John Spiers will be joining us as an ordained curate in July this year, after his ordination in Winchester cathedral on Sunday 30 June.

John was born in Worcestershire where his father worked as a printer after serving in the Royal Navy during World War II. His family moved to Coventry in 1960, where John and his older brother both went to one of the local grammar schools and both left home in 1973; John went south to Reading where he studied for an Engineering Science degree whilst ‘Ant’, as his brother is known, went north to study horticulture at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh. His mother still lives in Coventry.

Kitty was born at Fawley Manor near Wantage, the youngest of five children born to a successful Irish race horse trainer and farmer. She was taught at home at Fawley until the age of 13 and so enjoyed the wonderful outdoor life.

At 13 Kitty started school and unusually for a girl, went on to read Russian at Oxford. Kitty joined the Christian Union and around this time went to help on a camp with young girls in Northern Ireland and it was here that she made her personal commitment to Jesus. The next step was to Parish work in Walthamstow and then into teaching in Leeds.

Catch up on the latest news from Trussell Trust here.

The churches and schools of Darby Green and Eversley joined together at Harvest Festival 2012 to raise money to plant trees in Hoima, Uganda.

We have just received an email from Bishop Nathan in Uganda, thanking the congregation at St Barnabas for providing the funds for them to purchase two motorcyles to to assist their village priests to visit their parishoners.

St Barnabas the Encourager and Frogmore Junior School are changing the world by spending a penny – they’ve twinned all toilets in the church and three school blocks with latrines in Burundi.