CRC newsletter: April 2002: News

Prayer Diary
Thank you for suggestions for prayer. Please continue to email me. It would be good to hear from you.

Please pray		Scripture
week 1	Give thanks that the footpaths are open now	Psalm 26 v 12
week 2	Pray for farmers coping with the aftermath of foot and mouth	Psalm 17 v 6
week 3	That we will be a light for Christ in Youth Hostels	Matt 5 v 16
week 4	For the AGM and the weekend at Arnside	Psalm 27 v 14
week 5	For the future of Youth Hostels	Jer 6 v 16
week 6	For the North East group	Psalm 66 v 1-2
week 7	And for the North West group	Psalm 16 v 6
week 8	For the Bank Holiday Events	Psalm 20 v 4
week 9	For the Queens golden jubilee	Psalm 21 v 1
week 10	Give thanks for our worship together as we unite different denominations	Psalm 133

It was decided at the recent committee meeting to divide the tithe three ways, enabling us to contribute to the support of two members who are working overseas, and to donate to a fund which is working with farmers to ease their financial burdens as they recover from last year.

A short summary of each is given here, but it is hoped that the members involved will write more fully for the next Newsletter.

Ilse, who is from Holland, enjoyed walking with us while she was studying at All Nations. She is now working with Interserve in India. At present she is studying Hindi in New Delhi, but her aim is to eventually work among young abused women. Women in India do not have many rights, and often need help. Ilse hopes to be in India for three years, and asks us to pray for her spiritual and physical wellbeing. Our donation will either go for Ilse’s support as she works in India, or towards a project that she has become involved in.

Evelyn is working in Bulgaria with VSO as a Social Work Advisor. She has been working for the past year with staff and patients of a hospital for people with long term mental health problems. One of the areas that Evelyn is involved with, is to support the transition from institutional based services to family and community based care. Evelyn thanks us for our support, which will enable her to maybe provide some extra facilities for her patients to enjoy.

This charity was set up in 2001 in response to the difficulties facing the agricultural and allied rural industries as a result of the Foot and Mouth disease. The aim of the fund is to relieve situations of financial hardship arising out of, or attributable to, the crisis. The organisation is based at Stoneleigh Park. The trustees are supported by a network of voluntary organisations such as the Agricultural Chaplains Association, Farm Crisis Network, Rural Stress Information Network etc. The farmers who approach the charity are put in contact with one of the supporting agencies that deal with the paperwork for the farmer and provide pastoral care and support.

The committee felt it was right to further our support for farmers by contributing financially as well as physically by not walking during the crisis. So we contacted various people including the Agricultural Christian Fellowship who all said that they channel their donations through this fund, so we have done likewise.

The perfect end to a superlative day out, walking the green ways of England or elsewhere, is a good teashop, even more so if the weather has been unkind, a necessary refuge to dry out and warm the fingers again. Or a deliberative nook to look out onto the world and think over the events of the day that has just been completed.

So where shall we go: a few more metres and we will be back to where we started. How about the Wild Strawberry in Keswick High Street, down the way from the Moot Hall? Now there is the crème of delicious but wicked delectation, think of it on a cold bitter end of a winter’s afternoon; a mug of hot chocolate, rich and sweet, made noble by a St Basil’s onion dome of cream, sprinkled with chocolate flake. Drink it down to its utmost depths of depravity, how much for your soul now, and forget about the calories.

Or how about the Polly Tea Rooms in Marlborough High Street? We went there in September, after a wander down the Eight Walks of the Savernake Forest, with interesting facets of the high Victorian age of the Railways, of the MSWJ and Great Western, but now there are only the track beds left and the crumbling portals of the tunnel under the chalk downs with the shade of steam. Think I’ll tell you more of the great age of steam, pull up a seat under the window, where you can gaze on the mellow gables of the medieval shop fronts across the road, sitting in among the baskets of Busy Lizzie, and watch the world go by.

Maybe there is a memory of the organic, home grown, back room upstairs of the Acorn Tea Rooms in Church Stretton. We are not far from Wilderhope Hall and the wonderful reverberation of the fireworks of bonfire night echoing among the hills. Now there is a place out of the rush of the 20th century. Where the night is as black as a sack and the multitudes of stars shine from the river of the heavens.

Tintagel to Port Isaac, walking from the romance of the Dark Ages to the teashop on the waterfront of Boscastle Harbour, where the table was deep in exhausted coffee, and pots of dead and squeezed teabags. Where the cream and jam had been sampled, and the after-ache of the great walk; over eight descents almost to the sea and then back to the heights, can be compared to the leaflet from the tourist information centre. It seemed we have just had a day more than we expected, how about the same tomorrow? No matter what happens, it will be a good one – if there will be a teashop waiting some where at the end.

Be environmentally sound and share transport to events, but don’t forget to offer to pay your share of the cost.

Chairmans Chatter April 2002		Event Reports April 2002
	Newsletter Index