The weekend of 27th-28th September 2025 was a special weekend for us as Revd Edna Emmanuel was Ordained as Deacon. This follows 42 years of attending St James. Here is a little piece of her journey:-
"In 1983 I started attending St James and attended on and off for a year. This was in the old church building. I then began to attend more regularly. My daughter was baptised 1986 and that point I thought, “these vows you are taking on her behalf are serious, you need to follow through” and I did.
My involvement in St James began when Rev John Root asked in the church magazine for someone to do his typing, I called him and volunteered. Week by week, I would collect his Dictaphone machine or he would drop it off to me, I would do his typing and return typing and machine.
Since then, my roles in St James have been many and varied and include PCC Secretary, Churchwarden, Treasurer, Sides-person, DBS checker lead, Guidance Group member, part of the catering team, one of the reGenr8 leading team (youth group), teaching at English Class, part of the choir and gospel choir (can’t sing, but love singing). Before COVID, I set up the monthly Café Church. I did many training courses e.g. Prayer and Listening Skills, Welcome, Bereavement, Bridgebuilders, Preaching.
What brought me to Ordination? better still what brought Ordination to me? Long story, but I came to Ordination via the Caleb Pathway. Caleb was set up for people between the ages of 50 and 80 already involved in the work of their churches.
After being asked a few times and ignoring it, or finding different reasons why I shouldn’t, I went on retreat and was asked again, I made a phone call to a trusted past Curate of St James and the reading that morning was Exodus 3: 1-4.
"Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. 3 So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.”
4 When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!”
And Moses said, “Here I am.”
Like Moses, I decided to say "Here I am" and the rest is history"
REVD Edna Emmanuel.