Dear friends,

In the Netherlands May 4 is remembrance day, the eve of liberation day when the country was completely freed of German occupation by English, Canadian, American, Polish and Dutch forces.
The Polish and Dutch forces may surprise you but during the occupation many young Dutchmen escaped across the North sea and trained to fight. Many Polish lads made their way to the UK as well via various routes and fought alongside the English. Also, the south of the Netherlands was liberated almost a year before the north giving southern lads the opportunity and incentive to fight.
On May 4 the national flag is flown half mast from all official buildings and many private houses. The orange pennant must be omitted for this occasion as it is for Royal family occasions only. Most churches will be ringing a single bell from 19:45 till 19:59 and at 20:00 is the time for the two minutes silence. After the silence the flag is raised to full until sunset. On 5 May the flag is raised again in celebration, without the pennant, and the celebrations begin.

The picture today is of the climbing rose we bought several years ago and feels quite at home, mixed with the Wisteria next to it. It’s called Maigold and always flowers early May.

God bless,

Dineke van den Bogerd

Notes-20250504.pdf

Weekly Notes
Readings-20250504.pdf

Dear friends,

In the Netherlands May 4 is remembrance day, the eve of liberation day when the country was completely freed of German occupation by English, Canadian, American, Polish and Dutch forces.
The Polish and Dutch forces may surprise you but during the occupation many young Dutchmen escaped across the North sea and trained to fight. Many Polish lads made their way to the UK as well via various routes and fought alongside the English. Also, the south of the Netherlands was liberated almost a year before the north giving southern lads the opportunity and incentive to fight.
On May 4 the national flag is flown half mast from all official buildings and many private houses. The orange pennant must be omitted for this occasion as it is for Royal family occasions only. Most churches will be ringing a single bell from 19:45 till 19:59 and at 20:00 is the time for the two minutes silence. After the silence the flag is raised to full until sunset. On 5 May the flag is raised again in celebration, without the pennant, and the celebrations begin.

The picture today is of the climbing rose we bought several years ago and feels quite at home, mixed with the Wisteria next to it. It’s called Maigold and always flowers early May.

God bless,

Dineke van den Bogerd

Notes-20250504.pdf

Weekly Notes
Readings-20250504.pdf

Dear Friends,

I hope you had a happy Easter and have been enjoying this very warm spring of late. As I am writing this letter for May we have just celebrated Easter at our churches. It was a blessed occasion and it is so wonderful to fill the church with flowers after the floral austerity of Lent and Good Friday to welcome once again our risen Lord Jesus! If you visit our churches you will see the Easter or Paschal Candle in a prominent position – a rather larger candle than usual this year – which symbolises the resurrection of Christ. We have a new Paschal Candle each Easter and I love that it is there to remind us that Jesus is the light of the world. It has wax carvings on it indicating different aspects of God and it always has the Greek letters alpha and omega, which symbolise that God is the beginning and the end. In fact this year in our opening liturgy on Easter Day we said these words:
Christ yesterday and today, the beginning and the end, Alpha and Omega,
all time belongs to him, and all ages.
I love this, that all time and all ages belong to him. It is like the view from a mountain top, or even from the valley below looking up – giving us a sense of perspective on our lives and giving us a sense of the divine, that there is more out there than we can possibly imagine.

Recently we had our Annual Parochial Church meeting, a time to review the past 12 months and recognise and acknowledge all that has been done in the service of God in the life of our churches through worship, prayer, pastorally and socially in many different ways. We began by electing our Churchwardens for each church. This happens every year and we are thankful that our wardens are happy to serve for more than one year only!! Norman Ede has been a Churchwarden for over 10 years and this year made the decision to stand down so that he has more time for family and other commitments. Thankfully Norman will still be very much supporting us in many ways with our various projects. We wish him and George and the family every blessing for the future. Even more we are pleased that Stuart Cole has agreed to stand as Churchwarden in Norman’s place, along with Andy Carr, as a deputy warden ( kind of deputy sheriff!!) Joy Harman has agreed to continue, despite some aches and pains of late, and we hope that she will soon be back in action. For St Margaret’s at Ockley, James Lee-Steere kindly continues as Churchwarden supported by their wonderful church wardening team… All in all as we read through the annual report for 2024/25 much has been achieved and accomplished by all who attend and support our wonderful beautiful village churches. A huge thank you to everyone and especially you our parishioners! We shall soon be gearing ourselves up for our season of fundraising at our local shows but one very special project is soon to get underway later this year. We now have the necessary permission to prepare and establish a new Garden of Remembrance at the top left of our Churchyard. Full of brambles at the moment we hope to transform this area into a beautiful space for folk to sit a while and experience some quiet and peace, to remember those whose ashes will be interred there, but most of all perhaps to ponder those words we said on Easter Day above.

