Thought for the week from the Rev Peter Willox, Vicar, St. John’s Church, Ben Rhydding

THE last few weeks certainly seem to have had quite an international feel what with the Tour de France coming through our area, Wimbledon and the World Cup on our televisions and the various conversations I’ve had with people who are planning to travel abroad for their summer holiday.

However, the most significant internationally linked event for me was the concert I attended by Saturday evening at our church, where the Ben Rhydding Community Choir sang, alongside members of the Ashlands Primary School Choir, in aid of our link with the Revival Centre in Matugga, Uganda. It was a really wonderful occasion, both choirs singing exceptionally well, obviously really enjoying what they were doing. The church was absolutely packed and we raised about £1200 just through ticket sales. In between the songs we heard a bit about the Revival Centre and its work with some of the poorest and most vulnerable children in that area. We also heard about the groups of young people and adults who have gone out from our community to share in and experience the work over there. I was very struck by the short interviews with some young people who had travelled over to Matugga. Their stay in that foreign culture had helped them reflect on how much we have here and how much we take the granted. However, it was the richness of the welcome and hospitality that they had received even from these very poor people that had meant most to them, alongside the humbling realisation of exactly how much our care and support for them really meant to them.

I’ve been very saddened by the cynical atmosphere that has been around our political life in recent months: a cynicism about our relationship with Europe, about the nature of our United Kingdom, about those who come into our country to work, about those from different cultures perhaps not adapting to Britain in the way people would want.

Sitting in St John’s Church, listening to songs from different cultures and raising money for those children so very far away I was reminded that all is not cynical and that there is a great deal of goodwill out there towards people who’re different, and my heart was warmed towards those around me and those far away.

My sadness of the last few months about the state of things must be a bit like how God feels when he sees his children, you and me, turn against each other and away from him. However on Saturday night I was given a profound sense of the joy he must feel when people turn towards each other with love and care in their hearts. I know which feeling I prefer.