Mission & Links at St. John's Church

The Bible Society At the start of 19th century Thomas Charles, a minister in North Wales, sought to make the scriptures freely available in the Welsh language, following the visit of 15 year old Mary Jones. She had walked over 20 miles across mountain paths to buy a Welsh bible. On hearing this plan Joseph Hughes asked “If for Wales, why not the kingdom, and if for the kingdom why not the world?” Thus in 1804 the British and Foreign Bible Society (now the Bible Society) was launched. It’s first translation was published the same year, a translation of John’s gospel into the Canadian Indian Mohawk language.

There are now 130 national Bible Societies worldwide and part or all of the scriptures have been translated into more than 2,300 languages and dialects. Today the Bible Society is rising to the challenge of ensuring that the message of the Bible can be heard in today’s world and that it is known, loved and understood. A variety of initiatives are in place not just the translation work which is ongoing. There are also programmes such as: Faith Comes by Hearing - which seeks to put the Bible onto tape enabling it to be heard whilst people are going about their lives. Bible a Month Club - whereby for a small regular donation a Bible will be donated somewhere in the world where it is needed each month. Specific Projects – such as literacy projects which seek to provide people with an opportunity to meet with the Bible and to learn an invaluable life skill, or media festivals which seek to bring the drama and reality of the Bible to as wide an audience as possible. Further information about the Bible Society’s activities and history is available from its website: www.biblesociety.org.uk Alan Ramay (Tel. 853250) is the St John’s representative for the Bible Society

Syrian Orthodox Christian School in Bethlehem Project

In March 2000 Canon Andrew White of Coventry Cathedral led a diocesan pilgrimage to the Holy Land. There the group met members of the Syrian Orthodox Christian Church in Bethlehem. Many in this community of 3000 (including 800 children) have missed out on formal education due to the lack of recognition of Christianity in local schools.

At the start of the new Millennium came new hope as the Barnabas Fund bought a dilapidated building in suburbs of Bethlehem suitable for conversion to a school. Reconstruction commenced using local labour and volunteers. The school is now complete but depends on private support, like every Christian school in present day Palestine and was officially opened by Bishop Colin in September 2003. The project has been chosen as the Millennium project of the Community of the Cross of Nails and a “SOCS in Bethlehem Support Group” has been formed. This group has been working to raise funds to help the cost of construction and the supply of necessary equipment for the school.

Members of this committee visited the school and were overwhelmed by the reception they received from the children, teachers and parents, all are so delighted with the school which is a beacon of HOPE shining in a very dark area of the world. They send their sincere thanks for your prayers and support.
Now that the area is more peaceful and people can move around safely, there are 53 children attending the school. This means opening another classroom bringing the school to almost full capacity. The reason for this is that the school is the best in the area. This is recognized by Bethlehem University who are sending students there for teacher training.

This is presenting a new challenge as there is now a requirement to extend the school to take children age 7-11 to ensure continuity and this is currently under discussion.
In the meantime the school will still need on-going support for its running costs as the cost of living is about 30% higher than in the UK and unemployment amongst the Syrian Christian community has been from 80% - 98%.

Why support this project
Families will remain together as a unit
Young people will have a good Christian Education
The project will encourage other Christians in the Holy Land.
Education will bring greater opportunities for work.
Respect for a marginalised Christian community will increase.

How can YOU Help?

• Pray for peace in the Holy Land
• Pray for the school and head teacher Mrs Amal Behman, and the children and teachers.
• Raise awareness of the situation (invite a SOCS group member to give a presentation).
• Buy a piece of equipment for the school or give a donation

St. John’s Links : John & Jean Radford. (854475)

Today 1.3 billion people live in extreme poverty. Tonight 800 million people will go to bed hungry and this year 12 million children will die before their fifth birthday.

It needn’t be like that. We can hope for a better world, where everyone lives a full life, free from poverty. And we have the power to turn that hope into action. Hope is about doing, not dreaming. It makes things change. Since 1950, life expectancy in developing countries has risen by 20 years, access to clean water has doubled, child death rates have halved, and food production has grown 20 per cent faster than population.

The unprecedented economic development of the last few decades has created unprecedented wealth, as well as pockets of extreme deprivation, across the globe. But it’s not simply a matter of economics. Poverty has been eroded partly because people have fought together for justice: rich and poor, North and South, people of all faiths and all races. They didn’t give in to despair. They hoped – and acted.

Christian Aid is an agency of the churches in UK and Ireland working wherever the need is greatest, irrespective of religion or race. It believes in strengthening people to find their own solutions to the problems they face, to support local organisations which are best placed to understand local needs.

During Christian Aid week every year 350 000 volunteers in the UK and Ireland collect money to help the world’s poorest communities. In this parish we raised £3,000 in 2005 and supported the Make Poverty History campaign by finding out more about poverty and how to beat it, signing campaign cards and joining with others to pray.

