Dear All, 

    Please read the following for your careful considerations as we try to respond to an urgent need…

Deborah is an invaluable, key figure for our church and wider community support. Due to the unjust Visa systems, the support she provides within church for the vulnerable local people will be ended if she cannot pay the full amount of the Graduate Visa and Health Surcharge. This will have a detrimental effect on many people’s wellbeing, particularly those new to the country staying in hotels, who rely on the sessions Deborah provides. 

Now it is our turn to support Deborah and her children in their own time of desperate need, but we cannot do this without your help, as the deadline for the Visa is 5^th September which is fast approaching.  

Here is a personal message from Deborah to give you more information: 

Greetings to you in the name of Jesus Christ, 

I came to the UK as an international student and a migrant from Nigeria. I am a young single parent of two blessed daughters of ages 9 and 6,  that is committed to impacting lives positively, serving all of humanity and God through all God’s given gifts, talents, life experience, knowledge, creative potentials, and skills. 

My journey to the UK was a bitter-sweet experience, which illustrates how I joined the church of St. Chad and St. Mark, CofE, Wolverhampton, the UK in August 2021. To date this glorious family has always been a support system in all ramifications of life to my stay in the UK generally; however, this time they cannot support me alone in this issue. 

As an active member of the DCC & PCC Trustee in the Diocese of Lichfield, I would not want to leave a place I now call my HOME –  the Wolverhampton Community and the Church, the wonderful Refugees, Asylum seekers and other Migrants like me that I have been a impacting positively through teaching them ESOL, Digital Skills, Health & Wellbeing coaching, Keep Fit Dance, Counselling and Guidance. 

To God be praised, I graduated from Coventry University, Coventry, UK where I obtained another Master of Arts Degree in Communication, Culture, and Media.  

However, like many I have struggled so hard despite working as much as I can to pay my monthly rent, feed, and provide basic living amenities because of only being allowed to work limited hours and not claim any benefits due to my kind of visa. I pay my National Insurance and am eligible for paying Tax, yet I still have to pay around £2,000 for myself and each child to remain here and access health care.  

Currently, for my daughters and I to live for another two years in the UK, we are appealing for your kind financial support to re-apply for the Graduate Visa because the amount I earn is not sufficient to pay for the three of us. I cannot unsettle my children from school, friends and connections such as being part of the Chad/Mark Worship Team, Children’s Chapel and St Peter’s Church choir. My children being sent away to Nigeria is not a viable option as it is a dangerous place for young girls and there is no one there who is able to support us.  

Conclusively, from the depth of my heart, my children and I plead for your relentless assistance to please donate however much you can give on or before the 5th of September 2022. Thank you for taking the time to consider my cause. 

Blessings, 

 Deborah 

 Please find the break-down of the Visa amount and how to donate:  

2 Year Graduate visa 

Adult £750

Child £750

Child £750

2 Year Health surcharge 

Adult £1248

Child £940

Child £940

Total £5,378 

Donations can be made by bank transfer to: 

The Church of St Chad & St Mark 

Acc N.o: 03829156 (Lloyds) 

Sort Code: 30-99-83 

Using the reference:  Deborah Fund 

We thank you in advance of any amount you may generously wish to offer. We trust that in any case you will be keeping Deborah and family in your prayers.

Blessings and many thanks on behalf of the Ministry Team,

ENGLISH

FARSI

KURDISH

SPANISH

Annie Heppenstall

For the Fallen

They shall grow not old,

as we that are left grow old;

age shall not weary them,

nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun

and in the morning,

we will remember them.

Poem BY Laurence Binyon 1914

Stirring words to remember the war dead – we will remember them – and as we have said in our litany of Remembrance today, we also remember those who have suffered the consequences of war, not directly on the battlefield, but in other ways too, because war actually permeates so much of life for so many.

