A few words for Yvette Milosevic' leaving party

Dear Yvette

Thinking about how to say thank you to on behalf of the worship committee a line from a song came into my mind. Not a holy song from Thuma Mina or Agape or any other hymnbook but a rather saucy ditty from Rogers and Hammerstein’s musical Oklahoma which starts “I’m just a girl who can’t say no …”
I suppose I thought of that because for the handful of us still left on the worship committee you have been the person who says yes, often even before the question has been asked. We want to thank you for your faithfulness, your practicality, your extraordinary spirit of service and your enormous thoughtfulness. Thank you for all you have done, thank you for your meditations and prayers, thank you quite simply for being you.

It’s wonderful that you’re retiring at Pentecost time, first of all it’s a great season for gardening, which I know you will enjoy. But it’s the festival which ushers in ordinary time in the western church calendar and the Sundays between now and Advent are referred to by Pentecost and a number. So we hope that as you enter into the ordinary time of retirement it may continue to be a Spirit-filled time for you, a time when you can say “yes” not only to duty but also to delight.

In my heretical way, I suspect that God’s energetic, creative, comforting, gentle, challenging, spirited Ruach is actually also in part “just a girl who can’t say no…”

I am not going to begin to say how much we will miss you because my spirit will probably fail me. Know that we will – know also of course that we count on you to get the retired members organized to come back and lead worship.
Most of all we pray that the Spirit may continue to give you strength to say yes to life in a long and happy retirement as you sing a new song.

Thank you for everything.

(Colleagues on the worship committee Manoj Kurian and Karin Achtelstetter then led us in a prayer to the Holy Spirit written by Manoj and presented her with a painting depicting the fiery spirit, also by Manoj. Meanwhile Terry Macarthur led our singing. Later Yvette received a Ginko tree to plant in her garden from all of her colleagues.)