Mystery, Emotion and Moving On

HopeLovegood, IvoraKeys, AnneTique

A strange thing happened at IMC last Thursday evening. My usual fellow Mission Trainees and our lecturers vanished, and were temporarily replaced by the suspicious parishioners of Bosthorpe Evangelical Church, who spent the evening in the murky world of (fictitious) crime… who had murdered Don Ritting??!!! The usually very glamorous Charmaine was replaced by the greyed, deaf and suspiciously dark upper lipped Anne Tique who was commonly spotted napping throughout proceedings, the normally creative Sarah disappeared behind a peach nylon explosion, complete with a hearing trumpet and thick Jamaican accent- “Whad dat did you say?” And our learned lecturer Nicky was finally able to relax and happily sit in oblivion to what was going on around her as Al Zeihmers, and reminisce to her hearts content about the Good Old Days on the Mission Field! While I suddenly became obsessed with celebrities, shopping and became weighed down by an unusual amount of bling. Yes, a Murder Mystery was our chosen final activity at IMC to celebrate our 8 months and take a last opportunity to dress up and laugh at each other.

Ben Da Truth                Al Zeihmers              Rev Al Ation I             Alta Cleff
          Rev Al Ation II                                               Dan Widdit

The Arrest of Stew Ard by Detective Stan De Sing

From hilarity and ridiculousness, to a significant and emotional Commissioning Service on the Friday morning, a time when, following our training, we were ‘Sent Out’ to go and get on with it. Amongst the words of encouragement, affirmation, thanks and shared fond memories, there was a deep sense of solidarity and significance amongst us. However, tears and the regular chorus of nose blowing prevented the event from becoming overly dignified and stuffy- that’s not IMC’s style!

And so now, it is time to sort, throw, store, pack up my bags and move on to the next step. IMC, Step One. Done.