I hope you have had a good week and that you and your family are all well.
The snow this morning was quite a surprise, as it was on Wednesday evening. Sally and I went for a walk with the dog at lunchtime. Have a look at the attached picture of the village looking down from the woods by Daresbury Hall. Quite the ‘chocolate box!’
With the days slowly beginning to lengthen, our thoughts and plans are starting to turn towards Lent, Holy Week and Easter. Maybe, just maybe, we’ll be able to celebrate Easter in Church, but let’s just wait and see and not count our Easter chicks before they’re hatched!
Easter this year falls on 4 April, which means that Lent starts with Ash Wednesday on 17 February – only 3 weeks away. Building upon our experience of the virtual Christingle, we are going to have a virtual Ash Wednesday service at 7.30pm. We are creating an Ash Wednesday pack that will be posted to your house in time for the service. It will consist of the Live Lent book for this year, a palm cross and a small bag of blessed Ash. If you would like a pack please fill in the form on our website here: -https://daresburycofe.org.uk/ash-wednesday-pack/<span style="font-size: 1rem;"> . If you know of anybody who is not online, please ask them to telephone me and we’ll send on out to them. Obviously, they won’t be able to join us ‘live,’ but we’ll arrange for it to be available on the telephone by midday the following day.</span>
Speaking of the telephone service, we are in the process of changing our provider. This means that the telephone number is changing to 01925 980054. This is now live. The old number will continue to be available until 19<sup>th</sup> February. The new provider will enable us to develop the service to suit our needs better, as well as giving improved quality. One of the immediate improvements is that once connected you will get a recorded greeting from me rather than having to listen to silence for a minute or so and thinking something has gone wrong!
During Lent, the Bible Study group will be focusing on a special study course on climate change produced by USPG, the international Anglican mission organisation. We have supported USPG for many years. Gill worked for them for a number of years, and Revd Peter Povey who was Associate Priest here in the early 2000s was a medical missionary with them in east Africa shortly after he qualified as a Doctor. More details next week.
Tomorrow’s service will be led by Simon. Sheet attached.
With God’s blessing,
David