Gus the Gorilla

This page is devoted to someone who is an important, although unconventional part of our church. You may recognise him from this photograph! I'm going to let Gus introduce himself in his own words. He'll probably be back to change what he's written as he has a habit of turning up in unexpected places.

Gus has been very helpful to us as a church and has certainly taught me some important lessons, and been a good friend when times got tough. Most importantly he has taught me to laugh, and reminded me that Father God seems to like a joke occasionally, and is a lot less strait laced than me! Anyway - enough from me and over now to Gus.

" Hi there! My names Gus, and I'm a gorilla. (That's what I have to say every week in Gorillas Galore, which is a sort of 12 step group I attend to try and deal with my addiction to mischief and mayhem and all things anthropoid).

I'm not sure where I was born, but for as long as I can remember, I've been living in a very nice little room upstairs at Wimborne Baptist Church which is called the creche. There were lots of toys to play with, and the pastor told me it was actually the most comfortable room in the whole building. Quite often I used to get visits from very small people, who would play with my toys and dribble on my velour but I didn't mind. I'm a very accepting sort of ape, and quite frankly I was glad of the company. While they were there an adult would come and play with them and I could also listen to hymns and prayers and sermons from the pastor coming over the loudspeaker. The worship sounded different from the songs they sang in the creche - you can get a bit tired of singing "the wheels on the bus go round and round..." every week for twenty years!

One day, (and I'm not saying who, because the pastor has never found out and I don't want him to, in case they get into trouble), someone picked me up and took me out the creche, and said I was going to visit another part of the church. Well you could have knocked me down with a banana (in fact I wish someone WOULD knock me down with a banana, all I get in the creche are left-over rusks)! I didn't even know there was any other parts of the church. I thought church was all about babies and nursery rhymes and pictures of baby Jesus. In fact, sitting in the creche I could never work out what the pastor was preaching about (I've since learned that I'm not the only one - but that's another story).

We went down some steps, along the corridor, through some big heavy doors, and suddenly I was in a big cold room with lots of brown varnish and green carpet tiles. Apparently that was the REAL church where all the important people sit on a Sunday. And all this time, I thought that the CRECHE was the important room and that church was all about babies. Obviously I have a lot to learn.

Anyway - they left me sitting on a big chair - it was covered in brown varnish too. It looks like varnish is a more important part of Christianity than I thought. Obviously soft toys and cushions are not really church at all. So I sat on the chair and waited. It was very quiet, and it was a long time before anything else happened. I was feeling lonely and I didn't really like all the varnish.

After a while the room started to warm up, and the varnish started to get sticky. Then people came in through the door and when they noticed me some of them started to giggle but some of them started to frown. And they were very BIG people - it seems that in the brown varnish church, they let adults attend. Well - I just hope they behave that's all. Personally I've heard the pastor saying in his sermons that Jesus loves everyone, gorillas, babies and adults - so I suppose I'll have to get used to them.

I've really enjoyed my little adventures, but I'm a bit tired after all that travelling so I am going back to the creche to have a rest. I'm also a bit frightened about the building work, and for health and safety reasons, I'm staying in the creche till its over. But pastor has bought me a little laptop and given me internet access so you might be hearing more from me. If you see a gorilla popping across a web page, don't panic - it's only me. I'll try not to upset anyone.

Bye bye! "

Gus's blog update - August 2008

"Hey what's been going on? Where's all the brown varnish? What's that funny smell - new carpets or paint? When can I see all the things that have been happening? Can I have time off for good behaviour? Is my parole hearing soon?