We were very fortunate to have Itchen Abbas Primary School as our guests at St John’s Itchen Abbas for their Harvest Festival Service on Monday 15th October 2018.  About 90 children took part and about 50 of their parents were present.

The children sang some great songs: Turn, turn, turn; Getting Busy and Shotgun (with some special words related to harvest) and brought up produce which will be shared between the Winchester Basics Bank and the Winchester Churches Night Shelter.

Two of the year six girls read the lesson beautifully which was from Genesis Chapter 1

Revd Alex Pease gave a talk which involved six of Year Six acting out the lifecycle of that piece of toast which you had for breakfast this morning called ‘The Story of the Slice’.

The story travels from God (played by a girl in a wig and a beard) creating the universe in a big bang (this time done by a party popper cannon), to creating seeds for the grasses, to a farmer sowing the seeds and harvesting the grown corn with God sustaining creation by providing the sun and rain for the wheat to grow, throw the wheat being milled (lots of flour got thrown about at that stage),

to the dough being made by the baker (very sticky) (and more flour thrown about) to the shopkeeper who slices and puts the loaf in a plastic bag and on to the shelf to mother/father putting the slice in the toaster.

At each stage we were reminded that ‘if it hadn’t been for God there would have been no…wheat, grain, flour, dough, bread, sliced loaf in a plastic bag or toast for breakfast and we all thanked God for it!

Well we enjoyed it and we hope that the children did as well……

Alex Pease