Each week we receive gifts for St John’s Care as part of our offerings during worship.
Why? Because Sue Jordan who worships at Holy Cross and, more recently, became the
chair of the Ross Walker Lodge Management Committee, has run St John’s Care for a
long time. The following is one of the weekly letters we receive about St John’s Care:
“Late Thursday afternoon I received a call from a young woman asking if we were still
open. We had been closed for a couple of hours, but it was important to make sure that
she had food for the family overnight. There was a lot of noise in the background, so I
assumed that there were a few kids involved.
She assured me that she was right for the night but could not last the weekend. Come
tomorrow, bring the little ones who aren't in School and enjoy our free Community lunch.
Our young Mum arrived with two little boys under the age of four. One of the little boys
obviously has a few problems. He was noisy and all over the place.
At the moment we have our Mother's Day table. There is a lovely selection of gifts and
we invite our Mums to choose something from the table that they would like to receive.
We particularly target our single Mums as they are unlikely to receive any recognition for
the great job they are doing. We have some lovely gifts, things that you have given us
over the year that we have put aside for the weeks before Mother's Day.
Joyce is our gift wrapper 'Extraordinaire' and makes all the gifts look wonderful but you
know what is in the gift pack. When our young Mum went to choose her gift, Joyce
actually took the time to ask what our young Mum would like: Body Creams, jewellery,
photo frames or something totally different. Our young Mum was gobsmacked. No one
had ever asked her what she would like!
Then our young Mum went into the hall to enjoy a beautifully cooked three course meal.
The youngest fellow decided that he was not interested in a meal, all he wanted to do
was to create mayhem. Thankfully, we had a number of students from Campbell High
School helping us with the serving of the meal.
Two of them looked after our very active young man. This was a win-win situation - the
Mum just enjoyed having a little peace, having a wonderful three course meal, and
spending some time with her slightly older child, and the very robust two year old had
these two wonderful young women looking after him.
The young Mum located me before the family left to thank me for a wonderful Mother's
Day. It was a little early but it is the only recognition she will receive. She went home
feeling a little more relaxed, respected, and of course with plenty of food to feed all
four children.
Isn't it nice that at