Clergy Letter - September 2010
Letter from Rev'd Peter Gibbs, Vicar at St Paul's
Dear Friends
I hope you enjoyed a summer break. And now we're facing some exciting new opportunities as a community.
First, a new person will be arriving on the Heath on 9th September. Robert Kidega is our new full-time volunteer from Uganda and is going to be working mainly with children, young people and their parents until next summer. He is a keen Christian with a diploma in Clinical Medicine and Public Health. His family remain in Gulu, Northern Uganda and his interests include football and music. He's in for some massive culture shock: he has never before been out of Africa. He will face different foods, different timetables, different faces and different habits. Try to imagine how adrift Robert might be feeling in his first few weeks here.
My only experience of Africa (South Africa) showed me just how different our two continents are. Perhaps the biggest difference was what is sometimes described as hot versus cold-climate cultures. In very general terms, hot-climate cultures seem more relationship based than ours, which tend to be more task oriented and focussed on "efficiency". For example, many black South Africans would think nothing of walking for two hours to get to school or 
church, where the start time would consequently be rather more flexible than ours!
On the other hand, Africans are often much more inclusive of people than we are, offering extremely generous hospitality. So Robert may face a struggle with our ideas of privacy in our homes. Please make him welcome. He will be the guest in our community and my hope is that, having settled with Vic and Kath Martin as his hosts, he will receive plenty of invitations from members of St Paul's. (But please remember that his only transport will be a bicycle!).
Perhaps it's a moment to reflect on the bible story of Abraham, who invited some strangers into his house and found that he was entertaining God's angels unawares (see Genesis 18)!
September is also an opportunity for us to take up new challenges. At the end of the month we shall be starting new Alpha courses (one for adults and one for 11-18s) on Wednesday evenings. Before that there's an opportunity to invite friends and neighbours to "Back to Church Sunday" on 26th September. Then on the following Sunday we plan to hold a Harvest of Talents, when it will be possible to see and sign up for new opportunities in church life.
We look forward to seeing you. -- Peter
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