The Church of England in Thatcham

Issue 89 July/August 2017

Commitment

As I write it is the commitment season – the week of ordinations, and the season for weddings – a combination which set me thinking about my own commitments and what they mean. It is also the beginning of summer. Soon, many of those with school-age children will be off on holiday, taking a break from the normal routine and experiencing a different dimension of life in all its fullness. And it is just before Bishop Steven visits the Newbury Deanery to explore the emerging vision of a Christ-like church which is contemplative, compassionate and courageous. And these things all seem to fit together.

When I think about my Christian commitment, what it means to know that God loves me and to respond in service, that thinking, given a chance, can deepen into contemplation – into working out more fully how I can allow God to be more alive in my life, more a part of what I do. And as my thoughts turn Godward, and I use the word ‘love’ I remember the command is not just to love God, but also to love my neighbour – and in thinking that love creates a welcoming space for someone different from myself, I am drawn to wonder how I can be more compassionate. If I am welcoming a friend into my home, I know well enough what makes them comfortable, their usual choice of drink, the place where they normally sit, their topics of conversation and the things they’d rather avoid talking about. I read their body-language and expression instinctively and respond almost without thinking. I attend to details which make it easy for them to be with me. And when I read the stories of the compassionate Christ I realise that he attended to such details in those he met for the first time – and that is quite a challenge. A challenge indeed which may need to be met with courage, with stepping outside my own comfort zone to encounter someone I don’t know.

And it may be that my holiday time will allow me space to follow such a train of thought. To think about what I meant all those years ago when I made my first act of commitment to Jesus and the Christian faith. To reflect, perhaps, on how that faith has matured and changed over the years. To reflect even on issues I have avoided, mistakes I have made, ways in which I have blocked the free flow of God’s love – to take time and courage to confess, to make that decisive reordering of life first signalled at our Baptism. To reconnect more fully with God’s purpose to transform us each to the beautiful person we were meant to be. I might even dare to dream.

Mark

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Blankets gratefully received

Thank you to the Cameo Knitters and Vera for providing two wonderfully warm blankets for me to take to Uganda at Easter.

Cameo's blanket went to a girl called Winnie and her mother, who, even by Ugandan standards are very poor. Winnie's father died and her mother has health problems (but insufficient funds to pay for the treatment), her older brother lives with friends as there is not enough space for him in the small rectangular mud brick room they rent for sleeping. Winnie slept on a mat the floor so the blanket will be hugely appreciated along with the other items (schoolbag, bible, pens etc) we were able to provide for her. During the day the family live and cook in this shack whilst running a fruit and veg stall with items they have bought to sell on - they do not own this but rent it as they have no land of their own.

Vera's blanket went to a family of 17 for whom we helped build an additional sleeping hut and was greatly appreciated along with other aid including clothes for the children.

If anyone would like to know more about this mission trip please get in touch as I would be delighted to talk to church groups etc about my experiences with Mission Direct.

Diana Evans

Winnie and family

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Prayers for this summer

Loving Heavenly Father,

We acknowledge with grateful thanks and praise your desire to hear our prayers, even though you know what is on our hearts already. We pray to you, the Father, through Jesus, the Son, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

One in Three and Three in One.

How mysterious and majestic you are. Our God, who flung more stars into space than there are grains of sand on the earth. A God who set the boundaries for the oceans and created the conditions to enable life itself to exist. You are a truly awesome God and our minds cannot fathom your entirety. Indeed, we are prevented from having such knowledge for our own good. But what we can and do know is that we have a loving and merciful God who longs to have a relationship with us, His creation.

We pause for a minute or two as we try and take some of it in…

We pray for the church everywhere, as it meets in small chapels or giant cathedrals, in towns, cities, suburbs and slums. We pray for its ministers and clergy, for all in training or considering the priesthood, we pray for all who work in a voluntary capacity. May each be blessed and empowered by Your Holy Spirit to bring the Christian message of Love and Salvation to all in their care. We give thanks for the growth if the church in China, South Korea, Japan and many countries in the African Continent, but we also know there is so much more to do, so many more places where people have not heard about Jesus and sadly, those places that have, but either through ignorance or apathy people have not responded.

