Reverend GOF's Christmas Newsletter

Dear Friends,

Hello again to you all at this special time of the year.
Golly gosh doesn’t time fly.

It has been a difficult year for Our Lady of the Divine Eructation Church.  In February one of our parishioners broke into the vestry and stole a silver chalice and two collection plates which contained three hundred and seven dollars, four plastic buttons, one cigarette butt and a nut and washer from the transverse shaft of a 1966 Volkswagon gearbox.

I should not have been surprised when the offender, Walter Sphincter, was arrested shortly afterwards while he was trying to hammer the washer into a parking meter using the metal leg which he had just broken off a nearby restaurant’s alfresco dining table.
When I baptised Walter 24 years ago I said to the Verger  “Verger, mark my words, with parents like those, that little bastard is never going to amount to much.”

Last Christmas the church conducted a special fundraising campaign to help save the starving children in Ethiopia following an address to the congregation by Pastor Sikam Bastar who said that he worked with the children.  Unfortunately it transpired that he was not a religious man at all, but a warlord whose only contact with the children was to supervise them smashing up rocks with their bare hands in his quarry.

We did feel much better though when he assured us by telephone that he had spent our entire donation of $7620.15c  (plus one New Zealand twenty cent coin) on improving the lives of prostitutes in Addis Ababa.

Gospel according to Mark; Chapter 9 Verse 43;
If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off .

Thank you all for your best wishes and get well cards since this event. The wound has healed nicely after several months of intravenous antibiotics.  Perhaps I should have been a little more gentle on myself and at the very least used a sharp hacksaw blade.  After all it wasn’t entirely my fault.  The Matron of Honour seated next to me at the wedding reception did, after a few drinks, grab my hand and direct it to where she wanted it.

I have resolved that in future I will be less selfish, perform fewer limb amputations on myself, and continue to enthusiastically give my one remaining helping hand to those in desperate need.

Sunday School classes have been temporarily suspended since that unfortunate day when the Italian exchange teacher Miss Profligatus showed the senior youth group part of a DVD titled  “Virgin Mary Does Jerusalem”, believing it to be a religious education film.

Our eldest daughter Philistinia gave birth to twins on the 29th of January and the 1st of February. One black and one white.  Praise be to God for this miracle.  We also ask you to pray for the paediatric nurse down at the clinic who has been passing around some very hurtful and defamatory stories about our daughter.

Prayers are also requested for Philistinia’s husband Festus.
Soon after the birth of the twins he received a spiritual enlightenment from the Lord and immediately went off to work in the fleshpots of Asia saving souls and preaching His word.

We are so proud of the work Festus is doing, but Thailand must have very primitive communication facilities.  We haven’t heard from him for almost 10 months now.

We wish you a not too merry Christmas after all the trouble you got into last year, and hope to see you regularly in our church during 2013.

In contrast to your record of attandance this year.

Love and blessings,

Reverend GOF and family.

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