Well, what a miserable few days it has been weather wise. I was hoping to get on the allotment but it aint really allotment kind of weather. We have had a great few days though despite the weather.  Sunday morning started at Beverley Community church where we heard the 3rd talk from J Johns in his 10 commandments in reverse series………Sunday morning was ……………You shall not steal…………… a lot of food for thought and well worth a listen. There is a chance to see it again on Thursday evening in the church office.

On Saturday night the youthies went to see LZ7 at Manchester Apollo and an awesome time was had by all, arriving back late,  it was good to see them all wide eyed and bushy tailed on Sunday morning.

And then of course it was a full link meeting in the chapel hall…………….we started setting up at 1650 and we were just about finished an hour or so later, just in time for everyone arriving. We had a fantastic meeting and God was definitely in the house. The music and worshiping our God was truly awesome and it is just a wonderful experience to worship God, to come and bow before Him and give Him thanks and praise for everything He has done for us all, to kneel at His throne and say thank you, we worship you, we love you, we adore you mighty God……………….Psalm 100 Shout for joy to the Lord all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness; come before Him with joyful songs. Know that the Lord is God. It is He who made us, and we are His; we are His people, the sheep of His pasture.

It was good to get another meeting under our belt and good to get into some kind of a routine….if you can get into a routine when Jesus is around…..but you know what I mean. And then we had……………….. doughnuts, I think we might shorten up the order somewhat, but they are so goooooood.

Monday evening was a prayer meeting with the folks from the other churches in the village, it was good to get together as a larger church family and bring our prayers before our heavenly Father.

Last night I had to go to the pub in Beverley, ( it meant twagging home group,  I have two very understanding home group leaders!!) the green Dragon to be precise. It was purely for research purposes, as it was a “purpose driven pint” meeting. A few guys get together over a pint and discuss topical issues that have hit the news over the last few days or so. I would like to start a similar group in the village, so I had to go along and take notes……tough work I know, but it had to be done…….. It was good to meet up with the guys, (as I have been trying to get to a meeting for a long time) and have a good old discussion. Last nights discussion started off with the Milliband brothers….is blood thicker than water……Family rivalry…….Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau etc. Thanks chaps for making me feel very welcome, meetings are normally held on a Thursday and for more information visit www.xyonline.org.uk.

Yesterday evening was also link ladies, and an evening on self defence…………………don’t creep up on any of these ladies as they are now lethal weapons……………. I would like to encourage ladies to get along to the meetings as everyone has a lot of fun and a good old chat. We will be continuing the self defence course later on in the year

September 26th, 2010.  Pat talks us through the first of the Beatitudes.

The music used in the opening and closing sequences of this podcast is called ‘Frescoes’, by Alexandr Filippov.
It is released under a Creative Commons licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) and is available from http://www.jamendo.com.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 36:33 — 12.3MB)

The photograph below is of a ship I piloted out of Immingham on Wednesday morning.

The ” Morning Carina” is a huge car carrier capable of carrying 6500 cars on 12 car decks. ( At £10 000 a car, that’s a cool £65 000 000 worth of cargo and I am sure some of them would have cost a lot more  than £10 000 )

The ship is 200m long, 32.2 m wide (which is the maximum beam for transiting the Panama canal) and the wheelhouse was 35m above the water.

As you can imagine they are quite a handful to navigate particularly if there is any kind of wind blowing, there is about 7000 square metres of windage, which is just about the same as having the football pitch at the KC stadium strapped onto the side( approx 7100 square metres).

Link ladies continued with there second meeting this week an evening on relaxation, apparently they were all nearly bobbing off….which will be a complete contrast to next Tuesday as the evening is being led by a lady police officer who is going to show our ladies a few moves on self defence…….no falling asleep next Tuesday evening then!.

We have another 1000 leaflets being delivered so we are looking forward to continuing our letter box dropping next week as I am on leave hopefully as of now.

I had a nasty telephone call for a ship at half past midnight last night. Thankfully the wind hadn’t blown up, and we boarded the ship quite easily…..A few hours later though and there was a howling gale from the North and it was a bit of a struggle to park the ship onto the oil terminal even with the aid of 3 tugs.

As I sit here tapping on the keyboard the wind is really blowing at the window panes outside and I am very thankful that I am tucked up nice n warm in my office, hopefully the wind will have got back to normal before my next ship in a weeks time.

We are all looking forward to the meeting on Sunday evening especially as we had such a good worship meeting on Wednesday evening. We were plugged in with all the gear on Wednesday and I must say the playing and the vocals sounded very good indeed.

Well I must get on with preparing the talk for Sunday evening…………..it is always a great privilege to be able to talk about the Lord in front of a group of people and I enjoy the whole process of thinking and praying about what I am going to say, the research and then the actual tapping it out on the keyboard………….I must try and make it a bit shorter this time…………………as 2 and a half hours was just slightly too long even though we did have dough nuts…………..( hear me on the podcast)

A typical day at the office,  not our pilot launch or our bit of sea but the conditions are similar to a good blow at Spurn point…………

This is why I have to pop a couple of pills most days………

I thought you might like to see what I actually do when I go to work, hopefully you can get a feel from these couple of pictures what the conditions can get like, I am usually lying full length on the seats praising and worshipping God. On a good day it can take about 35 / 40 minutes to drive the 15 miles or so out to the ships…….in conditions like above and below ( and a lot worse)  it can take nearly 2 hours to get out there and then we have to walk around the outside of the launch and climb up the ladder………….. We have nearly had our allotted 6 months of relatively calm weather, the summer is fantastic, and I try and make the most of balmy days and nights in preparation for the long winter days and even longer winter nights…………My colleagues usually know when I am feeling a little apprehensive about the trip out to the ship as I can often be heard humming “Eternal Father strong to save”, as we walk down the jetty on our way to board the launch……   ” Oh hear us as we cry to thee, for those in peril on the sea……..”