{"id":3555,"date":"2020-09-28T11:09:31","date_gmt":"2020-09-28T01:09:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/?p=3555"},"modified":"2020-09-28T11:09:49","modified_gmt":"2020-09-28T01:09:49","slug":"barbaras-monday-email-28-09-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/?p=3555","title":{"rendered":"Barbara’s Monday Email 28-09-2020"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hello Faith Pals,<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Hope you are looking forward to a warmer week!\u00a0 <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Firstly, I was going to fill you in on Henry Morton Stanley, the person who is responsible for uttering: “Dr Livingstone, I presume.”\u00a0 Well, he had\u00a0 a role in bringing a strange creature to the attention of zoologists.\u00a0\u00a0 The creature was the okapi. <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The okapi, a shy, solitary, elusive animal that lives among dense cover, is one of the oldest and most distinctive mammals in the world.\u00a0 The okapi is also known as the African Unicorn.\u00a0 It has earned this name due to its scarcity (it came to be understood as being as rare or as scarce as a unicorn) and because the female has a knobbly bump in the corner of its head, and the male has horn-like protuberances, known as ossicones.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

This creature, which resembles a zebra, a donkey, and a giraffe, had been spoken about by central African tribes.\u00a0 It had been brought to Europeans\u2019 attention back in 1887, due to Henry Morton Stanley\u2019s book about his travels.\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

When Stanley had been exploring the Congo, he had heard tribes tell of this creature, which Stanley transcribed as \u2018atti\u2019(but\u00a0 the word the tribes used was \u2018o\u2019kapi\u2019). Even when several skins were produced as evidence of the existence of this creature, Westerners viewed than as fakes.\u00a0 Referring to it as an \u2018African Unicorn\u2019 tended to reinforce its mythical status.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Its status from unknown changed in 1901 when Sir Harry Johnston, the British governor of Uganda, became fascinated by Stanley\u2019s accounts of this animal. He had freed several Mbuti Pygmies of the Congo, caught by a showman, and they informed him of their knowledge of this creature. He also investigated other stories about the animal. Johnston received some skins, and two skulls of this supposed mythical creature, from grateful pygmies. Johnston sent parts of its hide to the British Museum. Then, after a live okapi was captured the creature was recognized as \u2018real\u2019 by scientists, and the mammal became known as the okapi (okapi johnstoni<\/em>).\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

It is a remarkable creature, the only living relative of the giraffe, (in the family Giraffidae<\/em>) is classified as a short-necked giraffe.\u00a0 It is also known as the \u2018forest giraffe.\u2019 It shares the giraffe\u2019s characteristic of having a long blue tongue, and its hind legs and rump are striped black and white, a little like a zebra\u2019s marking. It also walks like a giraffe, stepping out with the same front and hind leg on each side, rather than moving alternate legs.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

It is endemic to the dense, lowland rainforests of the central and north eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.\u00a0 Sadly, deforestation, poaching, and mining have all led to a decline in numbers.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The okapi has its own World Day, observed on 18th<\/sup> of October.\u00a0 I thought it was worth writing about, as we near the Feast of St Francis-World Animal Day next Sunday.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0” alt=”” class=”Apple-web-attachment” src=”blob:https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/d8319437-726c-40b6-a002-4d5fb0dce804″ subtitle=”Downloading\u2026” progress=”0.01″><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Now, here is a story passed on from a member of Heatherton-Dingley Uniting Church.\u00a0 I read this story in a book several months ago, so it was quite uncanny to read it again. <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

