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Nathan Coffin from the cleaning firm
Smiths of Derby cleaning one of the faces of the clock
tower – the first clean for 15 years!
Annual Church Outing
The day (21st May) started dull and iffy, so
we packed our raincoats, stout shoes put on, and off we
went. First stop Jen and Bill's to park the car, went
to Havant's old Post Office where the coach was
waiting. Here we met old friends, last seen a year
ago. This was our "Sunday School Outing", as we
like to call it. It is a special day looked forward to
every year. "Leonardslee Gardens" was our
destination, a nice drive and soon we arrived. First
stop, the coffee shop for lunch. Pam joined us and off
we went exploring the glorious gardens, such colours,
phew! Jacqui our niece was off on her own, a lot
younger and fitter than us "Grey Ones". We had
fun wandering around the pathways some a bit slippery
and steep, we got lost a few times, useless at following
a map, may be it was wrong. We waved to Sandra and
Lindy across the lake and came across other lot of
friends en route. Popped into the car exhibition.
Bonsai Tree's, a superb Dolls House section, could have
spent longer here, no time. Another coffee and a sit
down. All too soon it was 4pm and time to depart,
resisted the urge to buy plants. Then down to Petworth
for the famous cream tea. Sun was out again, the tea
was great; we even popped into the local craft shop.
Jenny and Liz just couldn't resist buying a few things.
Home now, well Havant again and the end of another super
day. Thank you so much Sandra for all the hard work you
put in every year, do hope it continues. Come on St.
Faith's support a great trip. Thank you once again.
Stella and Mike Compton, Portsmouth
News from Nottingham
I have just been to a Greek party. Studying New
Testament Greek is optional for ordinands over 30, so
those of us who have just completed the first year of it
felt that this was an achievement worth celebrating, as
did our long-suffering teacher. The party happened to
coincide with the annual visit by “The Man from
Ministry Division” – a bishop appointed by the
Church of England to do an OFSTED type inspection to
check that we are being trained properly. We are, of
course, but the Greek music and home-made Greek pillars
might have given a different impression.
Olives aside, learning Greek has been extremely useful,
especially as we have been studying the gospels and Acts
this term. We have learned that Mark’s Greek is
“street Greek” including bad grammar and mistakes,
whereas Luke (who wrote Luke and Acts, but probably
wasn’t called Luke) was posh and wrote beautiful
literary Greek; knowing this helps when studying the
texts in English, because we can see the writers’ own
characters in their writing, and so we understand better
what they were trying to say about Jesus. All this has
also helped us to understand how the gospels fit
together and why there are four – and only four – of
them. Thanks to The Da Vinci Code, this has
become a popular topic and it is indeed a fascinating
subject. As a former lawyer, I find that the more I
study the gospels and the inconsistencies between them,
the more convincing I find them.
We are lucky at St John’s College to have lots of
opportunities to get involved with new forms of church.
Over the Easter holiday, we visited various “fresh
expressions of church” (FXCs, to use the jargon).
Two of us went to Cullompton in Devon, to visit a new
“church” called The Lantern, which has grown out of
the parish church. The Lantern does not meet on Sundays
and does not meet in a church, but for the people who go
along it is definitely church. It meets on Tuesday
evenings in the church hall and is very informal. You
don’t have to wait for your coffee and muffins, of which
there is a constant supply, and there is plenty of time
for chatting. But there is also as much Bible reading,
teaching, prayer and singing as you would get in a
Sunday church service. Most of the people who go have
no wish to go to Sunday church, but they love the
Lantern; by packaging church things differently, it
reaches a brand new audience.
On the way back from Cullompton, I stayed with former
Stanmore curate Andrew Godsall and his family. Andrew
is chaplain to the Bishop of Exeter and is involved in a
major restructuring of mission throughout the Exeter
diocese, where the vast majority of parishes are small
and rural.
On the first day of this term we had an Anglo-Catholic
style mass. For an evangelical college, this is quite
unusual and happens only once a year. I was the
thurifer – the person who swings the thurible (incense
container). It was very complicated, but a useful skill
to learn. For the rest of that week, it was my turn to
lead (with another student) morning prayer in college.
