Dear Friends of the Chapel,
Some funerals stay with me for a long while because they are a celebration of someone quite average who has also been someone quite special. Others stay with me because of the tragedy surrounding them or the despair they create for those who remain. I did the funeral of five-year-old boy a couple of weeks back who due to a freak accident, drowned while at the beach. At the time he had been with family members (and not his estranged parents), placed there by Family and Community Services. In all regards this was a tragedy of the deepest kind. His parents, brothers, sisters and other close family members were understandably distraught. There was no-one at fault, no-one to blame, and no way of having their precious one back. People say the strangest things at these times in life. God is often portrayed as being in more need of the deceased than the living are, or as calling us to the “better place”, insisting we be prepared to dismiss the life we are challenged to live in abundance while here. The only solace I know is that if God couldn’t stop the circumstances of this child’s life unravel as they did, or divert this child’s inquisitiveness and sense of adventure from getting himself into treacherous territory, then God sure wasn’t going to let him die alone.
We now have a new stove, due to some generous donations and some fruitful wheeling and dealing by Chrissy the Co-ordinator of Norman Andrews House. Ross Lamb, the Managing Director of the Paddington RSL Club came down to see the installation and presented us with a cheque of $4,000, for which we are extremely grateful. He got to see the work we are doing at NAH and left as another friend of the House. While at NAH recently, I heard someone giving high praise for Marion’s salads, and another who was simply grateful for the quality of all the meals. The new stove and oven-top are an overdue but welcomed improvement to the work we do. We thank you, our friends of the Chapel, for supporting us in that.
Until next week,
Thanks for being a friend of the Chapel.
Graham Anson
Minister (In Supply)
[email protected]
Some funerals stay with me for a long while because they are a celebration of someone quite average who has also been someone quite special. Others stay with me because of the tragedy surrounding them or the despair they create for those who remain. I did the funeral of five-year-old boy a couple of weeks back who due to a freak accident, drowned while at the beach. At the time he had been with family members (and not his estranged parents), placed there by Family and Community Services. In all regards this was a tragedy of the deepest kind. His parents, brothers, sisters and other close family members were understandably distraught. There was no-one at fault, no-one to blame, and no way of having their precious one back. People say the strangest things at these times in life. God is often portrayed as being in more need of the deceased than the living are, or as calling us to the “better place”, insisting we be prepared to dismiss the life we are challenged to live in abundance while here. The only solace I know is that if God couldn’t stop the circumstances of this child’s life unravel as they did, or divert this child’s inquisitiveness and sense of adventure from getting himself into treacherous territory, then God sure wasn’t going to let him die alone.
We now have a new stove, due to some generous donations and some fruitful wheeling and dealing by Chrissy the Co-ordinator of Norman Andrews House. Ross Lamb, the Managing Director of the Paddington RSL Club came down to see the installation and presented us with a cheque of $4,000, for which we are extremely grateful. He got to see the work we are doing at NAH and left as another friend of the House. While at NAH recently, I heard someone giving high praise for Marion’s salads, and another who was simply grateful for the quality of all the meals. The new stove and oven-top are an overdue but welcomed improvement to the work we do. We thank you, our friends of the Chapel, for supporting us in that.
Until next week,
Thanks for being a friend of the Chapel.
Graham Anson
Minister (In Supply)
[email protected]