During our Harvest Festival Family Service at St Stephen’s Church on Sunday 1 October we decided that there were too many practical problems associated with the distribution of fresh food (e.g. fruit and other perishables), and so requested either flowers for senior citizens in the community who are unable to attend church, or tins or jars which could be passed onto the Salvation Army for distribution to the less fortunate.

There was an excellent response from our congregation and our harvest gifts were presented during our first hymn ‘Come, you thankful people, come’. After prayers and the Harvest Collect it was time for the Junior Church Leader, Annette, to gather together the younger members at the front of the church, and sing ‘See here are red apples…’.

Then Junior Church members went around the church with a supermarket basket collecting a wide variety of food items distributed around the church. After singing ‘O God beyond all praising’, the basket was again taken around the church for the food items, leading to the response – “There isn’t any – it’s all gone!”.

After a reading from Matthew 25:31-45, we had a talk on “Sharing what we have been given”, followed by a beautiful poem entitled ‘I look out my window’ from Charlotte. Towards the end of the service our Intercessions were also led by the Junior Church with young people presenting their own, moving, prayers.

Our celebrations continued later in the week, on Thursday evening, with a Harvest Supper in the Village Hall, organised by Ray, our Mission Organiser. After welcoming prayers by Robin, we all dived into a very welcome Hot Pot Supper prepared by Sandra and her colleagues at Mid-Cheshire College, accompanied by home-made bread from Margaret and followed by fruit pie (also home-made, of course) from Freda. The whole evening was fully participative (D-I-Y), with all ages pitching in to make it a success. Our guest was Karen Downard, representing the TEARFUND organisation, whose ‘Desert Harvest’ theme represents the practical work they do under the global ‘Make Poverty History’ campaign. She also arranged a TRAIDCRAFT table of wares (including Christmas cards, of course) before giving us a short video presentation focussing on the nomadic Tuareg people of the Sahel region in the Saharan republic of Niger.

She followed this by a rather challenging knockout quiz based on the Tuareg people featured in the video, and then persuaded a group of us to take part in a playlet to illustrate their basic lifestyle. Joan, one of our senior members had an opportunity to demonstrate her skills (and her agility!) by playing the part of an angel – including jumping up onto a chair - she is obviously hoping for an Oscar nomination for her efforts!

We all enjoyed ourselves, while not losing sight of the significance of the Harvest Festival, and are grateful for the companionship of our friends, especially those who worked so hard to make the evening special. TEARFUND benefited by £125 from the ticket sales.

Bill Allen (7 October 2006)