Festival Time at the Urdd, Cardiff Bay

Eistedfford time has come around again and because the Urdd (Young people's organization in Wales - we think it may be the largest youth movement in Europe)is currently situated in Cardiff Bay we were able to go down and enjoy being surrounded by Welsh culture. The sun shone brightly down as we made our way around the various stalls and we stopped by various places to see what was on offer. We went into the Millenium Centre to see the young people perform and were very impressed by the high standard of the various perfomances we saw. It was so good to see so many young people taking a pride in their heritage and we came out thinking that the TV talent show, Britain's Got Talent is nothing compared to the talent of our young people.

Visit to Logos Hope, Cardiff Bay

This week is half term, so we are enjoying a bit of a rest. Some of us have been out and about a bit and yesterday we made our way down to Cardiff Bay. We were joined by our friend, Elyse, who was a volunteer here about 5 or 6 years ago. Elyse is currently working aboard 'Logos Hope,' the enormous vessel in the picture. Logos Hope is part of an initiative set up by Christians in Germany to spread Knowledge, Help and Hope.
Elyse took us aboard to show us around. We had lunch together and then toured the ship. The Galley (where Elyse works) is very like the kitchen you may find in any large hotel. Gleaming stainless steel everywhere and large, computerized ovens! The galley supplies around 450 meals 3 times a day, so a lot of hard work work goes on there. We finished our tour in the Book Fair. The ship carries around 6,000 titles all very reasonably priced - so reasonable that at least one of us gave in to temptation and bought some (no names mind). The ship is staffed by volunteers from all over the world, some of whom join for a few weeks, others for longer. Elyse has been on board for 2 years, we met someone else who's been there for 17 years and has raised his family on board too! Mampionona, in particular was very taken with the visit and is interested in joining the ship later on. If you're in Cardiff Bay sometime between now and the 7th June, do have a look for yourself - it's well worth a visit.

Bible Study on Theology 31

I apologize for not keeping up with the Bible Study postings but, finally I'm catching up. This week's passage is from St. John 14:15-27, The Promise of the Holy Spirit. Below are the questions we will be considering this evening. If you have any comments, then please feel free to join in - we would welcome your input!

1. Jesus' connection with his disciples is based on love. Thinking of the past two Bible Studies that have considered God as love, do you think that Jesus is offering unconditional or conditional love in this passage?

2. Why is the Advocate sent to be with us 'forever' when Jesus was with us for a comparatively short time? What might this really mean?

3. The world is spoken of as being very different from the disciples. What does that mean for us as disciples who have to live in the world?

4. What does this passage mean for those who do not'love Jesus?'

5. How do you think the Holy Spirit has worked in you to teach you and remind you of what Jesus taught?

6. How does the Holy Spirit work in us today, if indeed you agree that it does?

Rich/Poor Supper

Our annual Rich/Poor supper took place this evening and I'm pleased to be able to tell you that the event raised £87.30!! For those of you new to this blog, or for those who have never heard of it before the Rich/Poor supper is as follows. Everyone buys a ticket for the event and everyone pays the same price (in this case £3). The evening begins with a brief talk to consider the work of Christian Aid. This year we were lucky enough to have a special guest speaker, Aled from the CA office in Cardiff. Aled visited South Africa earlier this year and showed us pictures that he took when he visited CA's Partners there.
After the talk, the group is each given a raffle ticket and a draw takes place. Six lucky people are chosen to be the 'rich' people. They sit down to a four course meal of melon, roast beef with trimmings, gateaux and cheese and biscuits. The rest of us (the majority) get to be the 'poor' people and we sit down to single bowl of rice.
The object of the excercise is to show the injustice of the current world situation. The majority of people in the world have less resources than the richer parts of the world. As one Iona liturgy puts it, "half the world starves whilst the other half diets.."
However, we do cheat slightly because after everyone's finished eating we auction off the leftovers and all the yummy stuff goes to those who bid for it.
So, all in all it's an awareness raising event as well as a fund-raising one. We had the services of our wonderfully gifted friend Myra to cook for us and she was ably assisted by Deborah. Cilla and Jodie. Thanks to all who worked on this event and to everyone who supported it.
Special thanks are due to Sharon who is the unsung heroine of all our Christian Aid efforts!

