‘Memories of Childhood Summer Holidays….’
As I write, I’m sitting on our canal boat, moored up on the river Nene, listening to the sounds around me. There are birds chirping, ducks, geese and swans swimming, and the distant sound across the valley of sheep bleating, cows mooing and farmers
working in the fields on their tractors.
These sights and sounds take me right back to my own school holidays mostly spent at Jotmans Farm in Benfleet, Essex, the village where I grew
up. At that time it used to be a dairy farm, and the milk was sold to Howard’s Dairy but, over the years, it’s been turned into stables where horses are kept at livery. There’s a footpath that runs between the farm and the railway line all the way to St Margaret’s Church, Bowers Gifford. Nanny would often take us blackberry picking there, but we never returned with many berries!
During the week, my friend Susan and I would walk to Jotmans farm to help the farmers with the cows. Discovering how a farm worked, helping the cowman, and walks to the church with nanny, led to many adventures and a lifetime of enjoying country life.
When things were going well, the exhilarating sense of team and fun working together, even if farming itself never seemed to be ‘in my blood’ as it was for everyone else, was infectious!
Collaborating in a common purpose, and working alongside each other with a strong desire to see
others flourish, brought me so much joy, as it still does. There is a danger, though, that sometimes we end up serving through a sense of duty (what we should and ought to be doing) especially when we’re run down or exhausted, rather than as a response to the overflow of God’s generous gift of love first given to us. I guess we’re all human!
I know I’ve said this before, but I’m always amazed and thankful to so many in our congregations and
wider community who go far beyond giving of themselves in order to bring ‘salt and light’ to others.
But what gives me the greatest hope, as I continue serving alongside you lovely people in Wayland Benefice, is remembering that it’s not actually about us, in the end, is it? it’s more about letting God have His way and praying that ‘His will be done on earth’.
With love and many blessings
Vanessa.
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