Whyalla St James Women’s Fellowship is a very active group of Christian women who enjoy meeting together with Bible studies, fellowship and working hard. We have 14 members with the average attendance being 10.
We started 2021 by getting together for Sunday lunch at a local hotel. It was great opportunity to catch up with each other after the challenges of 2020.
The year 2021 saw us change our monthly meeting times from evenings to afternoons, as going out in the evening was becoming a challenge for some of our members.
Pastor Lee van Rossen led us with interesting Bible studies at each second monthly meeting. At our other meetings, some members shared a bit of their life history. It was interesting finding out more about our friends, where they came from and family connections. Sonja van Rossen, Pastor’s wife, was an engaging guest speaker at one of our meetings.
Fund raising is also an important part of what we do. We held a Trading Table, a soup, sandwich & slice Luncheon, Soup Sundays, Morning Teas, Pizza Mornings and catered for events. We also cook cakes fortnightly for a local café.
With our fund raising we supported Mark and Lorene van Rossen who are setting up a counselling service for Missionaries; the Leprosy Mission; the RFDS and our church maintenance. We also donated to both the LWSA-NT and LWA Conventions.
Our members put their small change into Mite Boxes and, each year, we donate the contributions to Lifeline.
During the year we prepared Easter Egg packs to hand out at Easter Sunday worship, knitted blankets and beanies which were donated to the Ceduna community, packed, and delivered Birthing Kits and hosted the Whyalla Combined Churches Advent Service. We also made beautiful paper angel Christmas tree decorations, which were used to decorate the tree that we entered in our local Christmas tree display.
We wound up a busy year by going out for lunch together.