Through Your infallible Word, Jesus tells us that the harvest is plenty but the workers are few. As true as it was then, so it is now galvanise. We pray for the Partnership for Missional Church as it seeks through the Missional Innovation Team, to identify and respond to the challenges of helping and supporting the local community. We pray for revival and for your power and

presence to be made known everywhere. Equip and galvanise your church reminding us of our own calling to help make a difference so that your church might increase its influence.

We pause for a minute or two as we listen for your voice…

We pray for your world, in many places as beautiful as can be, giving thanks for the warm summer sun, the sound of birdsong, the fragrance of the flowers and soft refreshing rain. Mother Nature at work without human intervention. We thank you for all this and more.

We thank you that most of the planet lives in peace but our minds and hearts are directed to those places that are nowhere near as fortunate. We lift up to you all those affected and displaced by war, those who have nowhere to call home, all without hope or a future, all incarcerated by oppressive and dictatorial regimes, where the voice of reason goes unheard and the cries of those affected are ignored, or worse, punished for daring to speak up.

Our televisions, newspapers and the internet give us plenty of news to think and pray about; famine, war and floods, disease and acts of terrorism. We pray for all those affected by the Manchester bomb and the attacks in London and the fire in the block of flats in North Kensington. We pray for the families and friends of all who have died and all who are in hospital. We give thanks for the efforts of the emergency services and incredible humanitarian responses seen reminding us that there is goodness to be found and that love can survive and conquer in every circumstance.

We pause for a minute or two as we think of all less well off…

We count our blessings and offer these prayers forever trusting in your Goodness, Mercy and Love.

Amen

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Sermon for the Service of Ordination of Priests, Reading Minster, June 24th 2017

Alison Webster, Social Responsibility Advisor, Diocese of Oxford

Readings

John 8: 1 – 11 & 2 Corinthians 4: 7 – 12

Creative God, All that we have comes from you And of your own do we give you. May my words flow from the fire you have placed in my heart, And may our thoughts together spring from your inspiration. Amen

Today is a profound and joyous occasion. Thank you for the invitation to share some reflections with you. I feel very keenly the honour and the privilege.

I want to begin by revisiting our gospel story. I offer you my personal meditation on it, then we will see where it takes us.

Was it something in her eyes that you saw? Some sense that a part of her was hiding; that she was hiding part of herself?

Imagine the excruciating humiliation of the woman caught, we are told, ‘in the very act’ of adultery. How was it to have an intimate and private moment (if that is what it was; if it was indeed consensual, an act of love, and not just an occasion of him helping himself. The him that is

invisible in this story). If not, how much worse, as the private humiliation gave way to a public one. Shame declared for the consumption of all, to be stared at, vilified, threatened. Her life hanging in the balance. They were angry because she had transgressed. She had broken the rules, flouted the law, given in to her desires (if they were her desires). She had done what they would like to have done, and what they would like to have done to her. She excited their imaginations, their jealousies, their anger. She deserved to die and the law of Moses was on their side. Right was on their side, or so they thought.

You could read all this on their faces, hear it in their voices, their baying for so-called ‘justice’. And you made them wait. You had the authority to do that, and you used it. You gave them a simple instruction, ‘let the one who is

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without sin cast the first stone’, and it turned everything upside down. Her humiliation became their embarrassment. Her fear, their loss of face. Her pain, their shame. They left.

Such was your empathy that you didn’t look at her. You looked at the ground. You wrote in the sand. You saved her from one more male gaze. A simple but profound act of solidarity with one who was excluded, ridiculed and broken. How could you know how it felt to be her? And when her accusers had all gone, you offered her restoration. You gave her peace. Her transgression (if it was her transgression) was forgiven. You said, ‘Go’, and she could indeed go – where she wanted. She was not held then, not restrained. No one could touch her. What did that feel like? What did she do with it?

