A rainy Alhaurin Sunday

Heavy rain started in the middle of the night, and didn't stop until well after I set out from the house in the dark, to collect Gordon the organist from Mijas Golf village, and take him to Benalmadena, before heading inland to celebrate my one Eucharist of the day at Alhaurin. 

Driving out through town, people were sitting under toldos outside the bars chatting, drinking coffee, eating breakfast tostados drizzled with olive oil. There were a few people in shorts and tee shirts out walking their dogs in the downpour, seemingly oblivious to the weather. On the back roads, without drainage. water several inches deep covered the entire road surface, flowing down into the nearest arroyos. 

Surface water flowed in sections of the rio Fuengirola normally dry and stony. Pity there was no time to take photos, with a timetable to keep and uncertain road conditions to navigate. Sometimes the big junctions with the main road have flooded underpasses and traffic is halted for hours. They are not well drained, or their drainage silts up. I drove on the motorway to get to Benalmadena, avoiding the coast road, crossed in so many places by drainage channels that might, in times of flood conditions be impassible.

By the time I arrived at Alhaurin, the worst was over, and only a few from the regular congregation of two dozen were absent by reason of not being able to leave home or use roads due to flooding. It was my final visit to take a service there, as I'm not scheduled to return before my departure after All Saints weekend. The inland congregations make an effort to reach out to people over a wide area of towns and villages. There's potential for growth, and it would be good to see another priest working away from the coast. This happened for a while, but membership and funding shrinkage meant that the venture had to come to an end. It would be providential if a retired cleric were to settle in the area and offer their services voluntarily, and an encouragement to Lay Reader Caroline and the team of volunteers whose enterprise is already bearing rich fruit in community building.

  

Harvest Sunday

I woke up in the middle of the night, thinking about CBS business affairs. An issue I've been dealing with was plying on my mind, and I know it wouldn't go away until I'd put my thoughts on record, so I got up, wrote for an hour, and eventually I got back to sleep, waking up, as I often do, just seconds before the alarm went off. With an hour and half less sleep than I need to function normally, it took me hours to feel I'd woken up properly, but it was still business as usual, driving to Benalmadena for the first Harvest Eucharist of the day. 

While I was preaching, I became dissatisfied with my sermon, and with myself for not spending more time critically examining and editing the finished work - quite strange experience, which I attribute to feeling out of sorts. However, Gwen's eloquent and rich textured prayers of intercession more than compensated for what I thought was lacking in my offering. I was most grateful for that.

The Harvest Eucharist at St Andrews which followed was blessed with a congregation almost double that of last week. When I arrived, I realised I'd left my sermon script behind. I some ways I wasn't all that bothered, and jotted down some summary headings from memory in order to preach from notes, which I seldom do, as I tend to over-elaborate and go on for too long, However, I felt I had enough control over the ideas and content to take the risk. Just after I'd finished, Val arrived, having followed me from Benalmadena to Los Boliches to return my script, thinking that it was indispensible! So then I compromised, reading the opening paragraphs, and then elaborating my notes for the rest. I don't think I preached any longer than usual, and by this time I was starting to recover from my broken night's sleep.

After lunch, I completed the preparations needed for Tuesday's Chaplaincy Day of Prayer. Just as I emailed these to both the Lay Readers, Val arrived to give me a lift to Alhaurin for a Harvest Service at which the excellent local Tapas Choir sang.

The children's group, aka Mustard Seed Gang, also took part with some congregational support, in re-telling the story of Creation.

Together with the thirty strong choir, there were eighty five people in church. My role was simply to bless the Harvest offerings and the congregation at the end. Refreshments were served outside the west end of the building, and people stayed round and chatted for ages. 

Occasional social events built around a special act of worship bring together more people than attend services habitually, regularly. It's a key aspect of the chaplaincy's role as community builder among expatriates and visitors alike. Much organisation and persistence is required to graft such events into the English speakers' social calendar. It's admirable that a year long interregnum has made no difference to the determination of church members to continue with social outreach of this kind. It's a welcome sign of their health and strength as a missionary congregation.