Rev Rowena Frances – Wells United Church

 

Reverend Rowena Frances  – Minister Wells United Church

Biography.

Rowena was raised in Leicestershire, UK.  During her 20’s she trained as a State Registered Nurse and Registered Midwife, welcoming the opportunity to share with folk as new life arrived and as life was transformed through death. She then  graduated in Behavioural Sciences, a fascinating course, before training as a United Reformed Church Minister. She has been ordained for 31 years serving in the UK places of Kettering, Stroud, Coventry, Newcastle-upon-Tyne before moving to Wells, Somerset in 2014.  She was widowed  in 2013. She loves dogs but only borrows other people’s dogs these days.

 

Rowena feels strongly that churches and communities need to support

and empower one another that life can be the best it can be for all;

because our loving God desires a good abundant life for all creation.

Rev Rowena  was first on The Sunday Hour in October 2021, and more recently in February and March 2022

 

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Easter – The Ressurection

(The Sunday Hour 09/04/2023) 

 

Psalm 116 Lifejacket

(The Sunday Hour 02/04/2023)

 

Full Stop

(The Sunday Hour 12/03/2023)

 

Blessing 

(The Sunday Hour 26/02/2023)

 

Anxiety

(The Sunday Hour 12/02/2023)

 

Justice in The Cost of Living 

 

Week of Prayer

(The Sunday Hour 22/01/2023)

 

Covenant of Hope

(The Sunday Hour 01/01/2023)

 

Christmas 

(The Sunday Hour 25/12/2022)

 

The Present of Christmas

(The Sunday Hour 18/12/2022)

 

Love of Power or Power of Love 

(The Sunday Hour 20/11/2022 – Below) 

 

Sacred Dancing under the Gaia in Wells Cathedral

(The Sunday Hour 30/10/2022 – Below) 

 

 

Ash Wednesday 02/03/2022 (Below)

Well being Mondays 27/02/2022 (Below)

Bishop’s Palace Wells 03/10/2021 (Below)

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In June 2022 Rev Rowena joined a Mission team from the World Council of Churches in Palestine and Israel, as part of their international human rights programme, EAPPI. Below she gives us her interview and updates on that very important trip. If you would like to read more eyewitness stories from Palestine and Israel and learn about how you can getting involved with EAPPI’s work, visit: www.eyewitnessblogs.com.

I have been sent by Quaker Pease and Social Witness (QPSW) as an ecumenical accompanier serving on the World Council of Churches’ Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI) 

 

1- Mission Trip to Israel & Palestine Audio June 2022

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2 – Mission Trip to Israel & Palestine Audio update 1 – June 2022

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3 – Mission Trip to Israel & Palestine Audio update 2 – June 2022

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4 – Mission Trip to Israel & Palestine Audio update 3 – July 2022

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5 – Mission Trip to Israel & Palestine Audio Update 4 – July 2022

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6 – Mission Trip to Israel & Palestine Audio Update 5 – August 2022

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7 – Mission Trip to Israel & Palestine Audio Update 6 – August 2022

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The roofs of the refugee camp homes are covered in water tanks. These are only filled every so often from the mains. When Israeli military enter the camps to make arrests or for other reasons they often shot holes in these tanks so they have to be replaced and that month’s water is lost.

 

 

 

 

A Bedouin camp cistern not a well,  that is not connected to a main, with me beside it.

 

 

 

 

The third picture is of the village of Tuqa, where the people are standing on the ground where a water cistern was the previous day. It was filled in and demolished by Israeli military with a bulldozer as the Palestinian family had no permit to build but could not get one from Israel. The extended family lands including its olive trees nearby now have no access to water.

 

8 – Mission Trip to Israel & Palestine Audio Update 7 – August 2022

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Welcome to Aida Camp 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(12) Mission Trip to Israel & Palestine Audio 9 – August 2022

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Rev Rowena returned from her Mission trip to Israel & Palestine last month (September) and gives us a final Audio File (to be broadcast on The Sunday Hour 23rd October)

It has been a pleasure and honour for us to be able to share this trip and experience with you all, and we hope we can persuade Rowena, to be with us on The Sunday Hour, much more in the future

If you would like Rev Rowena to talk more about her trip, by zoom or in person, please contact me here keith@sheepinsolitude.co.uk with your wishes and contact details, and I will pas everything on to Rowena

Rowena, Thank you so much …… 🐑🙏❤️

Banksy Artwork

The Bethlehem Team group 84 with driver Mohamed below  Banksy art

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rowena Selfie – visiting the caves of the Shepherd’s Fields of the Christmas story

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rowena and Fabie being dressed as Arab women in a local shop in Bethlehem

 

10 –  Return from Mission overview Audio 9 – August 23rd

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I was privileged to meet and work alongside Sabah Abu Srour mother of three, wife and Village Council Member while living in Bethlehem during the summer of 2022. When she moved to the village of Kissan outside Bethlehem ten years ago, on her marriage, she found a traditional Muslim community that was not adapting to the world or the occupation of the West Bank by Israel.

Through her influence and leadership and many other factors such as working with Nancy a YMCA worker on a community development project and with Hamed of Hebron International Resource Network (HIRN) the changes are immense. Listen to her highlight some of them in her first recording.

As a human rights monitor with the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI) of the World Council of Churches I offered a protective presence while the shepherdesses grazed their flocks of goats and a few sheep on the land. This has largely been confiscated by Israel for state land and settlers who are living in Israeli settlements around the village do not like the shepherds to graze their flocks there. This leads to conflict and violence. The Israel military then arrive with potential arrests, clashes with tear gas, and loss of permits for Palestinians for  work in Israel / or Israeli settlements or access to other locations.  In the second recording Sabet reflects on how much difference this protective presence makes.

ACTIONS you can take….

Follow EAPPI facebook, Instagram or twitter social media: @eappiukireland

Donate  to EAPPI  https://www.oikoumene.org/donations?destination_value=specific_program&destination_programme=2218

 

Or donate to Hebron International Resource Network (HIRN) a small NGO that offers responsive and targeted support to some of the most threatened and marginalized Palestinian communities – match funded Kissan’s kindergarten and library in part.

https://www.amostrust.org/palestine-justice/partners/hirn/

 

If a UK citizen write to The Prime Minister or your MP asking them not to move the UK embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem as this is a visible sign of support for Israel’s occupation and their breaches of International Law and because it is not helpful for a peace process.

1st shepherding activity Sabah Fabbiene

Breakfast at Sheba’s

Waffa, Saba and Nancy

11 – Soundbite Interview with

12 – Soundbite Interview with

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