Announcements
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Dear Everyone,
As you may already have heard or read, new regulations were published by the Cyprus Government, earlier in the day (attached). With regards to the parish, our churches are to remain closed until 31st December. So in addition to the fact that there will no Sunday worship, in-person in our churches, please note the following: St Luke’s Carol Services – Saturday 12th December. Sadly, these Carol Services can no longer take place and are, therefore, cancelled. The Combined Carol Service – Sunday 20th December at Stage One. In recognition that we would be in a confined public space, (meetings are not, now, to take place in such spaces) the Combined Carol Service is cancelled. In addition, the advertised Christmas Eve and Christmas Day Services cannot be held in our churches, as planned. However, our Sunday Zoom Service will resume at 11.00am from this Sunday. Please make contact with Di Sylvester if you have not already registered for these services, in the past. If you have previously registered, there is no need to do anything further. All of this is very disappointing especially as preparations had been completed for all three Carol services. So, it is important, now, to thank all who have contributed to putting together the St Luke’s services – most especially Bruce and Carole McCandlish who have taken the lead on the St Luke’s service. Thank you, as well, to those who have decorated St Luke’s and provided the refreshments. Thanks, as well to Peter Sandwith for his very efficient help in getting us ready to use Stage One. Thanks, also to the choir who were due to practice, this afternoon, and were to put the final touches to the three carols that they were due to sing. We will be holding Zoom services over Christmas Day (details to follow) as well as the Sundays before and after Christmas. I very much hope to see you over this period. Meanwhile, I hope that you can still enjoy a somewhat strange and different Christmas, this year. Please let me know if you need help over this period. With prayers and best wishes, Andrew
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Dear Everyone, I hope that by now you are familiar with the regulations that have been published, yesterday, which update and adjust the current restrictions. The new regulations come into force in the early hours of Monday morning. Crucially, they permit the reopening of churches but we still have to abide by the social distancing regulations that we have been working with. So, the following will take place: our first service back in church will be our midweek Eucharist on Wednesday morning at 0900 at Ayia Kyriaki. Our Sunday services will resume on Sunday 6th December with services of Holy Communion at all our churches: 0815, Ayia Kyriaki, 0930 at St Luke’s and 1015 & 1145 at St Stephen’s and the 1800 service at Ayia Kyriaki. Remember that you will still need to register for the two services at St Stephen’s by contacting Pat Burrow at ststephsec@gmail.com Our published list of Christmas Services fits well with the new regulations, as published, albeit that changes could be made from Monday 14th December – the next review date. Let us hope that further tighter restrictions are not necessary. Please remember the need to register for the St Luke’s Carol Services (churchsecretary04@gmail.com) and the Combined Carol Service (churchsecretary04@gmail.com) as well as the two Christmas services of Holy Communion at St Stephen’s 11.00pm Christmas Eve and 11.00am on Christmas Day with Pat on (ststephsec@gmail.com) I appreciate that the registration process might feel strange for some of you but it is a crucial process that enables us to stay within the regulations. There will be some news to encourage you, concerning our Combined Carol Service, that will be published in next week’s newsletter – watch that space. Meanwhile, I will look forward to seeing you all, once more from Sunday onwards – if not before. With prayers and best wishes. Andrew PS in case you need to refer to the new regulations, they are attached.
Dear Everyone,
Yesterday, I received the appeal, which is listed below, from the UKCA club committee. I forward it to you because it seems, to me (and I hope to you) to be a practical way of helping needy local people in these difficult times. During the last lockdown, we did little as a parish to provide for those in need, beyond our own community. I do appreciate, however, that as individuals you were very active with phone calls and texts and emails and much more besides and kept in good touch with one another. And this was a good witness to our Christian sense of caring and sharing. It was also a recognition that, given vulnerabilities and health concerns, this was almost the limit of what we could do in a practical sense. Now an opportunity has arisen to respond in a practical way to an appeal that is being coordinated, in part, by the UKCA club. I won’t repeat the details but rather include the text that I have received from the UKCA’s committee. Although the appeal is written to their members, they have, understandably, widened the appeal to include communities such as ours. They write: Dear members, As we all know times are hard, some harder than others. We had an email from Mr. Tony Theo who has a scheme to help the people not as fortunate as us. Do you know a person or family struggling at this present moment ? If you do please pass their names on, so we can help in any way possible. This is where you the members can help, any canned food, dry food etc not perishables you can spare even a tin of beans, please bring to the club round the back, a box has been provided. This will then get delivered to RSS Logistics for distribution. You have till the end of lockdown 30th November to bring in anything you feel might help. I think most of us in our lifetime have met someone or been someone who has struggled to find money for basic food to put on the table. There are also some people who are lonely and as all the bars and restaurants are closed, give them a quick call to make sure they are alright. How many of us have lost someone who has ended their life and said “I was going to see how they were next week” so let’s do it NOW. So please use the club as a drop off point to help others. Thank you. UKCA Council. Because the timescale for the delivery of goods is short, we have decided not to try to edit our contacts list but to send this out as quickly as possible. So, I apologise if you are a swallow, currently off-island, or a past member of the parish and wonder why you are receiving this. If you cannot contribute, perhaps you could include this appeal in your prayers and thoughts – remembering especially those who will be the beneficiaries. Thank you for your consideration. With prayers and best wishes, Andrew PS Perhaps part of my prompting in sending this out comes from yesterday’s gospel! If you haven’t read it, click on the link in Friday’s newsletter. |
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