Shoe Box Appeal in 2016, enabling Blythswood to gather and distribute 121,474 shoeboxes. This is approximately 4% more than 2015.
The shoeboxes received last year were distributed in Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Kosovo, Moldova, Pakistan, Romania, Serbia and Ukraine.
Boxes are now ready and are in Church if you would like to take one please do. We have placed a large box at the back of the church if you would like to add any of the item on the list (below) please do and ‘Shoe Boxes’ will be filled for collection at the beginning of November
We are not many in number in All Saints, ut our people are gracious beyond expectations. At our Annual Giving Day on Saturday 16th September 2017, our extraordinarily generous congregation gave a total of £1460 to the life and work of our church. Once tax is reclaimed through the Gift Aid Process, that figure will be increased to £1800 and so on behalf of or Vestry and all our people, I would like to thank all those who gave for their wonderful gifts.
Visit to Yorkshire ‘God’s Own Country’
Sadness and Joy
Being a ‘Yorkshire Lass’ I guess I will always think of Yorkshire as home.
My visit was both sad and joyful, sad at the passing of my brother in law Reg, and joyful with memories of my wedding in the same church, and the same week as the funeral some 48 years earlier.
Otley Parish Chursh All Saints
All Saints, Otley is a beautiful church and when I am in Otley I try to visit.
The funeral was a beautiful service, led by Revd. Graham Buttanshaw, sad of course at the loss of a loved one, but also joyful at wonderful memories of a long life. Rebecca, Reg’s granddaughter, read ‘God’s Garden’ by Wendy Bradley, and Tom, his grandson, read from John’s gospel. My eldest son and eldest grandchild played ‘Abide with Me’ on the flute, for me this was both joyous and sad, joyous because it’s not often I get to hear them play, and sad at the memory of the last time I heard Mark play that tune at another family funeral, also in the same church.
As I looked around the church I couldn’t help but see John, my late husband, and I walking down the aisle, my niece, was then my 4 year old bridesmaid, really quite bored with it all, and now here she was the grieving daughter and mother of two.
All this makes me thankful for the close family ties we have, we were there for each other we held hands, we cried, we laughed, we grieved, and will continue to grieve together.
Coming back here in May, after a year at home, was unexpected, as is our continuing on into autumn. However, it’s been good to be back with the congregation at St. Nicolas, and with Margherita and the sandwich making team for refugees attending the UNHCR office.
At St. Nicolas, we knew that a good number of the “expat” members would leave in June, as summer is the changeover time at embassies and the big businesses. On top of that, most of those who remain go back home and on holiday for July and August. Sometimes on a Sunday, we’ve been down to literally a handful, although over the past week or two, some newcomers to the city have sought us out, and look as though they will settle at St. Nicolas. There’s even going to be a baptism of a baby girl in September.
The refugee members of the congregation continue to grow. This is a great joy for us, but sadly, it’s evidence of the fact that much of their life is enforced “holiday”, and the process for their repatriation is snarled up. This is partly due to one national group (not theirs) being fast tracked, and a general shutting down around the world of placements being offered. Understandably , they’re becoming very despondent, although they turn up every Sunday, bright and cheerful, and with so many genuine enquiries for John’s and my wellbeing. How generous and warmhearted they are.
I’m back on the Wednesday team at Margherita’s for sandwich making, and have met old friends and made new. Like St. Nicolas, though, the team is mostly expats, so Margherita has been very short handed over the holidays, not only on Wednesdays, but covering other days of the week too. John has come on board, and we’ve been doing three days a week. The numbers for sandwiches are much the same as before – 120-150 – but we’ve gone healthy! The sandwiches were always made with regular sliced white bread, but one day the shop delivered some whole meal loaves, along with the white. We struck on the idea of making the sandwiches with one of each type of bread, and so pleased were we with our innovation, we asked the shop to continue with both kinds of bread. Obviously, it doesn’t take much to give us a moment of amusement!
