Three Magic Moments in Holy Week

A few weeks ago, before the clocks changed for Spring, I arrived at my daughter’s house one evening to babysit.  I stepped into the dark porch, and was startled by a strange noise from a box on top of the fridge.  A beady orange eye stared down at me, and another nervous ‘cluck’ told me it was the black and white speckled bantum.  Her five feathered companions had been killed in a night-raid by a fox, and she needed a high, safe place to recover from the trauma.
And recover she did! In Holy week, she produced an egg.  My granddaughter watched her lay it; she ran in from the garden, clutching it carefully in her hot hand, and placed it, still warm, into my open palm saying ‘Nanny, Dotty’s  alright again!  She’s laid an egg and you can have it!’

On Easter Saturday, we went to visit my Mum in the Care Home with cards and daffodils.  She is nearly 95, and suffering from dementia, but she’s always full of praise. She sleeps a lot now.  She was in the big sitting room when we arrived, snoozing in her chair.  I woke her gently and she opened her eyes and smiled and told me I was SO beautiful! It made me cry.
Whenever I ask how she is, she always says ‘Oh, I’m fine, thank you,’ and never complains.  When it’s time for us to leave, and she feels a bit sad, she sings! Usually, it’s ‘For the beauty of the earth,’ but today, perhaps because she held a card in her hand, she sang ‘Away in a manger.’ The old lady beside her joined in, then, one by one, everyone stopped staring at the television and started singing! Even their visitors joined in; the girl pushing the tea trolley joined in; two staff in the kitchen stopped washing up, and leaned through the hatch in delight as the song echoed down the corridor where the very sick patients lay in their beds.  Everyone knew the words;
‘Be near me, Lord Jesus, I ask thee to stay close by me for ever, and love me I pray.  Bless all the dear children in thy tender care, and fit us for Heaven, to live with thee there.’

On Easter Sunday, the service was in the Village Hall in Upchurch.  The car park was full to overflowing.  Crowds of people were arriving, greeting each other.  Smiling children wished me ‘Happy Easter!’ and gave me a service sheet.  The Hall was full of whole families.  It’s good to see three generations worshipping together.  Four young men, ranged in age between teens and thirties, were baptised by immersion in a pool on the lawn.  They spoke about the changes God had made in their lives since He filled them with the Holy Spirit.  We took bread and wine together, Fathers with babies, mothers and children standing or kneeling together beside Great Grandma in her wheelchair.  ‘This is my body, given for you…’  We sang ‘Glorious’ and ‘Jesus Christ is Risen Today’, and children decked a life- sized cross with daffodils. There was joy in the Village Hall that day, and outside, all the birds were singing.

The Cry

The wind funnelled through Roman Square between Sainsbury’s car park and the High Street creating little swirls of litter and dry leaves ahead of me.  A thin girl of about sixteen, with bare arms, sat on a low wall.  Her face looked older than her frame, and there were dark shadows round her eyes.  She was arguing with someone on her mobile phone.  A child, too big to be strapped so tightly into his push chair, was crying with boredom and frustration.  ‘Shut up!’ she suddenly yelled at him; ‘Shut up!  Go asleep!’  She threw a blanket over his face and carried on with her argument.

They were still there when I returned half an hour later – still absorbed in her phone call, the child kicking her with rage, and struggling to get out.  He gave an empty, aching cry as I passed by.  I felt his cry in my womb – in that place deep within, from which the maternal instinct leaps to protect its’ young.  It was a cry of starvation.  His eyes hungered for his mother’s face, but she didn’t even glance towards him and I had the feeling that the phone was her ‘Tardis’ – a means of instant transportation away from reality – away from him.
His cry reverberates in the world around us – ‘LISTEN to me!  See me!  Engage with me!’ We have the technology at our fingertips to communicate with people on the other side of the world, or even in outer space, but are losing the ability to communicate at an intimate level, often with those we love the most.  I believe that God has placed within us an imprint of His face, and is constantly calling us back into relationship with himself.  He is our primary source of love, enabling us to live in harmony with the world around us.

