Grapevine 4 November 2007

Services Next Week

Marshchapel	Sunday	10 a.m	Remembrance
North Thoresby	Thursday	9.30 a.m	Holy Communion
	Sunday	10 a.m.	Parish Communion with the Revd Ian Walker

Bishop David

It’s great to welcome Bishop David this morning. He will be coming for a longer visit on Thursday and talking to the Wardens during the afternoon. There will be a meeting for reflections on the day and any questions you may have at St Helen’s at 7.30 pm. All members of the PCCs have been already invited, but anyone else is welcome to come along as well.

Patrick Munyembwe and
Firehiwot Moges

We have heard that Patrick and his brothers and sister (who you will remember are orphans) have moved to live with some other members of their family. Because Patrick has been at school supported by World Vision he is able to continue his education in his new home and all is reported to be well. This does mean that Patrick has moved out of the area served by the Word Vision development programme, so we have to say goodbye to him and his family.

World Vision has asked us to continue our sponsorship with a 12 year old girl from Ethiopia. Firehiwot Moges lives with her parents in Addis Ababa. As far as I can discover, her name is pronounced Feeray-heewoh and means Seed of Life. She has the opportunity to attend a local school and sponsorship will help her to continue to receive an education. Firehiwot is doing well at school. She is learning English which is important because it is the medium of instruction in secondary education. She enjoys volleyball and helps at home especially by running errands.

Addis Ababa Urban Area Development Programme, Ethiopia

Behind a factory in Ethiopia's capital city there is a 1.3 square km piece of land sloping to a dirty river — home to almost 1,000 families living in overcrowded, crumbling shacks. There is no sewage system and rubbish fouls footpaths and the river, which the poorest use for drinking. Many people are malnourished and there is high illiteracy and unemployment. Children as young as five are sent out to the streets to shine shoes. This project began in 1998 with the aim to improve the livelihoods of the slum-dwellers so they can give a better start in life to their children. Thanks to sponsorship women and young people are getting skills training and small loans to start or expand small businesses. Schools receive support and health is improving thanks to better awareness of hygiene. A growing threat here is HIV/AIDS, but programme staff are working hard to raise awareness of this issue amongst the young people.As the community grows in confidence and abilities, World Vision will eventually be able to phase out its work in this area, and we expect to do this in 2012.

Times change

This year the village’s few remaining veterans of WWII have indicated that they don’t think they can manage the afternoon service on Remembrance Sunday (November 11^th). Of course we respect their wishes – without them the ceremony round the war memorial loses much of its meaning. The morning service at St Helen’s will still have Remembrance as its theme and this year it will be taken by The Revd Ian Walker. Marshchapel’s service will be at 10 am as usual, followed by wreath laying at the war memorial at 11 am.

Taking part in the service at St Helen’s.

A few years ago we were fortunate to have well over a dozen people who did various bits in our Sunday services. Sadly we are now down to around half that number. We really could do with more people willing to do the intercessions, serve at Communion, read lessons etc. We are just about managing with sidesmen, but we could do with more.

People sometimes don’t offer because they are worried they will be away when it is their turn. That really is not a problem. We are quite used to grabbing people at the last moment for most of the jobs and on the whole it works OK. But it is difficult when there isn’t anyone to grab!

If you feel you could help with any of these jobs I would very much like to hear from you.

Kathleen Would

Some of you will remember Kathleen Would, Peter’s widow, who used to live in Mulberry House. Her granddaughter, Amy was a member of the choir for a while. Kathleen moved to Spain a few years ago with her daughter, Sally. Sadly Kathleen died a little while ago, so we’re planning to have a memorial service for her at the beginning of next month. More details later.

Some dates:

Grainsby

Carol Service 3.00 pm December 16^th

Marshchapel

Carol Service 6.30 pm December 16^th

Midnight Communion 11.30 pm Christmas Eve

North Thoresby

Carol Service 6.00 pm December 23rd

Christingle 3.30 pm Christmas Eve

Holy Communion 10.00 am Christmas Day

The response in the prayers is: Lord, may our lives:
declare our love for you.