Last Saturday was a truly wonderful day. Firstly the sun shone. Secondly the youth, led by Grace Smith, hosted a wonderful afternoon of fun for all the family. The parents baked cakes and brought food (chicken wings, crisps, scotch eggs etc). On one stall, the youth painted the faces of the children. On another stall they sold cakes and painted biscuits with loads of icing, "hundreds and thousands" as well as other brightly coloured sugary embellishments. They all looked wonderful. Outside the young danced to hip hop music and served more cakes etc to passers by. it was a truly wonderful event which I thoroughly enjoyed. Sadly there were few visitors and even fewer members of Westbury who visited it. It was very disheartening for the children and even more disheartening for the cause they were raising funds for, which is Comic Relief. If anyone watched the TV show on Friday, and came to our young people's event on Saturday, they will know which one was better - Westbury's! If you were not there you missed a treat. Attached is a slide show of pictures I took at the event. Next time the youth put on an event, please make sure you come and support them. You know it makes sense.
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This year began with a wonderful new year service on 1 January. After the service we discovered that, sadly, Kehende Emmanuel had died. Arrangements for his funeral are in hand. I have no further details. At the beginning of February, we had the sad news that Herbert Aubert has passed away. He will be sadly missed. His cremation will take place at Southgate Crematorium on Friday 17 February at 1.30pm. He was a lovely man. I had the privilege of knowing him ever since I first came to Westbury, which was in 1993. He was a deacon for many years and served our God well over those years. He was responsible for maintenance of the church and was its caretaker until ill health forced him to step down. Even when he was frail he would still turn up every week to assist the cleaning team. May God rest his soul. My prayers are with his family at this time. On a somewhat happier note, we had a fabulous Women's Breakfast in January, the first for the new year. This event was such a blessing to all who attended, not least for the wonderful breakfast cooked for us by Calvin and his team. Thanks to them and to Sharon and Christine for all their hard work.
We cannot know what the future will hold for us as individuals or as a church, but we do know that God is with us throughout every second of our lives and we can and should trust in Him completely for everything. So, whether you need a new job, home, or His healing touch he will provide all your needs according to his purpose. May all who read this blog have a truly wonderful, fantastic 2017. God bless you. The Christmas programme is as follows:
Saturday 17 December at 5pm there will be a family party at the church with games, food, prizes, presents, and fun for everyone. All free of charge. All welcome regardless of age. Sunday 18 December - Candlelight Service from 6.30pm - 8pm. This will include a nativity performed by the children in our Sunday Club and promises to be very different from the usual! All welcome. Sunday 25 December - Christmas Day Service to celebrate the birth of our Lord and Saviour - 11am - 12pm Saturday 31 December - New Year's Eve Service - 9pm - midnight. Join us to welcome in the new year. All of the above are based on the theme of Jesus being the light of the world. He lights up darkness of the season as well as the darkness in our lives. If you have never been to a Christmas Carol Service before or you have been to so many you cannot count, I pray you will be richly blessed, challenged and encouraged by all the events going on in the church this Christmas Time. I wish everyone who visits this website a wonderful Christmas and a peaceful and fulfilling new year. This summer has been a very busy one for us at Westbury. It started with the wedding of Christine and Idowu. It was a fabulous event much enjoyed by all. We wish them every happiness for their future.
Next we staged our first Community Fayre which was brilliant. We were blessed with wonderful weather and lots of wonderful stalls. We had puppets, singing from the worship team and a barbeque as well as lots of stall selling cakes, bric a brac. The icing on the cake as far as the children were concerned was a bouncy castle. Much used and loved by all the little ones. After we had recovered from that, we then hosted "Junior Apprentice". It was terrific. Our area won! We were absolutely delighted. Thank you so much to all who helped with this project. There are pictures on a previous blog post. It does not stop with just two weeks of Junior Apprentice. The Hebe Foundation, who run the project, mentor and advise and encourage the young people throughout the year. There are opportunities for work experience as well as a mentoring dinners. If you are under 19 years of age, go to the Hebe Foundation website for more details and get involved! Next was Matthew and Giorgia's wedding. A wonderful event full of music, colour and fun. We wish them every happiness for their future also. Now it is Autumn and the weather is getting colder. We can now get "hugge" as our Scandinavian friends would put it. This means "cosy" apparently and involves wearing warm clothes, cuddling up to roaring fires, drinking hot drinks and relaxing. All good. In order to help us through the cold winter days and nights, below are a list of autumn events in the church. All are free of charge so invite your family and friends. Saturday 29 October - Light Party - an alternative to Halloween for children up to around 14 years of age Sunday 30 October - Evening of Praise and Worship from 5.30pm - 8.30pm Sunday 6 November - Harvest/Thanksgiving service Sunday 13 November - Intercessory Prayer Meeting - 6.30pm Saturday 19 November - International Evening. (more details coming soon!) These events are guaranteed to warm your heart and get you closer to God. See you there! God bless you. Some pictures from Junior Apprentice 2016 finale. If you didn't take part this year, watch out for next year's project by visiting the Hebe Foundation website, or following them on facebook or twitter @thehebefoundation.org.uk. A new term has started for schools and a new term has started for the youth work of the church. We had a fabulous time in the park near the church for our first outing of the new term. We leaders tried to encourage the children to play rounders, but they were having none of it! They preferred to climb all over the climbing frames in the playground area. It was a lovely sunny day and the leaders and children all enjoyed themselves.
