Wednesday 5 October 2022

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

This coming Sunday is our Harvest Festival. It will be a special service with various activities afterwards (see below for more details). I do hope you will be able to join us. If you cannot come to the service in person on Sunday you can find the readings and hymns for the service here: Service Resources at St Ursula's Church, Berne. The sermon will be recorded and put on the website afterwards, at this same link.

Harvest Festival, 9th October
Please do join us for this special Sunday. If you can, please bring fruit and vegetables and other produce to decorate the church and to auction off after the service. The auction will raise money for the Kigezi Water and Sanitation Project we support. We are delighted to welcome Bishop Gaddie Akanjuna from Kigezi who will be our guest preacher and will give a talk about the Water Project after the service.

We will also be holding a Bring and Share Lunch. Please bring a dish of food to share. It would be good to have a range of different dishes; perhaps you could bring a typical dish from your home country or region. We encourage you to bring vegetarian food if you can.

I attach some words from Lynn our hospitality coordinator with more details about the lunch.

We need help setting up tables, serving food, and clearing up. If you are able to help, please let Lynn or the office know. Thank you.

Pledge Sunday, 16th October
This will be our annual pledge Sunday when we are all encouraged to reflect on our giving and review what we give to the church. St Ursula's does not receive any other funding of any kind so we rely on the giving of our congregation for all our different activities and ministries. My letter about pledging and the pledge forms are attached to this email. If this is not relevant to you please ignore.

Harvest: a time for gratitude and generosity
As we celebrate harvest on Sunday we give thanks for the abundance of good things we enjoy and we also remember those in our world who lack the basic necessities of life. We have no doubt heard about the terrible suffering caused by the drought and famine in Somalia and other parts of East Africa. Many people, especially young children, are suffering from malnutrition and starvation. Let us pray for them and also donate money for emergency aid if we can.

A Harvest Hymn

We dare not ask you bless our harvest feast
Till it is spread for poorest and for least.
We dare not bring our harvest gifts to you
Unless our hungry brothers share them too.

Not only at this time, Lord; every day
Those whom you love are dying while we pray.
Teach us to do with less, and so to share
From our abundance more than we can spare.

Now with this harvest plenty round us piled,
Show us the Christ in every starving child;
Speak, as you spoke of old in Galilee,
'You feed, or you refuse, not them but me!'
(Lilian Cox)

With love in Christ,
Helen