This was my first ever go at leading a service and it
brought home to me what it is I am here learning to do.
The first week of term was also noteworthy for
containing the one and only exam of this academic year -
on Christology, which avid readers will remember is the
study of the person of Jesus Christ and how it was that
he could be both God and human. We discovered that
exams in theological colleges are quite unlike exams
anywhere else, in that (a) the tutor/invigilator prays
for you before the exam starts and (b) when you emerge
at the end, you are greeted by a clapping and cheering
line of second year students, who direct you out onto
the lawn for sparkling wine and chocolate. Which of
course made it all worthwhile.
At the beginning of term, I was informed that I had, in
a mad moment, agreed to do the Tesco Race for Life – the
women’s “fun” run taking place all around the
country. And so it came to pass that one Sunday morning
I found myself in a park in Derby, with nine other
female ordinands (sporting T shirts with “vicar in
training” on the back) and 5,000 other women, about
to start the race. I was astonished to find that it
actually was fun – and even more astonished when
I finished the 5km in 38 minutes. The whole team
completed the course and we proudly wore our T shirts
and our medals to morning prayer the following day; more
importantly, we raised over £1,000 for Cancer Research.
We get a lot of interesting visitors here, most recently
Graham Kendrick (composer of songs such as The
Servant King and Shine Jesus Shine), whose
nephew is a student here. He led us in an hour of
“psalm surfing”, which was really interesting. The
Psalms are songs, so with psalm surfing you pick a psalm
and improvise a song on it. Organists have to improvise
a fair amount, so it appealed to me. The interesting
feature of psalm surfing is that you can’t just pick the
bits you like, but you have to surf the whole psalm
(though an exception might be made for Psalm 119). So
whereas in a normal song or hymn you can edit out the
difficult words, when you surf a psalm you have to think
about all the words and about the psalm as a whole. If
you don’t believe me, try it with Psalm 137. Graham
Kendrick is of course a very expert psalm surfer,
whereas we were rather less expert, but we learned a
lot.
I shall certainly try psalm surfing again, but now for
some Greek washing up.
Rachel Phillips
(is the niece of Alan Hakim)
If you receive something that says “Send this to all
your friends”, please consider me not your friend.
From the Editor
Do you recall the Celtic Eucharist we had in St. Faith’s
Church on 7 September 2003? The island of Iona, off the
south-western tip of the Isle of Mull, is known for its
ecclesiastical history and is where Celtic Christianity
reputedly started. As you would expect, the buildings
on the island have been considerably altered from the 6th
century and many remained derelict for many years before
a restoration programme was completed in the mid-1960s.
There is also a Nunnery on the island but that has not
been restored and is derelict. John Smith, who was the
leader of the Labour Party and died in 1994, is buried
in the Abbey graveyard. The Abbey, Nunnery and
graveyard are now in the care of “Historic Scotland”
- daily services are held in the Abbey. Being on the
island, one is struck by the peacefulness of the
surroundings and the closeness one feels to God.
Last month, I was able to catch up on
some reading whilst lazing in the Algarve sunshine. One
of the books I took with me was “Wild Swans” by Jung
Chang - the story of three generations of women in her
own family (grandmother, mother and daughter) in China
during the 20th century. It gives an
excellent insight as to what life was like living in
China. I enjoyed reading it very much and am now
looking forward to reading Jung’s second book, “Mao: The
Unknown Story”, which she has written with her husband,
Jon Halliday.
In May I asked you for your memories on the 60th
anniversary of V-E Day and you responded with some very
interesting articles. Next month on 15th
August it is the 60th anniversary of V-J
Day. Please let me have your memories on that day.
We should be aware of the small minded people in places
of authority who make decisions on the basis of
political correctness and who try to remove a cross from
a crematorium, who try to remove all Christian symbols
from a hospital’s chapel, and who try to ban Bibles from
hospital wards, so as not to offend non-Christians. We
have been a Christian country for over 1,870 years – 470
of them under the Church of England.
Thank you to Ken & Mary Bracher and to Michael Laird,
for organising the library for the church. More books
will continue to be added to the stock to keep it
current.
