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The back pews....
As a church we are always keen to keep in touch with our
ever increasing family around the world, so we'd
love to hear your news. We often have in our congregation people who are attending The Queens Foundation. They are mainly from abroad but are sometimes people from this country on their way to other countries. We welcome their presence and love to hear about their countries. Other people in our congregation originated in other countries but have now made Birmingham and our church our home. One of these is Violet from India. Recently she has been able to use her links with India to tell the children of our local Methodist School Holly Hill about life there. She showed them photos and took some indian food and clothes for them to dress up in.  For our 2007 World Mission Service we published a leaflet made up of contributions by people connected to our church writing about the church in their own country. The contents is shown below but if you want the full leaflet it can be downloaded as a pdf here
The United Church of Zambia, St. Andrew’s Congregation, Lusaka. The Congregation has a membership 900 to 1200 members. It has different groups and these are Women, Men and Youth Christian Fellowships, Boys & Girls Brigades, Sunday school,  HIV/AIDS Millennium Project, Social Welfare, Globalization Committee, 3 Choirs etc.The church leadership consist of Executive (Minister-in-charge chair, Congregation Secretary, Vice Secretary and Treasurer), then Pastoral Committee, Congregation Council, Annual General Meeting with seven sections each with four elders and six stewards. The church celebrates Christian festivals and these are Unity week, Psalm Sunday, Ash Wednesday, Easter (Holy) week, Harvest Sunday, Christmas and the church has also devised some festivals that are celebrated, Women Christian week (Mothering Sunday), Youth Week (Youth Sunday), HIV/AIDS Awareness Sunday, Globalization Sunday, Bible Society Sunday, Theological Education By Extension in Zambia (TEEZ) Sunday and Theological College Sunday. The church was born in 1964, prior to independence, different denominations came together to form the United Church of Zambia (UCZ). These churches were Methodist Church, Church of Scotland, Council for World Mission(CWM) then London Mission Society (LMS), Church of France (CEEVA), Barothse Church, and Copperbelt Free Church. So the Church is protestant in nature and its liturgy is such. The church has usual services and special services like induction service of a new resident Minister. The church being protestant uses the Hymns and Psalms hymnal prepared by British Methodist Conference, Baptist Union, Churches of Christ, Church of England, Congregational Federation, Methodist Church in Ireland, United Reformed Church, and the Wesleyan Reform Union published in 1983 by Methodist Publishing House Peterborough. The church being a Zambian church, traditional music instruments are used and the modern music instruments (Key boards, guitar etc) are used too. The church has also Zambian songs that are composed by its music directors and these are used by the choirs in most cases. Children are special in the church, they have Sunday school classes, and once in a month and on special Sundays they come into the service. They present what they have been learning songs, bible memory verses, sketches and drama. The church has a long history in its ecumenical relations with other denominations. On Psalm Sunday churches in the area come together in an open space for prayers, songs and preaching of the gospel early in the morning, then a march past going to different denominations for their usual mass. In 2007 nine denominations participated (2 Roman Catholic, 2 Living Water Church, UCZ St. Andrews, 2 Baptist Church, Dutch Reformed Church, and Anglican Church. It is also a member of the following ecumenical bodies Council of Churches in Zambia (CCZ), All Africa Conference on Churches (AACC), World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC), Council for World Mission (CWM) and the World Council of Churches (WCC).
 The
Methodist church in Ghana has several branches throughout the country
One of its smaller branches is Dadiesoaba Wesley Methodist church. The
church is located at Daliesoaba, a village in the Asutifi distriict of
the Brong-Ahafo Region of Ghana. The church has a membership of 265
adults and 85 children. It has a resident Minister and 5 outreach
churches in the surrounding villages. Apart from the various Christian festivals like Christmas, Easter and Good Friday etc, the church celebrates marriage ceremonies not necessarily weddings but traditional ones of its members. The death ceremonies like the burial of a dead member, its funeral celebration and the thanksgiving or memorial services are arranged and attended by the entire church. There is one service on Sunday between 9.30 am to 1.00 pm The service begins with the choir and the singing band processing, followed by the preacher. In addition to hymns that are sung from the Methodist hymn books, there are other gospel songs that are sung mostly in Akan, the local language, with clapping of hands, drumming arid dancing. This normally takes place during the period of praises and offering. Another kind of music used during service is ‘abibidwom' It is a kind of traditional music with lyrics praising God. One or two members sing interchangeably while the entire congregation join in from time to time at the prompt from the singer. There are early morning services on Monday, Wednesday and Friday between 5 am and 6 am. On Sundays between 5 am and 6 am various classes meet to discuss the bible At this service, members are given the opportunity to ask questions on the bible and give answers to questions in the bible. Members who attend the service are recorded and those who were unable to attend are visited in their homes and prayed for. The children have their service differently. However, they are given a Sunday in the year for them to conduct a Sunday service to demonstrate what they have been doing. The church has affiliation with other churches in the village. There is a week long joint service for all the churches in the village every year The position for the chair of the joint churches association moves annually from church to church.
