This being my last report
at St Patrick’s, I look back over the 9 years I have been here, and find a
story of tremendous blessing and growth in our relationship with God. How special it has been!
Trevor
has covered much of what has happened during the year, and I will just give the
statistics and a comment. We started
2015 with a membership of 47 individual people.
During the year we lost Ticia Davies, Siya Bakula, Jeff and Jane Every,
Dick Richter, J-P Verster and Terry Barber who all moved away. But we ended the year with 50 members, which
means new members! We particularly
welcome Rev Dr Liz Thomas, Peter Smooi and Callie Lane, who are faithful
members. Liz made the move up to
Hogsback at just the right moment, and we give thanks for God’s provision.
We are truly blessed to
have people like this joining our congregation, and it can only bode well for
the future years at St Patrick’s.
While this past year has
been hard for many of us, we need to be prepared for what may be an even more
difficult year in 2016/7; certainly it will be tough economically. Being prepared for Christians is about
putting on the whole armour of God so that we are able to withstand Satan’s
efforts to dislodge our peace and make us panic and so make unfaithful
decisions. As long as we stick with what
God has taught us, and the resources God has given us, we will grow stronger
and stronger, and our peace and joy will increase.
I have been thrilled to
hear reports from the Monday Prayer Group; what is happening there is truly the
work of the Kingdom. The Tuesday group
goes on well. The annual Retreat has
been an amazing blessing to all who have attended. I commend it to you this year.
I believe that one can
take the spiritual ‘temperature’ of a parish by looking at the finances. We are certainly very healthy and continually
glorifying God in the use of our money.
So he keeps blessing us with more!
I do so hope that my vision of a small multi-purpose hall to be used for
outreach primarily to children and young people (that is, all under 50!) will
be realised. It will mean that we finally
get to serve an important section of our community that has been poorly served
up till now. And we will have a lovely,
cosy place for tea in the depths of winter.
As you all know by now, I
will be leaving St Patrick’s at the end of May, my last service being the 22nd.
I feel very blessed to be
able to say that I have absolutely no worries about doing this because of the
way that St Patrick’s is run, and because God has given us a wonderful new
priest in the person of Liz Thomas. Mind
you, she will have only a fraction of the time I have had, since she is
employed full-time by For Hare.
The team Trevor-and-Ann
Webster is amazing. Trevor is a great
Churchwarden and keeps things going super-efficiently, so that people think
there is nothing to it. Believe me,
there is plenty that he does. He would,
however, find it extremely difficult to be so good at it without Ann, who sees
that everything actually happens, the people are fed, the details are covered
and there is music as well! That is, I
suppose, what a good marriage is about – supporting each other all the
way. Thank you from the depths of my
heart, Ann and Trevor.
Norma Fivaz is another one
who quietly gets on and does a huge amount of work. She, like Ann, plays for weddings, funerals,
services and special occasions. She arranges
the Retreat; she and Ann produce the wonderful Carol Service each year, she
preaches and shares leading services with Ann.
She is an unusual person in the Church – an NG member licensed to an
Anglican bishop! Thank you, too, Norma,
for your great help and constant support.
Our third Lay Minister is
Lynn, who spends much of her time working away from Hogsback, but always slots
right back into her liturgical role as soon as she returns. She is also sadly leaving ST Patrick’s, in
April. Lynn and I have served as a team
at both St Peter’s in Camps Bay and St Patrick’s here, and she is a good person
to have around. She has a great pastoral
ministry – there are many people who are far more comfortable talking to her
than to me. I value her highly. I shall particularly miss our Morning and
Evening Prayers. Thank you, Lynn.
This last while we have
been very grateful for Ansie Klaassen’s Caritas ministry. She has been visiting the sick on behalf of
the parish, and has even arranged for food to be brought to those who are
temporarily unable to see to themselves.
Thank you, Ansie, for this important work.
The Fabric Officer (who
oversees the maintenance of the buildings), Sidespeople, Sacristans, flower
arrangers (also under Ansie) and our special Carol Nieth who sees to all the
weddings, dealing with their complications, also deserve a big thank you. Carol has also been responsible for having
the church cleaned, and we were very sad when Monica Semane, her worker, died
at the end of last month. We made a
small donation to the funeral on your behalf. Thank you for seeing to this so
faithfully every week, Carol, in spite of your tight schedule at home.
Thank you, too, to Maggie
for keeping our website up-to-date with pictures, and information whenever I
remember to send in the pew leaflets! And
Chris Everton who has fixed our driveway and provided labour and gravel when
needed, as well as planting for us is a hero.
There are so many others who contribute in many, many ways, and I want
you to know how grateful I am to have had the privilege of serving you, and how
happy I am to hand over to the new Council with confidence and gratitude.
God has led us this far
and we have each grown in grace. May we continue
to grow in obedience and joy in the service of our blessed Lord in 2016 so that
the Kingdom of God may find root in many more lives in Hogsback and beyond.
God bless us all.
Margaret Fourie
