This letter has just arrived from CAFOD and I thought you would like a glimpse of how we can help in the developing world.
Thank you to the people of St Joseph’s for your generous support for CAFOD. This harvest we heard about Fabiano, a young boy in Uganda, trying to have two simple things in life: water and an education. Thanks to your donations our local engineers installed a solar-powered borehole at his school. Attendance has now greatly improved and the school has a running water system. A heartfelt thanks from the headmaster: “They say water is life, they say if you have water a human being can do anything they want. I believe this is true; my pupils can do anything they want.”
The children are overjoyed by the changes in their school, showing us the water points, hygiene project and even the plants they are now able to grow. The school is full of hope and your donations mean we can bring hope to many more communities.
Yours sincerely,
Chris Funnell
On Friday 18th October I had a day at the hospital, for a small operation on my nose. It was a quiet prayerful day and I enjoyed it. Everyone was kind and efficient, I was completely relaxed, the op went well and I had hours of quiet prayer. I was able to go through my life’s memories, thanking God in many ways for all the happiness with which I have been blessed. I was able to travel the world in my imagination and share the tensions, sufferings, but also the goodness of people who are helping wherever they can. It was a day of thank you and please – the two basic prayers of our lives. I can’t remember a happier or more fulfilled day. I told Bernadette, one of the nurse parishioners, that it had been better than spending a day at Mount St Bernard’s Abbey and I would be advising the monks to come here on their days off.
By Monday evening I was ready to return to full parish life, and on Tuesday morning I must have twisted my knee because suddenly I couldn’t walk and have been on crutches since – “crutches” after a nose operation! Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible. On half-bent knees to say . . .
God bless you
Fr John
(27th October 2019)
Related Links: Popular Reads and Fr John’s Parish Newsletters
