Blog: May 2025 - VE Day & Bible & Prayer Study

 All five of our Villages will be marking the 80th Anniversary of VE Day in the first week of May, both for the national events on May Day 5th May (Wilden School are celebrating May Day & Colmworth are having an afternoon tea party on the Village Hall Field), and on the actual day Thursday 8th May.  We have just 2 iconic distinctive public outside War Memorials across our 5 Villages; we shall gather just before 11am in Ravensden Churchyard for a short act of remembrance to which all are welcome; and Keysoe & Bolnhurst villages will gather at Keysoe War Memorial on the main road at 9pm to lay a wreath with a short Act of Remembrance, followed by lighting the Beacon in Church Road at 9:30pm.

The end of WW2 has many personal memories for many of us.  My late father was still in Burma in May 1945, and would have been 99 last month, reminding us that very few of those who fought in WW2 are still with us.  But many alive have very strong childhood memories of WW2, and we all have stories we remember from parents, grandparents and great grandparents from WW2 and the Great War.

Remembrance is a major theme every November, but I hope this summer event this May will also unite our communities in thanksgiving and spur us on constantly to work for peace in our still troubled and war torn world.

So what is the link in my title to our Bible & Prayer Group?  I know that Prayer and the little Pocket Bibles were so important to the serving soldiers in WW1 & 2.  My own grandfather was saved when he went around the corner of the Trench in France in WW1 to read his New Testament, and a shell came down and killed the 3 men he’d just been on duty with moments before.

Over my 6 years in these Parishes, we have had various gatherings for Bible Groups and Prayer, and I have been constantly encouraged by how people value this and make time to read the Bible together and discuss what it means to us today.  We’ve just had 2 series’ of encouraging Lent Groups at Bolnhurst and Ravensden, and as people have appreciated these, we’re going to continue with these the Thursday after VE Day from 15th May at Ravensden 2-3pm.

We need to remember and give thanks for the great saving acts through which God has brought us throughout history.  But we also need to learn from these, and be ready and equipped to face all that is before us.  We’ve just celebrated Easter, when Jesus died on the cross to conquer the power of evil and sin giving us forgiveness; and God raised Jesus gloriously from the dead to conquer even death itself.  Would you like to join us on Thursday afternoons as we remember all that God has done for us and seek how we can face the future with His strength and help through prayer and reading the Bible, as did those soldiers ‘faithful true and bold’?

Timothy Wilson