It was great to join the families and the wider community of St John the Baptist church on Sunday for their celebration of Harvest. We looked at the story of the feeding of the 5,000 and how Jesus met the needs of all the people there that day. We saw how compassionate Jesus was towards those around him and we considered how we can respond to that today.
The focal point of the story is a little child who brings what he has and offers it to Jesus, in the same way that God asks us to offer what we have to him in the confidence that he will use it to make a difference in the community and world in which we live. Our harvest gifts are a clear outworking of this truth.
The harvest gifts that the church and school have brought together will be helping many different people through the work of the Open Hands Charity and the Red Cross. Both of these charities seek to put the gospel message of loving your neighbour into practice in tangible ways.
This theme continued this week as we began considering how we can support the Christmas shoe box appeal that is being organised by one of our local churches. In assembly yesterday we thought about how we celebrate Christmas and how different this can be in many parts of the world. The aim of the shoe box appeal is to bring some of the joy that Christmas is all about into the lives of children that live in conditions that are so much worse than ours. The whole school will be seeking to bring gifts in that can then be placed in shoe boxes and sent via this appeal to children in some of the most needy parts of the world.
Our theme of prayer and peace comes to an end this week and we have been inspired by the visit of the Maasai warriors to look at the theme of humility next half term as we lead up to Christmas. We were so struck by the way in which the Maasai found contentment in what they had. It was so clear to us that they found happiness in the fact that they did not want for more than they knew God would provide. In a world that will be driven by materialistic views of Christmas over the next few weeks this is something that speaks powerfully about the humility that is at times at the heart of finding real peace.
