Carol Singing

Since I returned from Uganda, I have been meeting with a very small group of people from my church who also live in the same road as me. We have been praying for the residents of our street and have begun to see fruit in building relationships.
On Sunday we held Carol Singing on our drive. With funding from the church we were able to provide bubbly and mince pies, with fruit juice for the little ones, and we put an invite through everyone's door. One of the prayer group is an excellent guitarist with a beautiful voice and her husband rigged her up with microphone and amplifier. The music sounded great and people could sing along, or not, and chat too. Halfway through, the rain began to fall, cold and heavy, and I despaired, imagining people would scatter back to the warmth of their homes, but instead umbrellas were fetched and the singing continued! Many stayed to chat at the end, with much reminiscing over Street Parties for the Queen's Silver Jubilee and the Royal Wedding, and requests for 'next year'!
One of my children asked me what it was for. I gave it some thought and came to the conclusion that it was for relationship. We are all busy people, it takes a few seconds to walk from the door to the car, and few are the chances to chat with the people we live alongside. Hopefully Sunday's singing will have sown seeds for relationships to begin, to renew, to grow and to blossom and for neighbour to know neighbour, to care and love and help out. I hope we have done just a little thing towards building a community.