I am from Pretoria in South Africa. The name of the church I used to attend was St Johns Methodist church based in Pretoria in a military Area called Thabatswane in South Africa. It is a small Church comprising of about 200 members with its own Minister sometimes assisted by chaplains from military Units. We normally celebrate festivals like Easter Festivals, have holy communions each and every first week of the month, do weddings of the members, conduct funerals, baptism and confirmation of members. The Morning service is conducted in English starting from 9 am till 10 am and the service starting from 11am till 1 pm conducted either in Xhosa, tswana or Zulu languages where we sing and dance, clap in these languages. The morning is English singing with an organist helping. The children go to their different Classes that we call Sunday school till the end of the services. Our church is very much involved in visiting local townships where we invite people to come and join us, and we visit the local hospitals and hospices giving hope and support to people and sometimes local prisons. We also arrange feeding the poor and street kids where we cook meals for them. We also have evening Services and bible discussions. It is growing step by step as the place is small and having lot of different denominations.
ZIMBABWE METHODIST (HWISIRI/WESLEY) The services are very lively, well attended, mostly uniformed and conducted in our own languages. It enjoys a massive following back home. Attendance used to be about 200 people for just a normal service. Holy Communion services are periodically held but more somberly We celebrated New Year as an overnight service. There used to be a myth that on the stroke of the New Year, it would thunder and the noise would be heard, so by the second there would be dead silence. Palm Sunday is celebrated by a march along the road whereby people will be laying palms, leaves, cloths amid music, towards the church. At the church the praise and worship follows the bible reading Easter: preparations would start about three weeks earlier, when small groups would rotate in their neighbourhood at night, conducting prayers in line with the spirit of Easter. On the Thursday night before Good Friday, people assemble at a chosen church for the year’s celebrations. We used to assemble at three churches within walking distance of each other. Virgil starts. There is no sleeping but praise and worship. An elder or priest or church leadership would open the service and then it becomes open to revelations/witness by whosever feels like saying something, in an orderly manner, with musical interludes and dancing. The mood is just blissful. The songs are in line with the events e.g. ‘When I survey the wondrous cross,,,’ and the bible readings accordingly. During the day people are put in groups to go out in the vicinity of about 5 km/miles to spread the gospel to the public and invite the willing to join them. They worshiped at different houses. Some people converted through these sessions and followed forever. Towards the end of the day, people leave for another church. Virgil continues on the Saturday when Jesus was buried. Saturday evening the congregation moves to the third and final church. The overnight services continue. Very early Sunday morning the gospel is about the mystery of resurrection. There will be a big Holy Communion service. . There is a Sunday of the coming of the Holy Spirit. It is a Sunday service where people are usually in uniform and praise and worship is just slightly longer than normally the case. There is usually Holy Communion. We did not talk in tongues though. Harvest, would be marked by different products being brought to church. Depending on what an individual does for a living, people would bring vegetables, maize, or whatever produce of their field, money, livestock, to virtually anything one can think of. Some people would bring goods from their businesses so they could be sold and the money converted to the harvest fund. Marriage services were held mostly on Saturdays, at the church, with full attendance and there would be a ceremony after. The church would give gifts through its different groups like women, youth, men, choir and individuals as well. In the event of death there will be a funeral service conducted at the church but if the family wanted it otherwise, it would be at their home, conducted by the priest. Our hymns are the same as those here, only they have been translated into our languages. There may be very few additions and current choruses. The other difference could just be the tunes. A foreigner in our service may follow our music by simply substituting the words to our hymnbook songs. We spice our music by the use of drums (ngoma), shakers (hosho), kudu horns (hwamanda), clapping hands, dancing the Zimbabwe Methodist way. The Zimbabwe Methodist Church has a very big following and we are proud to say that children formed a very big part of our congregation. There used to be a Sunday school before the main service. The children were grouped according to ages and taught different things accordingly. They would join the main service at the beginning with all others. Sometimes, the service will be conducted by the children, Such services would be short in accordance with the level of the children’s attention levels. It was lovely. There is an annual event for ‘passing out and confirming individuals’ to full membership. The confirmed members will be eligible to wear their uniforms with the ‘red’ colour for women’s blouses, red belts and collars for girls, red big sling belt for men and a white sling belt surrounded by the red strip for boys. This occasion usually marks the first day for the receipt of the Holy Communion. It’s a memorable service. The church in Zimbabwe has more women than men. The women have a ‘NETWORK’ (RUWADZANO/MANYANO). This network, as the name implies, networks with other denominations on a monthly basis, holding ‘Network Gatherings’ at different denominational churches, like at the Catholic, Anglican, Salvation and Methodist. The Network visits the sick, bereaved, assisted the poor, and even does some counselling. Regularly, churches would get together for a common national prayer event and the priests from all the attending denominations would share the platform. It would be heart-warming.  This is Charity Chitunhu showing her red uniform which is common sight in ZimbabweThe Christmas festival is the most exciting. It would be marked by an all-night prayer session. There will be a lot of gifts and the spirit of joy and celebration. The ‘have and the have nots’ would come to church to worship and eat together whatever would have been donated by the people themselves. There would be exchanges/distributions of gifts.
