Dear All<br>We are now in Holy Week with our Maundy Thursday service tonight at 7.30 pm.There are so many different occasions where we can meet this week.<br>Tomorrow, Good Friday gives us two opportunities to meet up either with our Messy Church at 10.00 am to 12 noon at St James or our Last Hour service of reflection at St Botolph's from 2.00 pm to 3.00 pm<br>If you are thinking of coming to the Easter Vigil at St Mary's, Gilston on Saturday at 7.00 pm please bring your own chair with you to sit outside, you might like a blanket and you will definitely need a torch as we lose the light.<br>On Easter Sunday we will have a service of Celebration as we gather together to worship with communion for the whole Church Family at 9.30 am at St James.<br>On Easter Sunday our collection will be to support the Myanmar earthquake Appeal that is running via Christian Aid, if you are able to, please support our brothers and sisters in Myanmar as they deal with the after affects of this catastrophic earthquake, thank you.<br>At a very impromptu last minute we will be taking Easter to Terlings Park development with an Easter Egg Hunt and hot cross buns from 11.30 am, with some give away Easter books and stickers for the children, if you would care to be involved.<br>Every blessing for this Easter.Your Priest, Alison
Dear AllI am looking forward to a very enjoyable but busy Sunday this week.At 8.00 am we have our BCP said communion at St JamesAt 9.30 am we start with breakfast followed by our Family service at St JamesAt 11.00 am Following on from this service we will have the retirement gathering and presentation to Ian Brown who has been our community postman for many years.Following on from that we will have a short Messy Church meeting to sort out all things ‘Messy’ for our Good Friday session, which I anticipate to be very busy, as usual.At 3.00 pm we will have our Alpha afternoon tea at the Rectory – all are invited who have taken part in one of our Alpha courses.I attach again for you the flyer for all our Easter services. These are shaping up nicely – a couple of highlights for your diary. Our service of Reflection at St Botolph’s, Eastwick on Good Friday from 2.00 – 3.00 pm is following on from our Holy Habits Lent study and we will be thinking of that first Good Friday, through art, through music, through reading the bible, through reflection and discussion. I hope you will be able to join us for this significant time.Also moving on to Holy Saturday we have our evening service of New Fire and Easter Vigil at St Mary’s, Gilston – this was a wonderful service last year – starting out last year around a firepit, sharing readings, poetry, food and drink before going into the church to bless the new Easter candles. I hope you will be able to join us for this, again a significant time during the celebration of Easter. This will start at 7.00pm.Easter is the most significant time in the Christian calendar – the attached flyer will show you all the information you need to join us.Every blessingAlison
Dear AllCan you believe that this Sunday is Palm Sunday? How quickly has Lent gone this year – or is this just me?The last few weeks have zipped by – it has been great exploring the Holy Habits through different media, with lots of great discussion and obviously food to share, we have one last session, in Holy Week on Wednesday and then we will be using this resource to guide our thoughts on Good Friday during the Last Hour 2.00 – 3.00 pm at St Botolph’s church, Eastwick.We also had our Alpha Afternoon Tea last Sunday, which was a really enjoyable afternoon, with a lovely group of people. We have enjoyed ourselves together so much we are continuing on from our last session looking at another few weeks of Bible exploration and discovery. If you have done the first 6 weeks of Alpha you will enjoy our further adventure – we plan to meet on Monday evenings as before and all the dates are on our Welcome sheet. If you would like to come please let me know. Our next session will be ‘How does God guide Us? On 19th May at 7.30 pm at the Rectory.So, the arrangements for Sunday 13th are as follows:-9.30 am service at St James. Meet in church as usual. The service itself will start with the Procession from the gate into the Church with the Palm Gospel and then the service will continue involving a Dramatized reading of the Gospel for which I will need 7 volunteers. There is no sermon on Palm Sunday, the dramatized reading forming a large part of this service.At 11.15 am we will be at St Mary’s, Gilston, and will follow the same pattern for worship as at St James.I hope you can join us for one of these services.At 2.30 pm we will have our Community Dog Walk again – this time from Terlings Park – meeting at the notice board. We always provide refreshments after the walk so hope you can join us – with, or without, a dog. It is just a great time to catch up with each other and also make new friends. Children are very welcome – can they come with an adult though please.Looking forward to starting Holy Week with you at some point on Sunday.Every blessing Alison
