Fetter Lane, London: A visitor from Barbados - Sept 2024
With our ministers and MWA Circle Leader away at Synod, it was a happy coincidence that a visiting minister from Barbados, Rev Roslyn Hamblin, kindly volunteered to be the guest speaker at our scheduled MWA service in July. Introduced by Sr Magueda Butler, standing in for Sr Minette Flemmings, Sr Roslyn brought greetings from her two congregations in Barbados. She chose the theme of faith, illustrated by the story in Luke chapter 8 of the woman who sought relief from the pain caused by twelve years of haemorrhages. This is a passage that will be familiar to those of us who attended the MWA retreat at Drumalis in Northern Ireland in May.
Faith was the key, hard as it can be at times. To illustrate her point, she gave us a few handy acronyms. Forwarding All Issues To Heaven, in other words, pray. She noted that an obstacle in this exercise is often fear, or False Evidence Appearing Real. We were encouraged to consider all the ways that fear would have affected this woman, especially a woman in those times. So that brought us back to faith and a final acronym – Fear Ain’t In This House.
Thanks to Sr Roslyn for sharing her insights with us and for staying to meet a number of the Fetter Lane congregation who share Caribbean roots. Greetings to our sisters and brothers in Barbados!
Sr Cynthia Dize