The psalmist expressed it well when he said ‘My heart says of you “Seek His face”.  Your face, Lord, I will seek.  Do not hide your face from me….Do not reject me or forsake me, O God my Saviour.’  (Psalm 27 v 8)  God’s response to our need is reflected in the following verses. ‘Is anyone thirsty? Come and drink.  Even if you have no money!  Come, take your choice of wine or milk – it’s all free!  Why spend on food that doesn’t satisfy?… Listen and I will tell you where to get food that is good for the soul!…Listen, for the life of your soul is at stake!…Seek the Lord while you can find him...’  (Isaiah 55 v 1 – 3)

LORD, help me get things in the right order, you first, people next, things last; Show me how to look into your face, and feel your heartbeat for the world.

The Visit

I bathed my baby granddaughter this evening.  She splashed in the bubbles among the ducks and sponges with great delight.  I washed her peachy, smiling little face, and suddenly remembered the morning.
That morning, I had visited Auntie in the Care Home.  She’s 93 and very sick and frail now after another fall and a chest infection.  The nurse said ‘She’s been calling out for Jesus’.
Her limbs were dangling through the cot-sides like a broken daddy-long-legs – too feeble and drowsy with morphine to alter her position.  A beaker of cold tea was beside her, just out of reach.  Her blue lips were as dry as chalk, and her wrists were thin, like sticks under the papery skin.
‘Hello, Jeanie, how are you?’ I asked as I kissed her forehead.  Great dark shadows circled the forget-me-not blue eyes.  She smiled, and a tear of relief ran down the dry desert of her face. ‘Everyone’s been so kind’. She whispered.
I hailed a passing nurse to help me sit her up.  I brushed her hair, squeezed out a flannel in a basin of water, and washed her face, and the little cracks at the corners  of her mouth.  ‘Oh!  That’s marvellous!’ she murmured as I bathed her hot eyelids.
I tipped away the cold tea and gave her a drink of water which she drank with big, laboured gulps.  I tucked the crumpled sheet around her, and she sank back into sleep again.  ‘Bye, Jeanie,’ I whispered as I kissed her old, grey head.  ‘Angel!’ she sighed, as I walked towards the door.
As I snuggled the baby up in her bath towel and thought about the visit, I prayed ‘Lord, did you come to Jeanie when she called out your name?’  I felt a sudden tingle down my spine; He said ‘Yes, I sent you!’
………………………………………………………………………………………………..
‘..I was sick, and you cared for me…’  Matthew 25 v 36.

Sent

The man tapped on my car window.  ‘Hello stranger, how are you doing?’ he asked.  Although he lives quite near, I hadn’t seen him for ages.  ‘Oh, I’m fine, thanks, how about you?’  Suddenly, he poured his heart out!  One daughter was getting divorced; another was in hiding because of an abusive husband; a third daughter had married again and moved abroad.  He himself had been suffering from depression and come close to a breakdown putting great strain on his marriage.  I felt somehow guilty that I didn’t know, and hadn’t prayed. I listened for a long time.
The last time I had seen him was two or three years before, when he had come to my door.  ‘I’ve got something for you,’ he said as he offered me a muddy carrier bag.  I peeked inside to find a big crab, scrabbling hopelessly, and looking dolefully up at me.  He explained that he’d found it in the Creek when he was digging bait.  I thanked him and retreated to the kitchen.  The idea of dropping a living creature into boiling water did not appeal to me at all.
I took it back to the Creek.  I thought of something Jesus once said about going into the world, and preaching the gospel to every creature.  (Mark 16 v 15) Now, you may think me a little eccentric, but as I lifted the dazed crab out of the bag, I said to it ‘You’ve been saved today!  Go and tell the others the good news that Jesus died to set us free.  God created you and he cares about you.  Be happy!  You’re alive!  Off you go!’  As the water lapped around its feet, it scuttled joyfully away with a burst of bubbles, and a new-found spurt of life!
It made me think about God’s mercy and grace towards us; we, too, are saved – for a purpose; it’s not just to make us feel safe and secure and to fill the church.  I once heard a preacher say ‘You are a tea pot!  God has filled you up with His Holy Spirit in order to pour you out again to bring life and hope and comfort to a thirsty, hurting world.’  Jesus said ‘Pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest, and ask Him to send out more workers for His fields. Go your way; behold, I send you out as lambs among wolves.’  (Luke 10 v 2-3.   Life Application Study Bible)
God only asks that we be ourselves, and allow Him to live and speak through us; but, in these days of ‘political correctness,’ are we willing to tell others about Jesus and what he has done for us?
Have you heard of a man called Arthur Blessit?  God called him to lay down his prosperous career, take up his cross and follow Jesus.  That’s literally what he did. With a wooden cross over his shoulder he’s been walking for 42 years, through 318 countries, for over 39,000 miles, and when people ask him ‘Why are you doing this?’ he tells them about the One who first carried his cross to Calvary to set us free from sin and death..
One day, as he was travelling through some foreign city, hot and thirsty, he called into a bar and asked for a Coke.  As he went to pay for it, the barman said ‘Your drink has already been paid for, Sir.’ Surprised, he said ‘Who by?’  The barman pointed to an Arab sheikh.  Arthur went over to thank him.  The sheikh said ‘As soon as you walked in, I was struck by your radiance and peace!’  How can I find what you have so obviously found?’
They talked about Jesus – His death and resurrection – repentance and forgiveness of sins, and the sheikh decided to commit his life to Christ.  He was the head of an oil company, and he invited Arthur to come and meet the other Board members upstairs.  He told them how he had just met this man with the cross, and how they had prayed together, and how he had experienced the presence and peace of God for the first time.  The others had many questions, and that day Arthur led several of them, also, to Christ.
The last words of Jesus to His disciples, before He ascended into Heaven, were ‘I have been given complete authority in Heaven and on Earth; therefore go, and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I’ve given you;  and be sure of this; I am with you always, even to the end of the Age.’ (Matthew 28 v 18 – 20)
It’s challenging, isn’t it? What does God want ?  Isaiah says ‘Then I heard the Lord asking “Whom should I send as a messenger to my people?  Who will go for us?”  And I said ‘Lord, I’ll go!  Send me.’ (Isaiah 6 v 8)  Life Application Study Bible)

