Holy Trinity Algiers

It has been a busy few weeks here in Algiers. We have had our Harvest Festival where we focussed on the Old Testament principle of giving a free will offering to the Lord in response to the Harvest. This we applied to HTA today and people brought their free will offerings that were over and above their tithes. As a result, we received ten times more than a regular Friday offering which was a great blessing to all! The harvest produce was shared after the service with people who we know are in need.

Harvest was quickly followed by our Acts of Remembrance which is an interesting thing to do in an international congregation as it is not something that happens in all countries. There were many at HTA who knew about Remembrance but a significant minority for whom it was a new concept. We did it as an ‘All Age’ service and involved people in constructing a large ‘Poppy’ flower, the symbol of Remembrance across many Commonwealth countries. We used the poppy, cornflower and marigold, flowers used for Remembrance in lots of Commonwealth nations, in France and in India, to write prayers of Remembrance and Peace, and these were then placed around the large poppy. The red cards were prayers written on the poppy; the blue, the cornflower; and the yellow on the marigold.

This was followed by the Remembrance Sunday service in the Deli Ibrahim cemetery where there are war graves of Serbian, German and Commonwealth victims of war. In the Commonwealth cemetery there were also some Dutch seafarers who had lost their lives in World War 2 bringing supplies to Algiers in the early 1940s. Ambassadors and Military Attaches, along with many others in the international community, came to the cemetery to remember. One unexpected group turned up, a family from the UK who wanted to visit the grave of a fallen serviceman. An elderly lady, the senior member of the family, led them to lay a wreath on the grave of her father, a man she never met who died in WW2 before she was born. A moving event, bringing home the pain of loss that war brings and how that loss can extend through many generations. Wreaths were laid and prayers were said, pipers played laments and a bugler played the Last Post, all to honour those who fell. ‘When you go home, tell them of us, and say, for your tomorrows we gave our todays’.

At the start of Advent, we will welcome two new Lay Ministers: James and Tyler who have been granted the Bishop’s Permission to Operate temporarily as Lay Ministers until he is able to come to Algiers and license them to HTA as permanent appointments. James is from Sierra Leone and Tyler from the USA. James is a student here in Algiers and Tyler works in a Language School.

We now turn our attention to Christmas. As many in the international community leave to go to their home country for Christmas, our events happen at the start of Advent. We will have a Carols by Candlelight on 12 December, and we have been invited to lead Carol singing at the British Embassy in the week before, on 9 or 10, date tbc.

Craig and Elaine Watson, Holy Trinity Algiers