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When I was a kid, my family went to church every week. We've all since stopped, but I want to share a story about the time an African bishop came to stay at our house. 🧵Permalink On twitter.com
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It's 1996 and I'm ten years old. For my birthday, an aunt had sent me £10 in a card. It was a late gift and I'd already spent my other cash on a new hi-fi. At church we'd been hearing about a bishop in Uganda who our vicar was friends with - he ran an orphanage there.Permalink On twitter.com
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I asked my parents if I could donate the £10 "to Africa". The vicar helped me write to their UK reps and I sent off the money. Months later I got a set of letters back telling me how a room full of church officials in Uganda were brought to tears at my letter and donation.On twitter.com
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They were describing me as "the boy with the loaves and fishes" and I ended up exchanging letters with the bishop and his family for a while.Permalink On twitter.com
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A few months later, the bishop himself was visiting the UK - and he requested to visit our village in the Midlands so he could meet me, the boy who gave what little money he had. He wanted to have dinner with my family.Permalink On twitter.com
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I don't think my parents were quite equipped to deal with the arrival of an African bishop in our mid-90s semi in Nottingham, but they did their best ("does he like lasagna?"). When he arrived, it was a bit like being visited by Jesus.Permalink On twitter.com
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He wandered around my room and admired my posters from Smash Hits magazine as though they were items of great cultural importance (maybe they were?). He was kind and wise and gentle, and put everyone at ease.Permalink On twitter.com
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Before he went to bed in our spare room, I remember he kneeled down alongside me and my younger sister and asked us "children, what are your favourite Bible verses? I would like to read them with you now".Permalink On twitter.com
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Thankfully I'd recently copied out the famous 1 Corinthians verse ("Love is patient, love is kind") for my mum's birthday card (I know, I was going through a pious phase - and didn't have any money for a present) so I was able to quote that back, to his approval.Permalink On twitter.com
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My 9 year old sister, though, was less of a biblical scholar than me. Feeling the need to respond with similar grace, she panicked, plucking a random book and verse combo out of the air. "Er... Isaiah 39?".Permalink On twitter.com
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He didn't know this one and had to pull out his pocket Bible and look it up: 'Then Isaiah the prophet went to King Hezekiah and asked, "What did those men say, and where did they come from?" "From a distant land," Hezekiah replied. "They came to me from Babylon."'Permalink On twitter.com
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We sat there for a moment, kneeling on the carpet outside my bedroom door, and all of us pretended that those words carried meaningful significance to a nine year old child living in suburban Nottingham. We nodded sagely after he read it, then he silently put the Bible away.Permalink On twitter.com