The weekend before Christmas is always a busy one, and for Helen and Annie this year was no exception. On Saturday evening they went to St. John's House - an Anglican Convent in the Alum Rock/Ward End area of Birmingham to hold an advent evening for the sisters and their guests. The Community of St. John the Divine have always been a wonderful support to CMM, both prayerfully and practically - giving Miriam accommodation when she did her gap year, and allowing Helen to stay for 3 years. They also allowed us to use one of their spare rooms for stock when Roger and Mary sold 327 Bromford Road.
The advent evening was wonderful - Annie and Helen took the theme light, and used a variety of readings, carols and songs to enable people to reflect on the theme and prepare for the coming of the Light of the World. After the presentation everyone retired to the refectory for tea, coffee and amazing mince pies. It was a lovely prayerful evening.
Then on Sunday Annie had her carol service at church, which had been a lot of hard work for her arranging the music and organising the instrumentalists and singers. A couple of songs from the CMM repertoire crept in to the service, including 'How silent waits the listening earth' from Seasons and Reasons.
Helen was also busy on the Sunday with two services at Saltley Methodist. In the morning service Helen and James led worship despite both suffering from colds. In the evening at the carol service, Helen led one song on guitar (thankfully helped by Amy as Helen's voice quickly disappeared!), but also it was Helen's kids club the Tribe's time to shine - they started off the service with Silent Night, and then finished the whole thing off with Chris Rice's beautiful 'Welcome to our world'. The Tribe have their Christmas treat today which they have worked hard to earn - a trip to Funaticz - a kids play warehouse in Stechford.
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