Making Plans
What are your plans for the summer?  Perhaps you have been through a particularly busy or difficult time, and you are looking forward to a holiday.  There are many different ways to relax; some people choose to stand in queues for hours, sit on a plane for hours, then sit on a beach for hours.  Others might prefer to be more active, walking up and down mountains with heavy rucksacks on their backs.  Some prefer to remain at home, catching up with gardening or working around the house.  Put like this, none of it sounds very relaxing!  Yet many of us will return to our everyday tasks refreshed by a change of scene.

Thwarted Plans
Some of us will make our plans, but find they can’t go ahead after all, due to illness or other problems.  Our plans to relax are thwarted, and we are thrown into a situation we would never have chosen.  How do we deal with this? 

Jesus on Holiday
It had been a busy and stressful time for Jesus and his disciples.  They had been on the road for weeks on end, teaching, comforting, and healing.  Then the news came that John the Baptist, Jesus’ cousin, had been beheaded in prison.  What a tragedy!  He was only six months older than Jesus, barely into his thirties. 

“Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a desolate place by himself.  But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns”.   (Matthew 14 v 13).

It was the natural reaction to such bad news:  a wish to be away from the crowds, whilst struggling with his grief.  
It is hard to keep on giving our time and energy to others without a break. The gospel of Mark tells us of the same incident, and puts it like this:

“And he (Jesus) said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while”.  For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat”.
(Mark 6 v31).

So Jesus’ plans for a little rest were thwarted. How did he react?

“When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick”. 
(Matthew 14 v 14.)

Most of us would feel resentful, being denied even a short rest when we had been working so hard.  Mark tells us how Jesus felt.

“He had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd”.
(Mark 6 v 34)

Jesus was giving his whole life to the work he was doing.  It mattered so much to him that these people should receive guidance and direction in their lives. “Sheep without a shepherd” are vulnerable to disease and predators.  While Jesus was with them, he wanted to give them something that would change their lives – the word of God. 

A holiday with a difference
From 4nd to 8th August, a group of volunteers will be working at Ardler Community Centre on Turnberry Avenue, Dundee.  Many of them will have travelled a long way to be there, and they are giving up a week of their holidays.  They are doing it because the word of God has had such a positive effect on their lives that they want to share it with others.  At the end of the week, they will go home tired but refreshed, having shared their enthusiasm and made new friends.  We hope you will be able to come and join in some of the activities – see over for more details.

Please give full details of your name and address and mentioning this newsletter, from any of the contact points below (FREEPOST address does not require a stamp or any other details):

Dundee Christadelphians
5 Rattray Street
DUNDEE   DD1 1NA

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FREEPOST CHRISTADELPHIANS

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e-mail: dundee@seachforhope.org

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