Heart To God Hand To Man

Care & Share Shop Whittlesey - Cambridgeshire

Heart To God Hand To Man

Well, what a year 2018 has been with a massive change in my working life.

  For the first five months I was still leading Elim March and carrying out two early morning cleaning jobs, which were getting more and more difficult to do physically as my Parkinson's took hold. The weekly setting up and striking of all the equipment became to much at the community centre and left me with less and less energy to lead the Sunday morning meetings. From purely a physical point of view, changes had to be made in my life and I had seen them coming for over a year to 18 months.

  I had been praying about this situation for 18 months and looked into many options and indeed applied for  other positions that I believed I could do with my declining health. I was pipped at the post twice for a position I would loved to have done and didn't understand it at the time, but the Lord always has a plan and His timing is always perfect.

  What I was certain of was that in the time I had left, physically, I needed to be doing something somewhere where I could have the potential to do the most good and was certain that The Salvation Army was the organisation to facilitate this. Jobs in my area do not come up very often but after Easter I applied for the part-time position of Manager at their charity shop in Whittlesey and was successful. I gave the church a fair amount of notice and officially retired from full time ministry at the end of June, although I started a couple of weeks earlier at the shop and worked both jobs for a week or two.

  You may think that managing a shop is far removed from life in the church, you'd be wrong. I get to speak to more unchurched people, (not Christians), now on a daily basis than I ever did as a Pastor. I regularly talk to people about Jesus and give them their first bible. People come in to speak to me about their problems knowing that I will not judge them. I have been able to give useful items to those in need of them, when they need them. 

  I have the privilege of leading Army meetings from time to time when the senior officers are away, so my time as Rev. Adrian is still being used by the Lord, and leading worship musically is a pleasure again, now I have more energy to enjoy it.

  I have met and been encouraged by some wonderful S.A. Officers during my first six months here, they all have demonstrated Jesus' love and compassion in quite an overwhelming way and have been great ambassadors for the S.A. moto, 'Heart to God, Hand to Man'! They have all been an inspiration and have backed me, offered their hand of friendship and support in His love.

  I have full confidence that whatever life or indeed my Parkinson's throws at me in the future, I will be able to cope with it with the love and support of my beautiful wife Kerry, the Lord Jesus and my brothers and sisters of the Salvation Army.

  God bless you for reading this and may YOU be richly blessed in His name in 2019.

Adrian.