The Valley walk / Pilgrimage 2015 - The Emmaus Road

What a joyful weekend this has been - as Alan, our Rector, said: - you would be a very rich person if you could bottle and sell the spirit that was in the valley as we walked from church to church and then met again for 'a pilgrims' mass' (or morning service) on Sunday.

We walked with 36 people from the church of St Mary with St Alban which is in Teddington. The youngest was 5 and the oldest was 85 years and they completed the 11 mile walk between our valley churches.



Our two vicars getting to know each other.

We walked and chatted, exchanging stories with each other and our visitors, and got to know each other. We stopped at each church and listened to bible readings (Luke 24:13-34) that told of the events on the road to Emmaus. There was a coffee stop at Winterborne Stickland, a lunch stop at Winterborne Whitechurch, where sandwiches had been prepared for our visitors and a wonderful tea waiting for us at Milton Abbas. A huge thank you to all of you who helped to prepare these - we couldn't have done it without you.

The bells rang out for VE day as we arrived at Winterborne Stickland and again at Whitechurch - adding to the atmosphere of the day.
  Walking this walk with visitors, certainly helped us to see the beautiful valleys with fresh  eyes and  to appreciate what a very special place we live in.



Emily D'Silva planted the idea many months ago. Teddington usually had an annual pilgrimage - and there has been a valley walk for twelve years. For the thirteenth year, it was a great idea to bring a spiritual dimension to our walk by joining with Teddington on their Pilgrimage and also raise money for two charities that are supported by people in our benefice - Trust and Doublejoy.


Some of our visitors stayed with members of our churches and new friends were made.
We joined together on Sunday morning for morning worship and the singing was tremendous!
Already talk of a return visit was being heard in the aisles!

It was a great weekend, sharing fellowship, food and worship together whilst exploring our beautiful countryside and churches.

Many thanks to the D'Silva family, Father Joe and Alan for all their organising and making this weekend happen!

“And as ridiculous as it may sound, sometimes all any of us needs in life is for someone to hold our hand and walk next to us.”
― James Frey, The Final Testament of the Holy Bible