Both ladies are staying with Bishop Graham & Ali Kings here in Bermondsey, en route to sabbatical study in Durham.
It was good to welcome them to St James, good to receive greetings from our brothers and sisters in Africa, and on a day when we were especially thinking about God's peoplev from 1 Peter, good to be reminded that we are part of a worldwide family, drawn from every nation on earth.
One of our visitors today particularly commented on the multi-racial dimension of St James. I liked the way she put it: 'you have many different tribes in this church,' she said.
That made me think of the vision of the heavenly church given in the book of Revelation:
'After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands' (Revelation 7.9)
In that sense, St James and St Anne's, is a little foreteste of heaven.
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