Hello and welcome to the February blog! The dry season continues to unfold bringing us our first experience of drought. Weather forecasters are afraid it could continue for the next few months, as the wet season does not arrive officially, until June. We are told that drought like conditions are not uncommon at this time of year in the Eastern Caribbean. The Grenadian Water Agency is rationing supplies on a daily basis and forbidding people to water lawns or wash vehicles. The watchword, for now, is conservation. For us drought is watching the adjoining hillside on fire with only a twelve foot road between us and it, anxiety is not far off! For others it is keeping your children's clothing clean, particularly the school uniforms everyone wears; for still others it's seeing your crops dying in the ground. Until this past weekend we were relatively unscathed as our water supply comes through the same holding tank as the school. However, that all changed on Friday as water disappeared abruptly from our lives. 30c of heat and humidity and no shower! We gave thanks for the builder of the manse who had installed a 600 gallon water tank for emergencies! Shower with a trickle of water? Thank you Lord, it felt so good! Meanwhile back in Levera the communal water tap is under enormous pressure (there is little water piped to houses there) from humans and their animals; cows, sheep, goats, chickens, dogs and cats in a steady procession for the liquid of life. What patience, what tolerance, what understanding; what an amazing set of priorities appear with enough wisdom attached to do things, seemingly, as second nature.
School work at MacDonald came to a standstill this last week as the annual Sports Day (an inter-house competition) was scheduled for Friday the 26th at the local sports ground by Sauteurs. The "Chief" (the Principal that is!) was sick for the week before the big day and the last minute preparation fell on the shoulders of some of the senior male teachers. Afternoon classes were interrupted for the heats of, for instance, the long jump and the high jump. MacDonald has a long history of sports excellence and last Friday's 
competition was about the Inter-Collegiate Sports next month in St. George's. Simply put this is the showcase event for local athletes. Make it there, a scholarship to North America could follow, a future offered, a chance to excel given and grasped! And, to get to the Inter-Collegiate meet in MacDonald colours a big, perhaps even a huge, advantage. Let the games begin!
The literacy work at Belair Primary School continues. With Ann and me from the start has been three of our youth, Cartina, Rhonda and Theresa. What a job they have done! The three teachers from the school, Fraser, Mason and Sookram make up the eight adults who work with the eight eleven year old boys. The boys are naturally competitive and check their "Trophy Case" daily to see what cups they have been awarded as 
they complete another part of their journey to being able to read. How are things looking as we approach the half-way point in the programme? We pray a lot about two of the boys. Both boys are of good intelligence; one has a pattern of not attending school, the other needs a lot of encouragement, often some direct and pointed suggestions as how to move forward! The other six show every sign that their quest for literacy will be successful. Keep Tory, Akim, John, Nick, Phillip, Glennick, Alister and Shoneil in your prayers, please. Lifestyle itself is at stake here.
Belair Presbyterian Church sails on. We had our first Board of Managers meeting. It went so very well! We elected a new Board Chair and off we went prioritizing the work to be done, the funds to be raised for the work and how they were to be raised. There was lots of enthusiasm for the Congregation and their call to serve God in Conference. Yes! It felt good! And yes we are part of a happy, healthy worshipping community at Belair! God is good.
As things come together for our son's wedding in Ontario in early September we are feeling a growing excitement about it even if it is still six months away. Will my kilt fit? I've lost about 14 lbs in the last year and am feeling much the better for it! Will the sporran hang properly without the bulge that looks very much like a belly of the kind that arrives with age? Meanwhile some of 
the tensions that invariably circle around the planning of family events when the family is apart are being felt. So, even as we move through them and look forward with great joy to the occasion, we play the historic game of "what if?" God is good, he tends to make the answers obvious and the worry appear ridiculous as we learn once more that we have little or no control over life or life's Creator! We pray each morning over breakfast for patience and understanding around our daily work. Perhaps it's time to apply that patience and understanding to the rest of our lives!
After my remarks on John Knox last month I now need to say a little bit more about him – my personal point of view – of course! Knox was a teacher but in his time there was little difference between a teacher and a preacher. He was a curious and complex man. He was courageous, had a rock like belief in himself and reform. When the French invaded Scotland at St. Andrews in 1547 he was taken off to be a galley slave for two years. This could not change his opinion by as much as an inverted comma! He finally found a job in England as tutor to Edward the sixth but when that nemesis of his, Mary Tudor, succeeded Edward he left, post-haste, for Geneva and John Calvin's haven in Switzerland of learning, austerity and law and order. On his return from Switzerland to Scotland Knox replaced the then hierarchy of the bishops by organizing the Church into representative assemblies (the forerunner of Presbyteries) or more simply, power from the bottom up. What would Knox think of the Presbyterian Church today? He would be upset by the tolerance there. Congregations sing to music produced by organs or pianos or keyboards. In some churches nice ornamentation has appeared; stained glass windows even! BUT all this has been done with the consent and approval of the members of that church congregation. And that's the real point. Knox's church was founded on democracy and democratic pioneers can't complain if people want their own way! Here's one of my favourite stories about a member of my birth church which is the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. One of its members was marooned on a desert island for a number of years. He, naturally, had got everything done in decent order so he had built himself an austere but habitable bungalow and two very small churches. "Why the second church", he was asked. "Oh, that's the one I don't go to", he replied. Some of Knox's strength lives on!
Paul's church in Corinth, as he writes in his first letter to the Corinthians Chapter 2 is made aware of "the hidden wisdom of God which we teach in our mysteries as the wisdom that God predestined to be for our glory before the ages began ... we teach what scripture calls: the things that no eye has seen and no ear has heard, things beyond the human mind, all that God has prepared for those who love him". How do we share the wisdom of God that was predestined to be for our glory before the ages began? One answer came at an eight day silent retreat in Guelph the other year where I was guided (led) to the thought that there is no greater gift we can give to others than to open out to them the way by which they can know and experience, intimately and constantly, how much they are loved by God. What a gift to be able to share here and everywhere!
