Visit with the Harmons

Dear Family and Friends,

 We begin our final week in Henley-in-Arden in preparation for our trip back to America.  This weekend has been special for us.  On Saturday, Henley Baptist Church had their annual Praise and Pudding.  It was a special time of worship and fellowship.  We began the program in the church auditorium with singing the great hymns of our faith.  After about an hour and a half we moved to the fellowship hall for desserts.  Both the singing and the desserts were wonderful.  Now I want you to understand that I have nothing against worship.  Worship is vital to our connection with God.  Worship is one way we honor God.  Worship is important to our growth in Christ.  So I have nothing against worship.  I love to worship.  But because I also have a sweet tooth, I thought we should have called the day Pudding and Pudding and went right for the desserts.  I want to talk about music in this final blog.  The British people love to sing.  Our worship services are always filled with great music and singing.  One of the major differences between American and English worship is that here the pastor is the worship leader.  Can you imagine that?  Me being the worship leader?  It scares me each week.  It is one thing to speak, it is another thing altogether to lead worship.  But back to the main thing.  I believe the British outshine Americans when it comes to singing.  They love their music.  During our time here we have attended several concerts (something we do not seem to do in America).  What I am talking about particularly is the singing of all male voice choirs.  In May, I attended with a good friend, John Dalman, the ‘Solihull All Male Voice Choir’.  We travelled north to Shirley to the Methodist church for the concert.  John used to sing with this group for about 25 years.  Some of the songs they sang were: The Battle Hymn of the Republic, All in an April Evening,
Morte Criste (When I Survey The Wondrous Cross), Seventy Six Trombones, and The Lord Is My Shepherd.  They concluded the evening by singing There Will Always Be An England and Britania.  During the singing of these last 2 songs numerous British flags were waved by members of the audience.  There were about 40 men (mostly older) who made up the choir.

About a week ago we drove to Tewkesbury to attend a special night.  Nadine and I, and Stan and Wendy Gregory attended this concert.  It was held at the Tewkesbury Abbey and there were 9 men’s choirs joining together (about 300 men).  Choirs from Birmingham, the Cotswolds, Worcester, The Forest of Dean, Kidderminster, and hosted by the Churchdown Male Voice Choir.  The combined choirs sang selections like Llanfair, All in The April Evening, You’ll Never Walk Alone, Give Me That Old Time Religion, The Lord’s Prayer and Morte Criste.  The Churchdown Choir sang Everytime I Feel The Spirit, Let There Be Peace On Earth.  The Abbey was packed (well over 1000 people) and we had to sit in the very back of the church.  This was the 25th anniversary year of The English Association of Male Voice Choirs.  Some of the groups were formed as far back as 1900 or during WWII. The accoustics were not the greatest,  but the choirs were wonderful. 

In the last week of June, a school choir from Brentwood High school in California came to Stratford upon Avon for a noon time concert at the Holy Trinity Church (where Shakespear and Anne Hathaway are buried).  Susan Stuart, in her 31st year as director, actually brought 2 groups to perform.  One was the 35 voice Chamber Singers and the other was the 65 voice A Cappella Choir.  Nadine and I took a couple of ladies from our church (Bette Clarke and Janet Chisholm) to hear these young people sing.  They were very, very good.  One song the combined choirs sang was Prayer Of The Children, written by an American about the struggle of the Serbian children during the war in Bosnia.  What made this song memorable was that they all signed as they sang.  It was a song that gripped your heart as you visualized the pain and suffering of the children in a war torn country crying out to Jesus for help.  This concert (part of a 6 city tour) was to honor American music with selections from African-American spirituals.  They finished with The Lord Bless You and Keep You.  Afterwards, I talked with the director and met some of the chaperones from an area in California where I served as pastor.  When I told them I used to live in Oakley, they were amazed to find Americans at the concert and shocked to meet someone that knew where Brentwood was located.

