The Anglican Church of

St. Thomas, Kefalas.

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Good Saturday morning from Barcelona!

As mentioned in last week's email, Frances and I are taking a break, catching up on all the travel that we thought we'd be doing when we moved here five years ago, but was frustrated by the pandemic. We have spent the past five days in Barcelona, and we are flying back this afternoon.

Tomorrow is the First Sunday of Advent. Advent begins the cycle of the Church Year, and it is oriented towards Christmas. In Advent we remember the first coming of Jesus, not only to prepare ourselves to celebrate his birth at Christmas, but also to remind us of his coming again in glory "to judge the quick and the dead."

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To mark the new season we change the hangings to purple, a royal colour. We will also use the Merbecke setting of the Holy Communion service in our worship, abut we do not sing the Gloria in excelsis. During Advent we will use the traditional unleavened wafer bread. All of this contributes, we hope, towards a sense of change.

 

We meet on Sunday at 11:00 am EET (9:00 am GMT), and you can join us in person at the Tabernacle or online via Zoom: click here,https://theanglicanchurchincrete.us18.list-manage.com/track/click?u=ac315282f1a60d98ffebdab29&id=7c753338e1&e=34f50e5a42

or enter the following into your Zoom application: Meeting ID: 850 4483 9927 Password: 010209.

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The readings for tomorrow are Isaiah 64:1-9, Psalm 80:1-8, 18-20, and Mark 13:24-37.

 

I'm going to see if I can get back into the practice of writing posts on my blog, The Island Parson. We shall see.

 

A reminder that we have our Christmas Carol Service for Crete on Sunday 17 December 2023 at 11:00 am. Please consider inviting folk we might not otherwise see. In the spirit of reaching outside of our usual core group we have asked some of the friends of St Thomas's to do a reading.

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Small Group Bible Studies

• Our in-person Monday Small Group Bible Study starts up again this Monday, December 4, at 4:00 PM. We meet at the home of Sue Whitehouse, and all are welcome. As three of the inital attendees were part-timers and have returned to the UK, and one of our full-time resident attendees is also in England, it would be good to get some more people! We will continue our reading of the Gospel according to Mark, this week looking at Chapter 6.

 

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Our online Small Group Bible Study 

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The online Wednesday night group meets using the same Zoom meeting as we do for worship: or enter the following into your Zoom application: Meeting ID: 850 4483 9927 Password: 010209.

​We will continue our reflections on the Bible and God's promises about a homeland for Israel.

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Other Notices

• Thank you to the Church Fundraising Committee and everybody who helped out last Saturday at the Christmas Bazaar. We had over one hundred guests and fifteen workers, and over €1320 was raised for the work of the chaplaincy. Yay! Now, if we can only get some of those hundred visitors to come to our services or study groups . . .

• And now for something completely different. A British man named Martin Rispin wrote to ask our assistance. He has a tiny old house in Crete in the Messara region, down by Phaistos and Metala. He writes, Does anyone in your congregation know of a reliable and trustworthy builder/plumber/electrician that they have used themselves or better still may themselves be a semi-retired contractor now living in Crete and who may be interested in doing some work for me - small improvements and re-roofing. If you known anyone who fits the bill, please contact him at larches2@btinternet.com .

• Starting next week I will be inviting all of you to vote for which charities we will be supporting as a parish. We normally take a percentage of our income and pass it on to three organisations. If you have a particular charity that has not been on the list for voting in the past but should be, please let me know at bbryantscott@gmail.com, giving me a description of the charity and the work it does.

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God be with you and your loved ones this week,
 

Bruce +
 

 

 

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The Anglican Church of St Thomas, Kefalas, Crete

Box 421 Gavalohori

Apokoronas

Chania 730 08

Greece

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If you would like to support our ministry regularly, please consider setting up a regular debit to our bank accounts here in Greece or in the UK.

To do so please contact our treasurer, Mary Hurley:

e-mail moonspinners56@gmail.com mobile: +30 6955 300 301;

landline +30 28250 83219.

She can also tell you how can do one-time transfers, whether for donations or for weddings and funerals.

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One-off donations might be easier by giving via your credit card at the JustGiving website at https://www.justgiving.com/diocese-ineurope.

https://theanglicanchurchincrete.us18.list-manage.com/track/click?u=ac315282f1a60d98ffebdab29&id=0ecaadc6de&e=34f50e5a42

Make sure you include in the comment section (several steps along in the process) that it is intended "for St Thomas, Kefalas, Crete" so that the accountant knows where to put it.

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