You many know it:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Beautiful story…. makes you understand that things happen for a reason<\/u>
\nThe brand new pastor and his wife, newly assigned
\nto their first ministry, to reopen a church
\nin suburban Brooklyn , arrived in early October
\nexcited about their opportunities. When they saw
\ntheir church, it was very run down and needed
\nmuch work. They set a goal to have everything
\ndone in time to have their first service
\non Christmas Eve.
\nThey worked hard, repairing pews, plastering walls,
\npainting, etc, and on December 18
\nwere ahead of schedule and just about finished.
\nOn December 19 a terrible tempest – a driving
\nrainstorm – hit the area and lasted for two days.
\nOn the 21st, the pastor went over to the church.
\nHis heart sank when he saw that the roof had
\nleaked, causing a large area of plaster about
\n20 feet by 8 feet to fall off the front wall
\nof the sanctuary just behind the pulpit, beginning about head high.
\nThe pastor cleaned up the mess on the floor,
\nand not knowing what else to do but postpone
\nthe Christmas Eve service, headed home.
\nOn the way he noticed that a local business was
\nhaving a flea market type sale for charity, so he
\nstopped in. One of the items was a beautiful,
\nhandmade, ivory colored, crocheted tablecloth
\nwith exquisite work, fine colors and a Cross
\nembroidered right in the center. It was just
\nthe right size to cover the hole in the front
\nwall. He bought it and headed back to the church.
\nBy this time it had started to snow. An older
\nwoman running from the opposite direction was
\ntrying to catch the bus. She missed it. The pastor
\ninvited her to wait in the warm church for
\nthe next bus 45 minutes later.
\nShe sat in a pew and paid no attention to the pastor
\nwhile he got a ladder, hangers, etc., to put
\nup the tablecloth as a wall tapestry. The pastor
\ncould hardly believe how beautiful it looked and
\nit covered up the entire problem area.
\nThen he noticed the woman walking down the center
\naisle. Her face was like a sheet. “Pastor,”
\nshe asked, “where did you get that tablecloth?”
\nThe pastor explained. The woman asked him to check
\nthe lower right corner to see if the initials ‘EBG’ were crocheted into
\nit there. They were. These were the initials of the woman, and she had
\nmade this tablecloth 35 years before, in Austria .
\nThe woman could hardly believe it as the pastor
\ntold how he had just gotten “The Tablecloth”. The
\nwoman explained that before the war she and
\nher husband were well-to-do people in Austria <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

When the Nazis came, she was forced to leave.
\nHer husband was going to follow her the next week.
\nHe was captured, sent to prison and she never saw her
\nhusband or her home again.
\nThe pastor wanted to give her the tablecloth;
\nbut she made the pastor keep it for the church.
\nThe pastor insisted on driving her home. That
\nwas the least he could do. She lived on the other
\nside of Staten Island and was only in Brooklyn
\nfor the day for a housecleaning job.
\nWhat a wonderful service they had on Christmas
\nEve. The church was almost full. The music and the
\nspirit were great. At the end of the service, the
\npastor and his wife greeted everyone at the door
\nand many said that they would return. <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 One older man, whom the pastor recognized
\nfrom the neighborhood, continued to sit in one of the
\npews and stare, and the pastor wondered why he wasn’t leaving.
\nThe man asked him where he got the tablecloth on
\nthe front wall because it was identical to one
\nthat his wife had made years ago when
\nthey lived in Austria before the war and how
\ncould there be two tablecloths so much alike?
\nHe told the pastor how the Nazis came, how he
\nforced his wife to flee for her safety and he was
\nsupposed to follow her, but he was arrested and
\nput in a prison. He never saw his wife or his home
\nagain in all the 35 years between.
\nThe pastor asked him if he would allow him to
\ntake him for a little ride. They drove to Staten
\nIsland and to the same house where the pastor
\nhad taken the woman three days earlier.
\nHe helped the man climb the three flights of
\nstairs to the woman’s apartment, knocked on
\nthe door and he saw the greatest Christmas
\nreunion he could ever imagine.
\nT rue story – submitted by Pastor Rob Reid
\n<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

News: I spoke to Joan and Russell Farr-they are doing quite well.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

-Let’s keep Alan and Fredrica in our prayers as this is another big week for them, with chemotherapy and blood results.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

-John Wallace is at home and wants you to know that his video will be on Facebook this Wednesday.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

On yesterday’s Songs of Praise<\/em> , Nigel Havers read out this portion of Isaiah:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

‘but those who wait for the Lord<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

shall renew their strength,<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

they shall mount up with wings like eagles,<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

they shall run and not be weary,<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

they shall walk and not faint.'(Isaiah 40: 31)<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

