All Saints Church News

Good people of the Offords, hello; I hope you are enjoying the warmer weather.

Prompted by a recent remark of my mum’s, about gardening, I’ve reflected on vocation.

God’s calling; vocation

“..comes from the heart of God, but it goes through the heart of the mother”

Pope St Pius X

Through the heart of the mother, is definitely true in my case.

“What are you growing? Veggies?” Then, mum says “I’m not growing anything, just older.”

Not growing vegetables or flowers, but growing older says my proverbially greenfingered mum. Like my grandparents were, she’s always been a gardener. So many of my childhood memories are of being in the garden with mum. Any time I taste purple sprouting broccoli I am, in a Proustian moment, instantly taken back to around 1977 and eating the same, in the garden. Mum had just picked it and as we ate it we watched and listened to the starlings. Mum said “starlings me darling”. As this was the seventies I am sure she was borrowing sentiment, if not actually quoting, from Pam Ayres. The first line of the poem I think mum had in mind is also the title, you can find it easily enough online, here’s the first verse:

We're starlings, the misses, meself and the boys, We don't go round hopin', we walks. We don't go in for this singing all day, And twittering about, we just squawks.

A single parent of two, my father died in 1975, mum worked hard and has always been the kind of dependable, loving, encouraging, quite straightforward person it is impossible for me to thank enough. Not that I always saw this! I remember sometime in my teens I made mum so cross about something (don't be fooled into thinking it was an isolated incident) that she went out for a couple of hours. "Where did you go?" I asked later, assuming wrongly she had walked around the fields, down the droves, the edge-of-the-fen landscape I love and was home. "Church".

Thank God, as he listens to anxieties and frustration, I later realised.

You did not choose me but I choose you

John 15:16

I have a number of people who I thank God for. For ensuring that through their words and actions years ago, I was ready to hear God's voice when he called me. Mum's example over so many years humbles me now. She has served her parish church for years and years, in one way or another all her life. From a child in the choir of St Mary and St Michael's, Mistley, onwards. Ever supportive of the vicar, she was a churchwarden and PCC member, a devout and prayerful woman. And, when I upset her, she would walk over the fields from Longmeadow to Lode, shut the church door behind her and...I thank God that through her, I am a priest.

As ever, with much love,

Fr David Sheppard

Parish Priest of Buckden with the Offords https://allsaintsoffordcluny.wordpress.com/ 07792128503 (day off: Friday)

We pray to be generous and visible people of Jesus Christ https://www.elydiocese.org/about/strategy/vision/

All Saints Services June And July

In addition there are occasional combined services for the whole Benefice at either St Mary’s Buckden, All Saints Church or St Peters

Details of all services at St Mary’s can be found via this shortened URL https://www.shorturl.at/DSUV6

Fundraisingandsocialeventsareplannedthroughtotheendof2023.

Events calendar 2023

All events in the Village Hall unless noted otherwise

June 3rd Cabaret Evening in All Saints Church

(Tickets in Advance)

10th Bacon Butties 10am - 12

24th Church and Village Fete At the school

July 15th Bacon Butties

August 12th Bacon Butties

- 12

- 12

Sept. 3rd BBQ - Venue TBA 12 noon (Tickets in advance)

Oct. 1st Harvest Lunch noon - 2pm 14th Bacon Butties

Nov. 4th Bacon Butties & Hot Dogs

17th Bingo TBA

- 12

– 12

25th & 26th Christmas Tree Festival 12 noon - 4pm

Dec. 1st Band Concert in the Church

(Tickets in advance)

AllSaintsChurchdoesnotreceivefinancialhelpfromtheDiocese,the ChurchofEnglandoranyotherbody. Aswestruggletoraisefundsto replace the roof we also have to raise money to heat and maintain the buildingandpayourshareofrunningcosts.Wearenottooproudtobeg butweprefertoraisemoneythrougheventsthatallvillagersmayenjoy. Somealsogiveusingthewebsite‘Givealittle’.Youcanfindalinktothison theAllSaintsOffordpageson‘Achurchnearyou’. We have a QR code you can scan if you are reading out & about in the paperversion.Lotsofusdo.

Thesiteoffersyouachoiceof donationamounts£1/£3/£5 oranoptiontonameyouramount.

Ifyoufeelyoucan‘givealittle’toAllSaintsitwillbringusastepnearer toanewroofandwillhelpkeepthechurchrunningforworshipandfor whenyouoryourfamilyandfriendsneedit.Churchisforeveryoneit’s notaprivatemembersclub.

Thankyou.

All Saints Church – Contact details

PriestinCharge: Fr.DavidSheppard fr.davidowainsheppard@gmail.com

Mobile:07792128503

ChurchWarden

JohnSimpkin 01480819664 warden.offord@yahoo.com

Mobile:07904617973

ChurchWarden&Webmaster SueDorrington offordallsaints@gmail.com

Mobile:07724553101

Fundraising&socialevents: StephenEayrs stepheneayrs@btinternet.com

BobBargh barghrobert921@gmail.com

HelenNorthrop helen.northrop1@btinternet.com

MandyEayrs mandyeayrs@btinternet.com

ElizabethSimpkin lizsimpkin@msn.com

FacebookPage: https://m.facebook.com/AllSaintsOfford

AChurchNearYou: https://www.achurchnearyou.com/church/13931/