January Meeting

A meeting to plan our year and to receive a blessing for the new school year.

Tuesday January 20, at Danielle's house.Meet at 10.30 a.m. for morning tea, play for kids, planning for mums. Bring any liturgical year calendars and your diary!

A priest will be be there at 11.30 a.m. to give us a blessing for the school year.

Today's Advent/Christmas Party

Our English Christmas

Dear All,

As you are enjoying your days at the beach, we are filling our short days and long nights preparing for our English Christmas. We have not had any snow, yet, but lots of frost and it is very cold.

We have been studying our Salvation History through the Bible, using a Jesse Tree. We are also reading, "The Christmas Mystery", by Jostein Gaarder. It's a terrific Christmas read.

Nathan, Ted and Denise (our landlords) made some lovely Yule Logs. They cut up some logs, bored holes for candles and painted them white. Then they decorated them. We made some pomanders, using oranges that we then stuck cloves into. The oranges will shrink and the pomanders will last 100 years! We also dried slices of oranges and cranberries in the oven. We put them all in a dish, with cinnamon sticks and pine cones and put the dish next to the fire. When they heat up, the give off the most delicious spicy smells!

Once a week, Nathan and I put on our wellies and walk the 50 metres to our brook, where we cut long lengths of holly for our mantle piece. It looks like plastic, but the real stuff is prickly and sharp!

We hope you have a happy and holy Christmas and we look forward to seeing you in the New Year.

Lots of love,

Nathan and Christine

Trivia Christmas Game.

There is a Advent and Christmas trivia game that has been organised for the kids at the christmas party gathering, so make sure you bring your thinking caps.
See you all there, God Bless, Lee.

The Immaculate Conception

Our next meeting is at Leonie's home, December 16. Meet at 12 noon. Bring lunch to share for an end of the year party, and we will also talk about the Feast of the Immaculate Conception - bring along those Mary Notebooks, too and we will aim to add an entry.

Anybody want to sare Advent links, recipes, ideas?

Immaculate Conception

O Father, you prepared the Virgin Mary to be the worthy motherof your Son. …Help us by her prayers, to live in your presencewithout sin. Amen.

November Gathering

This month Claire taught about a saint very close to her heart, St Andrew.

Here is some info -

St. Andrew , like his brother Simon Peter, was a fisherman. He became a disciple of the great St. John the Baptist, but when John pointed to Jesus and said, "Behold the Lamb of God!" Andrew understood that Jesus was greater. At once he left John to follow the Divine Master. Jesus knew that Andrew was walking behind him, and turning back, he asked, "what do you seek?" When Andrew answered that he would like to know where Jesus lived, Our Lord replied, "Come and see." Andrew had been only a little time with Jesus when he realized that this was truly the Messiah.
From then on, he chose to follow Jesus. Andrew was thus the first disciple of Christ. Next, Andrew brought his brother Simon (St. Peter) to Jesus and Jesus received him, too, as His disciple. At first the two brothers continued to carry on their fishing trade and family affairs, but later, the Lord called them to stay with Him all the time. He promised to make them fishers of men, and this time, they left their nets for good. It is believed that after Our Lord ascended into Heaven, St. Andrew went to Greece to preach the gospel. He is said to have been put to death on a cross, to which he was tied, not nailed. He lived two days in that state of suffering, still preaching to the people who gathered around their beloved Apostle. Two countries have chosen St. Andrew as their patron - Russia and Scotland.

Whilst learning about St Andrew the kids were asked to draw on the window (hope they don't get any ideas!) which they really enjoyed, no doubt.

They drew Symbols that represented his life. They then went to the table and using the symbols on the window they created their own mini stained glass window(s). This craft was an absolute hit as they all fully engrossed themselves in it till they finished. Thanks Claire for a great lesson and a wonderful craft.

We then had a relaxing lunch out the back in the beautiful spring weather, chatting away while the kids played. Looking forward to seeing you all at the Christmas party. Danielle.

Jesse Tree

Sear All,

Nathan and I are going to do a study of the Jesse Tree for Advent. We are taking our programme from one prepared by the Reformed Church of America, whose teaching looks sound on this topic.

If you go to www.rca.org and go to the section on Seasonal devotions, you can find it. It has readings for each day of advent and a symbol to hang on your own Jesse Tree. Perhaps we can post photos of our tree as we go along.

God bless you all and, as the wonderful time of Advent approaches, I wish you all the joy of Christmas.

Christine