Presbyterian Church, Khatla, Mizoram,  It is a big church with total members of 2331 including children.The Church celebrates major Christian festivals Palm Sunday, Good Friday, Easter, Pentecost, Christmas and New Year. Besides these the church observes some local important days like Missionary Day, World Sunday School Day, Hospital Sunday, etc. The church has different kinds of services Bible and Christian ethics study on Wednesday evening, Prayer and sharing on Saturday evening, Sunday morning is totally devoted to Sunday Schools for adults and children separately. The total enrolment of Sunday school students is 2143. Sermon services are in the afternoon and evening on every Sunday. There used to be a regular morning prayer at the church all through the year. Moreover, the whole month of September is dedicated for the mission and revival where the local church organises a month long programme on mission and evangelism. The children join in all the services except on Sunday morning and afternoon where they have their own children services. At the beginning the church used translated songs from the western missionary but now have developed their own traditional songs and tunes and these are now becoming more popular in the church services than the translated western songs. The church is a missionary minded church and sponsored 133 missionaries who are working in India and abroad. The church is also involved in the local development committee set up by different churches and the NGO’s for better education for children, give awareness to the people about alcohol and drug abusive, and help the poor and the needy.
The Chaldean Catholic Church  Chrisitianity
took root in Mesopotamia (Iraq) in the first Century.The good news was
brought by apostles; Toma, one of the twelve, Addie one of the seventy
, two disciples of Jesus, and his pupils Mari and Aggai. The spoken
language for the Chaldean community is Aramaic and we and worship in
Aramaic, the language of Jesus.We are descendants of Abraham who was a citizen of Ur in Babylonion. The church has bishops and patriarchs . The first bishop John Sulaqa was appointed in 1553. Then in 1830 Pope Pius VIII confirmed John Hormiz as the Patriarch of Babylon of the Chaldeans'. The present patriarch Emmmanuel III Deli was elected by the College of Bishops in 2003 after the death of Patriarch Bidawid. We have links with Rome but we have our differences as well. There are about 24 churches in Baghdad which used to have regular services nowadays none can be regular. There are twelve in Mosul and Arbil, six in Alqosh , four in Kirkuk, five in Duhok, two in Zakho, two in Basra and one in each of Imara , Hillah and Ba'qubah . The Chaldean church also exists outside Iraq , in UK, USA, Canada , Holland, Sweden , Australia, France , Norway, Germany, Iran, Jordan ,Syria, Turkey and Greece . There are three functioning Monasteries for men where they can live and get their training either to be Priests or Monks e.g Al- Dora seminary which was established since 1860 in Mosul, it then moved to Al -Dora in Baghdad. The Babylon College which is just a few yards from the seminary is where the priests and the ordinary people get together and study either to become priests or lay workers in the church . Because of present situation has moved to north Iraq because of the lack of safety . Several Chaldean monks and nuns belong to other orders of the Catholic Church, the Dominicans, Carmelites, Franciscans, Redemptorists, Salesians, the brothers of Focolare and the Little Sisters of Jesus. This Institute for Religious Education, provides three year course in Christian studies students are awarded a diploma. A two years course in Eastern Liturgy also in Baghdad ,student will be provided with a Certificate. The church provides a Marriage Councillors course. The year in the Chaldean Church Calendar is divided to seven seasons, the first is Advent it lasts for four weeks, Christmas two weeks, then the Baptism of Jesus for seven weeks. Lent which is for seven weeks, when people fast every day except Sundays, leading to Easter. The congregation where I worshipped in Baghdad had 200 families as members. For Sunday School which was on Friday, not Sunday, we used to have up to 200 children starting from age three to 18 years old , the church was the only place where they felt they could play and relax and also learn about their faith. They loved coming to the church , if their family wants to punish them, they will say to their children 'no church tomorrow'. On May 2nd 2007 the leaders of the church met the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams; they asked him to help the Iraqi Christians those who are inside Iraq and the ones who are seeking asylum in UK, to be granted asylum. We have a big Iraqi Christian community in London, where we rent a church to meet every Sunday , we can not offer to buy one, so this means that the meetings are very limited. The church is run by Fr Habib Jajou , the church has website to help those in other parts of the UK to communicate and to know about any important events.
