More than a thousand homemade flowers have been draped from a church tower to help raise funds for its renovation and upkeep.Alison White, 64, from Barley, Hertfordshire, came up with the idea to decorate St Margaret of Antioch church in the village in February.She said it had helped villagers come together during the "glum" early weeks of the third UK lockdown. Decorations were posted in from the US, Australia and across the UK."In February, we still had a long stretch ahead of us and we didn't know for how long we would be isolating and we were all rather glum," Mrs White said. "So I thought, what can we do together, but not together?"The retired art and textiles teacher decided making flowers from fabric was the answer, and galvanised the community to knit, sew, and crochet to create the Barley Flower Tower. "I thought we would get between 300 and 500 flowers but never 1,452," she said.Over a period of four months, artwork came in from the village, surrounding areas and abroad.Mrs White said she hoped people would donate to the church "if the work makes you smile" so the building could be "brought up to date". She said it did not have any toilets or an inside tap, "so if you want a coffee after a service someone has to take the washing-up home".So far £825 has been raised for the church.When the flowers that have "cheered a lot of people up and helped give them focus" are taken down in September, its hoped they will have raised £10 each, to have generated £14,520 in total. "We've got to know people in the village we didn't know before and it has brought us much closer together," Mrs White added.Reverend Canon Ruth Pyke said: "The generosity of people in putting so much effort into this beautiful creation has been wonderful. "I hope we will inspire people from the wider community or who pass through the village to stop, admire our hanging and give generously."
Our joint parish communion service this Sunday will take place at St Mary and All Saints Church, Dunsfold at 10am. All are welcome.With Reverend Ian Maslin stepping back from duties at the moment our celebrant at the Holy Communion service will be the Reverend Rutton Viccajee, assistant curate at St Nicolas Church, Cranleigh.Reverend Rutton has been with us before and we're sure you will want to extend a warm Dunsfold welcome to him.Unfortunately, we do need to extend an apology to those of you who are our online congregation. This Sunday we will not be able to offer a Zoom link to our service.However, work is underway to ensure that in coming weeks we will be able to restore the Zoom connections so those of you at home, in hospital or further afield will be able to be part of our growing congregation. We do want you to be part of our church.
Biblical Hebrew, studied by trainee priests, can often pose a challenge for aspiring ministers.For Rajiv Sidhu it posed more of a struggle – and led him to discover he was, in fact, dyslexic. That in turn taught him to look at how the Church communicates the Christian faith in a new way.Despite working as a Geography teacher for 10 years, it was only through Hebrew that he realised he needed special education support. Now, he has said that his own struggle helped him understand why others may find Christian teachings based on words, rather than symbols, can be challenging.Rajiv, 32, was raised partly in Malaysia with his grandparents and has taught in Dagenham and the Isle of Wight. “I had always assumed that my vocation was to be a teacher, although I now realise that you can have different vocations at different points in your life,” he said. Supporting his local parish already, Rajiv was encouraged by his priest to consider becoming a vicar. With support from the Diocesan Director of Ordinands, Rajiv explored his calling for a year before resigning his post as a teacher and beginning theological training in Oxford. He then completed a placement with the prison ministry in Malaysia. During his training, Rajiv studied biblical languages. He said: “It was my Hebrew tutor who suggested that I might be dyslexic, which gave me a deeper insight into myself. “We are all created in God’s diverse image - and this applies as much to our minds as anything else. What does this look like for Church? How can we include, welcome, and celebrate neuro-diversity in Christian spaces and places? We often shy away from the images and symbols in church, though these can be the most effective teachers of the faith.”Rajiv will, alongside six others, be ordained at Portsmouth Cathedral on Saturday, June 26.
Emily Emmerson-Finch’s journey started when she got the bus.Not catching a bus though: at the age of 22 she took the extraordinary decision to spend her savings buying a double decker bus and transforming it into a youth and community centre.A church youth worker, Emily drove the bus around the York and later the Scarborough coastal areas. She hosted sessions for young people on board the bus, with the opportunity to pray afterwards, as well as drop-ins for families and youth work training to churches. When she left to move to Newcastle in 2018, its work had touched the lives of 5,000 young people and the Bus Stop charityhad been established. She remains a trustee of the charity and it is still going strong on the North Yorkshire coast.Now she is embarking on a new journey – of training to become a distinctive deacon in the Church of England. “The young people I met through working on the bus called it their ‘second home’ and a place where they felt that they really belonged,” she said.“They described the bus as their church and they challenged preconceptions of what church is. I started exploring ordination four or five years ago. It was when I was on the bus that I felt that God was maybe calling me. “But I was confused at that time as I thought then that a vicar was very much inside the church. My passion is for reaching out to people who don’t come to church.“Then I found out about the diaconate – I am going to be trained as a distinctive deacon and my focus as a distinctive deacon can be described as being at the door of the church, welcoming people in and also encouraging the church to go out into the world.”
