FROM THE URC MINISTER

Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes are due to be filled during October.  We have heard that for the second year running the boxes from Ickenham will be going to Mozambique.  A total of over 15,000 shoeboxes were distributed in Mozambique in 2009. 

While packing boxes this year, you might like to think about the people who will be delivering them.  The OCC International Coordinator visited Mozambique to see the national team training local volunteers.  He wrote, “I sat in the church, in the heat, and listened to the preparations that had been made and I saw the faithfulness of the volunteers involved.”  He found them, “so committed to their community, that they will give up valuable working hours to make sure children receive the gift-filled shoeboxes.”

On the day I am writing this for ICN in September, I have read about a group of young people from the United Reformed Church in the north east of England whose Synod partnership visit to the Presbyterian Church of Mozambique had to be cut short after riots broke out in the capital city. 

The URC website noted, “The civil unrest started on 1st September, the same day as significant food price increases were announced - the price of bread was raised by 30% (to 70% higher than in January) putting it beyond the means of many families already living below the poverty line.  Part of the reason for this price rise lies with speculation within the western world, where reckless bankers are accused of gambling on global food markets.”

The World Development Movement launched a campaign in July, calling on people to write to their MPs, saying: "The European Commission and the French and US governments have all said they want to bring food speculation into the open and regulate it to stabilise prices.  We need you to help pressure the UK government to ensure that it backs proposals for regulation and not to take sides with the banks to block reform.”  On 3rd September WDM reported that European negotiators have made progress towards the establishment of three new banking regulators that could help prevent food crises.

Meanwhile I heard this week that supporters of Ickenham’s Christian Aid lunches and special collections in the last three years have raised more than 20% above the £5,000 target for water supply in Ethiopia, which will be tripled by European funding.  And I look forward to hearing and reading the reports from our Ickenham team visiting Uganda to develop our partnership there.  

Let us continue to pursue these and other much needed efforts, with God’s help.

Bernie

 

 

FROM THE CHURCHES’ REGISTERS

Baptisms at St Giles’
Aug 29th            Mitchell Richard Bonner
                          Jessica Ellen Bonner
                          Kaylem Philip Bonner
                          Georgina Isabella Bonner

Sept 12th           Lewis Allan Daly
                          Elena Rosita Seferi

Wedding at St Giles’
Sept 4th            Nicholas James Richards and Lucie Victoria Harlow

Cremations at Breakspear Crematorium
Aug 18th           Alan Gillard, aged 76
Sept 10th         William Ramsdale, aged 87 (after service at St Giles’)

Burial at Northwood Cemetery
Aug 20th          Vera Draper, aged 96 (after service at the URC)