 Vanuadina
Village Methodist Church is a Fijian village church. The Church comes
under the supervision of a circuit minister who reports to the Division
minister or superintendent in accordance with the organisational
structure of Methodist Church Conference in Fiji.Methodism in Vanuadina village is said by the elders to be the direct influence of the early impact of Methodist missionary work in Rewa and Bau, two early powerful Fijian tribes on the south-eastern part of Fiji’s main island. Interactions between the missionaries and the chiefs paved the way for expansive evangelism and associated Methodist training and education for locals. In fact an important part of Fiji’s colonial history is closely knit with the development that early Methodist missionaries brought. Significant of these early church developments was the translation and printing of the first Fijian bible on the island of ‘Viwa’ and the establishment of a seminary training centre in ‘Navuloa’. Trained local pastors often got posted to villages along the route of the mission work to further cultivate and help sustain the faith in the village communities. Vanuadina’s location within the area in which this early church development was taking place proved beneficial. The work of pastors assisted the early rooting of Methodism in Vanuadina and other similar village communities within the area. This was also aided in general by village leaders or chiefs who were transformed by the gospel. Their social and institutional influence contributed to the communal turning to Christian worship and practice. For the village of Vanuadina, an outstanding contribution to the institutionalisation of Methodism with its people is the late Orisi Wabutu. Orisi was the ‘Vunikalou’ (leader of the ‘Naiwau’ clan or ‘yavusa’) at that time during the early 1900’s. There are about fifty families who worship at the church today. They contribute to the management and organisation of the church’s activities. The church continues to grow in numbers. Various festivals that the church celebrates include: Children’s Sunday or Palm Sunday; Easter Sunday; Christmas Day; Mother’s Sunday, New Year’s Eve; First Harvest; and an Annual Fiji wide Methodist church conference held in an agreed host Division. Amongst other things, the annual conference provides an opportunity for members of the Methodist church to give their pledges to the church, pilgrimages to historical church locations in Fiji, a week long choral carnival, a bazaar for traditional artifacts sales and also a time for renewal of faith and social bonds among the different village communities in Fiji. The main services held in the church include: Saturday evening prayer service; Sunday early morning prayer service; Wednesday evening prayer service; Sunday mid morning church service; Sunday evening church service; Monthly circuit church service; Women’s circuit church service (quarterly); Men’s fellowship circuit church service (quarterly); Sunday School circuit church service (quarterly). The hymns used during the church service are from the Fijian Methodist hymn book, the tunes which closely resemble the music provided by the missionaries. Chorus are occasionally sung too. Children are an integral part of the formal worship as they are normally expected to be in the presence of the parents and village elders during the delivery of the sermon on the main Sunday mid morning service. In line with Methodist Church in Fiji guidelines and constitution, the church also performs various church related activities with other churches in the area. These include: Sunday school rallies, Youth rallies, Annual Division Youth Camps; Women’s fellowship rallies, Men’s fellowship rallies; Circuit choir competition; Annual country wide Methodist choir competition; Visitations to hospitals etc. As part of the Church's 40th anniversary we decided to put together a pamphlet showing a selection of projects overseas supported by individuals and groups in the church. The pamphlet was launched at our World Mission Service at the end of May 2006. The items in the pamphlet are repeated below. Parakkanvilai CSI Church Building Project—India  Parakkanvilai is a remote village, less than a mile from the shore of the Indian Ocean in Kanyakumari District, Tamilnadu, India. The church has the membership of about 300. The majority of the members are poor and some struggle for their daily survival. The main part of the present church building was built in 1926 by a London Missionary Society missionary, Sinclair, built with stone and mud, with plaster inside and mortar application on the joints outside. The roof is tiled and there is no ceiling to cover the wooden frames. In the early 70s the front wall was rebuilt with an extension of length and height. In the early 90s two wings were built at the back with modification in the holy table area. Then the challenge was the main and central part, which was almost falling. The question was, to proceed with another patchwork or replace it with a new building, spacious and strong with some additional facilities. When the tsunami hit the nearby coastal area on the Boxing Day of 2004 many took