Perhaps you understood because you, too, transgressed. What was it like for you, Jesus, to be the only human being ever to cross the divide between God and humanity, to disrupt the cosmic order of things and change them forever? This was something you kept concealed, revealing it, subtly and judiciously, to those who could take it in. To those who, at least in some small part, knew what transgression felt like.

The story leads me to ask three things of you as you venture into priesthood:

Be real Be transgressive Be well

Firstly, be real.

I am a writer. I have been writing for three decades or more. The most challenging thing about writing is finding your own voice, and once you think you’ve found it, being true to it and developing it. When I’m working on a book there will be many voices to face down. The ones that say, ‘You’re not academic enough’, ‘People will think this is too emotional’, ‘Should I really be writing about this?’. But because writing is my calling, I have to remind myself that the only things that should concern me are, ‘Am I listening to God?’, ‘Am I speaking from my deepest, most

(Continued from page 4)

Gary 'upgrades' from deacon to priest Gary with his proud family

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Urgently needed items: Coffee, Tinned Chopped Tomatoes, Tinned Rice

Pudding, Tinned or, Packets Custard, "Mug Shots", Pot Noodle, Kitchen Roll, Dried

Onions

We've got plenty of: Beans, Breakfast Cereals,

Pasta, Tea

We always welcome donations and promise to use them to

provide help to people in crisis. Thank you—https://

westberks.foodbank.org.uk/give-help/donate-food/

vulnerable self’ and ‘Am I doing the best I can with the gift I have been given’. Simple. Except it isn’t.

I think that finding one’s own voice as a priest is a bit like that. Because each one of you being ordained today can only be one kind of priest – the one you are called to be in your unique self. Just as I can’t write by imitating somebody else, you can’t be a priest by trying to be like somebody else. The only one that we are all called to imitate is Christ. There is immense liberation in that, but also a call to great discipline. Self awareness, self knowledge and honesty are all key.

I wonder what people were thinking when Jesus was writing in the dust: Why is he doing this? Why’s he not saying anything? He’s dealing with this badly. If I were him I wouldn’t do it this way. Yet, when the resolution came, it was ‘pure Jesus’. It came from Jesus’s authentic heart and self. He was always his own self. And I think that was why he was so deeply empathic. He was congruent with God, congruent with himself, and therefore completely open to others.

Be Transgressive

Be counter-cultural, as Jesus was. Turn things upside down.

In our context, I think the most powerfully transgressive way of being is to prioritise those who are vulnerable, stigmatised, marginalised and denigrated. For to do that means to stand with everybody.

Let me explain. Our culture assumes strength and autonomy as our natural condition, to be valued above all else. Vulnerability, frailty and weakness are to be feared – hidden away.

The gospel requires that we reverse this understanding;

that we see vulnerability as our natural state. We are other-dependent. We are hurt and broken by others, and held up by them. Others make us anxious and afraid, but also enable us to flourish. Speaking into this reality is the voice of God, exhorting us to ‘fear not’. We are treasure. We are prized. We are cherished. We are loved. We are meant to be both fragile and ordinary. Like clay pots. Loneliness and isolation are all around us in a culture which breeds secrecy, stigma and shame. We need a new language of kindness and acceptance – a still small voice that can silence the cultural messages that we are not good enough, haven’t achieved enough, haven’t enough to show for our lives, that we are not enough. As priests you will have the authority to advocate for that – to embody it, to speak of it with words and symbolic actions.

Thirdly, be well.

We all know that, as priests, it is easy to become demoralised, disheartened, burned out. There are many and complex reasons for this, but you are most likely to be resilient and stay well if you can hang onto a clear sense of who you are in God, and why who you are as a priest is critical, to the world and to the church.

There are voices you will need to face down. Voices from a world that can’t see the point of you, and from – let’s face it – from an anxious church that is pathologically afraid of its own extinction. Don’t waste your energy arguing with these. They are what they are. Focus elsewhere.