To close with St Columba’s prayer, to bring you comfort and strength during the coming week:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

‘Be a bright flame before me, O God<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

a guiding star above me.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Be a smooth path below me,<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

a kindly shepherd behind me<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

today, tonight, and for ever.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Alone with none but you, my God<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

I journey on my way;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

what need I fear when you are near,<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

O Lord of night and day?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

More secure am I within your hand<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

than if a multitude did round me stand.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Amen.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Oh, then I remembered the connection that St Columba had with a beautiful white horse, so HAVE to include that too!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Legend<\/strong><\/span><\/h1>\n

One of the most beautiful legends of St. Columba involves his white horse. When he was very old and tired<\/strong><\/span>
\nhe made his way to visit his brother monks who were working in a field.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

He was so weak that he could not walk but had to be carried in a cart. When he saw his brother monks he explained<\/strong><\/span>
\nthat during the recent Easter celebrationhe had felt a great longing in his soul to go and be with Jesus. He understood<\/strong><\/span>
\nthat he could go and be with his Lord if he wished but he decided to linger a little longer on this earth as he did not want<\/strong><\/span>
\nto grieve his brother monks during the Easter season.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

At these words the monks were deeply grieved because they knew that Columba did not have much more time on<\/strong><\/span>
\nearth. He turned to the east and blessed the island and islanders who dwelt there as well as the monastery that he<\/strong><\/span>
\nhad founded and nurtured.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

As his death drew near St. Columba shared this secret with his companion Diarmid \u2014 it was soon to be his day of rest<\/strong><\/span>
\nthis own Sabbath. He was tired from the toil of this life and his Lord had invited him to be with him. Columba understood that he would die around midnight following the footsteps of his fathers in the faith. At this Diarmid wept. Columba<\/strong><\/span>
\ntried to comfort him as well as he could.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Columba then headed back to his monastery one last time but he was so weary that he stopped to take a rest by<\/strong><\/span>
\nthe side of the road. As he was sitting beside the road his white horse ran up to him and leaned his head against the<\/strong><\/span>
\nholy man’s chest drenching his shirt with his tears which poured into his lap.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Diarmid rose to push the horse away from his beloved friend but Columba stopped him saying \u201cAllow this lover of mine<\/strong><\/span>
\nto shed his tears on my chest. For this horse being an animal understood instinctively that I was going to be with my<\/strong><\/span>
\nLord yet you as a man could not foretell this.\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

At this St. Columba blessed the white horse that had faithfully served him for so many years and the grieving horse continued on his way. St. Columba then returned to the monastery for his final Vespers (or evening prayer) service.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Later that night when the bell tolled for the midnight service Columba returned to the monastery church but collapsed before the altar surrendering his soul to God. St. Columba died in 597 when he was seventy-seven years old. He is commemorated on June 9.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