Christ yesterday and today, the beginning and the end, Alpha and Omega,
all time belongs to him, and all ages.

With my love and prayers as ever
Liz

Revd.Liz Richardson
liz@hostmyserver.co.uk

Dear Friends,

I hope you had a happy Easter and have been enjoying this very warm spring of late. As I am writing this letter for May we have just celebrated Easter at our churches. It was a blessed occasion and it is so wonderful to fill the church with flowers after the floral austerity of Lent and Good Friday to welcome once again our risen Lord Jesus! If you visit our churches you will see the Easter or Paschal Candle in a prominent position – a rather larger candle than usual this year – which symbolises the resurrection of Christ. We have a new Paschal Candle each Easter and I love that it is there to remind us that Jesus is the light of the world. It has wax carvings on it indicating different aspects of God and it always has the Greek letters alpha and omega, which symbolise that God is the beginning and the end. In fact this year in our opening liturgy on Easter Day we said these words:
Christ yesterday and today, the beginning and the end, Alpha and Omega,
all time belongs to him, and all ages.
I love this, that all time and all ages belong to him. It is like the view from a mountain top, or even from the valley below looking up – giving us a sense of perspective on our lives and giving us a sense of the divine, that there is more out there than we can possibly imagine.

Recently we had our Annual Parochial Church meeting, a time to review the past 12 months and recognise and acknowledge all that has been done in the service of God in the life of our churches through worship, prayer, pastorally and socially in many different ways. We began by electing our Churchwardens for each church. This happens every year and we are thankful that our wardens are happy to serve for more than one year only!! Norman Ede has been a Churchwarden for over 10 years and this year made the decision to stand down so that he has more time for family and other commitments. Thankfully Norman will still be very much supporting us in many ways with our various projects. We wish him and George and the family every blessing for the future. Even more we are pleased that Stuart Cole has agreed to stand as Churchwarden in Norman’s place, along with Andy Carr, as a deputy warden ( kind of deputy sheriff!!) Joy Harman has agreed to continue, despite some aches and pains of late, and we hope that she will soon be back in action. For St Margaret’s at Ockley, James Lee-Steere kindly continues as Churchwarden supported by their wonderful church wardening team… All in all as we read through the annual report for 2024/25 much has been achieved and accomplished by all who attend and support our wonderful beautiful village churches. A huge thank you to everyone and especially you our parishioners! We shall soon be gearing ourselves up for our season of fundraising at our local shows but one very special project is soon to get underway later this year. We now have the necessary permission to prepare and establish a new Garden of Remembrance at the top left of our Churchyard. Full of brambles at the moment we hope to transform this area into a beautiful space for folk to sit a while and experience some quiet and peace, to remember those whose ashes will be interred there, but most of all perhaps to ponder those words we said on Easter Day above.

Christ yesterday and today, the beginning and the end, Alpha and Omega,
all time belongs to him, and all ages.

With my love and prayers as ever
Liz

Revd.Liz Richardson
liz@hostmyserver.co.uk

May your day be blessed by moments of quietness, light in your darkness, strength in your weakness, grace in your meekness, joy in your gladness, peace in your stillness.
May your day be blessed.

Amen

May’s issue includes VE Day 80, Christian Aid week, Mental Health Awareness Week, Happy 1700th Birthday to the Nicene Creed and Ascension Day.

Inspire-May-2025.pdf

Dear friends,

Yesterday we had a wonderful walk just south of Haslemere.
Near the top of Tennyson’s Lane this beauty was sunning itself. It made a hasty retreat when we disturbed it on the sandy footpath. Adders are no longer common in the land and it was quite magical to have a sighting. It is such a joy to be spending time in God’s creation.

God bless,

Dineke van den Bogerd

Notes-20250427.pdf

Weekly Notes
Readings-20250427.pdf

Dear friends,

The picture today is of our small flock with a one year old laying almost every day and three youngsters that haven’t started yet. They are a very happy bunch.

I wish you a very happy Easter.

God bless,

Dineke van den Bogerd

Notes-20250420.pdf

Weekly Notes
Readings-20250420.pdf

Dear friends,

An additional attachment today for the APCM tomorrow. I hope you have time to go over it before the meeting.

The picture today is of the river Maas (Meuse) in the Netherlands and the flood plain on both sides. The stair-like structure in the foreground is to measure the water level in the river. This one has been restored recently and is no longer in use as it has been replaced by more modern ways of measuring the water level of the river, but 100 years ago these structures were very common along all rivers in the Netherlands. Flooding was (and still is!) an ever present danger in a land crisscrossed by so many large rivers.

God bless,

Dineke van den Bogerd