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Due to the bad weather, the following meetings / events have been cancelled or re-scheduled
Thursday 1st March West Kirk Board & Session meetings have been re-scheduled for Thursday 8th March
Friday 2nd March Local World Day of Prayer service has been cancelled
Saturday 3rd March Candy Bar at the West Kirk has been re-scheduled for saturday 10th March, serving coffees from 10am and lunches from 12 noon
Monday 5th March West Kirk Guild meeting has been cancelled
Due to adverse weather conditions, the Family Coffee Morning / Candy Bar has bee put back a week to March 10th hope you are able to join us then
Traidcraft continues to go from strength to strength, supporting Damasi, our sponsored child through Compassion UL. He lives in Tanzania.
Have you seem our real Easter Eggs? They include an Easter story activity book as well as two varieties of chocolate - Swiss chocolate chunky buttons and a egg made with 35% fair trade cocoa.
Don't forget - the table is available each Sunday morning before and after worship.
Thank you for your continued support.
The Annual Stated Meeting of the West Kirk will be held on Sunday 18th March 2018 following morning worship.
The attached file contains the minutes of the 2017 ASM should you wish to read through and refresh your memory before this year's meeting.
On 11th February 2018, at 7pm at Polbeth Harwood Church, Revd Alison Quilter will be inducted as our Ordained Local Minister.
We would be delighted if as many of you as possible attend this service to welcome Alison to our linked charge and parishes, followed by teas in the cafe area.
Alison has been assigned by West Lothian Presbytery to our charge to assist Nanda in the ministry to our parishes.The work of Ordained Local Ministers (who are fully qualified and ordained within the Church of Scotland) is "non-stipendiary" i.e. they receive no pay for the support they provide assisting with the ministry in a specific locality. As our Ordained Local Minister, she will be available 10 hours a week to help in various aspects of the faith life of our congregations as well as sometimes having to be available for presbytery duties.
Alison, we are delighted you will be joining Nanda in her work among our congregations and parishes, and wish God's blessings on you both for a happy and fruitful ministry
Dear Congregations
I cannot believe that we are now in the second month of the year 2018 already! TIME flies! TIME is a valued commodity, and this month, during our Stewardship campaign, we will focus on TIME.
I know that the word “stewardship” and “steward” are not words that we commonly use today. Therefore, I want to review the definition of stewardship: A steward is a person who manages and administrates what has been entrusted to him/her by another. In our case, a steward is a person who manages what has been entrusted to him/her by God. God has entrusted us with talents, TIME, and money. Therefore, stewardship of time is the careful and responsible management of the time God has entrusted to our care.
So let’s take the TIME this month to reflect on how we use our TIME; what we do with the TIME God so graciously gives us. And this is really important, because TIME is the one thing we can never get back – once a minute has ticked past, that minute is gone forever. So we should be really careful how we use our TIME…
My youngest son, Nehan, has been obsessed with time ever since he was about 3 years old. He always wants to know exactly how long something will take, exactly how many minutes he has to wait until something starts, exactly how long it will take before we reach our destination. And don’t think you can fool him – if you say that we’ll be there in 10 minutes just to keep him quiet, when really it will still take 30 minutes to reach your destination, he’ll be very upset, and complain about it for the next 20 minutes!! But the positive side of this is - if I tell him that he has 5 more minutes to play before we leave, he uses all 5 those minutes to play. He literally doesn’t waste a second, and he is never late for anything. To be truthful, he keeps our whole family (and his teacher!) on time. And I think we can all take a leaf out of his book – if you have 5 minutes to spare – USE it, don’t just sit and wait till it’s over.
Let’s use every minute we have to live our lives fully to the glory of God. This month, and forever.
May God bless you all,
Nanda
Dear congregations,
Believe it or not - Christmas is just around the corner! If we can manage to look past all the bright festive lights and tinsel, we see the long, cold, dark nights....
All those years ago in Bethlehem, all they could see was the dark.It was dark, not only in the night sky, but also in people's lives. Nobody had hope for the future anymore. But then, on what seemed to be just another ordinary night, everything changed. There was a star so bright it made the darkness disappear; even the angels started singing! That was the night on which Jesus was born. The night that changed everything....