Jane Gransden

Searching

The house seemed strangely empty.  My daughter, Lizzie, had gone to Manchester for a couple of weeks.  I had expected to enjoy the peace and quiet – just me and the dogs – but I missed her and the baby, and I felt lost and unsettled.  As I cooked my solitary omelette, I noticed two paper sheep, coloured in by my granddaughter at a family service.  They’d been hearing the Bible stories of ‘The Lost Sheep’ and ‘The Prodigal Son’.  I noticed them, possibly, because, that morning I had only just read the last verse of that great long Psalm 119.  It said, ‘ I have wandered away like a lost sheep – come and find me, for I have not forgotten your commands.’

I thought about my own five children, grown up now, all baptised and confirmed, but only one is still ‘in the fold’; two of them would say they believe and occasionally pray, and of the other two, one can’t be bothered, and the other, who used to be the most ‘spiritually aware’ of all my children, seems to have turned his back on God altogether.  Nevertheless, I see in him such an aching longing for meaning, for purpose, and understanding.  He’s searching for answers in science, physics, and philosophy.  He pushes himself to extremes, whether at work, or at leisure –skiing, surfing, the occasional parachute jump or flying lesson, scuba diving;

He called in here for a quick coffee at the weekend.  ‘How are you?  What’s new?’  I asked.  Well, the latest is that he’s planning a trip to the Philippines, diving on ship wrecks, and in an underground lake in a cave system.  They will enter via a borehole, crawl through narrow, wet tunnels, and dive into the lake.  The next cave system can only be reached by a narrow, underwater entrance, which emerges into a great cavernous, cathedral – like  space. To get out, they must turn around and go back the way they came.

At the risk of sounding a bit ‘kill-joy,’ I said ‘But WHY?  What on earth makes you want to do such dangerous things?’ “I suppose it’s like pushing the boundaries of my existence,” he replied.  “It’s as though I’m on the edge of something amazing, but it’s never quite amazing enough!”

How I long for him to find Jesus – or should I say, for Jesus to find HIM, and all those others like him? My prayer is; ‘Don’t wait too long, Lord – it’s a dangerous world out there; look at Amy Winehouse, and all those young people in that Norwegian Youth Camp!  Please keep our children in the palm of your hand.  Guide their steps; send angels to protect them, even though they don’t yet acknowledge you.  Turn them around to look into your face; awaken them to your infinite love.  Amen.

