After the devastating earthquake that hit Haiti 15 days ago, members of Agape Community Church began collecting items of clothing; bedding; medicines and other essentials ready to ship to the country and those in need.

These items were collected and sorted through and left for a container ship on the 27th Jan.

For further information on the Haiti Hospital Appeal that the shipment is going to help, please see:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/group.php?gid=5975035895&ref=ts

or

http://www.haitihospitalappeal.org

Donations for Haiti

A van load of items!

On  the 16th January Pastor Richard (Taylor) , (Director of VO UK) will be launching the Impact Centre in Cwmbran. Meetings will be open to the public every Saturday at 7pm.

Pastor Richard will be the main speaker and begins with a 12 week series on;  ’Big Questions’

More info visit www.impactcentre.org.uk

Source. VO UK Christmas Newsletter Issue 2 www.vouk.org.uk

Hiya people,

For those of you who don’t know, I’ve managed to book my time off work for the Haiti trip in February so thank you so much for your prayers!!

I thought this would be a good time (if not a little late!) to remind you of the link that I gave you last year…

…”If you are planning to buy any Christmas presents on-line this year, if you start from the www.buy.at/Haitihospitalappeal site, and link from there to your favourite sites (Amazon, Marks & Spencer, Play.com, HMV etc) and buy as you normally would. You get the same discounts and offers, but as you started from the Haiti web shop, the Haiti Hospital Appeal will receive a donation from the site you purchase from - for free!”…

Carwyn has also asked me to make you aware of the following site…

http://www.globalgiving.co.uk/pr/2300/proj2229a.html

…”as Haiti Hospital Appeal have been enterd into a competition with some other charities to see who can raise the most amount of money between now and Dec 15th.  Basically if we raise $5,000 and get 50 different supporters to sponsor us we win $2,500.  If we raise the most money over all we win $10,000, and if we recieve the most unique individual donations we win $15,000.  All you need to do is make a donation, even if it’s only £1!  The more we get the better.”

Well… I know you have all been eagerly anticipating the naming of the Thursday youth group and I am pleased to inform you that we have finally setlled on one…

Drum roll please……………………………..

We can now be refered to as ‘Flame!’

The astute among you will notice that we have gone for a grown up Spark/Sparx!!!!

I do not know why it took us so long, but the girls have all agreed that this is a good name!

We hope you approve. If you don’t, please tell the girls so they can argue their case, also so you can see the sadness in their eyes rather than tears in mine! My guess is that you will be much less likely to risk upsetting a child, and therefore will keep your opinion to yourself! lol

Anyway, it is getting late. More details will follow!

Thanks for your prayers for the group, please keep them up!

Bex.

Evaburn return to the Manor for another evening of spiritually uplifting ‘rawk’.
To entice people out of their warm cosy houses on a chilly October night, we are providing a buffet and free soft drink (if you bring along a flyer).

Please let everyone know and keep your eyes peeled for those flyers.

A very wise person once told me to ’start from the very beginning, it’s a very good place to start!’
Ok, it was Maria in the sound of music, and she wasn’t really telling me, but seven strangely attentive and responsive children, but we can pretend!

Yesterday we held the first youth group of the year, and I think it was enjoyed by all. We started at the very beginning of time, and managed to fit seven days in to one hour session. We talked about creation, and they created the world. I thought you might like to see what we made… here it is…

If you are in year 6/7/8 please come along to the TLC on a Thursday evening at 6 til 7. It would be great to see you there.

Also, if you are free on a Thursday between 5.45 and 7.15 and would like to help out please let me know!

Bec.

Hi Everyone! Welcome back to the Agape Website - here is some more news about 418.

As I hope you are aware, next weekend we are embarking on a (mostly) new venture for Agape.

We have nearly 40 volunteers giving a total of 320 hours to serve our community. We have around 12 projects proposed so far, and are still accepting more to give us all something to do on Sunday afternoon.

The BBQ and band evening are all set to feed and impress… We will be joined by ‘Evaburn’ and a jazz band called ‘Close Quarters’ for an evening of band swapping entertainment. The BBQ is free to all residents and volunteers so please bring people along. There will be games and crafts for the children as well as a potential face painter - watch this space for more details!

The event is really gaining steam now as we enter into the last week of preparation.

Please pray for good weather - most (almost all) of the projects require at least dry weather, and we haven’t been seeing much of that recently. God is able!!

Also continue to pray for the residents and their acceptance and understanding of what we are doing. Our main aim is to show the awesome love of God to the community. Pray that they will have open hearts for what we are doing, and what we have to say.

Pray for the safety of the volunteers - some will be up ladders, others walking precariously close to the canal to pick up that little bit of rubbish that’s actually out of their reach! Pray for God’s protection on the volunteers as they serve, but also on the residents as they join with us to regenerate the community!

Please pray for me, Bec, that I can be more than sufficiently organised for this event - I don’t want to forget anything.

Please do remember that God is in complete control of this event, and that we want his will to be done.

In the awesome name that is above all names…

Amen.

See you Friday!!!!

Hi Everyone, just wanted to write a quick note to let you know where we’re up to with the planning for 418.

The short promo video went live on ‘Youtube’today, with links direct to it from the 418 pages on the agape website.

We’ve had nearly 20 volunteer forms back - but we still need more!
Please don’t take your involvement for granted - we want you to be invoved, but we do need a completed form form you!

We have also had a number of projects proposed, mainly garden based, but also cleaning windows etc.

All the planning and preparation is going well at the moment, we’re in the final stages of getting everything ready for the fast approaching big weekend!

There is a joint cell group on Wednesday to pray for the weekend, we would be really happy if you could come!

If you have any ideas or thoughts regarding the weekend of 418 let us know by leaving a comment.

Thanks everyone for your help so far!!!