The best concert we attended was on a Sunday afternoon in the small town of Alcester (pronounced Alster).  Malcolm Williams, who attends our church, sings with the Alcester Male Voice Choir, who normally have about 80 members.  On June 10, Nadine and I, and Janet Chisholm, went to Alcester Baptist Church for their concert.  Believe it or not, it was very hot and muggy.  The church was crowded and it was difficult to breathe.  The choir had only about 50 or so that day.  But the concert was fabulous.  They sang songs like Bunda Bunda (The Joyful Summer Season), He, Gwahoddiaa (Welsh for Invitation), You Raise Me Up, When I’m 64 by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, and they finished up with an American Trilogy in our honor.  Malcolm asked the director Judith Land to have the choir do this number.  The final songs included Glory, Glory, Hallelujah and Dixieland.  We did not have any US flags to wave.  As I said, the British love to sing. 

I wish that our American churches could learn to sing and worship as the English do.  It is a thrill to my heart to be able to be a part of the worship service (even though they had to put up with this pastor as worship leader).  It blessed my heart as we offered our hearts and voices to our Lord.  I have had people tell me, through the years, that they cannot carry a tune.  My standard answer is that if you lay a crooked stick on the ground, it looks pretty crooked.  But if you put it with a bunch of other crooked sticks, it doesn’t look so bad, in fact, it is hardly even noticed.  As I had the opportunity to plan and lead worship (even as a crooked stick), what joy came to my heart to present our worship to God as a love gift.  Do you know where worship comes from?  It comes from God.  Our singing is a gift to and from God.  The prophet Zephaniah said, “The Lord your God is with you, he is mghty to save.  He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing” (3:17).  Did you catch that?  God sings to you.  He loves to still your troubled heart through His great love and he loves to communicate that love to you through singing.  Can you imagine that?  The God of the universe, who created our solar system and all the galaxies of space, sings to your heart of His love for you.  So, when we have opportunity to worship, let’s sing of our love to the Lord.  I enjoy all types of worship songs.  The old hymns, the newer praise songs, the songs of Scripture.  It doesn’t matter which is preferred as long as the songs are expressions of our love to God.  Much of what we know and believe about God, we learned from the hymns of our faith.  The ancient people of God sang songs of worship from their hymnal (the Psalms).  Modern song writers have taken the words of Scripture and created beautiful worship songs for us to sing.  Let’s raise the level of worship by singing for God’s glory.  Remember, worship is not about you or me.  It is about loving our Lord Jesus Christ and offering our lives to Him.  It is about singing His Word back to Him as an act of surrender.  It is about presenting ourselves as living sacrifices to Him (that sounds pretty reasonable to me).  As God sings to your heart and rejoices over you, why not sing to His heart and rejoice over Him in worship.  I have been in many worship services through the years.  I have watched as some folks refused to sing.  I have seen others stop singing about half way through the service.  I have witnessed others do a myriad of things instead of opening their hearts to the Lord in song.  What a missed opportunity to express our love to the Lord!  Let’s not miss any more.  As a preacher, I was always concerned that I was not given enough time for my sermon during the service.  But I had to learn that worship isn’t about me.  It is about Jesus.  He is worthy of our best and our highest worship we can offer.

I love you.

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Nadine’s Corner:

It’s been a wonderful six months!  Our hearts have been so blessed by the country, the people, the sights, the church,  the humor of the Brits, etc., etc., etc.  We have so much to be thankful for.

Here’s the final installment on the British Vocabulary:

BOB’S YOUR UNCLE           There you go (with a shrug), naturally

CHEERIO                           Goodbye

CONCESSION                    Discounted admission

COS                                   Romain lettuce

CRAIC (crack)                    Good conversation

CUPPA                               Cup of tea

DEAR                                  Expensive

DICEY                                 Iffy, risky

DIGESTIVES                       Round graham crackers

DRAUGHTS                         Checkers

FELL                                   Hill or high plain

FOOTBALL                          Soccer

FORCE                                Waterfall

GRAMMAR SCHOOL             High School

HOMELY                             Likable or cozy

JACKET POTATO                 Baked potato

JUMBLE                              Sale, rummage sale

JUST A TICK                       Just a second

LEMON SQUASH                 Lemonade

LORRY                                Truck

MEWS                                Courtyard stables, often used as COTTAGES

PILLAR BOX                        Post Office box

ROUNDABOUT                     Traffic circle (Ooooo you haven’t lived ’til you’ve experienced these!)

