Please pray for our Deacons...

They include a project worker for Dorset Youth Association, a microbiologist, a former head teacher who had lunch with the Queen, a frequent visitor to Kenya, and the chef from two of our local Dorset retreat communities.

Their hobbies also include circus acrobatics and extreme picnicking.

So how does all this fit into their new lives as Assistant Curates?

This week, we meet the oldest and the youngest. Next week we will meet the rest.

Cooking for 40 people and playing the sax in a worship band are just some of the unusual skills Lyndon Webb, the new Assistant Curate at St John Broadstone in Poole brings to his calling.

30 year old Lyndon lived as a volunteer in both Hilfield Friary and the Pilsdon Community, spending two years at each before starting training for ordination at Ripon College Cuddesdon. He says:

"I was helping to run the Kitchen Gardens and working on the land at each community, both set on small holdings. I also helped with their distinct ministries of hospitality, especially at Hilfield where people come on retreat."

He hopes some of the skills gained during those four years will prove useful to him in his curacy, especially the mass catering. And he is "looking forward to finding any Community Garden Projects nearby."

Lyndon, who has a long list of hobbies, from walking, cycling, basket weaving, cooking and baking, sewing, and knitting, to playing that saxophone, singing, gardening and acting, says he particularly enjoyed his time training at Cuddesdon.

"I had a chance to study and get into lots of eco theology; getting a broader experience of worship and playing the sax in a worship band as well as joining the choir."

Lyndon says he is really looking forward to working with the people in Broadstone and the team at St John’s.

At 60, Joy Albone who is joining the Canalside Benefice, in Wiltshire, will be one of our older curates - a recent change in the rules saw her able to answer her call to ordination.

Joy, who will be serving as an Assistant Curate in Hilperton with Wadden, Semington, Staverton and Hilperton Marsh along the Kennet and Avon Canal, after her ordination on Sunday (June 30th) in Salisbury Cathedral says:

"I started training in 2016 at Sarum initially as an Lay Minister, as I was considered too old for ordination. However, following a change of the age rules, I was invited into discernment again, and transferred to the ordination pathway for the final year of my training."

Joy grew up on a farm in rural Norfolk, where her father was the farm manager and shepherd.

"As a child it was not unusual to get up in the morning to find an orphan lamb being kept warm in the bottom oven of the Rayburn, before it was transferred to a special pen in the garden, where it was our task as children to bottle-feed them."

Today, the only animal in the home she shares with husband Kevin, is Pixie, the rescue cat.

Joy, who once worked as a primary school teacher, has spent the last two years helping to care for her oldest granddaughter while her daughter Rebekah and son in law Matt were at work:

"It has revived my love of working with pre-school children, and sharing their awe and wonder of the world around them."

And it isn’t only children’s work that Jo has experience of:

"I also worked in office administration, most recently selling maps and travel guides for a small independent internet retailer, so if nothing else, I should not get lost as I find my way around the new Benefice!"

In her sending Parish, St Michael and All Angels Melksham, Joy took on the roles of Lay Pastoral Assistant and Churchwarden, and led several different small groups and home groups. Although her role there as Weddings Administrator is more likely to be put to use when son Matthew marries his financée Esther.

Joy, whose hobbies include gardening, photography, spending time with her granddaughters, and meeting up with friends for coffee and cake, says:

"I am really looking forward to getting to know all the people in my new parish, and being involved in every aspect of the life of the Benefice Ministry.

"I would love during my curacy to focus on work with both young children and the older people of the parish, as well as having the opportunity to assist my Training Incumbent as chaplain to the Wiltshire Air Ambulance."

And is there anything Joy isn’t looking forward to? - "Long meetings!"

Please pray for all our ordinands as they prepare for their ordination to ministry.

The full list of those being ordained Deacon on Sunday is:

Joy Albone        Canalside Benefice, Wilts
Fiona Beale       Beaminster Team, Sherborne
Lorna Johnson  Bridport, Sherborne
Roger Leake      Chalke Valley, Sarum
Matt Renyard     Radipole and Melcombe Regis, Sherborne
Richard Saint     Southbroom St James, Wilts
Solveig Sonet    Swanage and Studland, Dorset
Lyndon Webb    Broadstone, Dorset

Ordinations 2019: click here for our new Priests