Farnham
and
Circuit
News Items
Introducing the Rev Vida
Foday
In August this year, our new Probationer Minister, Revd Vida Foday,
will be joining our Circuit to work with and alongside us. Vida will officially
start work on September 1st.
I am a widow with five children. We all live in
I come from a family with
strong Christian background. Three of my
uncles were Methodist ministers, my father was a class leader and my mother was
a choir member. I was a member of the
Girls Life Brigade in
I have worked as Personal
Assistant to the Sierra Leone High Commissioner to
I am a down-to-earth person,
ready to learn and also share the gifts I have acquired through my training
with everyone. My initial priorities at
Farnham, Rowledge and Hale will be to encourage people within the churches and
local community to develop and deepen their faith in God, to assist individuals
in sharing that faith in a way that draws other people to God, and to provide
pastoral support to the three congregations.
We assure Vida and
all her family of our love, prayers and support as she prepares for this new
chapter in her life and ministry, and look forward to getting to know her and
all the family later on in the year. Vida’s welcome service will be held on
Monday 1st September at
Posted Monday, 18 February, 2008
_____________________________
Turmoil in
Our Former
Circuit Superintendant, Rev Jean Simmonds, and her husband Michael have been to
__________________________________
KENYAN CHRISTMAS 2007
Since we returned from
We have never had a holiday
with such extreme experiences. The sheer wonder of God’s creation, the depth of
fellowship among Christian people and the faith of some who live in appalling
poverty uplifted us. However, other
experiences were shocking and will remain in our minds and shape our prayers
for a long time. Let’s begin with the good news!
It was wonderful to spend time with the family, to enjoy the hope
we found in a 3rd birthday party for Isaac where the guests came
from so many countries. They were black, white and lots of shades between, rich
and poor and the children seemed to communicate without language problems.
The joy of the mamas and their children living at the new Turning
Point farm project at Kinangop where there is room to play, community support
for their new lives and more than enough food.
We loved our two day safari watching a herd of elephants cross a
vast African plain in the early morning sunlight and seeing cheetahs, giraffe,
hippos, lions, zebra and a host of other magnificent animals…and then later, seeing
them return for the night beneath the most amazing sunset.
It was refreshing to prepare for Christmas in a place where
there’s less hype, lights and decorations are simpler and not switched on a
month too soon and the commercialism isn’t as sophisticated as in the UK.
We shared a very different carol service with candles [but no
health and safety regulations!] and then, on Christmas morning, we put on our
sun cream, sun glasses and hats and shared Christmas day worship in the open
air. No, we didn’t sing ‘In the bleak midwinter’ this year…but we did go home
to a proper English Christmas dinner!
Jo’s house girl, Mishi had a baby on Boxing Day. Mishi lives on a
slum that is slightly better than Kibera – concrete block homes instead of mud,
and less congestion – though in practice that means more places to put rubbish.
Her home has no water or sanitation, it is one room divided by a bed spread
pegged to a washing line and Mishi, her pastor husband, two daughters and new
baby son live there. We went to welcome the baby and managed to park the car,
avoiding the goats, children playing with cars made from plastic bottles, and a
stray pig, opened the car door and were overwhelmed by the smell but you
compose your face, keep smiling and saying ‘how are you’ which is the English
phrase most slum children seem to know. We climbed across a virtual building site,
avoiding puddles that might be rain and might not and went into Mishi’s tiny,
spotlessly clean home. Mishi and Chris have called their son Manasseh, the name
Joseph in the Old Testament called his firstborn son. It means ‘God has helped
me to forget my troubles’ and is a statement of their faith. Chris proudly
showed us his church on the slum: a room about 10’ square built of corrugated
iron. It contains Jo and Jon’s disreputable old sofa, a tiny, old torn Bible, a
small, rough wooden reading desk and the new acquisition of which they are so
proud – six very cheap, garishly bright plastic stools so the elderly have
somewhere to sit. I’ve included this memory with the good news because, in
spite of our view of their circumstances, so much about Mishi and Chris’s life
and faith is good, a real challenge to us.
