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North meets South Barbara Foster from Collybrook Quiet Garden, Ludlow, England met Sue Dick on a visit to Auckland, New Zealand. She writes:‘I became a member of the Quiet Garden Movement in July 2006, opening my garden in two acres of woodland, wildlife, stream and gardens in South Shropshire for one day a month during summer months, usually a brief meditation sometimes with music, leading into silence and stillness. During my extended trip to New Zealand early in 2008,I visited Sue Dick in Auckland. Sue uses her Quiet Garden of three acres of natural woodland and her ministry of hospitality and prayer in a different way. Once a month, by arrangement through a relationship with their local Hospice she and her husband Sean, open their home for a weekend free of charge, offering accommodation and beautiful home cooked meals, a time of pampering, rest and refreshment to both the caregiver and their spouse who generally has advanced cancer. They are able to take time to enjoy the beauty and stillness, laughter and new found friendships in the extensive gardens.Sue e-mailed: ‘We have our Hospice guests this coming weekend. Another young cancer patient, a mother of four children, the youngest two years old. This will be our third young guest this year. How this does tear at the heart. Each of these weekends continues to be an incredibly special and precious encounter and we feel blessed by these people who come not knowing us when they arrive.’ Two gardens in two hemispheres both offering hospitality and prayer. |