1/ CAFOD Family Fast Day – This Lent, your donations to CAFOD’s Family Fast Day appeal will help hardworking people like James the fisherman in Liberia with resources, tools and training to feed their families for good. Give today using the envelope include filling in the Gift Aid section if a UK tax payer or online at cafod.org.uk otherwise through the contactless machines/card readers at the back of the churches. And please join us in praying with James that our sisters and brothers around the world have what they need to feed their families.
2/ St Faustina Community Health Centre in Uganda. Our churches have supported the Centre for several years now. Providing much needed equipment for the Centre and for projects to help school children & groups in the community. Our J&P Group have liaised with Fr Sylvester, Head of the Centre, and responded to their requests for help by organising collections and transportation of goods which our parishioners have so generously donated, and which has been of great help in enabling the Centre to meet the needs of the local community.
From 3rd March there will be a display of photos received from Fr Sylvester showing how our support has been put to such good use. You can view the display in the Mary Chapel at the car park end of St. Mary’s church, and in Holy Family church.
If you would like to contribute to the work of St Faustina on a regular basis, or with a one-off donation, please go to their website: stfaustinamedicalcenter.com/
3/ Sudan’s ‘forgotten’ war and the immense suffering of its people Vatican News report on the fact that despite the fact that there have been over 12,000 deaths in Sudan, and around 7 million displaced people last year, the conflict, which has been ongoing for around nine months, is ‘far from the cares of the world’. The UN emergency relief chief has described the crisis in Sudan as “One of the worst humanitarian nightmares in recent history”. Aljazeera reports “As war continues unabated in Sudan, an acute food emergency could kill hundreds of thousands of people by next year”.
4/ LIVE SIMPLY Tip of the Week With the decline in bees partly due to the loss of flower-rich habitats here’s some tips to attract them to your garden. Replace some of your lawn with Bee friendly flowering plants – re-wild it or plant as a meadow area; Plant some British wildflowers; Plant for biodiversity. More Bee friendly tips to follow next week
5/ Fairtrade Easter Eggs will be on sale at from next Sunday at both churches including a new 24 page Easter story activity book & shares the true meaning of Easter