(from\u00a0 https:\/\/www.stcolumba-oak.com\/who-was-st-columba<\/a>)<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Blessings and love,<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Barbara<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hello Faith Pals, Hope you are looking forward to a warmer week!\u00a0 Firstly, I was going to fill you in on Henry Morton Stanley, the person who is responsible for uttering: “Dr Livingstone, I presume.”\u00a0 Well, he had\u00a0 a role in bringing a strange creature to the attention of zoologists.\u00a0\u00a0 The creature was the okapi. The okapi, a shy, solitary, elusive animal that lives among dense cover, is one of the oldest and most distinctive mammals in the world.\u00a0 The okapi is also known as the African Unicorn.\u00a0 It has earned this name due to its scarcity (it came to be understood as being as rare or as scarce as a unicorn) and because the female has a knobbly bump in the corner of its head, and the male has horn-like protuberances, known as ossicones. This creature, which resembles a zebra, a donkey, and a giraffe, had been spoken about by central African tribes.\u00a0 It had been brought to Europeans\u2019 attention back in 1887, due to Henry Morton Stanley\u2019s book about his travels.\u00a0 When Stanley had been exploring the Congo, he had heard tribes tell of this creature, which Stanley transcribed as \u2018atti\u2019(but\u00a0 the word the tribes used was \u2018o\u2019kapi\u2019). Even when several skins were produced as evidence of the existence of this creature, Westerners viewed than as fakes.\u00a0 Referring to it as an \u2018African Unicorn\u2019 tended to reinforce its mythical status. Its status from unknown changed in 1901 when Sir Harry Johnston, the British governor of Uganda, became fascinated by Stanley\u2019s accounts of this animal. He had freed several Mbuti Pygmies of the Congo, caught by a showman, and they informed him of their knowledge of this creature. He also investigated other stories about the animal. Johnston received some skins, and two skulls of this supposed mythical creature, from grateful pygmies. Johnston sent parts of its hide to the British Museum. Then, after a live okapi was captured the creature was recognized as \u2018real\u2019 by scientists, and the mammal became known as the okapi (okapi johnstoni).\u00a0 It is a remarkable creature, the only living relative of the giraffe, (in the family Giraffidae) is classified as a short-necked giraffe.\u00a0 It is also known as the \u2018forest giraffe.\u2019 It shares the giraffe\u2019s characteristic of having a long blue tongue, and its hind legs and rump are striped black and white, a little like a zebra\u2019s marking. It also walks like a giraffe, stepping out with the same front and hind leg on each side, rather than moving alternate legs. It is endemic to the dense, lowland rainforests of the central and north eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.\u00a0 Sadly, deforestation, poaching, and mining have all led to a decline in numbers. The okapi has its own World Day, observed on 18th of October.\u00a0 I thought it was worth writing about, as we near the Feast of St Francis-World Animal Day next Sunday. \u00a0” alt=”” class=”Apple-web-attachment” src=”blob:https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/d8319437-726c-40b6-a002-4d5fb0dce804″ subtitle=”Downloading\u2026” progress=”0.01″>   Now, here is a story passed on from a member of Heatherton-Dingley Uniting Church.\u00a0 I read this story in a book several months ago, so it was quite uncanny to read it again. You many know it: Beautiful story…. makes you understand that things happen for a reason The brand new pastor and his wife, newly assigned to their first ministry, to reopen a church in suburban Brooklyn , arrived in early October excited about their opportunities. When they saw their church, it was very run down and needed much work. They set a goal to have everything done in time to have their first service on Christmas Eve. They worked hard, repairing pews, plastering walls, painting, etc, and on December 18 were ahead of schedule and just about finished. On December 19 a terrible tempest – a driving rainstorm – hit the area and lasted for two days. On the 21st, the pastor went over to the church. His heart sank when he saw that the roof had leaked, causing a large area of plaster about 20 feet by 8 feet to fall off the front wall of the sanctuary just behind the pulpit, beginning about head high. The pastor cleaned up the mess on the floor, and not knowing what else to do but postpone the Christmas Eve service, headed home. On the way he noticed that a local business was having a flea market type sale for charity, so he stopped in. One of the items was a beautiful, handmade, ivory colored, crocheted tablecloth with exquisite work, fine colors and a Cross embroidered right in the center. It was just the right size to cover the hole in the front wall. He bought it and headed back to the church. By this time it had started to snow. An older woman running from the opposite direction was trying to catch the bus. She missed it. The pastor invited her to wait in the warm church for the next bus 45 minutes later. She sat in a pew and paid no attention to the pastor while he got a ladder, hangers, etc., to put up the tablecloth as a wall tapestry. The pastor could hardly believe how beautiful it looked and it covered up the entire problem area. Then he noticed the woman walking down the center aisle. Her face was like a sheet. “Pastor,” she asked, “where did you get that tablecloth?” The pastor explained. The woman asked him to check the lower right corner to see if the initials ‘EBG’ were crocheted into it there. They were. These were the initials of the woman, and she had made this tablecloth 35 years before, in Austria . The woman could hardly believe it as the pastor told how he had just gotten “The Tablecloth”. The woman explained that before the war she and her husband were well-to-do people in Austria When the Nazis came, she was forced to leave. Her husband was going to follow her the next week. He was captured, sent to prison and she never saw<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center 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okapi.…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3555"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3555\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3557,"href":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3555\/revisions\/3557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}