Thought for the Week

IT’S THE first time I have heard a didgeridoo played on the beach at A’Chleit.

We enjoyed our messy church barbecue in the most perfect of days and the young people took to the sea like dolphins.

We had a camp fire for toasting marshmallows, a barbecue with sausages sizzling in the afternoon sun, mouth-watering meringues with cream and little popsicle cakes for afters.

Laughter and fun intermingled with games and music and we were a great happy family.

However, our bagpipe-playing youngsters were challenged by a different skill required to even get a sound out of the didgeridoo.

Scott, our lovely friend from Australia, demonstrated how to make the call of the kookaburra bird. He made it look so easy. Some of us couldn’t even manage a note. I loved the fact that the kookaburra is known as the ‘laughing bird’, for there was much laughter on the beach last Sunday.

The children dipped in and out of the sea, splashed each other with buckets of water, buried each other in the sand and generally had a great time.

One lovely moment was when little Alec, aged two, sat down and found a frisbee which made a perfect plate for his cake.

We sang silly songs and funny songs, had a treasure hunt and a made sand castles. We were so blessed with perfect weather. We finished by using the parachute to think of Psalm 139 which tells us that God is with us wherever we are, and is with us in whatever we are doing – even if it is trying to master the didgeridoo.

How good these times are in our church family life and hopefully our young folk will remember and treasure these memories too.

The church stood above us on the rock, and I thought how good it was to have a new expression of church alongside.