Stephen Carvell died January 2017

‘Bless your lovely heart!’ was always his catch phrase. My friend Stephen Carvell died recently.

I need to put my claim to friendship with Stephen within clear parameters. Stephen had many friends both male and female. I met him when he was 57 when he came for a job as Community Safety Officer when I was manager of the Community Development Team at South Beds District Council, so our friendship lasted 16 years.

Stephen was hugely extrovert and thus a foil to my introvert self. As a team (and there were about 21 of us at its peak) we pulled together these amazing community safety conferences. He built on the start-up work of Jane Rollin who went off and got herself a top job in New Zealand. He was out there about most things including his faith, but I only really got to understand the depths and passion of his evangelism, his ‘gifting’ from God, once I was no longer his manager.

He was the first work colleague I told about FH leaving when I arrived at the office in a dazed state and he was the first person who knocked on my door. I was leaving a week later so I got away without discussing it with work colleagues for the long period of time I needed to absorb the immediate shock myself.

He took me under his wing. Thereafter he would travel to wherever was convenient for me (often down to London) for lunch every 4-6 weeks and we shared life in all its triumphs and sorrows. When I was in Cameroon we wrote and he sent me a toilet seat. When I was in Sri Lanka we wrote and he sent me a bible.

Stephen was an influence on me returning to church. We talked a lot about spiritual issues especially towards the end of his life, but that does not encapsulate him for me. Alongside that deep church hopping faith was a great exuberance, a joyous thankfulness for the blessings God had given him. I thank God he was in my life at all.

In my bible he has written
Dear Hazel
May you be blessed and encouraged as you read God’s word.
He will finish what he has started in you. Psalm 138 vs 8 THE MESSAGE
Bless your lovely heart.
Love Stephen.

There is a momentum rising.