Today is one of the highlights in our church calendar. Once every year we celebrate our diversity by dressing up in national costumes of the many countries we represent as a congregation. There were 25 countries represented in a feature when each of them came up to the front in typical dress, to the sound of a typical piece of their music. After telling us a little about their nation, and praying, they read Psalm 86:9-10 in their own languages.

"All the nations you have made shall come
and worship before you, O Lord,
and shall glorify your name.
For you are great and do wondrous things;
you alone are God."
As part of the day, we also have a special collection. This dates to when we needed to cover our first year's rent for the Cinema back in the spring of 2005. Each year as we have grown since then, God has been gracious to us and our special giving day has raised more than enough to cover our rising rent for ever more of the screens for a growing congregation and children's ministry. We have also been able to pay for publicity, equipment, and contributions towards the work of churches in needy parts of the world.

God has been abundantly gracious to us year after year. We give out of gratitude. But as a result, it seems more grace keeps coming, and hence we are more grateful. Once again today we experienced a truly amazing provision by God of a significant sum of money for his work here. The strangest thing was that earlier in the week a calm descended on the church and, in fact, at our prayer meeting yesterday morning we thanked God for what we knew he would do today, and also for some wonderful testimonies of what he has been doing for our individual members. We seemed to have been given a supernatural gift of faith, such that when the offering figure was announced today we were thrilled, but not particularly surprised!

All-in-all, we had a great day, and I'm very glad to now be resting with my family. I thought I'd share the photos above, which were taken today. I am with my wife, two of our African ladies who helped cater for the day, and with the church's lead elder, Tope Koleoso.