I love the way scripture puts into words exactly what’s in your heart.  How about this?  ‘O Lord, you have searched me and you know me…. You are familiar with all my ways… Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.  If I rise on the wings of the dawn – if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.’ (Excerpts from Psalm 139 vs 1 – 10

If we don’t teach our families about God, who on earth will? “We will not hide these truths from our children, but will tell the next generation about the glorious deeds of the Lord…his laws and decrees, so they might know them – even the children not yet born, that they, in turn, might teach their children, so each generation can set its’ hope anew on God.”

(Excerpts from Psalm 78 v 4 – 7)

Crowns

I wonder if you watched the final of ‘The Apprentice’ on Sunday evening?  The result was quite a surprise, wasn’t it?  For weeks we have watched as a group of clever, ambitious, self-motivated young people clawed their way to the final prize of setting up in business with Lord Sugar.  Bright, rising stars in the world of commerce, they were all willing to step on the fingers of their companions in order to climb to the top of the ladder.
Tom didn’t look like a winner.  He didn’t seem ‘hard’ enough.  He was agreeable and polite.  He didn’t shine by winning every task, as some did; in fact, he lost most of them.  He was dyslexic, and, maybe, a bit goofy; but he was also inventive, dedicated, interested, willing to learn, to change, to adapt, and it was his pleasant manner and his vulnerability which made Lord Sugar say ‘You need me and what I have to offer, and I can certainly use what you are bringing to the table; YOU’RE HIRED!’ Thus, Tom was crowned the new ‘Apprentice’
It made me think of Jesus’ words about the Kingdom ‘Many who seem to be important now will be the least important then, and those who are considered least here, will be the greatest then.’(Mat. 19 vs 30)
Earlier that day I went along to the big, all-age family service in Upchurch Village Hall. It’s a joyful, informal gathering, and on this occasion it was a Family Communion.  A semi-circle of kneelers had been laid down around the altar table, and the children were invited to come first to receive the bread.  They came running, happy, smiling, and knelt, eyes closed, hands held out.  The Priest knelt on the hard floor to give them the torn bread, as some of them were so small.  As he approached, a little girl in a princess costume, took off her sparkling tiara and placed it onto the head of her friend.  They giggled and ate the bread, then she ran to her father and carefully put the crown on his head.  He received it with a good grace and wore it for the rest of the service;
But as I watched the people come and kneel, it was as though Jesus was the Priest, kneeling before each person to be at their level – looking into their eyes, knowing them, feeding their souls with life-giving bread, and gently speaking their name saying ‘This is my body, given for you’. No wonder that little princess felt the need to take off her crown.
The Book of Revelation, chapter 4, verse 10 describes a vision of Heaven.. ‘The twenty four elders fall down and worship the One who lives forever and ever, and they lay down their crowns before the throne and say “You are worthy, O Lord our God to receive glory and honour and power.  For you created everything and it is for your pleasure that they exist and are created.”’
I’ll remember those children – their gladness of heart, their willingness to bend the knee, to reach out and receive, and to lay their crowns aside, and I’ll pray for God to help me be more like that.  The following verse from Charles Wesley’s hymn ‘Love Divine’ always gives me goose bumps!
‘Changed from glory into glory
Till in heaven we take our place,
Till we cast our crowns before thee,
Lost in wonder, love, and praise.’