Fun Walk

The dawned bright and sunny.... oh no it didn't! No, sure enough we had the usual cold, damp, overcast day that we usually do for our foray into 'Pandy to collect for Christian Aid. Each year we use this occasion to indulge our eccentricities and dress up in unlikely garb.
As you will see from the picture, this year we had an Egyptian (I know, go figure), a Knight, 2 'unknowns,' and (the star of the show) a sumo wrestler. We also had a nun and a princess, but they were more camera shy. We began with worship at 9am, with prayers with the world church and then made our way to town. After a couple of hours we returned for lunch and the grand count began. We collected the sum of £166.03 so a big 'THANK YOU!' to all who donated and a very big 'THANK YOU AND WELL DONE!' to our wonderful volunteers who weren't afraid to look so strange for Christian Aid.

Congratulations!

These smiling, happy faces belong to our very talented volunteers, Heritiana, Rema and Mampionona. They are proudly displaying their certificates to show that they have passed the level 2 Food Safety in Catering course.
Way back in February, they attended the course as part of The Winter Skillz (sic) initiative in the Rhondda Fach.
This evening we all attended the celebration event at Canolfan Rhys to see everyone get the recognition they so richly deserve.
The courses covered such diverse areas as catering, childcare, dry-stone walling, carpentry and play work (amongst others) and the participants ranged in age from 14 - 60 or so.
Winter Skillz is an event that has grown from the first Summer Skillz, held two years ago. Local community members are encouraged to participate in order to gain skills and experience that will help build confidence and self-esteem as well helping to show prosepective employers marketable skills.
Our local Assembly Member, Leighton Andrews was there to award the certificates and show his support as were several other local luminaries.
The Penrhys Partnership is the driving force behind the success of this programme and congratulations are due to Wayne, Julie, Debbie and Melissa for all their hard work on this.

So, a very big, WELL DONE to Heritiana, Rema and Mampionona, Rena, Paul and Ray who all took up this challenge and succeded! Our cafe is the better for having well-trained staff to serve our customers.

Christian Aid Events

Christian Aid Week, (or more accurately, month in Penrhys) is under way. We have already begun the celebrations with a Children's Auction – that is, an auction of toys and things that the children bid for rather than actually auctioning the children which, tempting though that may be, would probably not be allowed. I say celebrations because; really you could be mistaken for thinking that it is some kind of holiday. Every possible spare inch of Llanfair is adorned with bunting, banners and posters and other decorations. I'm sure we've used as much blu-tack as we do at Christmas! As well as the events of previous years, auctions; rich/poor supper; fun walk; pilgrimage etc, this year we have had the privilidge of welcoming some special guests.

Yesterday we were joined at school by Eirian from Christian Aid and Jacob from Malawi (pictured above), who came to school to talk to years 5 and 6 about the work Christian Aid does and to share stories of life in Malawi. Anyone who has met our young friends will realize that they are not short of questions and, sure enough, these flowed fast and free. Some of the questions made more sense than others, (at least to me), but I'm sure this very interactive exchange means that plenty will be remembered from Jacob's visit. I, for one, can now point confidently to Malawi on a map of Africa and, if pressed, can tell you all sorts of things about life there – just ask.

This article has been written by Sharon for our latest newsletter so I’s thought I’d share it with a wider audience....

Llanfair Café has recently had its annual inspection from Environmental Health and we’re pleased to be able to say that we passed with ‘flying colours’ and we’ve been given a Silver Standards Welsh Food Hygiene Award. In addition, Trading Standards has given us a Bronze Healthy Options Award for our efforts to encourage healthy eating. We really appreciate our wonderful volunteers (local and overseas) who work so hard to make our café such a success. Well done all of you and keep up the good work!!
(We had a lively Community Open Day in March with lots of activities organised at Llanfair and Penrhys Partnership. One highlight was the launch of ‘On Top of the World’, a people’s history of the Penrhys estate, with a foreword by Revd. John Morgans. This special book is full of memories and photographs of past and present residents and events during the last 40 years. There is also a bilingual workbook on the history of Penrhys, full of interesting ideas and stories.)


