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BlogOn 11th June I went to the Diocesan Office in London, to meet up with Sampson Ajuka, ouir very own Ordination Candidate, who is to become Asistant Curate in Padova. Of course Sampson and I already know each other well, and you can read a bit about him on the Padova Page of this site. We met with the Diocesan Director of Ordinands to discuss his on-the-job training programme which starts at his Ordination as Deacon, which is now announced for 2nd October, by our Diocesan Bishop Geoffrey, in St. George's Venice.
The builders arrived on 10th June and started work on stage 3 of our Appeal projects. This means the development of the rear premises of the church, to provide, on the ground floor, two new WC cubicles, a (very) small kitchen space where we can make coffee and tea, a much expanded space for preparing other refreshments or church flowers, etc, by the removal of the vestry. Then upstairs a new Upper Room where we can have the vestry, but more importantly where I and future Chaplains can have a study which will enable us to be present in church much more often, and so keep it open.
Ecumenism is the technical word for the Unity of all the Christian Churches, and it's something I've always been keen on. I even wrote a paper about it in my School days at Marlborough.
6th June: This was the day when the incredible thing that one always dreams about, actually happened! On opening the post, a cheque for £10,000 for our Appeal fluttered out of the envelope. As you can imagine, I quickly grabbed it and hurried off to the bank!
24th May: We had a wonderful Blessing of a Marriage today for a couple with Venice in their hearts, even though they have to live in London (meanwhile...). They very kindly invited us to take part in all the celebrations, as well as the Service in Church, and that included a large boat on the lagoon the day before, and a splendid reception afterwards at the glittering Palazzo Pisani-Moretti. We actually held the Service in the beautiful church of S. Trovaso, by the very kind permission of Don Silvano Brusamento, who's a warm friend. It's not far away, and St.
20th May: I've had two interesting opportunities in a month to give lectures about our Church. Both were part of lecture cycles to which the different Christian Churches in Venice were invited to contribute. (And both had to be given in Italian, very good for me.)
This was what happened on 27th April, in the words of one of our members who e-mailed afterwards: "That was the most amazing meeting! The excitement and enthusiasm were incredible ." It was the Annual Meeting we held after our joint Chaplaincy Service (Venice and Padova together), and indeed, it was richly blessed, but I couldn't really have put 'Annual Meeting' as the title of this, or you wouldn't have bothered to open it!
The accounts for 2006 can been seen by clicking on "Church Accounts for 2006" above, which will reveal the links to the 3 .pdf files below:
22nd April. I 'm sorry to all readers (assuming there are any!) for my long silence on the blog - Preparations leading to Holy Week and Easter overwhelmed me. We had splendid celebrations for Palm Sunday and then for Easter at Venice on Easter Day, at Padova the following Sunday (30th March) and at Trieste only last Sunday, 20th April. All told, over 220 people attended; Venice became host to an extra 40 lovely people on tour from the US, as well as our usual 100+.
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