Some twenty years ago a close school friend of mine took her own life. Her name was Ashley. She had just turned thirty. I was thrown into a maelstrom of inchoate feelings – a mix of grief, confusion, self-blame, powerlessness. This came at a time when I was deeply alienated from church,

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Baptism

28th May Ava Florence Grace Pask

Archie Michael Jones

Alexander Austin Worsfold

11th Jun Benjamin Arthur Woodhouse

Grace Elizabeth Burnell

Spencer William Burnell

Oscar Christopher George Wiltshire

Lauren Samantha Baker

Cason Nicholas John Wallace

25th Jun Isabelle Kimberley Gale

Michael Albert William Bing

Lily Georgina Amner Munslow

Abigail Mia Smith

Alexander Jace Millar

Weddings

24th Jun Ben Bullock & Hannah Inglis

Funerals

1st Jun Joyce Cartwright 81

14th Jun Elisha Clarke 24

15th Jun Peggy Hampton 98

15th Jun Pamela Halls 90

29th Jun Bob Clements 92

3th Jul Susan Hare 69

7th Jul Terence Roberts 81

For theRecord...

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Over £350 raised to date for St Mary’s

and not even sure that I hadn’t lost my faith. And yet. And yet, to my surprise in that moment I instinctively reached out for a priest.

I needed someone who embodied the close connection with God that I felt I had lost. I needed someone who was at home with ritual and symbol, fluent in that language and able to say things that couldn’t be said with words; to bring out from the experience something new and real.

To be with people at times like this – not with answers or explanations or sympathy, but to hold a space that is agonising and holy and sacred is, I believe, the spiritual practice to which you are called. It is mysterious; it is life-giving; it is liberating.

In a world of terror and trauma and tragedy; in a world of beauty and ecstasy, where hope refuses to be vanquished, a priest can hold that transgressive place where the divine bleeds into the human. Because of that, we need you. Because of that, the world needs you. Thank you for all that you will be, and all that you will do. By the grace of God, be real, be transgressive. And be well.

Amen

(Continued from page 6)

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Services at St. Barnabas Church (meeting in Thatcham Park School)

Services at St. Mary’s Church

Future copies

Connect is published ten times a year and is available

from St. Mary’s and St. Barnabas Churches,

Thatcham, or by post from the Parish Office, tel. 862277.

Article Deadline

Please give articles for the September edition to Steve Rice (860431) or any of the clergy or churchwardens or email julie@dunwell.org by

15th August 2017.

Who ’s Who in the Thatcham Team Ministry

Sunday Services

Morning Services

8.00 am Holy Communion

10.00 am Parish Communion

Children’s groups on 2nd, 4th and 5th Sundays at 10 am, workshop on 3rd Sundays. The Parish Communion services on the 1st Sunday of the month

is for people of all ages, especially the young, (includes Baptism Welcome).

6.30 pm Evening Services

1st Sunday Sung Evensong

2nd Sunday No service

3rd Sunday Healing Service

Weekday Services

Wednesdays

9.45 am Holy Communion 10.30 am ‘ABC’ (Adults, Babies, Children)

Every Weekday

9.00 am Morning Prayer (In the chapel)

10.00 am Sunday Services

1st Sunday Worship Service 2nd Sunday Communion 3rd Sunday Worship Service 4th Sunday Communion 5th Sunday Worship Service

More details from Revd. Brenda Harland 01635 847969 or Revd. Pat Jones 01635 865388

www.stbarnabasthatcham.weebly.com Serving to Build Community

www.stmarysthatcham.org.uk Inspired by the love of Christ to build God’s kingdom

Team Rector

Mark Bennet 867342

Team Vicar - St. Barnabas

Pat Jones 865388

Associate Clergy:

Marion Fontaine 861742 Brenda Harland 865064

Parish Administrator

Ann Watts 862277

The Parish office is open Monday & Friday mornings 9.30am to 1.00pm, answer phone at other times.

