Cuckfield visits Thonon

There has been a long connection between these two churches, and in more recent years we have made it sound more formal by calling it twinning. It has been customary for a group from one church to visit the other each year. In 2006, eight members from Cuckfield spent 21-25 April in Thonon: 6 flying from Gatwick to Geneva, and 2 driving from their French home in Normandy to Thonon. The party enjoyed generous French hospitality, both in the church building and in homes; also meeting friends old and new. The relationship has been in place long enough for people on both sides to remember the names of the people they met last time, and there were joys and sorrows to share. Despite the fact that all of the 8 people were, as it happened, grandparents – age-range 50-68 – I was invited to meet with the teenage group on the Friday evening, share their picnic, and talk with them. All 8 attended the Sunday morning meeting, at which Steve Gunderson, Cuckfield’s recently-appointed Associate Pastor, preached, with translation, simply but effectively on the lordship of Christ. Fitted into the busy schedule was a visit to Geneva to do a tour of the UN buildings, and to see the Reformation wall, which commemorates the most notable reformers of European countries. There are statues, and inscriptions in several different languages, which would have repaid further study. On the last complete day, the party went by car to Chamonix, and on further east into Switzerland, where some were photographed in their shirtsleeves, standing in the sun in front of huge banks of snow cleared from the road. These exchange visits are heartily recommended. Pastor Nordine Salmi appreciates them, even though it makes him work even harder than usual to organise events. It was planned that he should come to England in June to attend the Evangelical Ministry Assembly in London, and to speak at Cuckfield Chapel’s mid-week meeting on 28th. Bob Campen