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A special farewell service for Judith, followed by refreshments, is on Sunday 5th September at 3.00pm, to which everyone is welcome. The Reverend Judith Sweetman writes:
Moving on…but not quite yet!
Dear friends and colleagues at St Peter’s !
It has been a great honour and privilege to serve
and minister among you as your curate for the past three years, and it
will be very hard indeed to say goodbye to you all, when I leave to take
up my new post near Sudbury as Priest in Charge of the Box River
Benefice and its five parishes, this autumn.
You have become,
indeed, my church family, especially over the past year, when your love
and kindness has supported both me and Rufus through the sadness of both
my parents’ deaths.
However, as you know, it is the nature of a curacy,
being a training post, that
“all
good things must come to an end”. And so it is, that, whilst inevitably
tinged with sadness, this impending parting must also be an occasion for
joy and celebration. Firstly for me, as - with Rufus - I try to follow
God’s leading, into this next stage of my ministry. Secondly, I hope and
pray, for the parishes I will be serving, who have been without a priest
to guide and support them for some time.
So may I please ask for your prayers, over the
coming months, as Rufus and I prepare for what will inevitably be, for
both of us, a period of great emotional and spiritual, as well as
physical, upheaval.
Please
also pray for the people of
the Box River Benefice as they wait for
their new priest. Meanwhile, please be
assured that I remain fully committed to serving you, and the community
of Coggeshall, to the very best of my ability, over the remaining months
of my curacy. It is my hope and prayer that, even after I have moved on
to take up my new post, we will be able to maintain the bonds of
Christian fellowship and affection that we have shared in our time
together. With my grateful
thanks to you all, and my love to you, in Christ. Judith
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Judith pictured with the Bishop, archdeacon and Father Philip, on her ordination to the diaconate, Chelmsford Cathedral, in June 2007.
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