Free for All THE MAGAZINE OF THE VENTA GROUP APRIL 2019 Please do come along to one of our Easter Services - Everybody is Very Welcome IMOGEN LOVED HER BAPTISM AT STOKE ARMINGHALL ST MARY’S Good Friday 19th April 9.00 am Easter Sunday Celebration Communion Easter Sunday 21st April 9.00 am Easter Sunday Celebration Communion CAISTOR ST EDMUND Good Friday 19th April 10.00 am Good Friday Service SEE ROB’S ARTICLE INSIDE STOKE HOLY CROSS Good Friday 19th April 11.00 am Procession with the cross from the Church to the Church Hall 12.00 noon Good Friday Service round the Cross at Stoke Holy Cross Church Hall Easter Sunday 21st April 10.30 am Easter Sunday Celebration Communion Please do also join us on GOOD FRIDAY at 2.00 pm for EASTER FUN IN THE PARK at the Pavilion with Tea, Coffee, Cakes and our Easter Egg Hunt ARMINGHALL, CAISTOR ST EDMUND, STOKE HOLY CROSS with DUNSTON R.B. COPPING FUNERAL SERVICE Independent Family Funerals Directors Since 1935 For Personal Attention with Dignity and Respect Private Chapels of Rest Memorials & oral tributes supplied Pre-paid funeral plans available www.coppingfunerals.co.uk 125 The Street, Poringland, Norwich NR14 7RP 01508 494434 56 Langley Road, Chedgrave, nr Loddon NR14 6HE 01508 521159 Ivan Fisher Independent Funeral Homes Ltd We are a family run business with three funeral homes based in Aylsham, Hethersett & Hingham All serving the whole of Norwich and Norfolk. Aylsham Hethersett Hingham 01263 735161 01603 810022 01953 850330 www.ivanfisher.co.uk [email protected] Free for All recognising that all of us have weaknesses, brokenness and failings which need to be made right by God. CHURCHWARDENS Stoke Holy Cross & Dunston We might also notice God himself – or not. I Viv (493438) & Roy (493595) say this because in the story of Good Friday, there are lots of questions about God. Is he Arminghall watching on and allowing people to do this Pat (492622) & Annie (495580) to Jesus? Is he actively causing the death of Caistor St Edmund his Son on the cross? Is he there at all? If he is, Jani (493572) why does Jesus famously call out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” On ST GEORGE’S HALL Good Friday, everything seems shattered. BOOKINGS: But this is not the end of the Easter story. Joyce Williams 492143 Jesus does not remain in the tomb any more than the broken pieces of the pot remain in the bag. They are taken out, painstakingly STOKE CHURCH HALL put back together, every crack gilded so the BOOKINGS: new is that much more wonderful than the Viv Carrington 493438 old. The risen Jesus bears the marks of the ave you heard of kintsugi pottery? It crucifixion, but in the light of the resurrection STOKE HOLY CROSS comes from a Japanese word meaning the scars are glorious, and that Friday really PAVILION BOOKINGS: H‘golden joinery’, which refers to the does become Good. way that broken pots are fixed back together Anita Rose (Parish clerk) 491709 with golden paint along the joins, so that the All of us need to be put back together. Some final piece is more beautiful than ever. I have of us will read these words and be very been thinking about it for the last week or conscious of the struggles, and weakness, so, on and off, and have just started to make and brokenness of our human lives, and FROM THE REGISTERS some connections with the Easter story. others of us will not at all. But we all need to be put back together, just the same. Our BAPTISM We often run ahead in our minds to Easter world needs to be put back together. In a Sunday 3rd March 2019 Sunday, and all the golden joinery of the truly amazing passage from one of his letters, RACHEL BROOKES resurrection, but Easter starts with something Paul writes, “But we have this treasure in and her daughter IMOGEN CULLING broken. It starts with someone broken. For jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing were baptised at obvious practical reasons, people making power is from God and not from us. We are Stoke Holy Cross Church kintsugi pots break them on purpose, in a hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; We continue to pray for all those who bag, so they don’t lose any of the bits. The perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, have lost loved ones recently, or are story of Good Friday is far more brutal. There but not abandoned; struck down, but not remembering someone particularly at is no creative, sanitised breaking here, no destroyed.” Elsewhere he writes of God’s this time of year. consideration for the damage that might be power that the same strength which raised We are always happy to record the left behind. There is only the crushing death Christ from the dead is at work in us now. names of anyone from the villages of God’s Son, Jesus, pure and pristine, a We are clay jars which are cracked so that the whose funeral has been held recently, vessel full of the beauty and presence and gold and the glory of God shines through. even if it wasn’t taken by a member of splendour of God. No pot ever put itself back together. No pot our ministry team. As Jesus is broken on the cross, we might ever painted over its own cracks with gold. notice a couple of things. The first is that And no more can we. But God’s power can. If it can raise Christ from the dead, if it can put We would love to feature people did this. We can trace through the your village organisation last chapters of the gospel story a less-than- the crucified Jesus back together, even more golden thread of betrayal and abandonment glorious than before, then it can surely do the IN A FUTURE MAGAZINE same for you, for me, for our churches and and mob hysteria, as he is offered up for just get in touch and we will see communities, for this often broken world in crucifixion. But Christians have not stopped what we can do! which we live. there, and have always put themselves in the Email: [email protected] place of those who caused Jesus’s death, A very Happy Easter to you all VICAR OF THE VENTA GROUP Stoke Holy Cross with Dunston, Arminghall and Caistor St Edmund NEXT EDITION Rob Baker, The Vicarage, Mill Road, Stoke Holy Cross, NR14 8PA Items for the next month’s magazine [email protected] 01508 492305 please send by email to Henry and Eostre Caswell CHURCH ADMINISTRATOR by email to For any admin inquiries please email Freyja Mardell [email protected] [email protected] CURATE By 10th of this month please. Lyn Marsh, 8 Mill Green, Stoke Holy Cross, NR14 8PB The 10th of the month will be the [email protected] 01508 493422 deadline for all copy for the next magazine for the time being. www.venta-group.org @venta-group 3 Don’t hesitate, decorate! • Domestic & Commercial Decorating • Small Maintenance Works CALL FOR A NO OBLIGATION QUOTATION James 07834 612463 Peter 07834 612769 01603 418953 [email protected] www.jandpdecorators.co.uk 1 & 2 Easton Countryside Services Maths Tuition Tree Surgery / maintenance Experienced and popular Tree felling / Stump removal maths tutor in Stoke Holy Cross Hedgelaying / Planting GCSE and A-Level Woodland management Are you looking to improve your grade? Fully insured and NPTC qualified I tutor mathematics to help students develop confidence, Free estimates and advice excel in exams, and achieve their goals. 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Over the course of that year, the Parish Council worked closely SERVICES FOR APRIL with the Norwich Fringe Project to open up IN THE VENTA GROUP the Raking Pit to the public, creating natural OF CHURCHES pathways, wood carvings and information boards about its wildlife and history. The 7th April 5th Sunday in Lent Community Payback team was also involved 9.00 am Traditional Holy Communion with the project and Stoke Holy Cross Caistor St Edmund Church Primary School pupils helped with planting 10.30 am Informal Holy Communion hedges and trees. Following completion of Stoke Holy Cross Church this project, the work at the Raking Pit was recognised by receipt of an award from the 14th April 6th Sunday in Lent Norfolk Biodiversity Project. 9.00 am Traditional Holy Communion Arminghall Church Over the past few years, the Parish Council has continued its work with regular tidying 9.30 am Praise and Worship up sessions and the planting of hundreds of Caistor St Edmund Church indigenous plants and bulbs, such as wild 10.30 am Café Church garlic, snowdrops and bluebells.