By Yvonne Hill

 

 

Saturday 27^th October was a special day for the Seventh day-Adventist Church in Burnt Lane, Gorleston. Celebrations began with morning Bible Study led by former minister, Pastor David Neal, and was  followed by a service conducted by Dr Duda who is the Ministerial Secretary for the Trans- European Division in West Africa. 

 

 

 

 

 The highlight of the day was a concert in the afternoon with Charles Ngandwe.   Charles won the 2004 ‘Stars in Their Eyes’ competion on TV appearing as Paul Robson singing ‘Old Man River’; he also came second in the Welsh International singing contest.  As the picture on the left shows Charles sang from the heart and with a deep love for his Savior.

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

It was a real pleasure to meet up with some of the Pastors who had served at the church throughout the years and to share memories and experiences with them.  On the left is Pastor David Neal, middle Pastor Jim Frost and Pastor Ian Loreck.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Roll of Honour was distributed to the congregation with a minute of silence in remeberance of all the Pastors who are now deceased. 

 

On the right is a picture of Sini one of the young deconesses who comes from India and who is a nurse at the James Paget Hospital.

 

 

 

The church Clerk, Vera Cowley, gave an interesting account of the church history and how in 1931 two young people met on the sea-front formed a relationship which turned into love and marriage. These two people, Bob and Francis Haylett, became Adventists and were very much involved with planting the Yarmouth church, Francis is now a widow of 96 years but she is still able to recall events of long ago.  You can see a picture of Francis below.

 

 

 

After much work and Evangelism 57 people made a decision to be baptised. The church didn’t have a building or a baptistery but the Yarmouth Baptist Church very kindly offered their facilities, unfortunately they didn’t have heating and so it was decided to use a sister church in Norwich

 

The minister at the time, Pastor Joyce, found a building in King Street which is now a restaurant called the ‘Yankee Traveller’. It was not an easy task to refurbish the building and make it suitable to use as a place of worship. The church grew and they did much outreach into the community which included night services for the fishermen.

 

Over the years and particularly, during the war, the church fell into disrepair and it became necessary to sell the building and for a short time they rented the Unitarian Church. A building fund was set up and through various activities such as Autumn Fairs and Market stalls also £1 a brick funding they managed to save enough to build a church. Pastor Walter Newman found a suitable plot of land in Burnt Lane, Gorleston which had not been built on for 300 years and had once been the site of a monastery. On the edge of the car park some of the ancient listed walls still stand.

 

The present minister, Pastor Walker and his wife Pearl also the  members of the church would especially like to thank the local dignitaries who attended the service; Councillor Brian Watts and his wife Patricia; Rev Peter Paine the Port Chaplain and his wife  Patricia and also two of the Community Police Support Officers PC Melanie Johnston-Smalley and PC Wayne Attew.