This will be our theme all throughout Advent and the Christmas season: The night that changed everything.....
Please join me at the church to prepare yourself for, and to celebrate, the night that changed everything - to once again help us look past the festive lights and tinsel - to NOT see the darkness - but the hope that Christ brought to the world.
May you all have a blessed Christmas and a very special 2018!
Nanda
How many of us have an Advent calendar hanging in our house during December?
Do you look forward to opening the wee windows on that calendar every day and seeing what lies behind each?
Does yours have a picture? Does it have a little verse? Is there a gift? Or a sweet treat?
For some, an Advent calendar is a luxury that is out of the question. For some, even the most basic of items are unaffordable.
This is why, this year, our churches are asking you to make a 'Reverse Advent Calendar'.
How does it work?
Each day, instead of getting something for yoursself, we would love if you would put one item of food into a box.
On Christmas Eve morning (Sunday 24th Dec 9.45am at West Kirk or 11.15am at Polbeth Harwood Church) you can bring that box of food with you to church and put it under our tree. After the service, all the produce collected will be taken to our local Food Bank to ensure that many families will have something cheerier to look forward to over the festive period.
If you don't want to collect food, then you could put aside a coin each day and bring this along. Any funds collected will go to the Food Bank too.
Let's make Christmas great for as many people as possible this year!
Dear congregations
This time of yeaR is filled with R’s:
Reformation,
Remembrance, Red leaves
falling to the ground…
It’s a time to Remember:
In the church; in the world; autumn, winter, spring, and summer – God is always in control. In the times when we can see it, and in the times we can’t; in the times when we feel His presence, and in the times we don’t…
We had such a lovely family holiday in Majorca during the October break. They boys played on the beach for hours, they swam in the sea and they made lots of new friends. And it reminded me so much of family holidays when I was a wee girl.
Nothing was the same – I grew up in a different country; the first time I set foot on an aeroplane was when I was 20 years old; my parents had a caravan so we never stayed in a hotel; yet it all felt so very similar. Laughing with my family, getting sand between my toes, eating ice cream almost every day… Many happy memories that I shared with the boys, and also new memories made for them to share with their own families one day.
But the anniversary of my mum’s death also falls in the October break. That’s also something I will never forget. But as the years move on, its different things I remember, and share with my boys – what an amazing person their granny was; how she would have loved their good sense of humour. I remember how sad I was at her funeral and how hard it was to get used to not having her around, but these things pale in comparison now to all the amazing things I remember doing with her and learning from her.
And that’s why it’s important to remember – so we can see how God helps us to keep going in the hard times, and how there are never only hard times, but plenty of good times too.
Seasons change, life changes, but the one thing that always stays the same is the love of God. It’s this love that gets us through the hard times, and this love that makes us enjoy the good times.
So let’s REMEMBER that this month.
May God bless you all.
Nanda
Dear congregations
This month I would like to introduce you to a lovely girl who will be volunteering at the church for 20 hours as part of an award (Caritas) she is working towards. She will be doing a little bit of everything, so please welcome her in our midst. I feel really special that she chose our churches, and I hope that she will be able to not only give her time, but also gain a lot from being involved in such an amazing family of believers.
I’ll let her introduce herself:
“My name is Bianca, I am a 17 year old student studying at high school. In my school we have many opportunities and one of them I couldn't resist to take up was Caritas! I can imagine some of you are thinking what is Caritas? Well let me tell you all about it.
Caritas translated from Latin simply means love of humankind. For me this meant I could help others while practicing my faith. The caritas award asks people to find their faith and use their talents to help people to the best of their ability.
I hope to be able to spread kindness and make a difference in the church. Kindness is the power to help someone, the power to inspire someone. When you start helping one person with kindness you never know how far it will go. It only takes a spark to start a fire.”
May having Bianca with us remind us all that in Christ we are loved, and therefore we should love others too.
With love,
Nanda
