7 days, so many ways With your help, we can work towards a world where families can escape the trap of poverty and fulfil their ambitions. Seven days, so many ways to fund lasting change. Full details of ways to get involved are on their website: https://www.christianaid.org.uk/appeals/key-appeals/christian-aid-week Poverty pushed Aline to the brink of survival. Aline felt the full force of extreme poverty when an early marriage ended in abuse and violence. Separated from her six children, she was forced to sleep on the streets of Burundi. No home. No healthcare. No security. “I wandered the streets, asking anyone for a place to sleep. Those who showed me kindness would let me stay for two or three days, but it was difficult. People would insult me and treat me with contempt. They forgot I was a human being. It filled me with sorrow.” - Aline Nibogora. But Aline was determined to push back against the inhumanity of poverty, driven by hope, faith and the love of her children. She transformed her life with a little help from Christian Aid. To read her full story, please go to the Christian Aid website (link above) We will be having our usual envelope collection in church during Christian Aid week and also have our own dedicated donation page
Peace be with you. In the latest parish magazine I reflect on God’s way of love and how we are each called and sent out to share God’s love and peace with others in our community and the workplace around us as we live out our daily lives. Sometimes that is for a long time and sometimes it is for a shorter season, before being called on to another place, and so I find that is the case now for myself. As mentioned in our last magazine, as my curacy comes to an end in Bodicote, I have been called to become the next vicar of the Deddington Benefice. The benefice combines two parishes, four churches and five village communities of differing sizes and needs (Deddington, Clifton, Hempton and the Barfords) and so there will be many challenges along the way for me! You can see pictures of the churches below. My last service and farewell at Bodicote will be on Sunday 7th April and it will be lovely to see as many of you there as can make it. I am told there will be special refreshments afterwards, so that is an extra incentive! We are then taking a short break after making the house move to Deddington, before I am officially licensed and installed as vicar on Tuesday 23rd April at 7:30pm at Deddington church. Please do consider coming along to that too, your support will be much appreciated! Both Vikki and I are very sad to be leaving such an amazing, welcoming and friendly community and everyone we have come to know over the past three years in our time here at Bodicote, but we are cheered by the fact that we will not be too far away from you all! I am also looking forward with both excitement and trepidation to the challenges and unknowns of the new ministry that lies ahead, but I know that when we ask God, he also gives us the strength and abilities we need to follow where he calls us. Both Vikki and I will therefore greatly appreciate your continuing prayers, thoughts and best wishes for our move and the new life to come and you can be assured that you will all continue to be in ours. May God bless you and give you his peace now and always. Nick Fielden
This year Lent begins on Ash Wednesday 14th February. We will be having our usual Wednesday communion service at 9.30am in the morning and an extra Communion service at 7pm in the evening. The Church of England’s Lent theme for 2024, Watch and Pray invites us all to wait expectantly for God to meet us and sustain us through the storms and trials we all face. On the night he was betrayed, Jesus kneels in darkness in the Garden of Gethsemane. Though he pleads with his disciples, “Stay here with me … Watch and pray,” they all fall asleep, leaving him alone in his hour of deepest suffering. This Lent we are encouraged to draw on the wisdom of Black Spirituality, particularly the practice of “tarrying” (waiting) as a community to draw closer to Jesus and to each other. For each day of Lent, the Watch and Pray booklet offers a Bible verse, a short reflection, an idea for 'watching', and a prayer. It invites us to seek God in both familiar and unfamiliar places this Lent: in darkness and in quiet; in movement and migration; in the healing and transforming work of the Spirit; in the weeping of Holy Week and in the joy of Easter morning. The booklet will be available in church from the Sunday before Lent and I can arrange to get a copy to you if you cannot pick one up yourself. Our three Lent Lunches this year will support Friends of the Earth, The British Red Cross and Alzheimer’s Society. Homemade soup with bread and coffee or tea will be served at 12.30pm in Church House on Mondays 19th February, 4th and 18th March. No booking is required but please do try and arrive on time. We will have our usual choice of services for Holy Week including Stations of the Cross at 7pm on Holy Monday 25th March, Compline at 7pm on Holy Tuesday 26th March, the 9.30am Holy Communion service on Wednesday 27th March, Holy Communion for Maundy Thursday at 7pm on 28th March and an 11am One Hour of Reflection on Good Friday repeated at 7pm on 29th March. The usual Easter Morning services of Holy Communion at 8am and 9.45am on 31st March.