The View from the Vicarage - June 2010

It was our final night as we were walking towards the Big Top at Spring Harvest. I recalled friends returning from this 10 years ago saying how everyone had been given £10 and asked to use it to raise £100 and send the money back to the charity. I had wondered how I would turn £10 into £100. However, this night, I thought if that happened now I would use it to kick-start the café and send the first £100 to the charity. When we arrived at the meeting, everyone was handed an envelope with the instruction not to open it until told to do so. The thought popped into my head ‘there’s going to be £10 in there’, but I just put the envelope in my bag and forgot about it.

Mid-way through the evening we were shown a DVD by Hope HIV, a charity which works with children in Africa orphaned and affected by AIDS. The founder of Hope HIV came on the stage and told us to open our envelopes. Inside was £10. This money had been borrowed and we reckon there may have been over 4000 people there that night! We were given 3 choices: 1) return the money, possibly with a little extra added 2) if our need was greater than the children in the DVD we could keep the money with their blessing 3) use the money to raise £100 and send it to Hope HIV.

For some time Derek and I have thought it would be a good idea to provide a café for Wing. During March I asked mums attending Church Mice and Pop In & Paint to fill in a simple questionnaire, where a café proved to be the most popular idea.

I turned to Derek and said the money was to kick-start the café, so Derek added his £10 to mine and said we’ll send the first £200 to Hope HIV. When they did this 10 years ago at Spring Harvest they raised £2,000,000

Thanks to the generosity of members of our congregation and friends at Wing Chapel, contributing towards the cost of a coffee maker and refreshments, by the time you are reading this, Café Oasis will have opened in All Saints Church on a Saturday morning.

Café Oasis—a place of refreshing for all the family— provides
Fairtrade tea/coffee or squash and homemade cake for £1 per person. Come along and try us out between 10am and 12 noon on Saturdays 19 & 26 June, 3 July or Fridays 9 & 16 July.

We have newspapers as well as toys for young children and a colouring table available, aiming to provide a relaxed meeting place for all ages.

Come along and help us raise £200 for the children in Africa!

Debbie Witchell