Christian Aid Week 2009

What is it with Christians and Trees? At Christmas, David Coffey had us making a Jesse Tree, and now the suggested order of service for the Christian Aid Week Family Service involves a Prayer Tree.

The idea is that there are five prayer stations around the chapel, and people go to each in turn and say a prayer for a different aspect of Christian Aid's work - then they come and hang their prayers on the tree.

 

The focus this year is on the Democratic Republic of Congo - and one station reminds us of the lack of education

 

 

Another station focuses on an orphan girl who has been trained to sew in order to support her family, following the death of her father - there are strips of cloth to tie on the tree

I moved one of the Sewing Club sewing machines through, to add some emphasis to this display!

Christian Aid also works with street children, and football is a good way of building relationships. As C.A. often auctions footballs signed by celebrities, we are invited to sign these footballs and pray for the boys who live on the streets.

We are reminded that the Christian Aid envelopes are distributed empty - but we hope they will be full when collected. God wants us to live fulfilled lives - and help others to do so too.

There are tags for us to write ways in which we as a community can help others to live the abundant life God wants for us all.

 

There is a picture of a girl who loves singing, and a boy who enjoys playing marbles - so a hymnbook and basket of marbles are on the table. We are invited to think of the things we enjoy - and write them on heart shaped tags which say "I thank God for..."

Finally, people can bring all their tags, and strips of cloth, and fix them to the tree...

I pruned these branches from a rather large tree in the garden this morning. I do hope the leaves haven't all dropped off by tomorrow!

The front of the church is looking very full now - especially when you include the pillars of the temple which Samson will be pulling down [the young people are acting out the story they learned last week]

The people in our village are very generous during Christian Aid Week - not just the folk from our place and the Parish Church, but members of the community generally take and fill their envelopes willingly. And I am grateful for that.