refuge in the church but soon they left because of the worn-out look inside and lack of toilets. This experience led to the decision to build a new church and, without waiting, having little resources, in good faith, the work was started in early 2005. More than one third of the old building, including the wings, has been removed with a thatched wall covering the opening. Worship services have been held in the remaining part with a new thatched shed on one side but with lots of inconvenience. Members have pledged some funding according to their ability and pay in instalments. Some offer free labour. The minister and stewards visit nearby churches for donations. It was this church that nurtured the faith of Israel Selvanayagam and guided him to take up ministry and therefore he was approached to share the appeal with churches and groups known to him in the UK. Some visitors from UK, including Kerstin Eadie, recently visited this church and the nearby Rural Development Movement project centre, supported mainly by members of this church. The new church building is a triangular shape with one side of the triangle extended and rounded in shape, which will have sufficient facilities for worship as well as community services. The basement has been formed and is in the second stage of building pillars. The next stage is installing a concrete roof followed by walls, flooring, electrification for lights and fans, and furnishing. After several revisions, the present estimate is the Indian equivalent of £50,000. For further details contact Israel Selvanayagam 0121 415 6810 Trees for Malawi  Malawi is the smallest most beautiful country in central Africa. 12 million people, with over half living below the poverty line. This is partly caused by the injustice of international debt, its climate and the ravages of HIV/Aids as well as Malawi's long outdated dependence on maize as the only staple crop. I was a VSO there in the 1960’s and met some really good people who have stayed in the country and shown that “small is beautiful” in development terms. Working closely with local people and responding to their needs some exciting signs are beginning to bear fruit – literally. In fact they have some 44,000 tree seedlings about to be planted in ten villages who despite the poor rains do have enough food to survive this year. Based on the principles of permaculture, compost making, use of local seeds, mixed cropping and tree planting, this handful of people have begun to make a difference. MOET (Mangochi Orphans, Education and Training) is led by a dedicated Malawian but receives the financial support of others like myself from different parts of the UK. In many parts of the country deforestation and the mono-cropping of maize has turned the soil into useless dust. Planting trees however will help provide shelter, fruit, food, fuel, timber and also prevent erosion since the moisture from the rainy season will be held longer during the dry season. Not to mention the landscape for tourists and sheer joy for future generations to behold value in this beautiful area near Lake Malawi. Donations from Selly Oak friends coffee mornings, plant sales, jam making and other fund raising events last year allowed money to be sent that could be channelled into a competition for primary schools in Malawi. The children helped to collect seeds from all known food plants from across the country to establish a National seed bank. This was such a success that the surplus has now been used in demonstration gardens. Teaching work is being done to show how many long lost varieties can be used for simple medicines and provide nourishing food even in the “dry season”. The project is so exciting because Aids orphans have been completely integrated into the scheme. Every household in each of the ten villages even the chiefs, can compare notes and offer encouragement and support throughout the project. Tree Committees are formed of 10 guardians and 5 school leavers, bringing in the energy and investment of their youth and modern education, to prepare the community to benefit from the new ideas the children bring. The lives of some 20,000 people (10 villages with approximately 2,000 residents) are beginning to move away from relying on food aid dependency to self-sufficiency. There are no oak trees in Malawi but in a way growing plants on opposite sides of the world does make that vital ‘people to people link’ and satisfaction which I could never achieve by giving my money to a large agency. If you have similar feeling I will be happy to pass on your donations. For further details contact Audrey Miller 0121 471 4175 Samratian Children's Home—Sri Lanka  “Despite the daunting and unpredictable ground realities which kept changing due to the political upheavals around here, we have made good progress with the construction of the orphanage. Though all is not done yet we moved the children and the staff to our new facility yesterday as the lease on two of our three houses ran out yesterday. All of us would have moved to our new location by the end of the month.” Dayalan Sanders 14 April 2006 The Samratian Children's Home was established in 1994 as