Colin Carter
A Sad Loss
Members were saddened this week by the loss of one of
our most valuable members – Someone Else. Someone’s
departure creates a vacancy that will be difficult to
fill as Mr Else has been with the club a number of years
and did far more than a normal person’s share of the
work. Whenever there was a job to do or a function to
attend, one name was on everyone’s lips: “Let’s get
Someone Else to do it.”
It was common knowledge that Someone Else was one of the
largest contributors of his time to the club; whenever
there was need for a volunteer we just assumed that
Someone Else would put his hand up. He was a wonderful
person, sometimes appearing superhuman. Were the truth
known, everyone expected just a bit too much of Someone
Else, and now Someone Else has left us! We wonder what
we are going to do without him. He left a wonderful
example to follow, but who is going to do the things
that he did?
So if somebody does ask for help, remember we can’t
depend on Someone Else any more.
Reproduced by permission of the Edgware
National Trust Centre whose Chairman saw it in a New
Zealand magazine.
Sendai, Japan
Please pray for the church in Sendai. The discussion
about the future of the church has been put off until we
get back. We anticipate that this discussion will be
fairly heavy, with extremes of opinions and emotions on
both sides. Issues will be whether the church should
close (we pray not), where should we move to (we may
have the church in our house). Depending on that we'll
have to look for a suitable house to rent. Again this
is difficult at any time (many estate agents say "no
foreigners, pets or children") but will be more
difficult if we want to hold church meetings in it as
well. We really feel the need for wisdom and divine
help. Please keep praying for the salvation of
long-term adherents as well as new contacts, for growth
of the church and for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit
that Japan desperately needs.
Rod & Glenda Thomas
It’s tough belonging to a church that’s always asking
for money. You never know if you are one of the flock,
or one of the fleeced!
London Marathon 17 April 2005
This year I was lucky enough to get a place in the
London Marathon to help raise funds for the Cystic
Fibrosis (CF) Trust, and what a fantastic day it turned
out to be. The one big advantage I had on the day was
that I did not have any idea how tough it was going to
be; so here was I at the start surrounded by masses of
athletes busy warming up and stretching, while I was
sticking to my game plan of moving as little as possible
to conserve all that pent up energy. Training had been
at the best infrequent and only started a few months
before the race, where I managed to first run 5 miles,
then 10 miles (only the once), and peaked at 15 miles
(only once, again!) a few weeks before the marathon.
David Gibbons kindly let me borrow one of his books on
Marathon training, which happened to mention on the
inside front cover that training should decrease 3 weeks
before the race. This was good enough for me to take as
good advice and I decided that the front inside cover
was probably all the advice I needed so duly returned
the book unread. As it was the 15 miles training
certainly seemed to take it out of me as I felt washed
out for the next week, bottom line was my training
virtually stopped until the day. I say virtually
stopped because I had heard enough about carbo-loading
to know that a good meal of pasta should help me get
through the event. We went to stay up in London the
night before and Lisa prepared very good-looking pasta
beforehand for me to have to “carbo-load”. When
we arrived in London, I was duly sent out as the chief
hunter/gatherer to capture a live pizza and bring it
back for the family feast. Together with my daughter
Josie we found a nice Italian Restaurant, which made up
a lovely looking pizza. The local Italian beer tasted
very good while we waited.
Once arrived back with the pizza, I managed to
completely resist the prepared pasta, had a generous
portion of pizza and polished it off with a tub of Hagen
Das to settle my stomach. Managed a fairly early night
but the airbed and two kids either side made me wish the
Italian beer consumption had been higher.
My rigorous planning for the day itself got off to an
interesting start as I turned up at the train station to
catch a train into Waterloo only to find the next train
was scheduled at 10.15 – the race starts at 9.45.
Fortunately for me another fellow competitor had turned
up at the train station and was organising to get a lift
to Waterloo, after making introductions I accepted
Paul’s kind offer to get a lift with him and we wished
each other good luck as we went off in different
directions to the many starting points.