PENRHYS AND MADAGASCAR

There has been a close relationship between Penrhys and Madagascar for many years. We have been welcoming young people from Madagascar as volunteers in our community since 1995.
These young people have contributed so much in the life of Llanfair and Penrhys, making friends with people of all ages and we’ve learnt so much from them. Many of them still keep in touch long after they’ve gone home - by letter, Christmas card or E-mail.
It was a privilege therefore on Wednesday, April 27th, to be invited to Ty John Penry (the headquarters of the Union of Welsh Independents in Swansea) to name one of their meeting rooms the Madagascar Room. Sian, our two present Malagasy volunteers, Mampionona and Heritiana, and I enjoyed our warm welcome at this special event. We are really pleased that the U.W.I. have decided to re-kindle the connection between Wales and the people of Madagascar. David Jones, Thomas Bevan and David Griffiths from West Wales were the first missionaries to Madagascar……..
It’s a very difficult time for our two volunteers to be so far away from their homes and families. It is so important that we remember them in our prayers and that we encourage them at every opportunity, especially because of all the political problems in the country at present which are causing so much pain and anxiety. They are very brave and their faith strengthens them day by day.
For those of you who may not know, the President of Madagascar, Marc Ravolomanana, was ousted by the opposition earlier this year and the country is in a state of uneasy peace at the moment. Several people have been killed or injured in the unrest during the last few months and we are hoping and praying that things will get better soon.
Mampionona from Akany Avoko, the children’s centre that we’re linked with in the village of Ambohidratrimo and Heritiana, who works at the F.J.K.M. church office in the capital, Antananarivo, arrived in October last year. Our other overseas volunteer, Rema, comes from the Presbyterian Church of North-East India in Mizoram. They help in a variety of activities in our community of Penrhys: Sunday School, Craft Club, Homework Club (both primary and secondary), teenage Discussion Group, Café, Playgroup, Football and take turns in leading worship on Friday mornings when we pray for a different country each week.
It was good therefore for our Malagasy friends to have the morning off to go to the special event in Swansea whilst Rema was ‘holding the fort’ in the café with our dedicated local volunteer, Rena, but we had to make sure that Mampionona and Heritiana were back in time for football practice at 4.30 or there would have been a lot of disappointed children and young people waiting for them!
For the first time ever, we had the opportunity last year to send two young people from Penrhys to Madgascar to be volunteers at Akany Avoko: Michael Caswell and Rebecca Egan.
It was a real eye-opener and a challenge for them in more ways than one, as well as was a unique experience which they’ll never forget. Maybe there’ll be more young people going from Wales to Madgascar to help in the future – we’ll see!

Celebrating Akany Avoko’s birthday
Mampionona, Heritiana and I had a weekend to remember at the beginning of May with a train journey to Lancaster to celebrate Akany Avoko’s 45th birthday. We have had the pleasure of receiving a young person from Akany Avoko to work with us in Penrhys since 2001.
Hanta Kely (or ‘little’ Hanta) was the first to come at the same time as Nicolas from F.J.K.M. They are now married and they have a beautiful two-year old little girl called Kezia. Llanfair contributed towards Hanta’s education after she returned home, and she is now a social worker at Akany Avoko whilst Nicolas works there part-time as an accountant.
The party was held at the Friends’ Meeting House with over 100 people coming together for this special celebration – many of them with personal links with the centre: present and previous staff and volunteers and several people who are sponsoring children and young people at Akany. There were crafts on sale made at the centre, a time-line, an impressive exhibition of photographs (including photographs from Penrhys and a special birthday card made by our children and Sian, our minister, at Llanfair café.) We heard the wonderful Millennium Choir, a local choir of children and adults and we watched the special D.V.D. showing the lives of three young Akany Avoko residents, which was very moving.
One of the day’s highlights was listening to Fabie speaking and seeing her, Mampionona and Heritiana singing and dancing together. Fabie lived and worked with us in Penrhys four years ago and went to university after she went back home to Madagascar. She’s now studying Psychology at Aberystwyth University. Like so many children in Madagascar, Fabie had a difficult, sad childhood before coming to Akany Avoko, so I felt so proud of her and all that she has achieved. She hopes to go return to Madagascar to serve as a social worker. Well done, Fabie!
Akany Avoko is one of the worthwhile projects of the charity ‘Money for Madagascar’, which makes such a difference to the lives of so many people on the island. I was privileged to go on holiday to Madagascar last summer and to visit Akany Avoko myself – a safe and happy home to at least 120 children and young people.
During my stay, I also visited the prison at Tamatave where I was impressed to learn about the valuable project, which helps 1000 prisoners to grow vegetables in order to improve their health and self-esteem and to develop useful skills. That was a truly memorable experience.