CHRISTMAS EVE 2011

Capturing a little of todays events

AN ARMY OF PEOPLE gathered together throughout today from 8am-8pm to make sure that Christmas is the best it can be for as many people as we can make it. The day started with a large group of people coming to peel potatoes, carrots and parnsips, wrapping presents, making up parcels and more, to fulfil part one of the day. Then a meal was shared together. The team then continued with preparing the kitchen, with sorting out the centre, before then starting to receive donations from local stores at the end of their day. These then went into parcels, before another team arrived to deliver the parcels and get these out to as many people as possible. Over 100 parcels were delivered to people throughout Horsham and Crawley. For some, within minutes, they were ringing to thank us for blessing their Christmas. We are so blessed today with people engaging in the true 'spirit' of Christmas, and thinking of others, beyond all that they had to do and prepare. It was so lovely to see so many of our own church family giving this time, and not just leaving it to other very giving volunteers. We now wait for tomorrow. 11am Celebration for all ages, followed by serving Christmas dinner for 140 people! If you want to join us.....please do!

Captain Susan Woodgate

Captain Susan is pictured here as in the County Times, during the making up of parcels for schools ten days ago. Today, a team of people will be busy making up toy parcels and food parcels to be delivered by a volunteer team tonight to many needy homes, over 100 in this area. This is in addition to well over 100 which have been given to local schools and family centres.

CHRISTMAS EVE is always a busy time at the Salvation Army, and starts now - a further team will be preparing veg and other things towards Christmas Day meal, which this year will serve nearly 150 people (including our volunteer team). Others will be involved in collection donations from local stores, as offered, and contributed towards making Christmas Day all that much better for people throughout Crawley and Horsham.

Whatever you are doing, have a blessed day today. We do not await the birth of Christ tomorrow, for He has already been born into this world - but you may be awaiting the birth of Christ into your own world, your own life. If you have not yet received Him...... now is the day of Salvation. GOD loves you big time, let Him into the life that He created, and know what it is to truly know CHRISTmas - the presence of Christ - in your celebrations this year. It brings CHRISTmas all that much more alive.

THE HOPE IN COMMUNITY SERVICES open on a Thursday evening to serve crisis food parcels, a listening ear, refreshments, clothing and toiletries to people as they have need. We do so for an eight week session. The project, now in its sixteen month as a revamp of the previous drop in centre, is seeing more people than ever calling on our services and provisions. Tonight, again many people journeyed to our centre, and there we trust found some Hope. The reason we do this - because of our faith - wanting to put our faith into action and not just talk words, but put meaning into words and do the action as well.

STILL TIME

This year our parcel deliveries and Christmas Day meals will be bigger than ever - thats not a problem - God has and is supplying our every need. BUT we do want people to know there is still opportunity for us to provide parcels for people and also opportunity for people to register to come on Christmas Day. Contact us on 01403 254624.

Tuesday 20th December 2011

Today gave us an opportunity to come out from the busyness in our centre to share Jesus wider - and we did with the people of Kingsmead in Horsham, and Kerwin Court in Slinfold. In both places it was a blessing to see people joining in with us, and also seeing memories stirred. We thank GOD for this opportunity

CAROL SERVICE 2011

 For the first time in two years our Carol Service was not hindered by the snow. Our hall was bursting, and we think 200 people must have been in our centre today. The service was mixed, starting with items from the band, our singing group, and Katy Kinsella who sang O Holy Night. Carols sang included:- Angels from the Realms of Glory; O Little Town of Bethlehem; See Him laying on a bed of hay. Our toddlers also featured and sang for us Here we go up to Bethlehem. Our offering collected over £200 for our Christmas Campaign, with money being used locally and internationally. Following from this, our children took the floor at presented to us STABLE MANNERS. This was the first time for many years that we have had enough children to be able to take part in such an event, and was lovely to see the children doing this, but also bringing with them parents and friends. There was literally no room left in our building for anyone.

At the conclusion Captain Ian thanked everyone who had been involved in this in some way, and espcially Kate Gregory, Barry Dowden, Karen Everest, Captain Susan, Simon Reay and the adult support as well. We are very blessed as a church. To conclude the carol service everyone stood to knock balloons around and sing the finale song WE GONNA CELEBRATE THIS CHRISTMAS, which was an amazing fitting end to this event.

Tea and coffee was enjoyed by lots of people, and while that was being served Father Christmas appeared and gave sweets and gifts to all the children and young people who were able to be us. We thank God for such a special event, and an opportunity to share the Gospel further.

THANK YOU

We are so grateful for the amazing support we have had of our church members and friends in sharing The Gospel over this time, but also to the general public who have given amazingly financially and in food and gifts. We cannot thank you all enough.

Friendship Club

The final Friendship Club for 2011 was a pantomine - see the picture for our cast. You can see it was well presented, but that was the point of it. You see many do not know how alive the Christmas story is until we know who it is all about! We also had sometime set aside to thank the team for all they did to make Friendship Club and Friday Lunches the success they have been this year. This time last year we did not think it had a future.

CHATT-A-BOX PARTIES

Our centre was buzzing on Thursday and Friday for our annual Christmas Parties for CHATT-A-BOX, our parent and toddler groups. Craft and play started the event, followed by singing, led by Captain Sue. Then we had a special visitor, Father Christmas, who even joined in with the Hockey Cokey. He gave every child a gift, and afterwards we all sat and enjoyed special party food. It was a great time, enjoyed by all.