Pentecost Farewell and Welcome Meals
 I remember when we lived in Hong Kong I was responsible for arranging the weekly Bible expositions over a weekday lunch at St John’s Cathedral and one of the series was by a Chinese priest: The Essence of Christianity is Eating, an exploration of the place of meals in the Bible. It is perhaps a distinctively Chinese insight, so perhaps it was appropriate that a lunch and dinner took place in the Hong Kong Restaurant: on Saturday a farewell lunch with Mary and Thomas George: Mary moves with the children to Toronto soon for a new life there, and hopefully Thomas will follow before too long. It is always sad to say farewell, but we wish the family joy in all the new challenges of the coming years.
And on Sunday evening appropriately Pentecost we invited a group of Chinese who have links with the Cathedral to dinner to meet our friends from Hong Kong who are staying with us this week – the Rev’d Jenny Wong and her husband Tony. The conversation flowed in Mandarin and a little Cantonese and Jenny had brought some gospels and booklets in Chinese which she gave as gifts. It somehow seemed a practical outworking of the message that Simon preached at the evening service on Sunday evening. Jenny, who was ordained in Canada, was always a helpful interpreter of the Chinese Church in our years in Hong Kong and a friend who has now visited us in our various parishes ever since. |