Minutes For Mission
The South Asian tsunami of 2004 created havoc along India’s Tamil Nadu coast, causing many traditional fishers to lose their livelihoods.
According to Mission & Service partner the Human Rights Advocacy and Research Foundation, soon after the tsunami hundreds of industrial shrimp farms began appearing along the coast with little or no regulation or control. The digging of shrimp ponds often led to felling mangrove forests that provide vital marine habitat and protect coastlines from severe weather. The high rate of wild shrimp being caught to stock industrial shrimp ponds seriously depletes wild fisheries and threatens coastal biodiversity.
To make matters worse, polluted saltwater discharged from shrimp farms contaminates agricultural lands, drinking water, and traditional fishing areas. To maximize production, the commercial ponds are overcrowded with shrimp. High levels of pesticides and antibiotics must be used to prevent disease, adding to the contamination and posing potential threats to community health. Traditional shrimpers can’t compete with the low prices of imported shrimp from commercial farms “dumped” on domestic markets like Canada.
We are thankful that Human Rights Advocacy and Research Foundation, with Mission & Service support, is helping traditional coastal fishers push back against large commercial interests to regain their traditional fishing rights and build healthy local communities.
Please join me in making Mission & Service giving a regular part of your life of faith.
Loving God, we are called to be your colours in the world, to walk with each other, to share in love through our gifts for
Mission & Service.
Guide us to shine brightly in the world. Amen
The Bread Not Stones initiative to end child poverty in Canada is the UCW national project for 2015 and beyond. The project began in 2010 with Alberta and Northwest Conference UCW’s Child Well-Being Initiative.
When the National UCW invited all UCWs across Canada to take up the call to end child poverty, the people of Wesley Knox and First St. Andrews in London, Ontario, were so inspired that the London Conference Bread Not Stones campaign was born under the leadership of Laurel Kenney and Linda Woods.
Laurel and Linda have since given talks and conducted many workshops at churches and events in southwestern Ontario. They have also aligned with numerous anti-poverty groups as they work continuously to raise awareness of and eliminate child poverty in their region.
As Laurel and Linda share, “We are following in the footsteps of the women out west as we approach all levels of government to actively advocate on behalf of our most vulnerable children. We can’t think of a more urgent issue.”
Bread Not Stones is also a Mission & Service–supported resource designed to encourage and enable communities of faith to pray, learn, and act to eradicate child poverty in their local region and across Canada. You can download a copy at www.united-church.ca.
We are thankful to UCWs across Canada who offer leadership for the call to end child poverty as well as support many programs in our communities and around the world through gifts for Mission & Service.
Please join me in making Mission & Service giving a regular part of your life of faith.
How can we better understand cultural difference? How can we gain tools and attitudes for ministry in culturally diverse settings? How do we look at our own power and privilege?
Some United Church people have been exploring these questions and more through the Deepening Understanding for Intercultural Ministry program. This six-day workshop offered by our ecumenical partner, Canadian Churches’ Forum, offers practical ideas and is ideal for Christian ministry leaders. The United Church works with Forum staff to shape the content, and United Church members receive some financial subsidies to attend. Each participant leaves with the commitment to lead an intercultural project in their own community.
One past participant shared that “I grew in self-awareness and grew in my capacity to be in right relationship with God’s people.” Another reflected that the program was an “essential foundation for beginning to grasp the inherent complexities of who we are, who we are called to be, and how we are called to join each other in true Beloved Community.” Many note that the program is a transformative experience.
United Church staff continue to connect and support participants after the event as they do follow-up work. After returning home, the energized participants are leading workshops, networking, and organizing gatherings in their regions; some are exploring intercultural worship in their local communities of faith. The result is fuller participation of the rainbow people of God in church life.
We are thankful that our gifts for Mission & Service make programs like Deepening Understanding of Intercultural Ministry possible!
Please join me in making Mission & Service giving a regular part of your life of faith.
Healing in a Nuclear Zone
The nuclear plant in Kalpakkam, Tamil Nadu, India is making people sick in the surrounding villages up to 50 km away, Dr. Pugazhendhi believes. India’s Atomic Energy Department says the radiation levels are too low to cause any ill effects, but the doctor argues that there is no safe limit.
He cites three different studies that found that the rates of cancer and autoimmune diseases were higher in the area, at rates that are statistically significant. In and around Kalpakkam, the rate of thyroid disease is 5 times higher than that in more distant villages, the rate of cancer 7 times higher, and the rate of developmental challenges 11 times higher.
Sangeetha, 32 years old, and her two children, ages 11 and 8, are three of the faces of those statistics. Her husband died suddenly of cancer at the age of 36 after the family’s savings were decimated for his treatment.
Lavanya, a 17-year-old girl with severe mental challenges, is another example. Her father works in the nuclear plant. Lavanya was born healthy before having seizures a few days after birth, resulting in abnormal brain growth.
Human Rights Advocacy and Research Foundation helps families like Sangeetha’s find work, pay school fees, and arrange childcare. HRAF also supports Dr. Pugazhendhi’s local health clinic and helps pay medical costs for children like Lavanya.
We are thankful our gifts for Mission & Service support this work.
Please join me in making Mission & Service giving a regular part of your life of faith.
Loving God, we are called to be your colours in the world,
to walk with each other,
to share in love through our gifts for Mission & Service.
Guide us to shine brightly in the world. Amen
[Matched with a companion video. View at youtube.com/unitedchurchofcanada, or download from www.UCRDstore.ca/m4m.]
In the city of Manila, Philippines, close to Manila Bay, is the urban garbage dump known as Smokey Mountain 2. The area is named after Smokey Mountain 1, an adjacent dumpsite closed in 1995.
Smokey Mountain 2 is also the name of a community of some 1,000 families living directly on top of the garbage. The residents are informal settlers from rural areas with little or no education and resources who have come to Manila looking for work and opportunities for their children. Entire families scavenge in the rubbish, looking for reusable scrap for sale or barter.
In 2007, a local congregation of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines, a Mission and Service partner, began a community ministry at Smokey Mountain 2. The Tondo Evangelical Church was led by the theme “The household of God in service to the community” and its desire to demonstrate God’s love and care.
In consultation with the community, the Tondo congregation opened the Sunbeam Daycare Centre, which offers kindergarten education and recreation programs to children who would otherwise not be in school. It equips children aged five to nine with skills in reading, writing, and arithmetic, and provides a feeding project during school days. Once a year, in collaboration with a local hospital, there is a community medical mission.
With our Mission and Service gifts, the United Church of Christ in the Philippines’ Tondo Evangelical Church and Sunbeam Daycare Centre are making a difference in the lives of Filipino children. This ministry lives out the gospel teachings and celebrates God’s presence. Please join me and give generously.
Mighty and tender God, our gifts to M&S help your church to
do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with you.
[Available in French (online only)/disponible en français (en ligne seulement). Visit www.UCRDstore.ca and search for “minutes for mission 2014.” Visitez le site www.UCRDstore.ca et recherchez “minutes for mission 2015.”]