SELF-CATERING                  Apartment with a kitchen

SULTANAS                           Golden raisins (Popular in scones)

SURGICAL SPIRITS              Rubbing alcohol   (This one was hard to explain to the “Chemist”)

SUSS OUT                           Figure out

TA                                       Thank you

TOP HOLE                            First rate

TOPPING                              Excellent

TWEE                                   Quaint, cute

VERGE                                  Grassy edge of road

VERGER                                Church official

WELLINGTONS, WELLIES      Rubber boots

WHACKED                             Exhausted

WITTER ON                           Gab and gab

YOB                                      Hooligan

ZEBRA CROSSING                 Crosswalk 

ZED                                      The letter “z”

Hope you’ve enjoyed our vocabulary lessons.  I’ll have to go round to the library for more.  Mine was a very limited one in the back of one of Rick Steve’s travel books. 

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We have quite the itinerary for our six weeks back in the States.  We are leaving NO room for grass to grow under our feet!  (Big as they are)  

JULY 14th - Home to VA

JULY 25th - To San Diego for a visit with our vacationing kids

JULY 28th - On to Phoenix area to visit my Dad and siblings

AUG 10th - Rent a car and drive to New Mexico to see Christina (6hours, prox)

AUG 13th - Return to Phoenix area

AUG 15th - Return to VA

1st week of September - Return to England

 What d’ya think?  Think these two senior citizens can do it?  Yeah….sure we can!  We are just kids at heart!  Of course, Dick’s heart is MUCH older than mine, you know….

I get to speak to the ladies at our Ladies’ Fellowship tomorrow afternoon.  I’m looking forward to it.  I will share a little about our family, friends, what we’ll be doing during our 6 week interval and then I will have to confess my doubts and fears about coming over to England.  Boy, we can sure worry ourselves right into SHOCK, can’t we?  All my worries were for nothing.  But then that’s ME…the great worrier!  I just have to share something regarding worry that I came across during one of my daily devotions:

“….On occasion I have had to wait a few hours at the big airport in Chicago…I wondered how those pilots taxiing to the end of the runway dared to roar into the sky.  The truth, of course, is none of them dare.  There is a control tower, and someone is in it…It is only when the pilot is told he can take off that he does.

So it is with us.  Free of worry, we can take off in life, even at our age, because there is someone in the tower - our Lord in Heaven.  He tells us to lift our wings, free from fear, and soar!  The only way we can do so is to trust ourselves wholly to Him and to what He says…He whispers, ‘Fear not’.  He says, ‘Don’t worry.’  And so, oldsters - in Christ, dare to live!”    Author:  Jacob D. Eppings for the Senior Devotional Bible Readings

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Well, let me tell you, that really convicted my silly fearful heart!  I can’t begin to express all of the blessings I would have missed had I allowed my fears to keep me from answering God’s call.  Not only that, I would have been responsible for keeping my husband from experiencing “heaven on earth” right here in Henley In Arden !!!  His heart was on fire - he was so ready to preach and to teach!   So I gave my fears (concerns as I like to call them) to the Lord and sat back (well, if you could call it that) and watched Him work His miracles.  HE DIDN’T LET ME DOWN.  Not in one single area of “concern” did He let me down!  Wow….it’s hard to describe how that has felt.  I’ll tell you one thing - the angels weren’t sitting around watching TV or taking naps - - THEY WERE WORKIN’ THEIR LITTLE WINGS OFF!!

I’m looking forward to returning in September to see what God has in store for us the following four months.  Our VISAS are up in January, so we have to go home sometime in December.  But it’s just downright exciting to know that the Lord is not finished with us yet - He has more blessings coming our way because we are willing to be obedient to His plans.  And don’t think that, in itself, is an easy thing.  You know, I keep bringing my silly fears and excuses to the foot of the cross and then…you know what??  I go pick them up again !  Yep.  That’s me.  Do you think I’ll ever get over it and change once and for all???

We love you all and look forward to meeting with you again through the Harmonsinengland blog.  God’s blessings to all of you.  Please remember us in your prayers.  (Dick really needs it!) ahem.

Our love