So here I am in the starting area, well prepared and
concentrating like mad on keeping as still as possible
to conserve energy. I must take my hat off to all the
Elite runners who manage to position themselves near the
start line – they must get there incredibly early. For
me it was five minutes after the race had officially
started we started to move and it was about another ten
minutes before I passed the official starting line. The
start was probably the most hazardous part as people
jostled for position – at least it was for most folks, I
managed to position myself behind one of the fancy dress
Rhinos that carved its way through the masses. After
about 5 miles the runners started to space out and it
was between here and about 20 miles that I was
remarkably “comfortable”. My only uncomfortable
patch was when I needed to answer the call of nature –
but not fancying the idea of appearing before a TV
audience of 6 million people faking a groin injury, I
dutifully queued up for a 15 minute wait for a
port-a-loo.
The journey through London was in fact very pleasant and
the support from the crowds was fabulous – the key
advice I was given from a veteran of these events was to
write your name on your shirt – literally every few
paces someone would call out “come on Mark, you can
do it” and the occasional “hey Mark, you’re
making it look easy” confirmed I was top of my game.
Sweeties and drinks were also handed out by the
spectators throughout the race, which was marvellous,
but also lead to my eventual downfall.
The 20 mile point was a milestone in the respect that I
was 5 miles into personnel best territory but also that
by now I had a very sore blister on my right foot which
was causing me to run unconventionally – my right leg
was giving it the same action as Paula Radcliffe’s head
movement in an attempt to keep the weight off my
expanding and squelching blister. It all went a bit
pear shaped at this point, my knees failed, soon
followed by ankles and then the calves tighten up. It
was during this time the inner strength gets tapped, and
thoughts of the sponsorship and good luck support kicked
in to help me dig that bit deeper and keep on.
My pace certainly started to falter, but the crowds
seemed to be rising to my predicament and the cheers and
roars seemed to be getting stronger and spurred me on
with each step. It was at about 23 miles I realised
that the crowds had been getting behind a runner (or
should I say runners) who were on my tail. “Camella”
who was two blokes dressed up as a Camel were ripping
their way through the back markers. I graciously let
them past – I mean who would like to have a photo on the
finish line with a pantomime camel breathing down your
neck to get past. This scenario continued for the final
stages where I was blitzed by Darth Vader, Scooby Doo,
Little Miss Naughty and a Dalek to name a few.
It was in the final few hundred metres to the line that
I heard a remark of “I don’t believe it” and was
joined by Paul, the chap who had helped get me into
London that day. It was really great to cross the line
with him and the chances of it quite remarkable
considering the 30,000 plus runners. The biggest
emotion was finding Lisa, Josie and Sam (the support
team) at the finish line, who were worried that I had
got lost in the big smoke, or stopped off for a quick
pint enroute!
By the way I discovered the downfall the next day to my
fading form in the feet and legs department – I had a
wine gum sweet lodged in the sole of my right foot
trainer that I must have picked up during the course –
the wine gum was not detectable running, but one that
was enough to give me a blister - and the rest’s
history.
It was a fantastic day and one in which I will cherish
as my opportunity to compete on equal terms against the
worlds greatest long distance runners. On the day most
were safe in by five and a half hours time.
And finally a very big thank you to all for the well
wishing and support I received – we also raised an
outstanding £7,500 for the CF Trust.
Mark Roonan
(For the record, Mark finished in a
time of 5 hours 39 minutes and 57 seconds. Mark raised
money for the Cystic Fibrosis (CF) Trust as his son,
Sam, who is 6, suffers from the disease. As Mark
celebrated his 40th birthday a few days
before the Marathon, it was a poignant reminder to him
that the average survival in the UK for those with CF is
31 years)
St. Faith’s Town Fair – 27 August 2005
The Fair this year will be held on Saturday 27th
August from 10am to 3.30pm. We urgently need new
members on the committee as well as helpers on the day.
Goods, such as books, handicrafts, plants and produce
bottles and prizes for the tombola stall are also
needed.
The proceeds all go to the Restoration Appeal and this
year the Havant and Bedhampton Liveability Board has
made a very generous donation of £2,000 towards the
Fair.
Please contact Ann Buckley (023 9247 3512) or Sandra
Haggan.
MakePovertyHistory
Now that you have read the Rector’s article on page 1,
should you require more information then see the website
at
www.christianaid.org.uk or one of our posters or
pamphlets in church.
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