Page 25 - link magazine

NEWS & VIEWS 25
Building a church - literally
Toothill After-School Club
After much hard work and * May pal? *
prayer, the Freshbrook Church
congregation will soon have Saturday 5 May, lOam - 5.30pm
its own building. Although it
was used for the first time at Toothill Farm, Bodiam Drive
Easter, for a full immersion Pony rides, May Pole Dancing, Side Shows and Stalls,
baptism, It won't be in regular Pipe Band, Cream Teas
use until after the summer. A
driving force behind seeing the
project through has been Rev. Calling Kings & Queens
Bernard Welch.
The Dunwich Drive Playgroup are organising a May
"Happy Anniversary" Jean King & Queen Competition at the May Fair and
Welch exclaimed to her husband invite playgroups and parents to enter children.
on Sunday 18 March. "Anniver- Entry costs 25p and judging for the best costume
sary, of what?" he asked. takes place at 2p.m. after a parade.
It was ten years to the day since The winners will then tour the Fair in a horse and
Bernard Welch was rushed into carriage.
hospital in the early hours of the Bernard Welch, hard at work on
morning having suffered a se- Freshbrook Church
vere heart attack.
Recovery was slow but today
he is overseeing the building of *
the new church at Freshbrook due
to be open for regular public
worship in early July.
Bernard Welch was born in
China, his parents having served
as missionaries for twenty years.
As a family they were interned in
a concentration camp during the
last war. He was in the same
camp as Eric Liddell the Olympic
runner whose early life story is
portrayed in the film 'Chariots of
Fire'.
Prior to his heart attack Ber-
nard had served as a minister for
twenty years first at Brentwood
in Essex before coming to Swin-
don with his wife Jean and three
children in 1974.
Following the heart attack a
change in occupation became nec-
essary and he worked at the Chris-
tian Bookshop in Farringdon
Road. It was last September when
he left the shop to oversee the
new building in Freshbrook.
When asked about the new For an American
church building Bernard says "All
that has happened is a testimony
to what God is doing. The church
is not a building but the people pizza at home-just
and since 1982 God has been at
work in Freshbrook raising up a
company of people to worship
and serveHim. Today the Church
consists of people from twelve pick up the phone
different denominational back-
grounds. For the past eighteen
months the Rev. Peter Grainger
has served as the full time minis- Domino's - America's favourite delivered pizzas are here!
ter. S So it you want a pizza at home, just pick up the phone and dial
The building is being paid for 877585 and we'll deliver delicious freshly baked hot pizzas to your
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many parts of the country.
Hudson Taylor the first mis-
sionary to inland China once said:
"God's work done in God's way P75e5
will never lack God's supply". * Ak
The church at Freshbrookis prov-
ing this to be true.