New format

BWA :
I have been struggling to find something that the ladies can get involved in, and be enthusiastic about, as a ministry to the community. It is very easy to reach out to one's community in SA - there are street children, homeless people, unemployed, etc. But not on St Helena. But God answers prayer.
Once a month we visit the local old age home (the CCC) and hold a short 30 minute service. Last week they asked Graeme if we could please make the meetings a little longer, and also visit the bedridden people. It was then decided that, some church folk would attend the service, while other church members would go around to the bedridden folk, and visit with them.

The the idea "popped" into my head. Why not get the BWA to make "love boxes" to hand out at these visits? These are empty shoe boxes that have been "prettied up". In the box we would put a few little gifts, as well as a pair of bed socks - which will be knitted by the BWA ladies. We can spend 30 mins of each BWA session knitting these socks and chatting and getting to know each other.

After our usual time of prayer, and a short study in the book to the Hebrews, I presented this idea to the ladies, and found that they were quite eager to start the project.

The Bible studies :
For the first year that we were in the St Helena Baptist church, Graeme went through the 1689 confession of faith in the Bible studies. It was thought that, as our constitution is based on this confession, it would be a good idea to make sure that everyone knew just what it was that we believed. The problem was that the confession is written in very old English, and some of the concepts are difficult to grasp. The Bible studies ended up being more of a lecture, than anything else.

As we drew near to the end of the Confession, we prayed a lot about how to change the mid week meetings so that there was more interaction and interest. God answered prayer. Graeme got each person to each share something that they were grateful for. He then went through the first 14 verses of Ephesians. His enthusiasm was obvious. A bit more "sharing", and then a time of tea and chatting.