After hearing the Gospel reading in which Jesus heals the daughter of a foreign woman, and opens the ears of a deaf man, and also the letter of St James in which he reminds us that “faith without works is dead“, we thought about our response, as a church.

We decided to pray, and although we can do this individually, there will be an opportunity to pray together on Thursday 10th September at 9.30 am in church. Holy communion will follow as usual at 10.30 am.

We decided that we would donate clothes. We have a local group “Salisbury solidarity for Calais Refuges” so if you drop your donations at church by 12 noon on Saturday 12th September, we will transport them to the central collection point. You can see what kind of things are needed from this photo.

We decided that we would also send a donation of money to the Red Cross, so that it can be used wherever it is most needed. The collection we take in church on Sunday 13th September will be used for this donation.

We also thought it would be a good idea to tell our local MP Claire Perry, and our local County Councillor Chris Williams, that we feel very strongly about helping refugees, wherever they come from, and so we decided to lobby our local and national politicians.

We are well aware that there are all kinds of need, all over the world, some from natural disaster, some from wars. We know that there are local people who are hungry and homeless, and we will continue work locally as well as nationally and internationally.