a home for children orphaned as a result of the continuing conflict in Sri Lanka. It was a part of the Refuge, Relief and Gospel Mission run by Pastor Dayalan Sanders which was also involved in community development projects in the area. The home was completely destroyed on Boxing Day 2004 in the tsunami disaster. Miraculously, all the children and adults escaped the devastation by crossing the adjacent lagoon to safety. The home needed to be re-built on a new site as new government regulations meant that it could not be re-built on the original site. A great deal of time had to be spent on identifying and purchasing a suitable plot, planning the buildings and constructing the site. Despite the ongoing unrest and the dangerous conditions in this part of Sri Lanka, the work has mostly been completed now and the children were able to move into the new home at Easter. New schools have also been found for them to attend. There are about fifty children there now. This is an increase from the thirty who were at the original site. The ability to accommodate more children helps in some way to meet the needs of the children who lost one or both parents during the tsunami. There are also plans to initiate other community projects, such as a day care centre and a vocational training centre, to help meet the needs of the people of the area. Thanks to the very generous help of members of the churches at Selly Oak about £2000 was raised towards the re-building cost of the home. For further details contact Ilangini Tambyraja 0121 476 2091 An Inspiring Home—Pauls Boys Home Tamilnadu, India,  I did a placement in PAULS for over six months in 2004 with the encouragement and support of few friends. That experience transformed my life and outlook. Situated in Madurai, in Tamilnadu, India, PAULS Boys Home is an orphanage but accommodated in the house of a dedicated couple – Retnaraj and Esther. They had experience of working as house parents in Kennet Boys Home, an organisation run by the YMCA in Madurai. Realising the limitations of such big institutions, they left it and identified a group of boys, orphans and semi-orphans, who had no access to such institution-based homes. They accommodated them in their own house and cared for them along with their own son Rubert. Later they started the PAULS Boys Home in 1998, with their own funds and donations from friends and relatives. To ensure a regular income for the home, Esther took up a job as a teacher at a local school, while Retnaraj looked after the day-to-day running of the home. The home now looks after 15 boys, all of whom are provided education, shelter, food, clothing, healthcare and parental affection. During my stay there I found that the home has many success stories. Take a boy named Kumar, for example, who arrived at the home as a malnourished teenager, in 1998, but now has a degree in Chemistry and is pursuing a Masters from the local university and also has a good job at a company in Madurai. It is heartening to see his own commitment to those less fortunate than himself – Kumar regularly helps out at the home as a carer and tuition teacher. He also provides financial assistance to the home. The ‘parents’ and boys have lived in rented houses, which involved the hassles of moving around to different places and settling down and getting uprooted again. Now Retnaraj and Esther, taking loans, have started to build a small house of their own. They are planning to build a separate dormitory accommodation for the Boys with basic facilities, adjacent to their house. The estimated cost is the Indian equivalent of £3000. It can be extended in future. For further details contact Arul William 0121 415 6820 Creating Caring Communities. AILELC Anna Irbe Latvian Evangelical Church in Tamilnadu, India  In 1933, Anna Irbe, started a Mission Station in the Coimbatore District of Tamilnadu. Rev and Mrs Stephen, 4th generation Christians, joined her and they worked together for 14 years. They established a Holistic Christian Centre with a working farm, Homes for Children and old people as well as Primary Health care and Outreach Spiritual, Educational, and social work for in the surrounding villages. In 1968, Rev.G. Stephens with the active support of Anna Irbe established the present 'work' in the Trichy and Cuddalore Districts. These are:
Future Plan: To improve the Medical facilities. To address the Aids issue, especially the children (we saw a 9 year old girl nursing her dying mother.) For further details contact Violet Hooper 0121 624 6407 Nigerian Health Care Project  Since 1992 the Wesley Guild has been supporting this project. The Guild at SOMC has been one of the churches giving that support. The Project covers six hospitals some of which are in the poorest parts of Nigeria. One of the hospitals specialises in the out treatment of Leprosy. In addition to the hospitals there are four health centres staffed by nurses and midwives. These are often in rural and isolated areas but each covers huge populations. There are three centres which specialise in mental heath problems both for residents and outpatients. There is a big emphasis in working with the local