28 September 2008

We give the assurance of our thoughts and prayers to all who are unwell, awaiting or undergoing treatment, or anxious or grieving for the loss of loved ones.

Harvest Celebration

Today's all-age worship is using Methodist Relief & Development Fund (MRDF) material on the theme “Reclaim Harvest”, focussing on Ethiopia.

Envelopes for donations for the work of MRDF are being distributed today in connection with our Harvest Celebration. Please return them in the coming weeks through the Sunday Offering plate.

See below for more MRDF news.

News from Synod

This met in Inverness on 20th September. The session started with worship by our own circuit. The morning business included Synod Review, when a decision not to alter the pattern of visiting all eight Circuits in rota for Synod venues was taken, the latest news about NCH Scotland (now to be renamed “Action for Children Scotland”), and publication of the first leaflet with local reports about this year's Conference - a copy for each person in Marketgait will be shortly forthcoming. The afternoon began with a presentation about the new Ghanaian Methodist Chaplaincy in Scotland followed by the regular 'Circuit slot', this time presented by the North of Scotland Mission Circuit. Finally, there was time for the reps to get into their own Circuit groups and discuss the implications of the forthcoming appointment of Regional Learning and Development Officers. Each Circuit will require to have its own Circuit Learning Group to plan how to use these people, given that Conference has allocated nearly £1 million to Scotland and Shetland Districts over the next 5 years, to achieve our vision of growth and mission. Watch this space!!

(A résumé of Thursday night's Circuit Meeting in Arbroath, which dealt with some of these issues will follow next week.)

Veteran Heroes

Jim McGovern MP asks us to draw attention to the campaign to encourage those who are eligible to apply for a Veteran Lapel Badge. The qualifying date has now been extended so that those who served in the armed forces between the outbreak of WW1 and 31st December 1994 can apply for the Veteran Lapel Badge and the UK Merchant Seafarers Badge. Further details / forms are on the Vestibule table or see http://www.dta-uk.org/PDF/Veterans%20Lapel%20Badge.pdf.

Meetings this week

Support other Organisations

Scottish Bible Society

Our support through the Bible-a-Month Club is invited in September for work in Niger and in October for work in Nicaragua. See library area noticeboard for more information. Our prayerful attention is drawn this week to

• successful launch by the Japan Bible Society of its first-ever Manga (comic book) Bible;
• publication by Hong Kong Bible Society of Words of Wisdom series of Bible stories and comics, distributed to youngsters throughout China;
• work among the Mikitu community on Caribbean coast of Nicaragua, where extreme poverty pushes young people into drug trafficking.

MRDF: Ethiopia Emergency Update

In the highlands of Ethiopia people have been caught in a vicious cycle: when crops have failed and they cannot eat, they have felled trees to sell wood. Now deforestation is causing soil erosion, less food can be produced and the forests have been all but wiped out. MRDF is working through a local partner agency to break this cycle by enabling people to work co-operatively and use the land in different, sustainable ways. This means families are able to reclaim degraded land, grow new crops and farm traditional produce more efficiently. MRDF has been able to respond to this crisis through a solution devised by the local community - and now it is being delivered by them too - with £23,500 of funding from MRDF.

Families have been receiving emergency seed on the agreement that, as they harvest, an equivalent amount of seed will eventually be repaid. The resulting seed bank will provide a co-operative system for the efficient storage and distribution of grain, providing the community with the resilience to withstand environmental shocks in the future.

Had this partnership not already developed the local infrastructure and relationships to make speedy action possible, 13,000 more people would be facing starvation this Autumn. Their only hope would have been handouts of emergency food aid. Instead, this crisis intervention has the potential for a lasting benefit.”

Forthcoming events

Prayer Points for this week

• The Vice-President at the Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham, this week;
• Connexional Leaders Forum, Monday - Tuesday, and World Mission Forum on Saturday;
• Scotland District's Circuit Preachers Secretaries & Tutors' meeting in Dunblane on Saturday;
• Arbroath Church Council, tomorrow, Monday;
• those whose decisions affect provision of care for older people (Methodist Homes);
• The Leprosy Mission's promotional work in Asia, Australasia, and Oceania;
• partners, projects and people in Senegal (Christian Aid);
• Bible Society work in Niger and in Nicaragua;
• Armenian Evangelical Shamlian Tatikian School in Beirut, teaching 250 children of all ages ,using Armenian, Arabic, and English alphabets (BibleLands);
• we pray with and for the peoples of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia (WCC Prayer Calendar);
• we remember fellow Methodists in Acle and Loddon (East Anglia District) and in Buckie (North of Scotland Mission Circuit).

• 21 September 2008
• 5 September 2008

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