Hi everyone!

Wow, it seems like the last three weeks since I posted a blog have flashed past, and now, wherever I look, Christmas is coming! Advent calendars are on special offer in Morrison’s, the John Lewis Christmas advent has arrived, and lots of churches are busy raiding Pound land for small gifts for recipients of Christmas shoeboxes from Operation Christmas Child! I usually have a strict rule about no Christmas anything before December, but working in Schools has thrown that right out of the window. This morning I had a meeting about the upcoming Christmas projects, and it’s just one of several meetings I’ve had. The first one was before the summer!!! Lots of exciting things are in the works, and I can’t wait to tell you more about them as they develop.

But before Christmas, there has to be everything else! Since half term we have welcomed a new worker to our team,  we have done R.E lessons in Werneth School’s brand new building and in Fairway Primary School, we have run a day of mental health topic lessons for year 9 at Stockport Academy, and we have commemorated Remembrance day with a week of topical assemblies in the Academy and local primary schools. Now, we are looking to the future and what is coming up, which is:

Anti-bullying week!

Next week is anti-bullying week and we are fully booked for the whole week with Primary schools. The national theme is in the image above, and from that we have decided to theme our assemblies “Ordinary Heroes!” We will be focusing on the power that we have over one another, and the power we can use to impact our communities (our schools and home environments) positively. There will even be a guest appearance of Batman!

In order for you to pray effectively, I have listed what schools we are in on what days. It would be tremendous blessing to us if you could pray for us next week as we build our relationships with schools and model Christ and his love to these young children. Maybe you could take a note of the day we are in a school nearest your home, and then pray for us on that day? We believe your prayers are powerful.

Monday: Hursthead Primary School, Cheadle Hulme – Dial Park Primary School, Offerton – Cheadle Heath Primary School, Edgeley.

Tuesday: Fairway Primary School, Offerton.

Wednesday: St Elisabeth’s Primary School, Reddish – Ramilies School, Cheadle Hulme.

Thursday: Woodley Primary School, Woodley.

Friday: Prospect Vale Primary School, Cheadle –  Adswood Primary School, Stockport.

(We are still taking bookings outside of the actual anti-bullying week, and if you are connected with a school that you think might be interested in the project, please do get in touch with me!)

Speaking of powerful prayers…..

Our prayer meeting is coming up on the 26th of November at 9:00am. We are being kindly hosted by St Catherine’s Church in Heald Green who have generously invited us to join their 9:00am prayer meeting. We hope that many of you who pray for us and support our work will be able to come along and hear our wonderful stories from this half term. We are only two weeks in, and we already have so many to share! We will also be introducing our new worker, Andy Wisdom, to you all at this meeting, so it’s definitely not one to miss.

(Here’s a picture of Andy, teaching and looking very knowledgeable!)

We hope to see you there. To give St. Catherine’s an accurate idea of how many of us will be joining in, please complete the contact form below. You may need to click on the link in your email to complete the form online in your browser.

Finally, some prayer points:

• Please continue to pray for Andy as he settles into his new position, gets to know the schools, and builds his own network and relationships that grow our work.
• Please offer prayers of thanks for God’s amazing grace in giving us access to so many schools and such an amazing town to work in. Our mental health project with Lily Jo is in the process of being picked up by another secondary school and has the potential to change so many lives. We are so thankful for God’s guidance and the doors that have been opened to make way for this project.
• Please pray for our anti-bullying week and the primary school children who will be hearing the message that patience and love are super powers we can all aspire to.
• Please pray for our Trustees as they once again undertake the process of hiring another worker. After taking applications, they are now preparing for the next stage of our search to find a new primary school worker. Please pray the Lord blesses them with wisdom and insight.

We are, as always, grateful for your prayer and support, and we look forward to catching up with you at the prayer meeting!

Blessings,

Emma