We said our goodbyes to my good friend Eric this week. Sadly Eric died on 17 September 2011 following a stroke the week before. He was 84 years old. Eric and I had been friends for something like 14 years. Having joined Wantage Community Church in 1997, I soon had regular Sunday lunch invites at Eric & Jean's home. Eric and I became prayer partners, probably in 1998, and Sunday lunches were extended to include Wednesday tea, afterwhich we prayed together.

I probably had something like 1,000 meals cooked by Eric over the last 10 years or more. Such generosity! It was always difficult to know how to return some of that generosity. Sometimes I would take a cake, but being diabetic, he wasn't supposed to eat much cake! Not long ago, I'd popped in for a cup of tea and Eric found a victoria sponge cake to help wash the tea down. We didn't eat slices of cake - he cut it into 3, saving one piece for Jeremy, his eldest son.

Eric loved cooking. He'd never cooked until he retired and I think cooking for people gave him an opportunity to be useful, creative and appreciated. If I'd been away for any length of time, I was often welcomed back with roast lamb. Although neither of us said anything, he knew it was one of my favourites and I knew that he'd cooked it as a 'welcome back' message.

Occasionally I could repay some of his generosity by doing little jobs for him. Eric wasn't good at asking for help (he recently trimmed his holly tree by reaching out of his bedroom window) but he would ask me to help with technolgoy, driving or difficult-to-reach maintenance jobs around the home. Usually this meant programming mobile phones, setting up his emailing telephone, connecting TV and digi boxes - and my favourite job; changing the starter in the fluorescent tube in the kitchen. Sounds easy but the whole fitting had to be disassembled to locate the starter, and it always felt somewhat delicate. I must have changed it 4 times in all and became a dab-hand at it eventually!

Eric had a heart for God, for his family and for people. He wanted God's best for his life - he didn't really want his knees operated on - he wanted God's miraculous healing. He often watched God digital TV to get as much Bible teaching as he could, taking notes as fast as he could. Too often he couldn't write fast enough - and then he couldn't remember what he'd written!

He's one of those people in my life that I know has been praying for me, maybe even daily! I know he's in a better place, with a fully-working body, but I'm going to miss him all the same.

Thanks for your friendship Eric - and thanks for waiting for me!

Eric Lawrence: 19 March 1927 - 17 September 2011