Another Great Read . . .

Last week I attended a Day Seminar at Coleg Trefecca, a Training and Retreat Centre which is part of our denomination. There were about thirty of us there to listen to Rev Dr John Morgans who recently retired from full-time ministry, and who has published a new book under the title Journey of a Lifetime.

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John Morgans is a Diarist. He explained how he had been given a Lett's Diary as a Christmas present when he was 12 years old, and had carefully kept a diary every year since then. His book is a selection of those diary entries throughout the years, and gives a fascinating insight into the workings of his mind, the choices that he was led to make, and the events, people and places that were of the greatest influence in his life. Now 70 years old, you can imagine the wealth of material that the intervening years have provided. The book follows John's life from his days as a schoolboy in Tylerstown, as a student , and as a minister responsible for shepherding the flocks entrusted to him in Wales up until his retirement in 2004. The diary extracts cover a period of 52 years and are selected from a massive five million words.

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Like the others who attended the seminar, I was enthralled by the stories that unfolded, providing as they did an historical glimpse into the past sixty years (almost). He was an easy speaker to listen to and, to some extent because of the personal nature of the book's contents, he made the whole thing come to life. Transported to the mining and industrial past of the Welsh Valleys we may have been, but it was a transport of delight. We shared for a while the path that John had trod as he journeyed and laboured for the Lord, and what a walk that turned out to be.

Here was a man who was passionate about his love of the Lord and about the work that he was called to do, and that passion was shared by his wife Norah, and one got the impression, by their children too.

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This will be a book that sits by my bedside for a long time to come, not to be read continuously, but rather dipped into and savoured night after night. Both John and Norah Morgans received the OBE in 1995 for their tireless work amongst the poorer communities of Wales, notably at Penrhys in the Rhondda. Despite the prestige of receiving such an accolade i have the impression that they will both value the words of our Lord one day much more, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant".

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John claimed that he was privileged to have the opportunity to share his memories with us. I, however, feel that it was us who were the privileged ones for having the opportunity to hear them, to share them, and to live them through him.