Trump

My dad was the pastor of his own little pioneer Pentecostal church group right back when I was an eight year old boy and we did church on Sundays in a little community centre, just a tiny room. The congregation consisted of me and my four brothers, three more boys from another family, our age, and about half a dozen adults. So the majority were children, boys at that.

Mum had never been fantastically fashion conscious with us but had spotted the practical potential of one of the latest trends, and, probably without realising it's status as the uniform of sixties gang culture, she had kitted us all out each with our own identical parka. The fact that we had two Vespa scooters parked on the garden, the other icon of the 'mods', must have had the neighbours wondering what kind of future these parents had planned for their children, but anyway that's another story.

Parkas had lots of pockets, zips, popper fasteners and things to fiddle with and we all sat there popping and unpopping, fiddling with the zips and drawstrings as well as the usual noughts-and-crosses and hangman games to get us through the long, tedious sermon that dad was labouring through (bless him). Eventually he reached the end and we all breathed a sigh of relief as he asked if anyone had a hymn. The end was in sight now. A hymn, a prayer, and as long as no-one gets inspired or spoken to by the Lord we're home and dry and out to the swing park while they finish up with tea and biscuits. Please God don't speak to anyone.

"One-four-two", came a voice from the back.
"One hundred and forty two in the Redemption Hymnal" dad confirmed, reaching for his accordion. Now, many people reading this story now who knew my dad might be surprised by this, thinking that dad could not play the accordion. Well the truth is that, no, he could not play the accordion, but he was not a man to let a technical detail get in the way, and anyway when give your best efforts to the Lord in faith he can bless those feeble efforts and turn them into something beautiful as Jesus turned water into wine. Unfortunately He didn't do that with dad's accordion playing so steeling ourselves against the coming onslaught we thumbed through the Redemption Hymnal to 142, and glanced over the page, checking how long it looked like it was going to take, but many young eyes stopped dead on a part of verse seven.

Slightly distracted by some commotion among the youngsters, some poking and elbowing and pointing at the hymn books, dad delivered one of his hard stares and then announced, "Erm, I wonder if someone could read a verse out. Mrs Tewks..." he decided, "verse..." it was a completely random, but most unfortunate choice, "seven". Many pairs of eyes suddenly took on a look of panic. They could see the train approaching but were powerless to get off the track.

She read the first line, I don't remember the words. She read the second line, and then with all the feeling and sincerity she could muster she started the third line, "And the trump of the Lord shall sound..." and at that point the whole place erupted. Kids could not contain themselves any longer, they were weeping with laughter, tears running down their face. Legs that had been squeezed together already trying to hold off the need for the toilet now cramped up and still a little wet patch appeared on their trousers. And just as the group managed to grasp toward some kind of composure a little voice quoted "and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it," and the whole place fell apart again. I swear, through the tears in my eyes I saw Mrs Tewks struggling to hold it back.

We got into so much trouble that night. We got a lecture when we got home such as I don't think we ever had before or since, but really what could we do? I claim we were innocent victims and God will understand when the Day comes that we have to answer for our actions here on earth