Email: admin.stmarysthatcham @ntlbusiness.com

Churchwardens

Viv Druce 820718 Chris Watts 864567 Glenn Peters 869409

St Mary’s is fitted with an Induction Loop. If you wear a hearing aid, switch to the ‘T’ position to benefit from the system

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Climate Change – We are Responsible

Our carbon footprint is the amount of our carbon dioxide emissions, on average 10 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year in the UK. You can calculate your own carbon footprint using an online calculator.

Food is responsible for 23% of our carbon footprint. In choosing what to eat we should think about the carbon emissions used to grow the food and transport it to our homes. We can reduce them by:

Using locally-produced in-season food. Food that is flown in from overseas has “air miles” attached to it whereas locally-grown food does not. But locally-grown food that is not in season my have used fossil fuels for artificial heating, so, for instance, buying early UK strawberries or raspberries may not be better than buying them from overseas. Bananas are often grown in countries where the local economy depends on their export, and in any case they are usually transported by ship rather than plane, so they need not be avoided. There are no absolute rules: we just need to be conscious of what the carbon emissions may be.

Eating less meat. The thinking is that in a world where the global population is rising so that food-growing land per head is reducing, the farming of animals is not an efficient way to convert energy to food. In addition bovines add to the emission problem by emitting methane which is about thirty times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

Avoiding buying excess food and eventually throwing it out.

Managing our waste is another way to reduce emissions. Most of us are used to separating our waste to enable recycling, and to shopping without using plastic bags. But we should aim to throw out as little as possible, and to recycle. This is sometimes presented as the three Rs: Reduce, Re-use, Recycle. We are used to recycling what the council collects and we should be composting appropriate food waste. We could re-use more, and we can be inventive over how we do that before we decide to throw something out. But we are not good at reducing our consumption. All too often we will be taken in by the offer of a price reduction in a supermarket for buying more items than we really want, and then find that we end up throwing out the things we couldn't eat. In doing so we have effectively paid the supermarket for the privilege of doing what they would have had to do anyway.

If we are to reduce our consumption we need a change of behaviour and this is difficult to effect. Most people now accept that climate change is happening and is due to man-made emissions of greenhouse gases but few are willing to acknowledge that behavioural change is needed, including in their own behaviour. Furthermore, when issues for politicians are prioritised, climate change is often not mentioned or is at the bottom of people's lists. Interestingly, research suggests that people of faith are not significantly different in this respect from the wider public. Recent polling found that only 4% of British Christians cited climate change as a "major issue facing Britain today," far behind thirteen other issues. When the question was rephrased with greater distances: as "a major issue facing the world as a whole over the next ten years," that level of concern rose to 28%(1,2). This suggests that people see it as a problem for others, whether they be in a distant part of the world, or in a future world, and not for themselves.

Richard Foster

1. George Marshall: Communicating with Religious People on Climate Change: Research overview and emergent narratives

2. 9 COMRes, 2015, Post-election polling for Tearfund- unpublished, ComRes, London/.

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PACT calls for caring professionals to consider adoption

FAMILY support charity Parents And Children Together (PACT) is appealing for people from caring professions to consider adoption.

PACT offers outstanding adoption services to families across the South East. Last year it placed 87 children with 62 families through its adoption services. There are currently more than 2,000 children waiting to be adopted in England.

PACT is particularly looking for couples or single people, including those from the LGBT community, who can consider adopting children over four years old, those with BME heritage or who have additional needs, and sibling groups of two or more children.

The agency would really like to hear from anyone from the caring professions such as nurses, teachers, police officers, childminders and those in the care sector, as given their professional experience and skills they typically make strong adopters, and they are particularly valued by local authorities looking to place a child.

PACT Chief Executive Jan Fishwick said: “While there is no such thing as a typical adopter we know from our many years’ experience of matching children with forever families that people who work in a caring profession very often have the experience, skills and qualities to make excellent adopters.

