Meaningful Connection on International Women's Day

One of our chaplaincy team, Claire, writes...

Our recent Storytelling and Leadership Workshops culminated last month with the participants contributing to the planning and facilitation of a large event to celebrate International Women’s Day. From sharing food from their home countries, to painting their reflections on the theme of transformation, to ending the day in an act of prayer - the day was filled with meaningful connection.

One woman shared:

“I didn’t even need to look at the words of that hymn. I knew it by heart. We sang it back home.”

Another showed off her artwork:

'This is my land back home. These trees flower around this time of year.”

We are excited to see what God is doing in the lives of these women and all those in our

growing life here. Their art remains on display in the Church Hall. We pray that God continues to use St. Katharine Cree as a spiritual home and safe space to grow in leadership, faith, and community for this group of people.

We are grateful for a grant from the Church Urban Fund as part of the Near Neighbour's programme for supporting this project.

Father Marco G Lopes

Fr Josh Harris writes...

All of us here at St Katharine Cree are devastated to hear of the sudden and unexpected death of Fr Marco G Lopes, Vicar of St Martin's Plaistow and leader of the Luso-Hispanic Mission in Newham, on Monday morning.

Fr Marco has been a great friend to St Katharine's in the recent renewal of our ministry among City workers. He has prayed with us and for us often; he has led us in worship in Spanish and English; and he has given us constant encouragement and support in all kinds of ways. He and St Martin's were crucial to shaping our Living Wage Week service and the trilingual London Cleaners Carol Service in December. Among his many strengths and gifts, we will miss his good humour, prayerfulness, laughter, and gentle kindness.

Today at the Eucharist we prayed for him, for his wife Mary Ann, for his children Eunice and Rafi, and for the community of St Martin's. We will continue to pray for them, and all those who grieve this loss, here at St Katharine Cree.

The Diocese of Chelmsford has published a tribute to him which you may read here.

Storytelling & Leadership

We are so excited to be running a new Storytelling and Leadership training course for women here at the St Katharine Cree starting in just a few weeks. You can find out more details and register here.

This four part course - across four Saturday mornings in February and March - is for all women who want to raise their confidence, strengthen their leadership skills, to build community, and to learn how sharing stories can help us work for positive change.

Highly interactive and a lot of fun - but keeping a safe, confidential, and supportive space - the course will be led by Ivonne Loján and Dr Claire Moll-Namas (pictured below) from the St Katharine Cree team. Both women are experienced community organisers and leaders and this course builds on our very successful Spanish-language training in 2022.

This course is free of charge (including lunch) but spaces are limited so please register yourself or send the information to someone you know who might want to come! You can register at www.stkatharinecree.org/leadership

We are grateful to the Near Neighbours Programme for funding this work. If you'd like to discuss partnering with us to support future training events and our work to identify and raise up new leaders in London, please contact the Priest-in-Charge Josh Harris.