When that poem was written, in 1914, what we now call the first world war had really only just begun and people at home were just beginning to experience the shock of loved ones, mainly men, although women also went out mainly as nurses, sons, brothers, fathers and uncles, going off bravely, at this stage voluntarily, perhaps naively, idealistically, believing they would be back soon, but instead of coming home triumphant, being killed or horribly wounded, physically and mentally.

The poem immortalises their beautiful youthfulness, describing their homeland as their mother, they still being a part of her even in death. By the end of that war, the idealism had worn off, and the shock, the trauma of the level of carnage, left people appalled. The wish for it never to happen again inspired this annual Remembrance day memorial which is, now, a time to recognise the tragedy of all wars, including ones which are going on today. At first, there was a hope that, it being so catastrophic, everyone might learn not to let that happen again – it was called the war to end all wars.

So today, in remembering, we may well think of our own experiences, the impact warfare has had on each of us and on our families. We might look around for a moment, with respect for one another and with tenderness, recognising that even without knowing one another’s’ stories, we do know that for some here, the trauma is very raw, very real, in a way which makes me hesitate to go on. The litany is describing people in our community – us.

For me, speaking from my own family story, as I think I need to speak from my own experience,  I do have family members who I remember, because they risked or gave their lives in the first world war, or were injured. But it’s not just about memory, it is also a time to think about what the litany said – the consequences of war more widely in society, in community, in family life. The impact of World War 1 and also WW2 has had an impact on me very directly – the trauma has been very real in the family system, it’s haunted us, and I am still seeking the healing of it, even now.

Let me talk personally for a little while.

First, the remembrance of my two grandfathers.

1. Here, I have a little New Testament with ‘fight the good fight’ inscribed inside by the minister who gave it to my grandfather. Aged 18, he was conscripted to fight – it says in the back, in his handwriting, ‘France’: he survived the horrors of trench warfare in France. Beneath that,  it says ‘India’, because having survived France, he was sent to India.

He was serving alongside Indian soldiers who at that time were still in the British empire. This did affect him and his attitude. It affected his attitude to migrants coming to live in his city from commonwealth countries after the war. He refused to talk about the war, it was too much for us to hear. All this affected me.

2. Here, I have a wallet, which my other Grandfather was carrying on the battlefields of France. His Methodist minister inspired him and some cousins not to fight. So they went as stretcher bearers, to rescue the injured from the front line. He still got injured, same as the soldiers, a mine went off and shattered his leg.

In the wallet is a photo of his then fiancée, who became my Grandmother. Her picture was there on the battlefield with him.

3. Here is another photo of my Grandmother and her three sisters. Her brother isn’t in the picture but he was a soldier too – another story. My Grandmother nursed her injured husband, brought up children and also worked to keep them from poverty. Being disabled he lost his job – there was no disability benefits or state organised support of the war wounded at that stage, and not a lot of sympathy for those who refused to fight.

Nancy had a boyfriend who died in the war and grief stricken, she never married.

Vin, she married George, who was a soldier. We believe he had PTSD, which he controlled during his working life, but on retirement it seems to have overcome him. In a sudden rage he killed aunty Vin, so she too, is a victim of war. Her horrified family are victims of war. This shocked our family to the core – impact of war.

This is just some of the stories of some members of my family, one working class family from Leicester. Poverty because of disability, unpaid nursing care by women in the family, loss of an intended marriage partner, mental illness, extreme domestic violence … while these are my stories, part of my remembrance of war and the effects of a war that is seemingly distant to me, I believe they are universal, and here amongst us. I imagine many have similar stories in their families –

Ordinary women and men bearing the wounds, the unhealed traumas, in their families, long after the poppies have grown on the battlefields, left to just cope. But it leads to a sick, broken society doesn’t it, one that doesn’t know what to do with the weight of emotion, of trauma.

