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A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Rabbi Warren Elf

Anne and Samantha Day

Good morning.

Apparently today is ANNE AND SAMANTHA DAY, a day celebrated bi-annually on the summer and winter solstice. Anne and Samantha Day honours Anne Frank and Samantha Smith.

Anne Frank is someone we have probably all heard of, the Jewish girl who hid in Amsterdam in an attic with her family from the Nazis for more than two years, until they were betrayed in August 1944, and taken to concentration camps. Her father, Otto, was the only family member to survive. He was given Anne's diary found in the attic, which was published and became a best seller as The Diary of Anne Frank, read by millions of school children and adults.

Samantha Smith may be less well known to us in the UK. When she was ten years old, in 1982, she questioned the Cold War between the United States and Russia, and wrote a letter to the Soviet leader, Yuri Andropov.

Her letter was published in the Soviet newspaper, Pravda, but she didn鈥檛 receive a response from Andropov. So she sent a letter to the Soviet Union's Ambassador to the United States asking if there would be a reply from President Andropov.

On April 26, 1983, she received one. Andropov addressed each of Samantha's questions in a lengthy letter, with an invitation to visit the Soviet Union. Samantha soon became known as "America's Youngest Ambassador." She wrote a book about her visit and travelled the world participating in peace-making activities. Her young life was cut short on 25th August 1985, aged 13, when the plane she was travelling in crashed.

On this day, I give thanks for the bravery and courage of all children. I thank God for the joy they can bring into our lives, for their questions, their thirst for knowledge and their desire to make a difference and put things right. I pray that I may have the strength and vision to match their ideals and the responsibility to take care of our world for their future.

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