“Having said that we are always very happy to hear from anyone, whatever their profession, who can offer love, stability and security to a child who needs this – this is always what matters most. At PACT we work with adopters who are single and married, people who have birth or step-children, or don’t have children, as well as those of different sexualities and religions.”

PACT holds regular information events where anyone considering adoption can find out more about what’s involved. To find out about events coming up see http://pactcharity.org/adoption/about-adoption/information-events

You can als find out more about PACT and its adoption services at www.pactcharity.org or by calling 0300 456 4800

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Update from Sarah - June 2017

Dear friends,

It’s hard to believe the Gap Year participants are now coming to the end of their placements – time flies! We will be welcoming them at our centre in South Wales when they return on 7th July for a week of debriefing and celebration. Their time with us will finish with our Step Weekend (open weekend) where they’ll each share about their placement experiences with our visitors - many of whom will be exploring their next steps into global mission.

If you would like to hear from the Gap Year participants about their adventures - the highs and the lows, why not come along? – please contact me for more details.

On a personal note, Mike and I had

Page 11

a pre-wedding party here at our World Horizons centre last week. It was lovely to see so many friends, including some of our friends from Signpost (the International Friendship Group). We were overwhelmed that a couple of our friends who were fasting for Ramadan came to the party – there was lots of food there so it wasn’t the easiest place for them to be! We really appreciate their friendship.

Our wedding is coming up fast now – 28th July! With the busyness of the Gap Year participants returning and the wedding and honeymoon, I’m afraid I won’t be sending an update out in July or August - I’ll resume monthly updates from September.

Thank you for your interest in my work and your partnership in every way, I really appreciate it!

Sarah

To find out more about World Horizons go to http://worldhorizons.co.uk

Prayer Points

Please pray for the Gap Year participants as they transition back home, that they would know the consistency of Jesus during this time of change.

Please also pray for those enquiring and applying to train with us in September, whether for short or long-term mission, and for us in this process too as we talk and pray with people about their next steps with Him in mission.

Please continue to pray for the training team as we’re in the process of handover, especially for the couple who are taking over the roles of co-ordinating the Gap Year and Skill Share programmes.

Thank God for the friendships we’re building through Signpost (the International Friendship Group).

Please pray for our friends from Saudi Arabia who have come to the UK to improve their English - some of them are interested in our faith and have been asking us questions.

Please pray for all those who are fasting and praying for forgiveness during this time of Ramadan - that they will find true forgiveness and freedom.

Exciting opportunity to

get to know an

overseas visitor

Host and teach

English!

(One or two week stays,

payment made)

If you can help, email

gilltaylor957@gmail.com

“The Gap Year placement is an

amazing opportunity to work in a different

culture. World Horizons’ workers serve in over 30

countries, running a wide variety of projects

and ministries…” worldhorizons.c.ok

CREAM TEAS at St Mary’s

Sunday 16th July 3.30pm to 5.30 pm

Tickets £3 - available from Marion or Parish Office

Tombola prizes needed; tins, packets, bottles and jars

(place in box at St Mary’s - Proceeds in aid of St Francis Hospital at Kitete, Zambia

Page 12

Money

Jesus talked about money almost as much as about any other subject he addressed – his challenge was always about times when money was calling the shots in people’s lives, rather than their relationship with God. So he said “don’t store up for yourselves riches on earth, where moth and rust destroy and thieves come in and steal, instead store up for yourselves riches in heaven” and “give to Caesar what is due to Caesar and to God what is due to God” and “the love of money is the root of every kind of evil”. And then when a woman pours expensive ointment over his feet, and Judas thinks it a waste, he reminds Judas how important the relationship is – more so than the money which has been spent.

Then again, in a different part of the forest, our Parochial Church Council talks about money with some anxiety. It costs us between £2,500 and £3,000 per week to keep the show on the road, and all the bills paid – and we don’t get any central grants to help us – it’s just what we manage to raise ourselves. And in my time in the parish we have drifted to being maybe £100 per week short, which doesn’t sound much, but when it is every week over a number of years it soon seems to add up, and any reserves we had, or money to do interesting things, gets eaten up in the running costs. And we can easily drift into finding the money driving the church, rather against what Jesus was saying.