Of course, God knows us better than we know ourselves and therefore knows who we are in relation to Him. More importantly, he accepts us as who we are and what we are when we give our lives to Him initially but He does not expect us to stay as we were. We need to change our mindset, thoughts and actions once we become a child of His. Thus spiritually we become a new person - "behold old things are passed away; I make all things new". We no longer think along the same lines as before. I have come to realise over the years that this is a gradual process - it is in progress, not complete. I used to think that, as soon as I was converted, I would somehow become perfect and was very surprised that it was not so! I realized over time that I have to read and study God's word and, equally importantly, listen to His voice and be guided by Him in order to bring about the change in character, thought and deed that is required of every believer - in other words to become a new creation. Since Junior Apprentice has finished, we leaders have been getting back to normal. I didn't know I could feel so tired!! It was an excellent fortnight of tasks and challenges both for the young people and us leaders. Do have a look at the pictures on the Hebe Foundation website and also on their twitter feed, where there are pictures of the orienteering challenge, which was carried out in the pouring rain! It didn't dampen the candidates' spirits though.
The finale was at Waterloo, Bayllis Road, where the teams had stalls to sell culturally diverse items. Our stalls sold lots of delicious food from various countries together with books, games and offered face painting as well as nail painting to families passing by. I had my nails done, and they looked splendid. A great treat! We then relaxed on the grass to hear a very encouraging and inspiring speech by the key note speaker about not conforming and "following the herd" as a means of getting on in business and breaking out of the mould, so to speak. Then the winner was announced and prizes were given out to the winner and the two other finalists as well as goody bags to the other members of their teams. Everyone got a certificate, which they will doubtless treasure. God is so good to us! He kept us safe throughout the whole two weeks and gave us inspiring speakers, wonderful helpers, as well as top companies to pitch to. This was the best Junior Apprentice yet! My prayer is that the young people take away the fact that it does not matter where you come from or where you live, you can be a success in life. You do need to work hard but you will achieve great results. The most important thing of all is to serve the Lord and stay faithful to Him and he will bless you greatly and not let your past affect your future. Read Joseph's story or Abraham's story to see how God blesses those who follow Him. Both found in Genesis. The Youth Club had a cake sale last Saturday in aid of Junior Apprentice 2015. It was a glorious sunny afternoon and there were loads of tasty cakes for sale. Some of the girls danced. They raised £75.00 altogether. Thanks so much to Dee, Pat and Theresa for making the cakes and to Tosin for encouraging and supporting our young people on the day. Also thanks to everyone who came by to support them and buy the cakes. They were delicious cakes!
On 17 May, the Puppet Team performed a magnificent puppet show at the Moravian Baptist Church. Moravian Church generously gave the team £40 for the puppet ministry. The puppet team did us proud. Junior Apprentice is due to start very soon. It runs from 3 - 15 August 9.30 - 5.30. Based on the hit BBC TV programme "The Apprentice", It is aimed at young people from 14 - 19 years old. The young people perform tasks which are aimed at teaching them new skills, improving their business acumen as well as contributing to their winning the title "Junior Apprentice 2015". There are lots of fabulous prizes to be won along the way.
If you are or know someone who would like to compete, please go on the Hebe Foundation website and click on the Junior Apprentice tab and register! It is well worth it. I have been involved in Junior Apprentice for about four years now and always enjoy it despite the hard work. The young people grow in confidence and poise as they go through the process. They also learn so much about themselves and business. This year's theme is "The Business of Travel" which will involve all aspects of the travel industry and has some fascinating tasks lined up! So, if you are a young person, sign up to compete. If, like me, you are older, you can volunteer to help. If you can, please use the contact tab on this website or contact Tosin Smith or me, Deborah Hayward, the writer of this blog. On Saturday afternoon, the young people practiced two puppet songs for the all age service on Sunday. At first they were a bit reluctant to start practicing. I got the impression their hearts were not in it. However, as time went on, they got keener and more enthusiastic about what they were doing.
After practicing, they played a riotous game of football in the back hall. On Sunday they put on the puppet show during the service, which was wonderful. The children really excelled themselves. Grace Smith led worship and the young people played their instruments very well. They led us into God's presence. I was particularly impressed with the way Grace read out bible verses between the songs to which they related, which helped me to understand better where the song writers got inspiration for their songs from. Absolutely wonderful. If you were not there, you missed out - make sure you are for the next one which, God willing, will be at the end of May. if you are a young person at primary school or know someone who is, come along to the church on Saturdays from 4pm - 6pm and you, too, can learn puppetry, play games, cook yummy food, dance, make new friends and much more. It is all free of charge! |
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