Everyone is invited to a Friends of VisPa worship event at Wellington Presbyterian Church, Ballymena on Saturday, 4th June 2016 beginning at 7.30pm. The evening of ‘Worship’ is in aid of the Friends of VisPa charity to help support their work in Kenya.
‘An evening of uplifting praise and worship with members of the New Irish Choir & Orchestra’
Local songstress and volunteer, Sylvia Burnside, who is putting the evening together, said: “Friends of VisPa is a charity which is working to support a Kenyan Orphanage school and high school in Kisumu. The school cares for over 600 children from very young to the teenager. The VisPa school was started by a local Kisumu Christian lady and her husband who both had good jobs and decent earnings but who were also moved by the dreadful poverty being experienced by children in their neighbourhood.”
The couple opened their home to these children and began teaching them and providing for them. In time they gave up their work to give their time wholeheartedly to the welfare of the children.
Their vision grew and now the school has grown to its current size. Over the last few years, VisPa has seen older students complete their national examinations with excellence and head off to university and to further education.
In Kenya, education is viewed as the vessel in which to leave poverty and this is driving a younger generation to work to gain understanding with renewed vision.
Sylvia went on to say: “VisPa is also a school with a strong and ‘true’ Christian ethos. I say true because Christianity can easily become a title rather than a faith from which to live a life and further works to provide biblical teaching in living for Christ. In doing so, young people are entering their communities with values which challenge old dogma and religion and breathe fresh hope into families throughout the area.”
She added: “The worship event is certainly a fund raising and awareness event for this charity, but is above all else, exactly what it says it is….Worship to God!!!! We in Northern Ireland have known for so long that singing and praise belongs to God’s and invites His splendour into our midst. In worship we have this incredible opportunity to exalt and magnify a Father who is everything to us. A Divine Creator whose interest in us supersedes life itself and draws us into an eternal destiny…something we only catch a glimpse off for now. God is with us and in us and so, to give Him worship is to join our hearts with His and say….may your kingdom come and live among us.”
Sylvia also said: “When worship and charity come together, then this is indeed a privilege. If ever there was a group of people who Jesus was interested in, it was surely those who have been struck by poverty. As Christians, our greatest love is in sharing with others and extending our God given gifts to those around us whither locally or further afield. It is the very nature of God and the recognition that every person is made in the image of God. Sharing affirms identity and spurs on renewal for all.”
Friends of VisPa worship event at Wellington Church, Sourhill Rd, Ballymena on Saturday 4th June. Featuring the New Irish Choir and Orchestra, the event begins at 7.30pm.
The Worship event is for God and to God. Sylvia’s prayer is that you will join her and others at ‘Worship’, sing and declare our God is GOOD!
Admission to the Friends of VisPa Worship event at Wellington is free – however an offering will be taken in support of Friends of VisPa charity.
To find out more about New Irish Arts see their website here. Details of their upcoming events are here.