communities. Further details from www.nhcp.org.uk or Wesley Nicklin 0121 4751480 The Rufiji Leprosy Trust—Tanzania  The Rufiji Leprosy Trust(RLT) was set up in 1982 to continue and extend the work of Canon Robin Lamburn MBE, who retired from missionary work in 1968 and, until his death in 1993, devoted himself to promoting a decent life for the people of Kindwitwi Leprosy Village. The aims of the Trust are to eliminate leprosy in the Rufiji District of Tanzania; to minimse disability in those suffering from leprosy in the Rufiji District; to provide care for severely disabled leprosy patients in Kindwitwi Leprosy Care Centre (KLCC); to assist former patients and their families in KLCC achieve self-reliance. The RLT is a partner of the Methodist Relief and Development Fund. The RLT supports Kindwitwi in its efforts to gain self-sufficiency through the Village Development Association(VDA). A recent newsletter it reported on “carefully kept stores” needed in the current drought which has made it impossible to grow pumpkins and green vegetables. One of the other responsibilities of the VDA is a kindergarten open to every family in the village. Children have to go outside the village for primary and secondary education. The Leprosy control work is done in cooperation with the government health service. The RLT agreed to refurbish an office at the nearby hospital for the team involved in the distribution of drugs, the supply of disability aids and the on-going education and prevention programme. Their hope is to drive the rate of disability in newly-elected leprosy patients down to 5%, while for the rest of the country this figure is about 10%. Further details from Judy Coulson 0121 475 4615 Housing in Kyrgyzstan  Peter Clark who is the minister at Nicolson Square Methodist Church and chaplain to a variety of institutions of higher education, is deeply involved in the Edinburgh Inter-Faith project "Turning Hope Into Homes". He is with, a group of Muslims from four different countries, Christians of three different churches and students from four different institutions, forming a team of 14 men and women building housing in Kyrgyzstan in partnership with Habitat for Humanity in late July 2006. Kyrgyzstan is an independent land-locked central Asian country with substantial poverty, including inadequate housing in its capital, Bishkek, where the team will be based for two weeks and building homes with the subsequent owners. Bringing together support for Making Poverty History and Inter-faith in work Edinburgh, the Bishkek project is not without its challenges and one of them is financial. The team have set out to raise £21,000 for the Kyrgyzstan project. Rev Peter Clark and his wife Janice worshipped at SOMC during 2003/4 when Peter was a Tutor at UCA. Further details are on www.justgiving.com/hope-into-homes or contact Duncan Miller 0121 471 4175 Aira Young Women’s Empowerment Project—Ethiopia  Six years ago Ebise Ashana, a young woman from Aira, a market town in Western Ethiopia, completed her MSc in Poverty Alleviation and Development Studies at Birmingham University. She determined to go home and help young women who hadn’t had her opportunities. The Methodist Women’s Network made a grant towards the establishment of a new women’s empowerment project in Aira. With the help of many generous donors from Selly Oak and beyond, on her return, she set up AYWE. Back in Ethiopia she was almost immediately appointed the Secretary for Gender and Development in her Church, The Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus, (EECMY), but she did not forget her commitment to the poorest people. AYWE is an empowerment training programme for the many young women who drop out of education early, for reasons of family poverty, cultural expectation and fear of abuse or failure. The local congregation has given its support by providing a room and buying finished products. At a cost of less than £1,000 a year this project continues to train around 8 women each year and their renewed self confidence and economic self help is a tribute to the work. The AYWE fund continues, carefully managed by David Edden, advised by Ena Evans, Maggie Dennis, Rachel Stephens and many others, and supported through coffee mornings and other fund raising, by Margaret Hyde and Margaret Parsons and Rachel. It is proving a model in Ethiopia. Ebise in her national Church role is trying to establish similar projects all over the country because, as she says “ women are the backbone of Ethiopia, they deserve a better future”. AYWE was one of the projects visited during the recent group ecumenical visit. To set up each project requires careful local planning and support in Ethiopia and about £4,000 for equipment and staffing in the first year. Ebise is one of the many overseas students who have found a spiritual home and many good friends at Selly Oak Methodist Church. Possibly one of the greatest contributions our congregation can make to the World Church and World Peace, is befriending our world wide partners in mission. For further details contact Rachel Stephens 0121 472 1379 . |
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