We’re well into 2024 now, January’s gone and St Valentines Day just a week or so away.
What was your Christmas like was it as busy as it was at Bethany?
So who’s going to put the Christmas hand made banners up on the Church railings that Jan and the ‘Craft Group’ had made. We’ll done Jan and Geoff and weren’t you lucky with the weather, and didn’t they look good.
Then there was the dressing of the Church, Jan and Judith organised the nativity and directed Pete and Tony where the Christmas tree and lights were to be placed. While with the help of Lynne the rest of the Church was decorated so beautifully.
Next was where are we going to put all the crackers that the ‘Friendship Group’ had made. They just got carried away and made 183, all hand crafted and filled with all sorts of little surprises, ‘no plastic novelties’ everyone is environmentally conscious at Bethany. There were crackers for the Brownies, Guides and Rainbows, crackers for visitors to our Tuesday morning Drop In, crackers for the shoeboxes and still plenty for our ‘Special’ Christmas Tree.
Which brings us to our Christmas tree dressing on Sunday 8th December. This has always been a highlight of Christmas at Bethany with the tree decorated by children at our special service with gifts for the shoeboxes that will be sent all over the world by International Aid Trust. Would the tree be big enough for all the gifts members of the congregation had bought or would the lights have to go? Well no all the gifts that couldn’t be put on the tree were placed at the foot of the tree and there were many.
For the first time for quite a few years there was an early evening ‘Carols by Candlelight’ service at Bethany on Sunday 17th December with a special appearance of the Bethany Quintet who had been rehearsing for a number of weeks under the direction of a very patient Chris. The service featured both traditional and modern carols and the candlelight certainly bought back many happy memories of years past and childhood carol services.
Christmas Day morning service was certainly different with the children playing a major part in the ‘box within a box within a box’ game where each box represented an important part of the Christmas story. And I’m sure that everyone will remember Finlay and Leo’s delight when they opened the last box to find it was a box of celebration sweets which they enthusiastically handed to everyone in the congregation with a little help from Izzy. Just to remind us that the birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ really is something that we should celebrate every day of the year.
So here we are in 2024 looking forward to a year when we see our congregation increase, with our Father God’s help appoint a new minister and a year on which we can build our work in the community and in our support for the charities that so need our help.