'H’ is for HARVEST, ‘H’ is for HOPE

It is Harvest Festival in the Church calendar.

This week, Combs Village Hall has seen two services to celebrate Harvest. The Reverend David Philo presided over both occasions and led the congregation in thought and prayer.

First it was the turn of Combs 1st Brownies. On Wednesday 17th October, their regular weekly meet at Combs Village Hall & Chapel became a Harvest service.

The Brownies performed a delightful short play, Five Brown Bulbs, with accompanying songs and poems. The audience joined in with some well-known Harvest hymns and songs such as ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’. The service was followed by a chocolate and sweet tombola, Bring and Buy, and refreshments.

All proceeds will be going to help build a vocational training centre in war-torn Beirut for young people with cerebral palsy who want to learn a trade to help support themselves and their families.

Today, Friday 19th October, it was the turn of Combs Infant School.

The children had worked hard at learning songs and poems with a Harvest theme which they sang and read beautifully to parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters. Mrs Curry spoke briefly about her recent experiences in Africa and the problems with transporting food to market. A collection was made for Rwandan children whose lives have been devastated by the years of genocide. H is for Harvest and H is for Hope. We hope that some lives will be improved by our fundraising activities in Combs this week.

We also hope that both these services will continue to be performed in our School, Chapel and Village Hall next year and in the future, as they have been for so many years - until a bad day last May when our Local Authority decided, in their wisdom, to threaten the age-old established rhythms of our quiet community for an extra few pence in their pot.