This month: Looking after the body as well as the soul - Greater - and lesser - expectations - Site for sore ‘ayes’ - Children’s contrasts - Quake grants

‘A loving, caring and worshipping fellowship...’

Looking after the body as well as the soul...

  It costs £15 a week per church member to cover this church’s total yearly running costs.

  At the start of a New Year, when we all take stock of where we are in the journey of life and make resolutions for the future, I would like to ask you to pray actively about your financial commitment to this church.

  2005 has been a difficult year, in which - I predict at the time of writing - there will be a shortfall between the church’s income and expenditure.  This shortfall will be covered from the church’s reserves and I will be giving a full report of this at the church’s annual general meeting in February.

  Since our weekly offerings are not increasing, we all need to review our giving.

  I realise that a large proportion of the church’s membership has to exist on fixed incomes and that any increases in either investment income or pensions do not cover the increasing domestic bills.  However, this also applies to the church's finances.

  During 2006, the diaconate has suggested that I issue a financial update in Church Chat’s July 2006 edition, so that everyone can see how the financial year is progressing against the agreed budget.

  I also have a message for all those who give generously each week by cash.  In 2005, the total cash received was in excess of £5,500.  Changing to giving this amount by cheque or using the envelope schemes could increase the church’s income by up to 28p in the £1. This means that we could have recovered another £1,540 of tax that you had paid - and that would have made an appreciable difference to this year’s financial deficit.    

  If you want more information on tax efficient giving, please contact either Carol Baughan or myself  - in strict confidence, of course.

  I strongly believe that, with Graham's continuing guidance, we have the opportunity to grow spiritually, physically and financially, thereby helping to expand the gospel’s influence within the local community.

By Chris Songer, church treasurer.

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Another ‘fact that should change the world’.

Greater - and lesser - expectations

  If you were born in the developed world, there is a good chance that you will look forward to a longer life than your parents - and your children should live longer than you.  The average human lifespan has doubled over the last 200 years and, in most countries, this trend continues.

  In the developed and wealthy world, science has eradicated previously devastating diseases and helps to deliver a quality of life that our ancestors - living the life Thomas Hobbes famously described as ‘nasty, brutish and short’ - would never have dared to hope for.

  It is only in recent history that we have been able to dream of living so long.  During the days of the Roman Empire, life expectancy was just 22 years.  By the Middle Ages in England, some 1,500 years later, people could expect to live about 33 years.  The threat of famine was ever-present and medicine was limited to a few brutal surgical techniques. Epidemics of typhoid and leprosy were common and the Black Death, which swept through Europe between 1347 and 1351, killed a quarter of the population.

  The Industrial Revolution prompted improvements in living conditions - especially advancements in medical treatment and the provision of sanitation and clean water.

  Since 1840, the average life expectancy in the longest-lived countries has improved steadily - rising by three months each year.

  This has given rise to speculation about how sustainable this increase can be.  Does the body have a finite lifespan or could we prolong life indefinitely?  Established wisdom seems to be that our lifespans evolve.  If we continue to give birth to babies who live longer and longer, this could upset the delicate balance between survival and reproduction; the average age of populations will increase and this could affect the ability of governments to provide basic services for their populations.

  The group with the longest life expectancy - Japanese women - currently reach, on average, 84.6 years.

  For those living in Central and Southern Africa, though, there is little cause for celebration. Life expectation there is not growing.  In fact, because of the ravages of the HIV/Aids pandemic, life expectancy here is declining rapidly.  According to the US Census Bureau, 51 countries will see a fall in the average life expectancy as that virus continues to claim millions of lives.

  In Botswana, for example, a baby born in 2002 can expect to live an average of 39 years.  This is 30 years less than the average would have been in the absence of HIV/Aids.  By 2010, Botswanans are predicted to have an average life span of just 27 years - which provides a startling contrast to the increasing instances of people in the ‘western world’ reaching their centuries.

  Aids is the starkest reason for the lower life expectancies in the developing world but there are others.

  Infant mortality rates in many countries remain high.  In Sierra Leone, 157 babies out of every 1,000 die before their first birthday.  Compare this with Iceland’s 2.6 babies and it’s easy to see why the infant mortality rate is considered a sensitive measure of a country’s public health.  Access to clean water, nutrition and healthcare during pregnancy are a ‘given’ in the West but are by no means certain elsewhere.  Young children who don’t get enough food are more likely to die from diseases such as influenza and diarrhoea.  UNICEF estimates that there are 150m malnourished children around the world.

  Poverty also reduces life expectancy, as do polluted air or soil (which make food production more difficult) and, as rapidly growing populations put the land and natural resources under increasing strain, deserts are growing as local ecosystems are destroyed.

  While higher income countries must come to terms with their ageing populations and must provide for the increasing strains on their health and welfare systems, the developing world must tackle the problem of Aids.  At present, African nations are the worst hit but there are indications that China, India and the former Soviet Union countries will lose millions of their people to Aids in the next ten years.

  According to the World Bank, it is hard to prevent illness through better public health if literacy and access to education are limited.  The World Bank has also pointed out that treating people suffering from Aids is expensive (an estimated £15,000 a year for each British Aids patient) - and funding is limited and resources scarce in the developing world.

Abridged from ‘50 facts that should change the world’ by Jessica Williams (ISBN 1-84046-547-6) and supplied by Aneurin Little.

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Site for sore ‘ayes’

The bible society has supported the development of the Christians in Parliament website (www.christiansinparliament.org.uk).  The site seeks to build and resource the Christian community within the Palace of Westminster.  There is a ‘closed’ area for those working in Parliament and an ‘open’ area that includes prayer topics for those with an interest in politics and faith.

From The Bible Society.

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Children’s contrasts

One in ten children in the UK lives in a home so poor that they will go without a coat, shoes or even hot meals this winter, according to the charity, Save the Children.  The charity has announced that there has been no improvement in the plight of the UK’s children since a report two years ago revealed that up to 1m youngsters in the UK were in need.

  In contrast, a survey from MoneyExpert.com has revealed that, this Christmas, children in the UK received £6.1bn in cash.  While, on average, each of 30m adults gave some £202 to their children, 2.7m adults gave more than £500 to their children.

Spotted in The Metro by Peter Kelleher.

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Quake grants

BMS World Mission has given two Relief Fund grants, each of £10,000, to earthquake relief efforts in the Kashmir region, on the disputed border between India and Pakistan.

  Over 70,000 people in Pakistan and more than 1,400 in India were killed, with another 3m made homeless, by the earthquake in October, which registered 7.6 on the Richter scale (in contrast, the nearby Buncefield oil depot explosion measured only 2.5 on the Richter scale - which is a logarithmic, not arithmetic, scale).

  One of the BMS grants went to its partner, OM, which is distributing food, blankets and tents to 50 families in the Batal area of Pakistan -administered Kashmir.

  The other grant went to Christian Medical Centre (CMC) Ludhiana to help fund a medical team of up to ten people, to bring medical and basic assistance to earthquake survivors in Baramulla, one of the worst affected areas of Jammu & Kashmir, in India-administered Kashmir.

  According to BMS World Mission, aftershocks continue in this region on a near daily basis and landslides continue to close the mountain roads.  Even now, many remote areas have yet to be reached with aid.

From BMS World News.