Thought for the Week 31 May 2026

Welcome to our service today. As I write this, I have just finished taking a funeral service for Karunairjan Jeevaratnam, known to most simply as Jeeves (Indi’s husband). Indi and Jeeves came to Timaru in 1974 from Sri Lanka to escape the ethnic and political tensions of the time. He worked as an anaesthetist at Timaru Hospital and Bidwill until he retired in 2001. It was lovely hearing stories from his family and getting an insight into this quiet man. Of note to me was his struggle with faith and coming to terms with the suffering in the world and wondering why a good loving God would allow this. His family have strong Christian convictions and prayed for him regularly and were delighted to hear his confession of faith soon before he passed. As I said in the service this was a lovely moment of surrendering to the God who had never stopped pursuing him.

I’d also like to thank all those who helped put the service together; especially those who work quietly in the background ensuring the building is open and warm, the hall is set up and cleaned up, and all are fed and watered. What a wonderful team of servant minded people we have.

After the service today the parish council will be having a ‘carpark meeting’- literally! We have plans to upgrade the carpark which we can hopefully sign-off and get started to make it safer and more efficient, with angle parking and separate entry and exit points. This will likely cause some disruption as work gets underway, but we will keep you informed of plans to work around this.

Nga mihi nui, Brent