It would be easy to say that if every person who came regularly were able to increase giving by £2 per week, we’d be there. But costs will continue to rise, and of course, not everyone can afford even that. In fact it is amazing, when you think about it, that we even get so close as we do – and that is largely thanks to a small number of very generous people and families to whom huge thanks are due. Different people find themselves in different places.

For many people who live in Thatcham, money is a challenge. It is a key ethical issue of our time too. Thatcham itself has a reputation of being “cheap for West Berkshire” – which, for many families means “just affordable if we stretch ourselves to the absolute limit” That is not necessarily money driving their lives – it is the desire to provide a home for a family, to live near work, to avoid moving children from one school to another. I lived under severe financial pressure early in my married life – I know it can cause huge stress and also that it may be that there is very little that can be done about it in the short term – talk in the church about money can be painful too, when the pressure is on, and people make assumptions.

The financial pressure we can feel, whether it is in our church life, or at home, may not be driving us yet, but it may be a real risk that we will let money and our anxieties about money drive our lives. We cannot, of course, get away from the fact that we need to pay our way, but we can make sure that we also nurture our relationship with God, and remind ourselves of God’s generosity and the potential of God’s grace.

Mark

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Thank you so much for all you have done this Christian Aid Week!

The money you have raised will change the lives of people needing a safe place to call home - refugees, people displaced from their communities and those struggling with poverty. For a short video showing some of the lives you are transforming, visit www.youtube.com and search ‘Lebanon: educating refugee kids’

Remember Morsheda?

Following last year’s Christian Aid Week, our partner GUK moved Morsheda’s home to higher ground – so she is no longer vulnerable to regular flooding.

Christian Aid partner GUK is creating sustainable change in the lives and livelihoods of people living in extreme poverty on the chars (mud islands) in Northern Bangladesh. GUK have constructed new homes which are raised above the last major flood level.

One of our colleagues, Tegan, was fortunate enough to visit some of these homes and hear first-hand how the villagers feel now they are safe from the floods that have threatened their lives and livelihoods for years on end.

“As we neared the village, the corrugated iron roofs on some of the new homes reflected the hot sun like beacons of hope. We were greeted with smiling faces and there was a sense of pride as we were welcomed into homes. As well as raising the village to higher ground, GUK has equipped the village with latrines and tube wells, as well as solar panels so that the homes have access to electricity.

“Like after every flood, the community has begun again. They have few possessions, but this time they are hopeful and can make plans for the future. They are living in a safe place, and not only their homes, but their livestock and gardens are safe from the impending flood.

“Before leaving the village, I sat with the community and asked them if there was a message they would like me to take back to our supporters in the UK. They responded, ‘Now we don’t have to worry, we feel safe now. We are so grateful,’, and having seen the hope they now have in their eyes, I am grateful to you too - thank you.”

We are so grateful to all our Christian Aid supporters who have helped transform lives in Bangladesh and around the world.

Thank You!

I met mother of four, Mujina, who lost everything in the flood of 2016: she escaped only with her life and the clothes on her back. Christian Aid partner GUK helped her to build a small home, with a solar panel for electricity. Having light helps her children to study in the evenings, and will help to keep them safe in times of flood, when thieves in boats take advantage of easy access to remote char villages

CAMEO is for anyone, lonely, bereaved, lives on their own, or would like to chat - every Monday 2pm to 4pm in St Mary’s Church Meeting Room for a chat over a cup of tea and cake.

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We would appreciate your support for our

Coffee Morning 6thJuly 2017 - 10am to 12 noon

In St Nicolas Church Hall, Newbury All donations of Cakes, as well as unwanted gifts, toiletries and

costume jewellery as prizes for our tombola gratefully received at the shop or before 10am at St Nics

Thank you very much! Any queries please phone Shoemakers 01635 37836

Fortnightly Next meeting 14th July