A golden jubilee

The Ipswich Road United Reformed Church in Norwich is celebrating 50 years of life in the city this spring.
The Bishop of Norwich will join with no fewer than seven former ministers of the church in preaching at a series of Sunday morning services to mark the celebrations this spring and early summer.
The Rt Rev Graham James will speak on June 16, a week after Rev Ray Balmer, minister of the church almost 50 years ago takes to the pulpit.
The ministers of the other three URC churches in the city will also join in the celebrations.
A second-hand wooden army hut formed the first church building in 1952, to test the water for erecting a more permanent building.
The Tuckwood estate had only just been built at the time and South Tuckswood did not even exist.

Rev David Littlejohns outside Ipswich Road URC.

A popular Sunday School developed and the first permanent minister, Rev David Viles arrived in 1959. The church became self-governing during his ministry and a manse was built.
In 1968 the wooden hut was replaced with a larger suite of more permanent buildings.
Today the church membership stands at almost 100, under the leadership of Rev David Littlejohns, and attracts mostly

local families with some coming from further afield. The premises are used for luncheon clubs, indoor bowls, a drop-in, teddy bear club, table tennis clubs, railway societies and several other local organisations.
Further information on the 50th anniversary celebration services is available from church secretary Jill Donley on 01603 458248.

The power of prayer

Hope Price.

Twenty years ago Christian author and mother, Hope Price began praying for the ideal marriage partners for her children as toddlers. Today those partners are heaven sent, Sandie Ridgley reports
When Hope Price's children were barely out of nappies she listed specific attributes she wanted God to provide in her offspring's future partners. "I wrote down the virtues and characteristics I felt would complement my children's and stored the two separate lists in my Bible and prayed about them regularly and at length," says Hope who found the idea in a book.
The former missionary and author of 'Angels' and 'Miracles' (Pan MacMillan) was speaking at a women's breakfast meeting run by Mulbarton Church when illustrating the 'fruit' of that astounding prayer of faith. Two decades on, God has honoured those requests as son Luke and daughter Naomi tied the knot with Helen and Simon - blueprints of all Hope's dreams, forged in prayer.
"We have the wonderful privilege of praying for our children's daily needs but we can also pray for their futures and a strong, Christian faith," says the former missionary.
"God can redeem the years the locusts have eaten. We experienced teenage traumas and Naomi

was anorexic while Luke was a rebellious adolescent but now they have come out the right way up. Through prayer, which can influence more than our own family and children, they are married to Christians from Christian families," says Hope who witnessed Luke's miraculous malaria recovery

aged just two while living in Rwanda.
“Some of the great people in history became that way because of a praying parent, like John and Charles Wesley's mother, Suzannah. Praying mothers also transformed the lives of St Augustine and Billy Graham's children," said Hope.

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