School in church

Out of the house and on my way by car to St Germans's by nine this morning to prepare to welcome the whole of Tredegarville School to church for the specially devised Way of the Cross service instead of the usual weekday Mass. It was an opportunity to tell the whole story from Palm Sunday to Easter Day in a way that involved the children. Eight of them were involved in readings, and the whole school sang cheerfully some of their favourite songs. As we got to the Easter story, the sun broke through the clouds. As Angela is still off sick, the heating wasn't switched on as early as it usually is, so the church was chilly to start with, and the children kept outdoor jackets on. A brisk pace kept us going without too much discomfort. Let's hope that it gave them more to remember than the routine service attended.

After lunch, I went into the office to meet with Ashley for a discussion with a new enquiry about radio service use. At the moment the office is like a warehouse, with boxes of new radios everywhere, as the roll out of a planned upgrade gets under way. The high quality of our operation is much more important to improve than its rate of expansion. Our motto is 'expect the unexpected', and being ready for fresh challenges is important, and quite an adventure in many ways.

Since we were mentioned honourably in a Council Scrutiny committee report earlier this month, we seem to be getting noticed a little more than hitherto, though whether that will lead anywhere interesting is anybody's guess. Although RadioNet was started to support of the work of the Business Crime Reduction Partnership of Council, Police and City Centre Retailers, it's often felt as if we were regarded like an illegitimate offspring that unwittingly exposes the embarrassing family secrets. It it really beginning to change? I hope so.

There were eight of us for tonight's Eucharist, and we had an opportunity to congratulate Hamid, who, after six months of living in a squalid hostel has been offered a place of his won to live while he waits for his asylum appeal to be heard. I heard earlier in the week that the representations I made about the judgement against him have been registered with the Home Office, quite apart from any that Cardiff's Asylum Justice voluntary advocacy scheme may have made to petition for an appeal. I suspect that the first we'll hear of the success of a petition will be a date given for a hearing, or more ominously a deportation notification issued.

Meanwhile, Hamid can have a place of his own, but sadly for us it'll be in Portsmouth, and not in Cardiff, so keeping in touch will be a challenge, and we'll have to find him a new congregation to welcome and support him as he develops in Christian discipleship. Until he can give as a postcode for his new abode, we can't start searching to identify one.
          

Sunny Lent Sunday

It was a lovely cold bright morning, and the sunshine made the interior of St German's glow during the Sunday Mass. We began singing the Lenten Prose, from the back of the Old English hymnal. I haven't sung that for years. What a refreshing change. There was a delicious Parish lunch in the hall afterwards for about thirty people. I sat with Hamid, and slowly, deliberately we spoke about many things. This week he heard that his law firm has dumped his case, but he is not down cast, still full of trust that God has matters in hand, however things turn out for him. He's visiting the City URC Church Asylum Justice service tomorrow, as recommended by his lawyer. 

Later in the day, I emailed Mareika Arthur to see if I could find out who might be dealing with him on arrival, and I forwarded to her the briefing I'd written yesterday about Hamid's case to send to Jo Stevens, the local MP. It's a last ditch effort, but the least we can do. I regret not realising much earlier the finality of the hearing I attended as a witness, and only on reading the final judgement did the gaps in the argument made in his defence became apparent to me. I think his advocate was over-confident the points he'd made were sufficient to win the case. Is a rescue now possible I wonder?

I'd forgotten that Clare had gone over to Bristol to her monthly study group this afternoon, so I went out for a walk to the park and along the Taff to enjoy the sun, with my DSLR camera. The battery exhausted itself after six shots. It loses charge quicker these days and can only manage a third of the number of shots it used to between times, so I'll have to get a new one pretty soon, or a new camera body, as the present one looks and occasionally behaves tired. It's more than five years old now.

After supper, when Clare got home, there was nothing much on telly worth watching, so I caught up with the first two episodes on iPlayer of the new euro-crime drama 'Trapped', set in Iceland. All that darkness and snow, but quite an interesting small time police procedural piece, laced with a sense of chaos and uncontrollable events driven by dark forces. It's in colour, though it looks as if it's in black and white much of the time, because of all the snow. The hero cop is a big burly guy, a bit like Wallander Mark One with a beard, and I'm sure one if not more of the supporting actors also appeared in 'The Bridge'. At least it makes a change from a movie coloured mostly in black and orange.