Come Ye Thankful People, Come...

Yesterday was our Harvest Thanksgiving and we had a very full Family Service. Thinking about God's blessings great and small, Bob had provided paper and pens round the chapel, and the children went and drew pictures

We were also following the BMS World Mission material, Seeds of Hope, about the Lebanon and how missionaries are helping farmers in war-torn areas to rebuild their livelihoods - especially when fields have been made unusable because of landmines or unexploded cluster bombs.

Two weeks ago, we took a load of plastic weapons - guns, pistols and swords and dismantled them - and used them as containers for planting cress

 

The children had brought back their successful crops to show us

 

 

 

 

 

Another thing we all did was take a piece of black card with a small gold star on it, representing the magnificence of the night sky, and we wrote a prayer of thanks to God for the splendour of his Creation - and were encouraged to take it home and use it!

Here's the one the little girl sitting next to me wrote out - Thank you God for this world, Amen

 

We collected dozens of tins of food for the Centre Project in Leicester - these are just some of them!

And I forgot to mention - the whole place looked beautiful, filled with baskets of flowers - they have all gone now, and been distributed to sick or housebound members of our village community

 

Maybe not the Traditional Harvest Festival of fifty or sixty years ago, with the building full of sheaves of wheat and giant marrows and bowls of prize tomatoes and shiny red apples - but still an acknowledgement of God's faithfulness through another year - and our desire to share His Bounty with those less fortunate.

Come, ye thankful people, come, raise the song of harvest home;
All is safely gathered in, ere the winter storms begin.
God our Maker doth provide for our wants to be supplied;
Come to God’s own temple, come, raise the song of harvest home.

All the world is God’s own field, fruit unto His praise to yield;
Wheat and tares together sown, unto joy or sorrow grown.
First the blade and then the ear, then the full corn shall appear;
Lord of harvest, grant that we wholesome grain and pure may be.

For the Lord our God shall come, and shall take His harvest home;
From His field shall in that day all offences purge away,
Giving angels charge at last in the fire the tares to cast;
But the fruitful ears to store in His garner evermore.

Even so, Lord, quickly come, bring Thy final harvest home;
Gather Thou Thy people in, free from sorrow, free from sin,
There, forever purified, in Thy garner to abide;
Come, with all Thine angels come, raise the glorious harvest home.