The place of religion in all this is curious isn’t it – handwritten in my Grandfather’s Bible, the encouragement to fight. In the words of the other grandfather’s Minister, the encouragement to not fight. In the women, devoted loving service, sorrowing, the coping with the consequences, carrying the weight of earning a living as well as caring for family – quietly mopping up the mess – trying to soothe the nightmares and rages, trying to protect the children. Mary weeping at the foot of the cross.

I go back to the readings for today – Daniel, which was written at a truly dreadful period of the Jewish people’s history, where the outlook seemed so bleak.

‘At that time Michael, the great prince, the protector of your people, shall arise. There shall be a time of anguish, such as has never occurred since nations first came into existence.

And then Jesus, in Mark’s Gospel, kind of saying, ‘war … yes there are wars and more wars, and this is just the beginning – the birthpangs.’

The bleakness, it’s hard to know what to do with it.

So what are we to do? Remembering is such a sorrowful act, necessary, and heavy on our hearts.

I think the first act is the remembrance, and in doing this, not putting it all on ancestors and events in the past, but to acknowledge it is here now. And then to acknowledge how that makes us feel.

How we feel, is the key. What happened to my grandparents, and also to my parents, who were both children during the second world war, and I think to many in those generations, was that they learned to hide their true feelings. It was too awful, too frightening, to not know if your loved ones were still alive of if a bomb was going to blow your home up. The way to get through, was taught in phrases like ‘stiff upper lip’, ‘soldier on’, ‘chin up’ – don’t show weakness, don’t give in to the grief and fear – don’t show it. This might help in a survival situation, but long-term, by not being allowed to acknowledge pain and fear, I think all the other feelings get shut down too. It becomes difficult to express love and tenderness, it’s even seen as a weakness. When this becomes someone’s identity – being someone who does not show real human emotion, humanity, the pain or the love, it easily multiplies in society – a society which cannot communicate love because it cannot acknowledge the pain. What looks like an unfeeling society – actually a war-shocked society, it doesn’t know what to do.

So that’s why it’s important not just to remember, but to consider the wider consequences now – and to look around and accept that in our community, here amongst us, in our own hearts, there is feeling. There is feeling, because we have hearts, we are getting in touch with our humanity and through this with divinity – that is what brought us through the door. What we encounter as we file up to the altar.

I think the love is in us, when we sit and look around at one another and recognise that we are all touched by this, and that this is a seeding of compassion amongst us. The stories of my family, they are not unlike the stories of other families, although some have suffered more directly and more terribly. While there is no competition, for who has suffered most, there is a competition for who can compete in love.

I haven’t said so much about the scriptures today, but in asking what can we do about the bleakness, the pain and the fear, the nugget, to me, is hidden away in the reading from Hebrews. There’s no grand plan, no great heroic gesture, we don’t really know what it means, to think about warrior angels and birthpangs and what is to come. The scripture today is very simple, in keeping with what Jesus said about kingdom values – the kingdom of God is in tiny things which grow, like seeds or like yeast in dough.

Let me remind you, what Hebr 10:24 says, ‘And let us consider how to provoke one another, (or perhaps in the spirit of Romans 12, to compete with one another), in love and good deeds, 25 not neglecting to meet together, but encouraging one another…’

This may seem a small thing, but it’s the kingdom values we are looking for – yes, provoke one another, to challenge one another to love and good deeds: encourage one another to love.

This is the fitting memorial of the dead and of the victims of war, to speak about the unspeakable, to name our feelings, to dare to talk about love – because this grows the kingdom of God.

Amen

A PDF of this blog can be downloaded in English, Farsi or Kurdish

Remembrance Sunday is a time when traditionally we have in the Church of England remembered those who fought from our local areas in the two world wars but particularly World War 1. The memorial plaques by the altar remember the names of those who from the streets in this area went to war. At the end of the service, we will place the folder that tells the stories of some of those men on a table in the sanctuary for people to look at and read.

