Thank you to all who gave plants, draw prizes and items for the Bring & Buy stall.

Also to all who helped to make it a success by coming and giving so generously.

We raised £530 for Church and Hall funds.

The Bible has stood the test of time, the greatest test of all literature. It was completed nearly 2,000 years ago, yet it is read more than any other book and by people of widely varying cultures. Whatever your world view I am sure that you would agree that it is a very important book, and children's education would be lacking if they did not learn about Adam, Eve, Noah, David , Jonah, or even the life of Jesus and the stories of the New Testament. Sadly we have a generation of children who have not been read the Bible stories at home, and do not go to church to hear them.
Open the Book is an exciting project to enable and facilitate the telling of Bible stories in Primary schools. The project started initially in Bedford and is now spreading throughout the country. You can find more details on the Open the Book website.

A small group of local people met together at the end of last year to plan participation in the scheme, and to involve the children of Churchstanton School. We started at the school at the beginning of December last year, Every Monday we take the school assembly, in front of the whole school, and deliver one of the well known Bible stories. The stories are based on the "Lion Story Tellers Bible" written by Bob Hartman, and used by his permission. The stories are written for telling out loud and the project seeks to accompany them with imaginative visual aids and simple drama. Each session is about 15 minutes long and we have had great fun devising costumes and props to bring the stories to life. The picture shows the cast of 'The Screct Baby' - from right to left, Claire was Moses' mother, Mike was Narrator, Doris was the Princess of Egypt, Dave was Pharoh and Penny was Miriam (Moses' sister). We try to involve some of the children in the story telling and in our last story telling of Nehemiah rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem our volunteers had great fun stacking up empty shoe boxes representing the stones of the wall.

We have been welcomed by the headmaster and staff of the school and the children really look forward to our visit each Monday.

If anyone reading this would like to become involved, either in the story telling or, perhaps ,in helping to make props please contact Claire Bleloch on 01823 601117.