You will be aware (unless you were on holiday) that we have suffered plenty of unusual weather here in Birmingham over the last couple of weeks. The amount of rain in the city has resulted in a large number of flash floods in areas across the city, one of which was here at Church. On the same day just a few miles from us here, Heartlands A&E department were suffering more substantial flooding which caused the hospital to declare a Major Incident. 

The flood water caused a significant amount of damage to many areas in the hospital despite the magnificent efforts of the staff. One of the members of staff on that day was Birmingham Vineyard’s very own Aimée Wright. Aimée works as an Advanced Clinical Practitioner at Heartlands and Good Hope hospitals. The Sunday after the flood Aimée described to us the devastation of the Children's A&E department, having to be closed for three weeks whilst the damage was fixed and everything in it thrown out and replaced.

The Children’s A&E department lost all of its donated toys and play equipment in the flood. This equipment is there to help when children come in with a wide range of problems. There is also an adolescent room which suffered some damage to their equipment and toys. This room is for teenagers who may not be able to leave the building or have contact with many people. Both rooms and the equipment in them provide some sort of ‘normal’ life and entertainment for the children and young people that they may not otherwise be able to experience. Aimée explained to us that unfortunately the toys and equipment, donated or was paid for through fundraising, weren’t covered by insurance, so there was no way of replacing the equipment and all of it was thrown away. The current situation is that they only have four toys which have been recently given. 

One of our four canvasses here at church is Compassion and Justice. Through some of the activities at church, through our cells and communities we aim to show God’s compassion, justice, love and mercy to those who need it and this situation is a great example of this. So, because of your generous giving as a Church we were able to donate £500.00 towards the cost of some new toys and play equipment for the Children's A&E department. Also Aaron has asked our youth to consider donating £10 each to help replace some of the much needed equipment in the teenagers room. The whole A&E department will be reopening in the next couple of weeks and we hope the new toys will be there ready to use. 

So thank you Church. Thank you for being generous givers so that we can bless others – your giving makes such a difference.

Aaron