EMYC - European Methodist Youth and Children

This has been quite a month for me, in various ways. As well as the visits already described on this blog, we had a very important family celebration. On the 18th January, our young son, Joe, became 21. I'd made sure to keep the weekend free in my diary, so was able be part of the celebrations. But when your youngest becomes 21, it's another reminder that you're not as young as you used to be. So it was rather nice to go to Frankfurt with Mike Seaton for a meeting of the Executive of EMYC (European Methodist Youth and Children).

Back in the Autumn, while I was sitting relaxing in Colombo, Sri Lanka, I received an email informing me that I'd been elected as the next President of EMYC. This came as good news. Years ago, when I was Children's Secretary at the then Division of Education and Youth, I attended EMYC for a number of years ands was its Vice-President. Over a decade later, to be elected as President is a great honour and I'm really looking forward to it. It's a four-year post, generally undertaken by Bishops or Ex-Presidents of the different European Methodist Churches.

We met at the same time and place as the Executive of the European Methodist Council (co-chaired by Chris Elliott) and held a joint session (pictured, left) in which the main item under discussion was a forthcoming European Methodist Festival, at Kracow in 2012.

I seem to be experiencing extremes of weather this month. Snow in London was followed by the warmth of Ghana. In Frankfurt it was both snowy and foggy. The photo below shows a plane landing while we waited for ours, which was delayed over an hour because of the weather conditions and the need to de-ice the wings before we could set off. I wonder what Palestine will be like next week?