Jane Gransden

Home

Two weeks ago, we rode that great roller-coaster ride of emotions, and settled my darling old Mum and her identical twin into a Care Home.  They are ninety three, and disability, dementia, and yet another fall finally tipped the scales, bringing us to that decision which we always swore we would never make.  The loving care which they need and deserve, we have now delegated to others, which releases us to visit them more often with a new found freedom from anxiety.
In the Home, everything is clean, new, and of the best quality; the staff are cheerful, compassionate, and understanding.  They bring us a tray of tea and chocolate biscuits to the sitting room where we find the twins, identically dressed, sitting arm in arm on the sofa.  There is a clarinet recital going on.  An elderly musician with greying ginger hair, his toupe’ slightly askew, is winding down to the end of his repertoire.  We all clap.  The twins loved it and looked happy and relaxed for the first time in ages.
My two brothers and I decided we would take them for a wheel chair ride around the park, which means going down in the small lift, two at a time.  My Mother suffers from claustrophobia, so I said ‘Close your eyes, Mum, say the Lord’s Prayer slowly, and we’ll be out in no time at all.’  I pressed the large round button.  The lift dropped about two feet and jolted to a halt just below floor level.  I pressed it again – another jolt!  I felt suddenly hot and slightly panicky.  Mum was going through the Lord’s prayer for the third time, with her hands over her eyes.  I pressed and held the button and we bumped to the ground floor, but the doors didn’t open!  Mum’s voice rose to a hysterical crescendo, ‘Thine be the kingdom, the power, and the glory…’  There was only one button in the lift and it wasn’t doing anything!  I peered through the small glass panel to see an empty corridor.  I banged on the metal door – Mum’s claustrophobia invading my being, my hands shaking and clammy.  ‘Can somebody help?’ I shouted.  ‘It’s alright Mum, say it again!’, I said breathlessly.  Then I heard my brother’s voice –‘It’s OK, Jane, I’m getting the Janitor!’         The Janitor apologised profusely and said that he, too, was a claustrophobic twin, and didn’t like that lift either!
With great relief, we stepped outside, across a neatly paved forecourt, through wrought iron gates, and into the quiet peace of the park.  The lawns, newly mown, stretched away like velvet, dappled by sunlight filtered through the leafy canopy above.  The twins thought they were back in the Rectory garden of their childhood home in Yorkshire.  Three Labradors ran up to lick the thin, blue veined hands, outstretched to greet them, then bounded away down the path.  ‘Can we go home now?’ they asked.
We settled them back into their own room.  My daughter, Lizzie and her baby arrived to visit.  ‘Who’s she?’ they asked.  ‘Hello Granny, it’s me, Lizzie.  It’ll soon be your birthday, won’t it?’ ‘Oh, No!  Will it?’ they replied, aghast. ‘ How old are we?’ ‘You’re going to be 94, Granny!’ ‘What?! Ninety Four?’.  They turned to look at each other as though looking in a mirror. ‘Heavens!’ they gasped. ‘ We might as well be dead! But what we want to know is…WHEN can we go HOME!
My heart aches as I write this, and it goes out to those who are struggling about making this same decision about a much loved relative.  I draw comfort from Mum’s unshakable Christian faith, and from the scripture I read this morning from 2 Corinthians, chapter 5:1 – 10.
‘For we know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down – when we die and leave these bodies – we will have a home in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God himself and not by human hands.  We grow weary in our present bodies, and we long for the day when we will put on our heavenly bodies like new clothing. For we will not be spirits without bodies, but we will put on new heavenly bodies.  Our dying bodies make us groan and sigh, but it’s not that we want to die and have no bodies at all.  We want to slip into our new bodies so that these dying bodies will be swallowed up by everlasting life. God himself has prepared us for this, and as a guarantee, he has given us his Holy Spirit.  So we are always confident, even though we know that as long as we live in these bodies, we are not at home with the Lord.  That is why we live by believing and not by seeing.  Yes, we are fully confident, and we would rather be away from these bodies, for then we will be at home with the Lord….. ‘  (Life Application Study Bible)

Changing times

I called in, on the spur of the moment, to see a friend.  ‘She’s in the Church, clearing out the vestry,’ said her husband. I went to find her, up the lane, through the leafy churchyard, and in by a creaky old side door.  She’s recently taken on the role of Church Warden. A young, homeless lad was cooking himself a poached egg on toast in the church kitchen.  ‘He’s been helping me have a clear out’ she explained. ‘There’s a wedding tomorrow and there’s dust and bat droppings everywhere!’  She sounded a bit desperate.  ‘Don’t you have a cleaning rota here?’ I asked, as I grabbed some spray polish and a duster.  ‘Yes’, she replied, above the roar of the angry Hoover, but she’s 84 with a bad knee, and the other one’s on holiday!’
Some weird electronic music was emanating from the West end of the building.  Her son, home from University, earphones almost disappearing in the frizz of long hair, was completely lost in the strange, extra terrestrial noise he had created. ‘Good acoustics!’ he explained, removing his head – set for a moment to smile ‘Hello’.
She showed me into the disused vestry, which stored vases, paint pots, ladders and broken chairs, but now, it had been cleared, and there was a rug on the floor, a Bible and a candle on the polished table. What a transformation!  ‘But look at this,’ she said, pointing upwards to the wall behind the ladders.  There, still festooned with cobwebs and bird droppings, was an ancient triptych, which used to have pride of place behind the High altar.  The words of the Ten Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Creed were beautifully scripted on it in gold leaf.  ‘It’s a sign of the times, isn’t it?’ I said, ‘the basic essential elements of our faith, hidden away, out of sight.’ ‘D’you know what I’m going to do?’ she mused, ‘I’m going to ask the PCC if this could be restored and reinstated, and if they say ‘Yes, I believe it will be a prophetic sign for the future of the church!’  We stood there, amid the hard, lavender polished pews, soon to be removed and replaced with comfy chairs, and we prayed for God’s will to be done, and His Word to be central in the Church;  then we walked out through the great arched doorway into the rain and bright sunshine, and a beautiful rainbow.  ‘Tom’s just texted to say there’s a steak sandwich and strawberries and cream waiting for us!’ God is good!