Bad news? Well another visit to welcome a baby born on a slum,
this time in a mud walled house on Kibera. Millie is 15 and has been part of
the Turning Point project for several years. Her baby girl, father unknown, was
born just before Christmas. We walked past a stall selling fish remnants
covered with literally hundreds of flies, ducked under lines of washing,
skirted the litter and sewage and stood outside the house where Millie lives
with her aunt’s family. We couldn’t get in; there wasn’t room until the
enormous bowl of washing was lifted out into the narrow alleyway. Then we
stepped inside, it was so dark and we found a new born baby girl in a dress too
big and too old to be worn. She was lying on an old piece of material on the
mud floor. We doubt the stable in
Western style shopping malls, shiny glass lifts and silver
escalators….but only really for the rich and successful. Nothing here that
Mishi or Millie could buy.
Election posters make big promises but can be bad news if they
are unrealistic and seek just to get the votes of the gullible. So, pictures of
apartment blocks surrounded by nice gardens and the words ‘The Kibera we want’
when there seems to be no hope or real plan for change for those who live in
the slums.
Election broadcasts highlighted corruption: more votes cast than
people on the electoral roll, returning officers disappearing with the results
in their pockets! Then just hours after the promise of a total recount, a
president is suddenly and rather quietly sworn in.
Frustration among those who have no voice in the system and no
education and whose only method of expressing themselves is to cause damage and
pain while the president keeps talking about free and fair elections and says
there is no crisis.
Phone calls from Kariuki who heads up the Turning Point team on
the slum and knew his life was in danger. News that the house of the project
Pastor and Mama who give so much energy and love to the children had been
looted and emptied of everything except a bed. Pictures on television of
buildings near the T.P compound being torched and looted.
Sitting in the airport departure lounge that looks towards the
city and watching the thick black smoke rising into the blue sky and knowing we
had to come away and leave Jo, Jon, Hannah and Isaac behind. It’s the only time
a customs officer has checked my passport and asked me to pray for the country.
However, over the last few days, things have become quieter and
we are encouraged that Desmond Tutu is involved in trying to bring a peaceful
and just solution. Turning Point is releasing funds earmarked for other things
and Jon is venturing out, buying vast quantities of food and with Kariuki’s
help, distributing it to the destitute people of Kibera. Please pray for his
and Jo’s safety, for Hannah and Isaac who cannot understand what’s happening,
for the people of Kibera and especially the Turning Point team and families and
for justice and peace for
Jean Simmonds
6 January 2008
____________________
Methodists from churches in the
circuit converged on Farnham on 12 October to celebrate the tercentenary of the
birth of Charles Wesley, the celebrated poet of the
In a frequently light-hearted presentation of the key events of
Charles Wesley’s life, members from each church acted, sang and danced scenes
conceived and scripted in the fertile mind of Rosemary Wisbey. The Wesleyan
Singers, augmented by many musical friends, led the enthusiastic singing of
many favourite hymns to the thunderous accompaniment of the organ played by
Andrew Smith (thunderous, it should be added, only when thunder was truly
required). In addition, the choir sang three anthems.
Charles Wesley was portrayed by that master of disguise, Rev
Malcolm Groom, whose history of impersonation extends from Benny Hill to a
Snowman. He certainly did not disappoint in this latest role, which was not
only due to the authentic powdered wig that he was wearing.
Methodists are justly proud of Charles Wesley who wrote about
6’000 hymns, many of which are pure classics of their kind. This celebration
was enthusiastically enjoyed by a church filled with members and visitors and,
in traditional Methodist style, it was followed by a Faith Tea of the sort many
of us remember from our childhood.
Short video clip of
Charles Wesley being pelted by an angry mob (3.5 Mb) – click here
Posted
Wednesday, 17 October, 2007
______________________