Kia Ora whanau! St Augustine’s together with Opawa Baptist and our youth are hoping to run a holiday program from the 4th-8th of October.
Primarily for children from Waltham school.
We will be serving lunches and would love a few volunteers to help in the kitchen. If that sounds like something you would like to do please let Cirū know (022 196-4530 wanjiru.mmuriuki@gmail.com) and she can give you more details!

Keep this in your prayers!”

The emphasis in the Diocese of Christchurch Guidelines is on simplicity of gathering to bring people together as safely as possible and to begin to build confidence around the mechanisms to do so.

First of all, after this Sunday 12 September and approval of submitted management plans, worship services and other activities may resume, but please do not put pressure on yourselves to do so.

There is much to do to prepare to gather with these new requirements. It will be

important that before you do so, you have confidence that you are able to meet all those requirements, and that you also have the confidence of your worshipping community to come and participate. I suggest that you work carefully with the governing body and other leaders in your ministry unit in this preparation and get underway only when you are ready. The maximum gathering number has been set at 50 people. You may remember that when we shifted to Level 2 last year, we asked you to calculate a ‘safe gathering number.’ This is the number of people that can safely gather in the building allowing for physical distancing (now 2 metres) and thus for a smaller building it may be fewer than 50 people. Please undertake that exercise again as part of your management plan. Please also remember that the management plan is an exercise in planning for services so that we do not have to turn the “51st” person away

Please do your best to maintain good ventilation in the buildings both during a service and afterwards.

Until further notice, please do not have refreshments after the service as this avoids all the complexities around serving and seating and further mingling people together. The general advice is to avoid activities that will involve close contact with others and thus reduce physical distancing.

My advice would be that over the first couple of Sundays we gather people for a Liturgy of the Word – Morning Prayer or Evening Prayer, thus keeping the service simple and short, and minimising unnecessary contact. If we begin with the principle of simplicity, building confidence, monitoring wider developments, and building on that as we go then it is easier to add on more over time than it is to reduce what is offered.

After discussion with Vestry, it has been decided to postpone this event for now.

Lockdown and Covid 19 have impacted everyone, and understandably very few people want to get involved when there is so much uncertainty.

However, it is still hoped that the event can possibly be held next March when hopefully we will be in Level one again.

So be encouraged all you creative people, and hopefully plan and prepare for that!  It would be wonderful to see us all come together for an event towards the end of summer.

In the meantime you can still contact Thelma Kent or Andrea Murray about it (contact details below) we are more than happy to listen to ideas!  And when we are back in church again, this will mentioned in the notices and we may also plan a get together between services for those interested.

Thelma Kent: thelmakent49@yahoo.co.uk.   ph 337-5140; Cell 021 153-5321

Andrea Murray: andrea.murray.59@gmail.com ph cell 027 732-4877

Under the prevailing Covid lockdown provisions it is not possible to hold our next Men’s breakfast as scheduled for September.  It is therefore postponed and a further decision will be made when a replacement date is deemed to be feasible.

Thanks for your understanding , Chris Kissling

– it is a shame we will now not be able to visit during Missions Month.

 “Miriam has been able to continue to work in the Pharmacy at Hope Hospital in Mango in Togo, West Africa.

Medical supplies have been hard to come by and it can take up to six months for containers to arrive from Europe because of shipping disruptions so careful planning is essential.  Previously short lifetime drugs like cancer medication could be hand carried in with arriving short term staff but mostly they are not able to come now so they are often short staffed.

The country has been in near continuous lockdown but Hope Hospital has been able to get special permission to run their van to the capital Lome in exchange for carrying Covid test swabs from the Government Hospital for analysis.

Some restrictions have eased so they are able to run church small groups although there have been no large gatherings for the last 15 months.

The education program for girls has restarted – necessary because education is usually reserved for boys while the girls look after younger brothers and sisters while the parents work.  So they run a creche for the younger kids so the older girls can study.

Miriam has had Covid and then a few weeks later received her vaccination shot which is the equivalent of a double shot vaccination.

Her symptoms were mild and she has now fully recovered but still has issues with malaria.

An item for prayer is that she is returning to New Zealand in December to renew her pharmacy qualification which has to be done every three years.  Slots in the MIQ system are currently unavailable and the Government has announced a change to the system so that it will effectively be a lottery.

It would be good to see a priority system implemented so that returning medical staff get a higher priority than holiday makers and that Miriam is able to obtain a return slot at least by January.”

Making time to sit and think of God and be with God has been an incredible source of peace during this lockdown period. May you know Gods presence with you […]

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We can keep even more plastic out of our Red Bins if we save all those tiny tags on the bread bags.  The proceeds from their sale go to help buy wheelchairs for those who can’t afford them in South Africa. It takes 200 kg of tags to fund one wheelchair, so we need all your friends to save too.  Let’s get everyone we know to add to our collection.

As well, on the local front, please save the scoops from your washing powder boxes.  They go to Food Banks who buy washing powder in bulk and put it into 1kg bags, and want to put in scoops as well.

There are boxes at the back of the church for each collection.

Go to the link below for the full story.

Thank you for getting on board!

Maxine Kissling

Little Tags Make a Big Impact!

While our organ is is being overhauled by the South Island Organ Company we will be using the grand piano.  And what a wonderful instrument this is!  It is on loan to us from Lois Allan and daughter Andrea.  And as a parish we are very grateful to them for their generosity.

The piano is a world class instrument made by Blüthner of Germany, which is comparable to Bechstein ,Steinway and other famous names.  It has one unique feature which is designed to give more resonance to the very top octave on the keyboard.  Instead of the usual three wires for every note in that octave the Blüthner has four.  The hammer hits three, and the fourth is of slightly thicker gauge and resonates above the three.  The result is very effective.

It has just been expertly tuned and we are indeed fortunate to have the use of this piano while we have no organ.

Proposed Day of Giving: Sunday 26^th September.

Please keep this date in your hearts as we seek deeper financial commitment towards the operation of our parish. Watch this space as we move forward with planning.