Christmas Lunch with the community of Taita

It all began as a conversation between Mary Atkins (Vicars Warden) and Christina Silkstone (Vicars Wife); they had just had lunch at the Thursday outreach Cafe at St Marys in Silverstream and were discussing what they could do with the money that was left over at the end of the year.

After some discussion they decided to put on a Christmas dinner for the people of Taita Community and got in touch with Charles Noa Noa the Anglican Priest at St Matthews Church.

He thought it was a great idea for us to work together. We then began the planning (Well Gods Plan) we would ask the congregation of St Mary’s to help as well as an outreach for the Church not just for us. We asked the congregation to help with buying Chickens and all the trimmings for a wonderful Christmas Lunch. Charles was in charge of decorating the hall and asking people to come, originally he said 12 and we said Charles this needs to be big so he said ok and we started with 60 then it was 80 and then it was 120 people.

It was about this time that Karen Smith said she would help with the preparations and we had a few meetings to discuss what we had received and what we need to purchase.

Well the Wednesday night before arrived and we went to St Marys with loads of parishners to the church hall to prepare potatoes, peel kumara, peel, parsnips, prepare broccoli, caulifour and pumpkin, would we have enough room to cook it all we asked, people were cooking chickens and potatoes in lots of houses as well as the Church and vicarage, and all the while Karen kept saying loaves and fishes and we all kept faith that if God wanted this to go well it would.

Thursday morning dawned and ovens all over Silverstream were turned on, Chickens and vegetables cooked and delivered or picked up by my husband to the Church and we were off to Taita.

We arrived to lots of people filling the hall, we also had help from Kath, Timo and another man who had also prepared some chicken and some Trifles.

The people sat down and Charles welcomed us to his community, Graham my husband said a few words and then we started serving the Lunch, it was an awesome day and the people of Taita were so welcoming, helping to wash dishes, it was a blessing and an honour to be there amongst the people and to serve them in this way. I truly believe that we all came away feeling that they had blessed us.