Signing Off

Well, one house is a mess and the other is now clean. One house will soon be empty and another quickly filled. Mrs Acular's tempers are frayed, and mine are languishing behind an accelerating headache. I have spent the afternoon battling more bloody spiders (all the while leaving the cleaners to deal with dessicated frogs [don't ask]) - all of which means that it is about time to sign off from Aylesbury. 

Oddly, this is the second time that I have had cause to bid farewell to this town. The first was as a result of starting my theological training, the second as a result of its fruit. 

It has been a good place. It has served my family well. Aylesbury College Day Nursery will always be an establishment accorded much credit for how our children have grown and developed. I cannot understate how much of a positive influence on their existence it and its staff have been. We delivered two tearful toddlers and received two intelligent, inquisitive, sociable and morally aware little girls equipped to begin their formal education. I can never thank them enough.

It has been a good place. I have ministered to many of its families in the best and worst of times. I take them all with me in my heart. Aylesbury is blessed with amazing people, all wanting the best for themselves and their families and able to trust us practitioners to help with the momentous events that mark all our lives. The young people of this town are so full of life too, and Aylesbury grants them such richness of opportunity. Many have gathered in the church where it has been my joy to witness them minister to the town in their own special ways. 

It has been a good place. Its worshipping communities have such an expansive heart for the Gospel. Yes, it is ecclesially polarised, but the witness of Christ in Aylesbury yields much fruit in terms of outreach to those less blessed by circumstance. I have watched the homeless community find literal and figurative warmth during the coldest of months, as a result of the love of Aylesbury's Christians. 

I close this post, the last of well over 400 written from this desk. It will be the last I write here, and the last of anything - I need to dismantle this computer before I sleep. I leave a present that has treated me well and has allowed me the chance to flourish into a ministry for which I was born. As for tomorrow, I will worry about that when it arrives. 

God bless you, Aylesbury. Thank you. 

Goodbye.