Seeds hidden deep in frozen ground

Yesterday's meeting was especially difficult as so many were off sick or having better things to do.  At times, waves of spiritual apathy can sweep over a community leaving the hungry feeling abandoned.  I awoke this morning with a picture in my mind that seemed to capture something important.  I saw a snow swept scene and imagined the seeds of the Gospel that had been sown on good soil that Jesus spoke of in the parable.  The seeds in my picture were buried deep in the frozen ground, still alive and full of potential, but unable to develop in those conditions.  The bible bears witness to long periods when nothing appears to be happening.  Such a fruitless time was in the 300 year period before the birth of Jesus.  All the Isiaianic messianic prophecies had been given: a Saviour was to come.  But hanging in there generation after generation must have been so hard for the faithful remnant.  It felt like that yesterday. The seeds of the Gospel have been planted in the hearts of the Roma, in "good soil" but the circumstances of their lives have frozen the ground over.  I often come away feeling I have ministered inappropriatly -failing perhaps to understand or respect unredeemed aspects of Roma culture and trying to force change too quickly.  I was brought back to "those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy" [Ps126].  When our sense of hopelessness expresses itself in tears, do those tears fall to the frozen ground, and begin to thaw it out?  The imagery linked into the talk I had tried to give last night:  John 4 ending with the "harvest" being brought in from the town of Sychar that had been transformed through one Samaritan women's encounter with Jesus. Psalm 126 picks this up: "those who go out weeping, bearing the seed will come back with shouts of joy, bearing their sheaves with them."  The imagery deepened further when I remembered to story I had told two weeks earlier of the tears of the sinful woman falling onto Jesus feet.  We had actually enacted this story in the service complete with the feet being dried with a woman's hair.  I discovered later that this had caused a "scandal" amongst some of the Roma for whom the scene was too challenging, too shocking.  The ice froze over.  I had told the story "in memory of her" - and again last night I told the story of the Samaritan woman at the well "in memory of her" - believing that God is trying to raise up the status of women in cultures that still marginalise them.  Yet, last night something did shift.  A tiny crack in the frozen ground appeared.  One lone man, who keeps on coming to LRC, came forward to give his life to Jesus.  There is sufficient power latent in this, to turn round the whole community, to have them all flocking to see who this Jesus is who redeemed the lost sheep of the town.  The harvest is ripe. The ground remains frozen...almost.  

Meanwhile lovely things are happening with the children!  Our little team has moved them from chaos into fun-filled order.  See below...