Dear Friends,
I shall be signing off as Rector of Trelawny at the Trelawny Plate Service in Pelynt on 14th July after 5 and a half years.
Its good to be able to reflect. This has certainly been the most challenging and difficult 5 years of my life. At times I have felt overwhelmed by the workload of a rural parish priest with regular 80 hour weeks. I take up to a 100 life events of weddings, baptisms, funerals and internments a year as well as the regular round of 3 or 4 services on a Sunday. Would I have come had I known what I was letting myself in for. The answer would certainly be NO! I didn’t need to after a long and successful teaching and chaplaincy career. As a teacher pensioner I thought I’d like to put something back.
I feel as though I have walked in Jeus steps as that`s what he wanted me to do. We have made lots of lovely friends working amongst kind and caring people. I have thoroughly enjoyed the schools ministry in Pelynt, Polperro and Polruan. We have made lots of community links through the outdoor ministry on village greens, farm yards and the quay in Polruan. An off shoot of this our the regular National On Line Services Sunday Services of The Church of England that I take which are watched by up to 150,000 people. As my son commented you have the biggest church in The Church of England as you speak to more people than probably anyone else in The Church of England every year!!!!!!!!!
There are new faces in many of our churches. A number of people have found faith or can testify to a rejuvenated faith. ITS ALL BEEN WORTHWHILE!
What`s next? We have certainly believing that God is doing a new thing in our lives and will do the same in the benefice. I’m going to have a good rest! We will be off to Switzerland for the rest of July and August and a bit of September to look after the English speaking churches in Interlaken and Grindelwald. We will be staying in our Swiss Hutte! I’m hoping to continue especially with envisioning others in out door ministry and taking the church into the community for a few days a week when the time is right. We will be living in our own house in St Newlyn East for the first time out of tithed accommodation since 1993. We’ve lived in all sorts of places…. Hopefully we will be spending a lot more time too in Switzerland amongst supporting our family and the ever growing number of grandchildren. I’ll be watching lots of county cricket and some test matches. I have 5 boys whom I coached and mentored for a while whilst at Millfield whom are playing professionally including Ben Duckett the England opener. I want to see them play before they retire! I’ll be spending time on my bicycle riding the cycling paths of the south west and am hopefully getting an electric bike too for the more challenging Swiss mountain trails.
After 42 years of continuous employment, 38 of those in full time Christian work I just want to tip my cap, raise my bat and walk off into the pavilion at the end of my innings here. Thank you for being such a great crowd who have support every shot I have played. Not all of them good ones but hopefully some good improvised ones too. I hope you have enjoyed my innings as I have certainly enjoyed batting on the Trelawny wicket despite the many googlies I have had to defend!!!!!
Your friend and pastor,
Richard of Trelawny