Our Vicar
Bishop Rose and Archdeacon Will are pleased to announce that the Revd Doctor Lesley Hardy was Licensed as Priest in Charge of the Little Stour Benefice on Tuesday 1st August at St Mary the Virgin church, Wingham.
Lesley will work Monday, Tuesday, Friday and Sundays and with her husband Will will live in the Vicarage in Littlebourne. If you are looking for spiritual guidance or need help, please click here to email her or call her on 01227531194.
If it is to do with an individual church, please look at the Our five churches page to allow you to contact the relevant church wardens.
For weddings/confirmation/baptisms click the link.
Thought for the month!
For Those in Peril on the Sea
Last week I took some time to visit my home town of Deal and to take a walk along the coastal path there. The day, at last, felt like summer and the sea was mild and blue. Even so, something like a shadow flitted through my mind because the thought occurred that people would set off on boats from France on a day like this and hope to safely make the crossing. I prayed that there would be no one lost.
Later that evening the news announced a different reality. Four more people had drowned in the calm waters off Boulogne that day, tipped into the sea from a boat crammed with people. At least twenty people have died so far this year in this way including two 7-year-old children. Such terrible and unnecessary deaths are a source of grief and worry to the world.
Sea Sunday
July the 14th was Sea Sunday- a day when Christians across the world remember those who work and face dangers on the sea: those who sail in conflict zones, those who sail in storms and dangerous seas, those who risk their lives for others. We also remember those who are our brothers and sisters who die on the seas in desperate efforts to escape from poverty, violence and fear.
In the Gospel of Mark, we read about a furious storm that threatened to sink the fishing boat that was carrying Jesus and some of his friends across the lake of Galilee. The boat was at risk of breaking up, the waves pounding in over its sides. Meanwhile Jesus, exhausted, slept unawares on a cushion in the stern. It was only when the disciples called to him in terror' teacher, don't you care if we all drown?' that he woke up
Then, Mark writes:
'He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm' .
A Prayer for ourselves when we feel helpless, for those who have died and those who are fearful at sea, for those who work to save them and for all of the storms we may face in our lives to come:
Lord Jesus who woke from sleep to calm the storms and to tell the winds to stop their howling. be the calm centre of our souls, watch over and protect all who are in danger and help us to wake up when we hear their call. Amen
Read an
Anglo-Saxon Poem, the Seafarer
Look at this
painting from the Methodist Art Collection-Maggie Hamblin. Good Friday, Walking
on Water