This Sunday is All Saints Day - when the church traditionally remembers those who have gone before us, who have showed us the way along the path of faith, and who are now among the cloud of witnesses who cheer us on (Hebrews 11-12).

At our leaders meeting this week, we listened to extracts from a history of WMC compiled some years back by Pat Long, Ken Knight, Reg Leverton and others. We imagined what it must have been like to be a part of those early conversations when our WMC ancestors bravely listened for God's call and then chased hard after this God-given dream - establishing and growing a worshipping Methodist family in Westville, with a vision to serve and love the wider community. Although they started with a blank page, these pioneers had a clear sense of what could be and stubbornly stuck to their task until it became reality.

Rev Kym Bishop writes: This year in the Methodist Church we are celebrating 50 years of the Ordination of Women into the ministry of Word and Sacrament. The first woman ordained was Rev Constance Oosthuizen, on 17th Oct 1976.