St Serf's News and Events

Rector’s Letter December 2011

Dear Friends,
First of all I want to thank everyone who made it possible for me to be away for the two months that Robert and I were travelling the world. It was a wonderful experience for us and we met many interesting and helpful people along the way as well as visiting so many diverse places. Just a brief account of what we did: we had two days in Moscow, enough to visit the city centre, the Kremlin and the Tretyakov Gallery. The latter holds the Rublev icon of the Holy Trinity, amongst other wonderful pictures. Then the train journey, six days eastwards through Siberia in autumn colours, then south across Mongolia to Beijing. Not with Russians as we had thought but with travellers like ourselves, though mostly younger, from Scandinavia, the Netherlands and Germany; and with a train crew from China. We all got on very well, English being the common language. Then five days in Beijing staying in a friendly and comfortable backpacker hostel in the city centre, visits to the Temple of Heaven Park, the Summer Palace, the Forbidden City and the Great Wall at Mutianyu. Next stop Hong Kong where we met up with the Anglican Church in the form of our friend Bill Robertson, Chaplain at the Diocesan Boys School in Kowloon, and Katherine Graham from Broughty Ferry who is the Anglican Communion coordinator for work with refugees and migrant workers. She is on the Cathedral staff in Hong Kong and her husband Stephen is the new Mission to Seafarers Chaplain in Kowloon. We stayed in the Anne Black YWCA Hostel which also houses the local YWCA offices and training centre, so we got a flavour of the extensive work they do. In Melbourne we attended the agricultural show, which is a big event in the calendar there, and Sunday Eucharist in the Cathedral. Then on to five weeks in our main destination, New Zealand and to Rugby World Cup fever. We rented a small camper van and it seemed like almost every other vehicle on the road in those first two weeks was a camper van. We watched the Scotland/England game on television with farmers in Waipu, a Scots settlement north of Auckland and the All Blacks/France final with friends in Gore, Southland. In between we attended the Wales/Fiji match in Hamilton and discovered that the couple sitting next to us were from Carlisle and that Robert had played rugby with the husband back in the days when we lived there. On the return north we stayed in Wellington with Dorothy Macdonald’s sister Sheila Dryden, another home from home. From there we made the long flight to Los Angeles where we spent two nights and visited Venice Beach, the Farmers Market and the Los Angeles County Museum, then a wonderful day at the Getty Museum before flying home.

In LA amidst the swaying palm trees Robert couldn’t help singing a favourite from the Dunfermline Choral repertoire, ‘White Christmas’ which brings me nicely round to wishing you all a very happy Christmas and not so white as to prevent us getting to church on Christmas Day.

Yours in Christ
Val Nellist

Rector’s Letter August 2011

Rector’s Letter
Dear Friends,
As many of you know Robert and I are looking forward to a two month sabbatical starting at the beginning of September; an opportunity to visit the wider Church in a diversity of settings. We start off in Moscow but, with only two days there, it will be a matter of visiting the cathedrals in the Kremlin but not really connecting with the people of the Church. Still, it will be interesting to get some flavour of a Church that refused to be crushed by the ferocity of Bolshevik and then Stalinist persecution. We travel on by train to Beijing via Mongolia and hope to have contact with the growing Church in that city during our five day stay. Language may well be a difficulty in communication but the music of praise is the same in all languages. Flying on to Hong Kong we will meet again with the Revd Bill Robertson who was a ministry student on placement with us in the ABI Group. He now serves as chaplain to the Bishop’s School in Hong Kong. I will be interested to hear about the place of an Anglican school in Hong Kong society, having recently visited the St James School in Kolkata. Onward then to Melbourne and hostel accommodation beside the Anglican Cathedral there and a chance to look at the diversity of Anglicanism in the Commonwealth of Australia.

Our main destination is New Zealand and I have to admit that the Rugby World Cup extravaganza comes into it, though we could only afford tickets to one match. However, we will be making contact with our church friends in Wellington and Southland; Anglican in the first, Presbyterian and Anglican in the second. I spent two years in New Zealand in my early twenties so it always has a feeling of coming home about it. Twelve years ago I was in Canterbury and Southland looking at local collaborative ministry and I learned much that helped in the setting up of the ABI Group of Churches. I also experienced the healing ministry in the Cathedral at Dunedin, a form of ministry and service sensitive to Anglican order and, let’s admit it, reserve. This too became part of our ABI churches ministry.

I hope to have much to share when I return in November and meanwhile I leave you in the safe hands of the Revd Maureen Stirzaker supported by the Revd Jean Cook. I am grateful to them both.

Yours in Christ
Val Nellist

St Serf’s Charity Number

Our charity number is SCO 10577

Golden Wedding Anniversary Blessing

On Sunday 22nd May we were delighted to welcome Helen and Malcolm Boniface. They were married in St Serf’s 50 years ago and are now residents of Digby, Nova Scotia where Helen is a Lay Reader in the Anglican Church of Canada. The Revd Maureen Stirzaker is seen here with the happy couple as they came forward after our Sunday Sunday Eucharist for a special prayer and blessing. Afterwards in the coffee lounge reminiscences of life in Burntisland were shared over coffee and the cakes that Helen and Malcolm had kindly brought for us.

St Serf’s Easter Breakfast 2011

This year we again made use of our local hostelry, the Sands Hotel to feed the hungry congregation after our Easter celebrations in church. Some had been up from very early to join the Burntisland Churches Together praise service on the beach. The hotel put on a good spread much appreciated by everyone as can be seen from the pictures taken by Angela Baynham.