Northeast News
Sandra Sutherland is a CVE Scotland trustee and lives in the Northeast. She has involvement and contact with many projects in the region which help schools. Sandra has written a useful news rou
nd-up, collecting together some excellent examples of church-school partnerships which should encourage and inspire others.
Sandra writes:
Question: What is happening in the Northeast to support our school communities?
Answer: A whole lot of things! Read below to find out.
Catalyst Vineyard, Inverurie: The Press & Journal reported on 13th July “The church will also soon collect good condition pre-loved school uniforms” before washing, ironing them and packaging them as a gift for those in the community.1
Jude McBean, Site Pastor at Inverurie, explained to me that the Bible verse that inspired this was Proverbs 31 v 25: “Strength and honour are her clothing; and she shall rejoice in time to come”.
Jude and the church community wanted those receiving the gifts to feel special, valued and honoured. The church invested in special packaging for the clothes gifts. Included in the clothes gift was new underwear for each youngster. Plans are already in place for a special blessing at Christmas for the families whom the church supports in this way.
St Columba’s Church of Scotland in Bridge of Don hosted an online prayer meeting: a Facebook post said, “we’re going to have a time of prayer for the return to schools”. Speaking as someone who participated in the prayer meeting; we had a really blessed time interceding for our schools up here in the Northeast.2
The Samuel Trust, otherwise known as SAMS, has continued to support local children during the pandemic in a number of creative ways:
- A weekly Zoom session over sixteen sessions with a goody bag being sent to all the children in June.
- Games and park activities over the summer holidays.
- Su, Chris and team are also hosting games sessions in local parks during term time and in the October break and yes – Su & Chris have me down as a volunteer!3
Sue and Fiona from 10 Must Know Bible Stories were busy being creative in ways to support school colleagues: they decided to create “three assemblies, all available on our website and ready for your classes to watch. They all last between 10-15 minutes. We’ve also created mini lessons that follow on from the assemblies and help you and your class explore the Bible story in greater depth.”4
The purpose of this was to enable schools to be able to continue with Time for Reflection (TfR). As a teacher, I can only commend resources like this to colleagues.
Churches in Kemnay, Kintore and Blackburn area joined together to show their appreciation of local schools: “A total of 303 school workers have each received a can of DASH juice and an individual card along with BIG boxes of goodies to see them through to the end of the term. These were filled with something that will appeal to everyone’s tastes – from healthy snack bars, to not so healthy chocolates, from posh truffles to healthier crisps, cappuccino sachets to hand creams. The scripture included in each personalised card was Matthew 28:11: “Come to me, all who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest”. A team of people have also committed to pray before, and continue to pray, for all the teachers by name.”5
In September CVE Scotland hosted an online PrayerWorks, for school staff and chaplains, in the Northeast. We had excellent feedback from those attending. There is another PrayerWorks planned for 10th December, for those of us in Aberdeen City and Aberdeenshire.
These are examples of support that I know about; I am well aware that other church communities will be doing acts of kindness and prayer support. Please do let us know. Let us keep on doing good: “For we have all received from his fullness one gracious gift after another” John 1 v 16 (NET version).
2 https://www.facebook.com/StCBOD/photos/a.317395065003645/3305322696
3 https://www.samsaberdeen.org/
5 email to CVE trustee