The whole city has been very quiet over the summer. To our surprise, we learned that the state schools have a full three months holiday, which must be a nightmare for childminding, although I don’t know how many mothers are out working. Our organist is a young mother (and private music teacher) with two primary school aged children, and they have a granny who lives in one of the coastal resorts in the south. The children have spent the whole holiday with granny-by-the-sea, but only one at a time, with the parents having their fortnight’s holiday in the middle, as they swap the children over. This solution seems to have gone down well with everyone, although we missed our lovely organist for two Sundays.
We expect to be home by the beginning of October, although who will follow after us is still to be determined. There will need to be further temporary cover until a permanent appointment is made. We would so love to see the congregation settled.
We get the pew leaflet from Annandale week by week , and that helps us to feel still at home. Our thoughts and prayers are always with you, and we look forward to being home again. With love from John and me. Jane.
On Saturday September 2nd– over 100 Episcopalians, their dogs and friends, from across the diocese gathered at St. Martin & St. Ninian’s RC church in Whithorn
We had a lovely service, Bishop. Gregor presided, Revd David acted as Bishop’s Chaplain and Cantor – it was a sung eucharist with some new settings for the Mass which people picked up on quite quickly. The Bishop’s address was about pilgrimage & St. Ninian. It was really good to have him among us again.
After the service we split up, some for the walk to the shore and St. Ninian’s cave, others the less physical visit to the reconstructed Bronze Age roundhouse and the museum, and for all, if so inclined, a visit to the Chapel in Isle of Whithorn.
Like most others, we set off for the cave. We started out a little later than others, after a search for petrol! After the car park there was a trail down to the pebble beach; down a gulley, following a wee burn through a dark wood of trees that grew straight up towards the flashes of sunlight & blue sky, like a cathedral. As we walked there were glimpses of the glittering sea, until we emerged from the woods and the whole panorama came in view. It was wonderful to come out onto the beach of polished, smooth, rounded pebbles, sea sparkling – a warm breeze.
We sat for our picnic lunch on a grassy hummock above the beach, ate our sarnies, and just admired the sea, and soaked up the sun – the huge mass of the Isle of Man , then the Rinns of Galloway in the other direction. Gorgeous day, just to sit and enjoy. We didn’t want to move —-some places give you that sense, for a little while, of stepping out of time, this was one such place.
Eventually we walked over to at the cave itself. In the cliff side at the far end of the beach it has a dramatic presentation. Above the quite shallow cave is a great slab of rock looking like a portcullis drawn up. As we approached the cave, we noticed the drift wood cross someone had stuck into the cliff side above it. Other little crosses, made of twigs, small bits of wood, roughly bound together are all around the place. Stones, rocks with names written on them, articles of remembrance, of not forgetting. On a smooth rock surface to the left of the cave, people had carved names and messages, seemingly for generations, dedicated to St. Ninian, dedicated to God. There was a sense of other healing shrines like Lourdes. In such places people who have been healed leave behind the symbols of the illness overcome, crutches, tokens of disease of one sort or another. Here people left behind stones and cairns and names, the bones of a story, signs and symbols of spiritual need, spiritual healing.
God gifts us beauty in the midst of the beauty of the natural world, a gracedness in what we see and in what we recognise as being a gift to us. We looked up, and directly above the cave mouth, saw a solitary raven in the sky – in the joy of the day, we watched it close its wings and stoop into a dive, then flick them open and do a barrel roll in the air. Several times we saw and watched. Then other members of the raven family arrived and we watched them riding on the wind as it came off the escarpment above us. Magic, but not magic – grace.
We stood in Ninian’s cave; where, we believe, he sought the peace and solace of the wild place in order to pray, and prayed ourselves.
We had been pilgrims, on a journey, learning to understand the meaning of love, learning to love one another, learning to love God. This is what the pilgrimage is about, nothing else matters, as we move to the end of our journey, as we finally approach God everything else falls away, only love is left.