Jane Gransden

Four small mugs

Letter from Clare Amos

Sitting in our kitchen at home are four small tin mugs. They have been there for a few months, since I visited Harare in the middle of February. The mugs are decorated with the crest of the Mothers’ Union, and the letters CPCA. That stands for the phrase Church of the Province of Central Africa – because that is the Province of the Anglican Communion to which the Anglicans of  Zimbabwe belongs (as well as the Anglicans of Malawi, Zambia and Botswana).  I bought the mugs from the Mothers’ Union shop in Harare – intending to give them as a gesture of solidarity to the Mothers’ Union in Upchurch. I still intend to do that – so I will try and get them to Upchurch as soon as possible! (If you are a member of Upchurch Mothers’ Union please keep reminding me until I do!)

What had taken me to Harare was a meeting of the Anglican Communion theological education working group which I am responsible for as part of my work in the Anglican Communion Office.  Bishop Chad Gandiya, the Anglican bishop of Harare, is a member of the working group, and we had chosen to hold our meeting in Harare as a gesture of solidarity with Bishop Chad.  As well as having our business discussion, the working group, largely composed of people involved in theological education from different parts of the Anglican Communion, offered two days of training for the clergy of Harare Diocese – and a number of other parts of CPCA. I am sure that we learned as much as we gave. We certainly stood in awe of our Anglican brothers and sisters in Harare who face persecution on a regular basis (there is no other word for it) for their faith.

The story goes like this: Some years ago there was appointed as bishop of Harare a certain Nolbert Kunonga who was and is a crony of Robert Mugabe. There may have been an element of corruption in his appointment – but whether or not that was the case, the bullying and unchristian behaviour of Bishop Nolbert soon became apparent. It didn’t take long before the other bishops of the Province decided that Bishop Nolbert needed to be replaced and they went through the due constitutional process that legally allowed his dismissal. Eventually Bishop Chad was appointed in his stead. But (as you might expect) Bishop Nolbert  was not keen to recognise the new situation – and with President Mugabe’s help has been making life difficult for Bishop Chad and his people ever since.

So the ‘proper’ Anglicans (linked to Chad) are locked out of all the churches in the diocese and they meet in a variety of other settings: schools, halls, outdoor parks – wherever they can find a place. But it hasn’t led to the decrease of the church – instead rather its growth. So my colleagues and I on the theological education working group all found ourselves preaching to congregations of 500+  on the Sunday morning. It was a powerful and moving experience. We learned a hymn that is a favourite of Bishop Chad and his clergy – in English it repeats the words ‘Watch and pray’ and we certainly felt that was what we discovered from our friends in Harare.  (I have the music for this on an electronic file and would love to share it on some occasion.)

But I mentioned persecution – and that doesn’t simply mean being locked out of your church. Shortly before we arrived Bishop Chad and a number of other clergy had received sinister death threats and while we were there an elderly lay worker – Jessica – was killed apparently because she was a faithful Anglican.

It was while I was in Harare that I learned of the sudden death of my mother. Difficult though that situation was – there was a sense that I could not have learned of such sad news in a better place – among courageous Anglican brothers and sisters willing to suffer and die for their Christian faith.

Clare Amos