This morning I drove out of Fuengirola inland and up into the Sierras de Mijas on the road leading to Mijas pueblo, and then around the massif to Alhaurin el Grande a village turned into a town of 24,000 inhabitants. I last drove this road in the opposite direction during my six hour wait for Clare's flight to arrive at Malaga at the end of August. I met up with Lay Reader Caroline in the municipal cemetery car park for a briefing on her work up here among settlers in the mountain village communities of the campo. The cemetery in present form is of relatively recent origin, as a result of the twentieth century expansion of the town as a dormitory for Malaga commuters, as well as expats. So, its a place with plenty of empty spaces. Outside, in the car park is a capacious modern chapel accommodating English speaking services as well as funerals, courtesy of the municipality.
The regular congregation is a couple of dozen, but as it draws on a wide constituency of settlers away from the coast, there can be up to a hundred worshippers on special occasions, many of them children. Caroline with others, has started the Mustard Seed Club for youngsters meeting around worship times. I'll be here celebrating the Eucharist on my fourth Sunday.
Until last year there was a retired priest here on a house for duty basis, but economic recession has meant this can no longer be afforded. Caroline does the key pastoral work, along with other lay worship leaders in the Chaplaincy Team, and the regular chaplain takes services up-country several times a month.
We then drove to the outskirts of nearby Coin a town of over 20,000 inhabitants on the road down to Marbella. Here the Chaplaincy uses the building belonging to the independent evangelical Church of Christ, which has a tiny congregation. Here there's only a fortnightly Thursday morning Anglican service. The church has a small apartment built over its sanctuary, made available to occasional visitors or people in urgent need.
It's a simple baptist-style chapel, with an immersion font behind the back curtain, sadly finding use as a repository for furnishings and equipment not in current use. There are scripture texts carved on four wooden plaques adorning the walls giving a homely touch to an otherwise austere interior.
We returned from Coin and had a tapas lunch at the bar-restaurant where the congregation socialise after Sunday worship, right on the main street.
I returned to Fuengirola on the newer faster road, which brought me into another part of town that was new to me. Slowly, I'm putting together all the pieces of the area. Could do with an old fashioned tourist map however. In wandering around the barrio I came across a small shop which sells British savoury products, run by a man with an Essex accent. Some was hand made, some high quality imports from the UK. I bought a giant sausage roll and enjoyed it thoroughly sitting on the plaza St Raphael.
Back in the office, I worked on a sermon and on CBS document preparation until it got dusk, then headed for home to cook supper, and do some more document preparation, It's not easy to stay on line with my mobile dongle because of reception indoors. I can't take my laptop outside for long because its battery in now in terminal decline after three years of hard work. It now drains of power very quickly and will only change to fifty percent, but perhaps that's to do with slightly lower mains voltage here. The combination makes work of this kind very stressful. Not what I need. But it gets done, eventually.
No comments:
Post a Comment