramadan. After all the hard work, everyone was ready to eat :-)

How marvellous!!! Thanks everyone!!!

Finsbury Park Mosque

"The freedom to worship without fear is a right we cherish as a nation and was won at great human cost over many years.
The appalling attack on Muslim in Finsbury Park is an attack on us all and on the culture and values of our country.
At a time when we are all grieving the loss of so many precious people in London and Manchester, this brutal attack can only compound the trauma. Violence only begets more violence - it serves only the interests of those who would terrorise others.
This wanton and cruel act can produce no good and cannot be justified or excused. In exactly the same way as previous recent attacks it is a crime against God and against humanity."

Justin Welby

Archbishop of Canterbury

India 2018 Fundraiser

You may or may not know that my church, St Mark's, is sending a team to India in April 2018 to work alongside a number of ministries around Bangalore. 

Yesterday we held another of our fundraising events to bless these ministries. If you weren't here  ...  these are some of the scrumptious cakes you missed out on.

In addition to cake, we held a book and bric-a-brac sale and a car wash.

 

This is me, busy supervising!!

I want to say a huge

to all those who helped set up on Friday evening,

those who baked (in this lovely heat),

and all those who gave of their time and energy

to help the event run sooooooo smoothly!

After selling more cakes at church on Sunday,

we raised a grand total of

£401.91

Bowling Bonanza

An excellent evening of bowling and a great deal at MFA Bowl in Chatham  ...  unlimited games and a bowl of nachos all for £10 (though we were able to subsidise that cost for this event).

Katie  Mariangela  Emi  Gabriela  Maureen

            USA                  Italy                      Romania                   France

Aiste     Acsha  Ahmad    Daria    Pesila

             Lithuania   Mauritius    Egypt            Russia       Mauritius

Cristina Alejandro Raquel Ben  Francesco

                 Spain          Spain               Spain   Australia     Italy

Danilo  Me  Linda  Amira  Lesley  Wayne

                 Italy        UK       Italy          Egypt          UK             UK

(seems we got photo-bombed!!

Leke  Areti    Jon  Arshad  Michel
Kosovo    Cyprus       UK      Mauritius      Egypt

A much better action shot -
especially as I only bowled twice!!

This face says
"Stupid technology
- why has it suddenly
gone to selfie?!"

Grenfell Tower Fire

Our news has been filled with the horror of the devastating fire in the Grenfell Tower block, West London.  At present 17 people have been confirmed dead, but that number is expected to rise. 
Many of the people effected are left with only the night-wear they had on.

‘I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!’

Matthew 25 v.40

Wednesday morning a call was put out through the University of Greenwich all-staff email system and 24 hours later staff at each of our campuses were boxing up the donations of clothing, toilettries, children's toys, etc.

This need will continue  ...  so do look out for further emails and Facebook posts.

Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

Psalm 139 verses 13-16 say this ...

For you formed my inward parts;

you knitted me together in my mother's womb.

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.

My frame was not hidden from you,

when I was being made in secret,

intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes saw my unformed substance;

in your book were written, every one of them,

the days that were formed for me,

when as yet there was none of them.

If, for some reason you don't believe that,  just keep reading ...