Sunday's spotlight - We plough the fields and scatter; well, some do!

BY GUEST BLOGGER PETE

It's at this time of the year that harvest festivals take place in the U.K.

The local primary school, of which I am one of the governors, held their harvest festival last Thursday. All the children attended and a good number of parents joined in as well. Each year-group in the school play their individual parts in the service. It is great fun to see the smallest ones looking for their parents and then waving to them. Mind you, I did notice a year six pupil having a discreet wave to her mother and the mother having a discreet wave back!

 

Every child at the school is encouraged to bring some Harvest item as a gift. All the harvest produce collected by the school is given to a local charity known as "The Lincoln Pantry"  This charity, run entirely by volunteers, tries to maintain a stock of food throughout the year so that if an emergency arises for some family or individual then the "Pantry" are able to step in immediately and give some help. "The Lincoln Pantry", for obvious reasons, welcomes tinned goods even more than fresh produce. Quite often it is easier for parents to give their child a tin or something rather than fresh food.

 

For many of the children this is their first experience of harvest festival. At the last governors meeting the head teacher told us that there are 17 foreign languages spoken by pupils as their primary language in the school and only about 60% of the children have English as their main language. With about 240 children in the school the staff have a lot of extra work to undertake trying to bring the children's knowledge of English to a working level. It doesn't help that many of the parents have only a token knowledge of English anyway.

 

Pam and I will have to be up at some ungodly hour this coming Sunday.  I'm preaching at a friend's harvest festival at 9:30 AM on that day.  He is vicar of Burgh le Marsh, which is about 1 1/2 hours from Lincoln. It doesn't look that far on the map but the road is so atrocious that the chances of overtaking even a cyclist are limited for most of the trip!

 

I had been "mucking about" with photos again just lately, trying out something new. I'll be interested to know what you think of the samples I've included with this blog. Be honest!  Pam doesn't think a great deal of them. I like them though.