For those men we lay our Red Poppy Wreath

But the wars were world wars and impacted on people throughout the world. Many see the wars particularly the 1st World War as a fight between European powers for influence and power around the globe, a fight to see who would colonise the most nations and extract their resources for their own benefit. Many were recruited from the colonies to fight for one side or the other depending upon whom their colonial rulers were. It is believed across the continent two million Africans participated in fighting for one side or the other in the 1st World War. Also 16,000 men from the Caribbean Islands volunteered to fight for the British in the 1st World War and over 10,000 in the 2nd World War

For these peoples we place our Black Rose Poppy Wreath

And we also remember the 1.3 million men from India who served for Britain in the 1st World War with 80,000 losing their lives

There were also those who refused to fight, men whose faith or other beliefs led them to refuse to enlist even when in Britain it became compulsory. They became known as conscientious objectors they were called cowards by many, but they displayed – lots of them Christians – a different kind of courage. We also remember not just the combatants but civilians women, children and men who suffered or died because of war.

For these people we lay the White Poppy Wreath

But we also today seek not to glorify war but to pray for peace, but a peace with justice and to do that we need to acknowledge the grave injustices that were inflicted upon peoples around the globe by the European nations during and after the 1st World War.

Kurdish people were promised by the British their own homeland if they fought for them against the Ottomans, they did, but the promise was not kept and a hope of self determination denied, a hope that is still longed for today and actively struggled for by brothers & sisters who are part of our community.

We also remember those African nations who were divided by the colonialists for example Cameroon, a German colony before 1st World War it was divided between Britain and France after Germany was defeated and a divided nation created, that has been the source of further conflict. People of both sides of that divide have been part of our community at Chad/Mark.

And Persia, from which many in our congregation have come, sought to be neutral during the war but the European powers, particularly Britain refused to allow it to be so, invaded parts of the country and both before the 1st World War began and afterwards sought to get control of its oil resources for their own use. As one British diplomat said ‘Persia, during the war, had been exposed to violations and sufferings not endured by any other neutral country.’ A famine that lasted between 1917 -1919 was created because the British controlled food supplies that it directed towards its massive forces in Mesopotamia.

So, we come to this Eucharist, as we come to all Eucharists seeking forgiveness, comfort, challenge, reconciliation and hope as a community of many cultures and nationalities. We come to pray for a world where resources are shared equally and the values of God’s Kingdom reign. We come not to worship any nation but to worship the prince of peace, hope and justice, our true liberator, Jesus Christ.

What Should I expect from a Church Service?

You can expect a warm welcome, uplifting worship, an engaging sermon, and a friendly group of people seeking to live their lives as followers of Jesus. Afterwards you can expect hot drinks, biscuits and friendly chat, some Sundays there is the option of staying on for a meal together and for workshops exploring questions of faith.

What should I wear?

Wear whatever you normally wear. There’s no dress code – we are far more concerned with getting to know you.

What Usually Happens during a Service?

After a welcome, most Sunday services start with singing together – join in with as much as you feel comfortable, or feel free to simply listen. The service will also include three readings from the Bible, with a sermon to help us think through how God might want us to live our lives, and how we can know him better. Our response to this will often include prayers and singing, before we have the chance to share bread and wine in communion. We have an Open Table and all are welcome to receive the bread and wine. If you would rather not you can receive a prayer of blessing instead. The service finishes with a final song before we are sent out into God’s world ready to live for Jesus in the week ahead.

What if I’ve got children?

 Every Sunday there is a children’s group (Children’s Church) during the service so that our young people can learn and worship in their own way. The space at the back of church with sofas and comfy chairs is also available as a crèche space for parents to use with their babies and toddlers if they wish – the service can still be seen and heard from there.

Will I be expected to give money?

Our main concern is that you feel welcome, so it is important that visitors and newcomers don’t feel any pressure to give anything. We take a collection during one of the songs but no one is obliged to give the best offering you can make is to open your heart to God. Our regular members give in all sorts of different ways.