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This month: Gift ideas form
Christian Aid - Tonga truth -
The Afghan elections -
Stewardship report -
‘Extremists’ wanted
Gift ideas from Christian
Aid
The real reason we celebrate Christmas can be easily lost amid all the
activities of the season. Many people have all they ‘need’ or ‘want’.
They can find receiving even more gifts an embarrassment of plenty.
However, there are many ways of giving a gift at Christmas time in someone’s
name to benefit others less fortunate than ourselves.
Christian Aid’s catalogue, ‘Just Gifts’, offers a range of mixed priced gifts
that provide a variety of benefits to others. For example:
* £7 will provide a stethoscope for health workers in rural Cambodia.
* £15 provides a pair of crutches for those whose lives have be shattered by
severe injuries in the conflict areas around Bethlehem.
* £30 will pay a teacher’s salary for four months in an Indian school.
* £60 will buy four goats to be part of a ‘goat pool’ in Huichaca, Bolivia.
Local farmers can borrow a male and female goat and, when the goats have kids,
give them back so that others can benefit from them.
* £219 will enable Christian Aid and their partners, Youth With A Mission, to
set up three mobile clinics giving medical assistance and counselling for
HIV/AIDS sufferers.
These are just a few ideas from the full catalogue range. When you buy a
‘gift’ you will receive a special card that you can give to explaining the gift.
Each card features an image of the gift and a few words about the nature of the
need that the gift is helping to alleviate.
For further details see the Christian Aid catalogue in the vestibule or go
online to www.christianaid.org.uk
By Helen Little and supplied by Graham Clarke.
Top of page
Tonga truth
A Tongan woman once said that, when her father went out to fish, he would take
enough for his family and share the rest of the catch with his neighbours.
Everyone would do the same, and so everyone had enough to eat.
Then the white man came and brought freezers, so you could store the fish you
caught rather than share the catch with your neighbours.
Finally, another white man arrived with a Bible, saying that you should share
what you have. So, she said, we realised that our traditional way of life
was the right one after all.
By Maureen Edwards and previously published in ‘Words for Today’ Bible
reading notes from the IBRA.
Top of page
The head of a major BMS partner organisation in Afghanistan has called the
presidential elections in that country ‘miraculously peaceful’. BMS World
Mission News interviewed him from Church Chat readers about the election held on
9th October.
The Afghan elections
What was the election day like in Kabul?
The situation over the election day on Saturday was very calm. I saw no
security incidents on the day of the election and the international security
forces, the local police forces and the army took very effective action.
They did not allow any lorries to come into major cities, so all the lorries had
to stay outside the city limits. They didn’t allow any vehicles which did
not have the local city licence plates on them inside the city and no push-carts
with vegetables or fruit to be sold were allowed in the streets.
I was in contact with other regions where we have workers and they didn’t report
any incidents either. For security reasons we all stayed inside for three
days - Friday, Saturday and Sunday. It was on Sunday evening that we then
allowed the team to go out again. I have spoken to local people and our
workers, and they have all said that people have been active in voting and have
been very happy to do that. The day was peaceful. I would almost say
miraculously peaceful, all around the country.
Do you think people have felt that this election will make a difference and
that voting was worthwhile?
Yes. People have been keen to give their vote. I have been hearing
reports of high percentages - some of up to 80 per cent - of registered voters’
participation, but we have no way of measuring that. We will hear official
reports of what percentage of the people actually participated later, but what
has been clear is that there has been an unprecedented level of enthusiasm on
the part of the Afghan people. Considering that there have been many
threats in the preceding months in some parts of Afghanistan, 90 per cent of
eligible voters being registered is a very large number. To me, that
proves that the Afghan people were willing to go to the polls and actually saw
the value of voting. I think it has been a historic moment in that way.
Has there been a sense that this election has been owned by the Afghan
people?
My impression is that this has been an Afghan election. It could not have
taken place without the support of the UN and other countries by way of funding,
monitors and general organisation but, to turn out such support, it has had to
be very much an Afghan election. I’m not getting the sense from the local
people that it’s just been organised by some outside powers.
Will this election have a positive effect on your work in Afghanistan?
Speaking for all of us in our organisation, we don’t believe that the security
threats and concerns will now all disappear. I think that it is the coming
year, when the elected government will make structural changes in Afghanistan,
that will be critical. We are likely to reduce the number of ministries
from 27 to 15 or so. Now that President Karzai has been elected, he is likely to
introduce more reforms and will, hopefully, get more control over other parts of
Afghanistan as well. Nevertheless, I think there will still be risks and
threats to our work. We will still be vigilant and careful, but I think
that, overall, we can still carry out our work. There are likely to be
areas of the country - as there have been in the past - where we cannot work,
due to lack of security, but even in 2003 we were working in 23 of the 44
provinces. Assuming that we take effective security measures and take
security seriously, this will have been a good process with a lot of good
developments.
From BMS World Mission News.
Top of page
In 2003, The Leprosy Mission received £5,198,032 - including a small donation
from this church. The Leprosy Mission’s national director, Warren
Lancaster reports on how that money has been spent.
Stewardship report
Leprosy can be cured. Surgery corrects diabetes. Grants and loans
for small businesses create secure livelihoods. With your prayers and
donations we do all this and more. Our health and community programmes
cover 309m people.
In 2003, we treated 85,000 people who were diagnosed with leprosy. We performed
over 26,000 surgeries and almost 6,500 children and families benefitted from
help with education or micro-enterprise development.
We are making real headway against this dreadful disease but, I am conscious
that, every day, 1,700 new cases are reported - and this figure will not reduce
significantly within the next ten to 15 years. Last year alone, over 600,000 new
cases of leprosy were reported and ten per cent of these cases involved
children.
By Warren Lancaster.
Top of page
"Extremists" wanted
BMS World Mission has launched a cross-cultural short-term programme - called
‘Extreme Latin America’ - for graduates aged between 20 and 27. who want to be
part of a programme owned and directed by Latin America, for Latin America.
For years BMS has sent people to strengthen and support the church in Brazil.
Today, Baptist Christians in Brazil have their own vision for taking mission to
their neighbours.
BMS’s Anna Wordsworth said that, in addition to being enthusiastic, keen to
interact with young people from another culture and dedicated to serving others
for Christ, applicants should be: "prepared to learn Portuguese and Spanish
pretty quickly and want to get involved in something really extreme, crazy and
challenging."
You can get more details of this and other short term mission opportunities from
brochures in the church vestibule or, indeed, from talking to Graham Clarke.
Alternatively, you can call Anna Wordsworth on 01235 517653 or email her at:
awordsworth@bmsworldmission.org
The application form for Extreme Latin America can be downloaded from
www.bmsworldmission.org
Condensed by Robert Little from information supplied by BMS World Mission.
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