The
excitement doesn’t ever stop here in the NW Office: this entry is jam-packed
with more events and escapades. Make yourself a cup of tea and get comfortable.
Here we go!
On Thursday
13 November—after less than a week of recovery time following Archbishop
Kaigama’s visit—I loaded Theodora up for the very first ACN Prayer Vigil for
Religious Freedom. It was very exciting—months of preparation (as you know)
went into this day: finding venues, writing the ‘script’, organising publicity
and service sheets and talks…I could go on. Anyway, this first vigil was to be
held at St Joseph’s Church in Accrington, Lancs (Diocese of Salford). St Joseph’s
just happened to be the parish in which my lovely friend Marie spent most of
her childhood. Marie agreed to come with me to help and to show me the scenes
of her childhood. Before we got to Accrington, though, I had to make an
hour-long stop to run a workshop at St Cecilia’s High School in Longridge, nr
Preston. The day at school was centred on Vocations, but I thought about it and
I decided that I, no doubt just like you, have a vocation to serve and to help
wherever I can. I talked to the students about this and about what ACN does to
help. I then taught 90 Year 10 pupils how to weave paper hearts (with varying
degrees of success!) and I asked them to write messages of support to Iraqi and
Syrian refugees to place inside said hearts. All of this seemed to go down well
at the school—thank you to Year 10!
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| My friend Marie at St Joseph's, Accrington |
By late
afternoon Marie and I were back on the road to Accrington. We arrived at St
Joseph’s around 5pm and we were met by the Parish Priest, Fr Paul Blackburn. Fr
Paul is a very keen ACN supporter and his church was full of ACN materials and
posters for the Vigil; as was, no doubt, the neighbouring church dedicated to
St Anne, whose Parish Priest, Fr Simon Stamp, had teamed up with Fr Blackburn
to host the vigil. Marie and I got busy setting up the trading stall and a
table of ACN literature, Executive Summaries of the new Religious Freedom in
the World 2014 Report, sign up sheets for mailing list and much more. The vigil
was set to begin at 7:00pm; we were ready by 6:30pm and people began to arrive.
And they just kept on arriving—Marie and I were handing out prayer cards,
service sheets and hymn books as fast as we could—but they just kept on coming!
Over 100 people turned out in the end; what a fabulous start for the whole
series of vigils!
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| Marie at the ACN stands, St Joseph's, Accrington |
The vigil
ran like clockwork and I couldn’t have been more pleased. I couldn’t see behind
me because I was sitting up at the front, so you can imagine my surprise when I
got to the lectern to speak and turned to see the church so full! Afterwards
there was so much positive feedback; people were especially moved by the
statement of personal witness from Sahar Mansour, a friend of a friend of mine,
who is currently ‘living’ (if you can call it that) in a refugee camp in Ankawa
in Northern Iraq. She has written a message especially for those who attend the
prayer vigils and she speaks very candidly about her life, her day-to-day
existence and what it means to be a Christian in Iraq today. At the very end,
after five rather harrowing pages of text, Sahar closes by expressing her deep
gratitude to Christians in the UK for their prayers. I have now read Sahar’s
message at three very different prayer vigils and it isn’t getting any easier—Sahar’s
thoughts stay with me all the time and whenever I revisit her words I am struck
again by her quiet strength and deep faith. Please keep her and those thousands
like her in your thoughts and prayers.
Thanks for reading!
Caroline
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