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| St Peter's News |
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"Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink"
As we all know that is a line from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, but you could say it has been the clarion call of many communities over these last few weeks. It's almost beyond belief that in the summer of 2007, not only would this nation be experiencing rainfall beyond our imagining, but also a shortage of clean drinking water. We all saw those scenes of people queuing to collect their water from the bowsers and heard their stories of how the lack of clean drinking water was affecting their families' lives. I think I can safely say that we were all touched by their plight. The floodwaters coupled with the lack of drinking water presented whole communities with a situation of devastation, distress and most importantly the threat of ill health even death. Clean drinking water is essential to our survival. Clean water is precious - it is life giving and God given.
Perhaps like me, this situation made you think about how we take so many things for granted in this country.....especially that precious gift of clean drinking water. If we want clean water, we just turn on the tap at any time of the day and night and there it isŠ.and as much as we like. There is so much of it we don't think twice about using it to bathe, to drink, to water our plants and gardens, our crops and feed our animals. We even use it for recreation. Yet, there are millions of people around the world who go without clean water on a daily basis. For them water is scarce and what water they do have access to, is dangerous. Can you imagine drinking the disease-ridden floodwaters we have just seen? No, of course not! Well, the people in drought areas don't want to drink their disease ridden waters either yet it's not about choice but what's available and so they are compelled to drink it just to stay alive. The problem then is that many people suffer terrible illnesses and millions die from drinking it. Even if clean water is available, then it is probably situated miles away. It may take a day to get to the pump and more often than not it will be a young child from the family that is sent to get it. Can you imagine sending off your 5 year old daughter, granddaughter, niece off to Harpenden alone in searing heat with a huge bucket and no sustenance to collect water? Well, that is a daily occurrence for many families in parts of Africa. Surely, this disparity between those who have and those who haven't is just not acceptable.
Well, Jesus told us that this disparity isn't acceptable. The Gospels are underpinned by Jesus' commandment to "love your neighbour as yourself". As Christians we work for the coming of God's Kingdom on earth and in part that means working for a better, more just world where we strive to express our love by relieving the sufferings of our neighbours. By our "neighbour" Jesus isn't just referring to those around us but all God's precious children. An important part of our call as Christians is to work for a fairer sharing of the world's resources. That is why Christians and indeed our Churches see our call to support charities throughout the year as being central to our life of faith.
St Peter's supports charities throughout the year but over September and October we will be embracing this call in our Harvest Appeal by supporting a local and a couple of international charities. We will be having a collection of imperishable foods for the local "Open Door" charity and holding some fundraising events for the "Send a Cow" charity. We hope to collect enough money to send a cow and hopefully some goats or chickens to an African village. We take our produce for granted but for a poor village a cow means everything. It means milk - health - money - maybe the chance to purchase a water pump - money to have their children educated and so on. By sending a cow, a goat or chicken it is a chance for us to send our love and hope. Throughout September we will be holding a number of fundraising events and you are warmly invited to a Coffee Afternoon at St Peter's Parish Centre on Thursday 27th September between 2pm and 4.30pm. Do please come and find out about the charity or even just come along and enjoy a chat, All are welcome and there will be activities for children. We will also be holding many exciting activities associated with this charity during our Junior Church at 10am on Sunday mornings throughout September. Our Harvest Festival service will be on Sunday 30th September at 10am where we will have a guest speaker from the charity "Send a Cow". Again, you will be made very welcome! But we're not stopping there because in October we will be making up the shoe boxes for the "Samaritans Purse" charity. Many of us will be out in the shops over the coming weeks to buy presents ..... but there are children around the world who are victims of famine, war, natural disasters, disease and so on who have no one who to buy them anything. This charity aims to show the power of a simple gift. It asks us to get a shoe box, decorate it and fill it with certain things. They are collected from St Peter's and sent to those children in need before Christmas. We will be holding our "Shoe Box Sunday Service" on 28th October at 10am. It will be service with children and family's in mind. If you would like to donate to the Harvest Appeal or would like a leaflet about the shoe boxes then please do contact me or anyone at St Peters.
Harvest is a wonderful time of the year. It is a time of thanksgiving for beauty of this wonderful world. It is a time to give thanks for all that we have been blessed with. It is a time to give thanks for all those people who work on the land and the sea, in the processing and distribution of our foodstuffs. It is also a time to shake ourselves up to remember that not everyone has the benefits of God's precious creation and that some of those people are on our doorstep and some beyond these shores. It doesn't matter whether they are near or far they are our "neighbours", our brothers and sisters. So, harvest is not only a time to express our thanksgiving but a time to show our love and thanks through action. We do take so much for granted. I know that I do. I don't always appreciate the fact that just by chance - I was born into an affluent society and not into a poor village 10,000 miles away - and so I don't have to strive to survive each day. I guess by the time you read this, the flood will (hopefully) have receded but the devastation it leaves won't have. I also guess that the supply of drinking water will have resumed. Let us all continue to keep the victims of the flooding in our prayers as they try to rebuild their lives. But as we pray for them, let us also pray for those who although beyond these shores have never had clean drinking water - and won't tomorrow - or the day after - or the day after that....unless we - that's you and me - decide to do something about it.
Love and Blessings
Lynne and the family of St Peter's
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