• The Front Page
• Message from St Andrew's
• Message from the Baptist Church
• Message from Girton Glebe School

The Front Page.

Message from St Andrew's

In this last week of Lent, Palm Sunday is the "gateway" to Holy Week - the week running-up to Easter, in which we remember  Jesus' last days,  his last supper, his arrest in Gethsemane, his trial, his crucifixion, and finally his resurrection.

There is at least one palm tree in Girton - it resides in the North Room, except for Palm Sunday when we give it pride of place in church. It helps to make a bit more real the palm branches which people strew at  the donkey¹s feet to make the way down the slippery and steep pathway a bit safer. Everyone receives a small palm cross as well, which we carry in the procession as a reminder of this action.

What do we remember on this day?  We remember the rapturous shouts of "hosanna" (Lord, save us) from his disciples as the messiah came to his own city. We remember the dramatic impact of his sudden arrival from Bethphage and down the Mount of Olives to the Gate called Beautiful, so that those camped outside the city wall wondered greatly what was happening. 

But we also remember that when  he entered Jerusalem  on the back of a donkey,  Jesus was in tears.

Riding into the city of those who hated him  took huge resources of courage and determination. In four days the trap would  spring around him, and he would be a prisoner of those who were looking  for a way to destroy him. Escape into the desert from the Garden of Gethsemane in the dark would have been easy. Jesus chose instead the way of the cross.

The crowds raised their palms   cried hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!But  think  of the cost to Jesus  as he entered  the Holy City , already earmarked for destruction.

On Good Friday, the mob  that had  raised their palms in hosanna  raised their  fists and cried, "Crucify him!"  As we close our fists around our palm crosses,  we remember that  in one  sense , we were there too. Christ Jesus took our pain and our sin  and made it his own, so that we could be his own.

For this reason we say yet again, "Hosanna in the highest! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!"

Rob Mackintosh.

Message from the Baptist Church

I have always said that one of my aims as minister of Girton Baptist Church is to put the church on the map, and one Friday afternoon in March we did just that.  For about an hour we were the very centre of village life, as police cars, a fire engine and several representatives of TRANSCO descended on the scene.  In addition to that we made headline news on Radio Cambridgeshire and even had a mention in the following day's evening paper.  In terms of publicity we really did strike gold, although in reality the nature of our hit was gas!
 
Judging by the comments I have received since then, most people seem to know something about what took place, but just in case you are one of the minority let me explain.  The members of Girton Baptist Church are currently extending their premises by building a new entrance on the front of the building.  In order to reduce costs, we are doing most of the work ourselves and on the Friday in question we were busy digging out the foundations.  To a novice, like myself, it is amazing how much there is below ground, two electricity cables and a gas pipe lay across the lines of our new building.  We carefully dug around the cables by hand, but as we no longer required the gas supply, we had arranged for the supplier to cut it off in the road before the building work got under way.  Alas, although the authorities had assured us that the gas was no longer on our land, in reality the capping was on our side of the boundary and consequently was severed by the mechanical digger.
The police instructions were quite clear, we had to close the road immediately, and within minutes the emergency services were at the scene cordoning off the area.  TRANSCO arrived shortly afterwards and stopped the leak by blocking off the pipe, as we had originally requested, under the road.  To those of you caught up in the traffic, our apologies, I hope it didn't inconvenience you too much, but at least you now know where the Baptist Church is!
 
As I said earlier, I have received many comments about the incident.  They have, thankfully, been light hearted along the lines of "Please don't offer to dig my garden" and "God didn't answer your prayers then".  With the first comment I am happy to oblige, but the second one I need to explain because yes, despite it all, I believe God was still watching over us.  
 
As a church we had prayed for good weather and for God to watch over us as we worked on the site, for we knew that the job would be physically demanding and a race against the clock.  A concrete lorry was booked for half past four with an hour's notice required to cancel it.  When the gas leak occurred we stopped the concrete, if we hadn't we would never have been ready for it for, unbeknown to us, when digging recommenced on the last bit of the last trench we encountered a huge boulder of old concrete that stubbornly refused to move.  How the boulder came to be there we don't know.  It certainly wasn't visible on the surface, but what we couldn't see God already knew about.
 
God answers prayers, but not necessarily as we expect or in the time scale we demand.  It is a little bit like us as adults watching a toddler explore her new surroundings.  To the little girl the world revolves around her, whereas we as adults know that there is more to life than her immediate environment.   Similarly God calls us his children and in that description is a reminder that as our heavenly Father he is constantly watching over us with a vision that is far greater than ours.

Phillip Staves
 

Message from the Girton Glebe School

Mr Philip Atkin will be joining us after Easter as Key Stage 2 Coordinator. His strengths are Maths ,ICT and Music and we are looking forward to his joining our team.

The children have been very concerned about the flood victims in Mozambique and they have organised two fund-raising events this half term. A non-uniform event raised £160 and a Pokemon design competition was run by four of our year 6 girls,raising £4.48.Well done Girton Glebe and Maddie, Nicola ,Charlotte and Elesha who even bought the prizes with their own money.

Wishing you all a very happy Easter

Susan Baker - Headteacher