Highveld News
In Abergavenny the parish of St Mary is linked with St Dunstan’s Cathedral in Benoni. Last year, our link person, Paddy Ansell, came to visit us and to tell us something of the work there. We held an open meeting and Paddy was invited to talk about the feeding project in which she was involved. She brought photographs of the soup kitchen, a gardening project, knitting group and pictures of life in general.
After her departure, we wanted to further our link so decided to start by sending our pew leaflets and church magazines regularly to St Dunstan’s. The children in the Sunday School joined in the parish project and collected lots of seeds. The children’s After School Club wrote letters to the children in the church group and a member of our choir is in contact with a choir member in St Dunstan’s.
With the winter approaching, and as they live at 6,000 feet with the temperature often below zero, we decided to knit jumpers for the children. We put a pattern in our church magazine and had a wonderful response both from within and without the church. So far we have sent over two hundred jumpers to the Highveld. Volunteers also knitted squares, sewed them into blankets, donated money or wool to the project. The project is on-going and the volunteers include groups of pensioners, choir members, parishioners, knitters from Newport, Cwmbran, Abergavenny and Devon - thank you to all.
Meeting Bishop Beetge and his wife, Carol, at our Vicarage was a lovely evening. Canon Jeremy Winston put on a wonderful meal and everyone was soon in deep conversation. Carol told us about her work in the clinic and how the mothers all wore gloves, but that the babies had no mittens, so we are now knitting mittens and sending them to the clinic.
We are pleased with our link so far but still have a lot to learn. Our prayers will guide us this coming year and we look forward to our sharing and learning together.
Anne Parr - Link at Abergavenny
If your parish would be interested in forming a link with a parish in the Highveld, contact Mrs Irene Doull