This week I shall be in church more than usual! Tomorrow (Friday 6th) I’ll be attending the World Day of Prayer service at St Catherine’s Catholic Church in Park Road. Formerly known as Women’s World Day of Prayer, this will be an event prepared by the Christian women of Zimbabwe and replicated in over 120 countries, highlighting the difficulties they continue to face in that country but also giving hope for the future.
On Saturday (7th) I shall be going to Christ Church on Christchurch Street West for their ‘Turn the tables on climate change’ event. Between 9am and 9pm, musicians, artists, poets and others will be raising funds to support initiatives in Darfur in North Sudan, one of the most drought-prone areas of the world. One of the projects will be to plant thousands of trees to re-green areas lost to desert and environmental change. Although we don’t yet have a desert in Frome, it does chime with our policy of planting trees here to mitigate climate change. Feel free to drop in at any time during the 12-hour event; money raised will be match-funded by the UK government.
I was once told ‘if you want anything done ask a busy woman’, a truth borne out by experience and confirmed by these two events: Jean Fraser organising Friday’s service and Ann Burgess driving Saturday’s.
Which is timely as it’s International Women’s Day on Sunday 8th March, which is a collective global celebration that celebrates and empowers women, this year’s theme being #EachforEqual.
