Canal Ministries

Some of the younger people and I were treated to a canal cruise after morning worship courtesy of Paul and Sue Standley of Canal Ministries, aboard their narrowboat Ten Thousand Reasons. It was interesting watching Paul at work, both as helmsman and minister of the waterways, chatting to denizens of the canal, offering coffees and being a Christian presence. I had not fully realised the number of people who call the canal their home (I suspect that a number of male divorcees, finding their half of the house sale inadequate to buy a new property, aspire to a barge). What I had always considered to be places of transit or leisure are also places of deep spiritual need for which the love of God and light of Christ are much needed.

The NIV translates the Hebrew word han·nā·hār as canal in various places, such as Ezra 8:21:

There, by the Ahava Canal, I proclaimed a fast, so that we might humble ourselves before our God and ask him for a safe journey for us and our children, with all our possessions.

Let us pray that those on the Leeds-Liverpool, and other British waterways, might humble themselves before God also, to seek His protection and blessing, for themselves and their children. But more importantly still, that they might find Him through His Son, the Lord Jesus.