For further information contact Sue Proctor the St. John’s Parish Representative (Tel. 856212) or go to the web site: www.christianaid.org.uk.

The Church Army is a society of evangelists within the Anglican Communion which exists to enable people to come to a living faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. It’s aims are:

1. To provide and organise the society’s human and other resources, that it will be able to fulfil all of its aims and meet the challenges of the future.
2. Train, enable and equip evangelists.
3. Present people with the claims of Christ in such a way that they can understand and respond.
4. Recognise, acknowledge and communicate the activity of God in the world.
5. Give practical help and care to people to whom we go with the good news.
6. Inspire and mobilise the church in its task of evangelism.
7. Train and enable church members to engage in witness and evangelism.
8. Take the good news to those areas and people where the church has found its evangelistic outreach particularly difficult.

This enables the society to focus on the following five areas:

• Area evangelism - raising the profile of outreach by training and resourcing churches.
• Children and young people - providing training for youth workers.
• Church planting - establishing churches in new situations, building relationships between church and community.
• Homeless people - providing accommodation and training to homeless people by helping churches to be involved with projects and initiatives.
• Older people - encouraging older people to recognise their gifts and helping them to reach out to their neighbors, and working with churches to meet the needs of older people.

Examples of work include:

Beach Missions
One year evangelism teams
Evangelistic weekends
Certificate in evangelism studies
Work in the inner cities, housing estates, night clubs and amongst drug users
Creating church meeting places in houses, clubs, shops, schools.

They are leading by example in all the work being done among the people on the edge of Christianity - bringing them into a relationship with our Lord Jesus, and reaching those outside our churches whom the Church cannot reach. They are challenging us to join them in going into the communities and take Jesus and His saving power to those who are lost. All things can happen, if we believe in the things we pray in Jesus name.
The Church Army desperately needs the help of Christians everywhere to pray and give, to enable this work to carry on and expand. This is so that Jesus can come to the people in the areas where the established church is struggling and change the lives of those who otherwise may never know Him.
Derek Jakeman (856793) St. John’s Link Person

Church Pastoral Aid Society (CPAS)Christian Aid

On 20 November 1835, a church newspaper received a letter from a young civil servant by the name of Frederick Sandoz. His letter proposed the idea of a 'Church Home Missionary Society' with the general objective of 'aiding ministers of the Church of England in their pastoral office.'

The vision of this new Society was 'to take the gospel to every man's door, with a single aim of glorifying God.' The world may have changed since 1836, but this vision remains true of the Church Pastoral Aid Society today.

CPAS 2001 has a passion to respond to this changing world and focuses its mission on the following three areas: leadership, evangelism, and training.

CPAS provides training and consultation for churches and their leaders, equipping them for ministry within their local church community - wherever and whatever the context. Throughout the United Kingdom and Ireland, Regional Consultants are available to help you in your area. Our evangelists can encourage and enable churches to reach out to their community and specialists working with children and families can offer their expertise.

CPAS produces excellent publications and resources for the all-age church with exciting materials for children and young people. The new Under construction resource provides a wealth of material based on a three year syllabus - an absolute 'must' for any church looking to develop its ministry with the young.

CPAS is patron to over 500 churches, offers parish grants, provides ninety-six Venture Camps every year for 8-17s and subsidises Falcon Camps for children from disadvantaged backgrounds. For more information on how CPAS can help you, contact CPAS at: CPAS Athena Drive, Tachbrook Park, WARWICK CV34 6NG (01926 458458). E-mail: info@cpas.org.uk, check their web site (www.cpas.org.uk) or see Kate Dickson.

Crosslinks is one of the Anglican missionary societies. Its motto is “God’s Word to God’s World”. It has a strong evangelical emphasis and is working through its mission partners all over the world. It was founded as the Bible Churchman’s Missionary Society in 1922 and changed its name a few years ago to reflect the changing nature of mission. This change has been from purely “sending” missionaries to “exchanging” missionaries (or partners) and there are now a number of partners working in the United Kingdom.

In addition to supporting mission partners the society also has a programme of short term work (Short-term Mission Involvement Learning & Experience - S.M.I.L.E) suitable for those who have anything from a week to a year to spare. This work can involve activities such as working alongside missionaries, teaching, building, working with children.

St John’s Kenilworth has a link through Crosslinks with Julian Brown who works in North Africa. Julian is married to Mei Hwa, from Taiwan and they have a young son, John.

For further information please contact Ken Pollard, Crosslinks Parish Secretary, St John’s Kenilworth. (Tel. 856149) or view the web site www.crosslinks.org.

Kenilworth Deanery Dresden Link

Keep peace-making going!

Since 1994 there has been a link between parishes in Kenilworth Deanery and a number of parishes in and around Dresden, based on the relationship between Coventry and Dresden that there has been since the bombing of those two cities in World War 2. Every couple of years a group of about twenty people fly across either from Dresden to Kenilworth Deanery or vice versa. See this link for more information.

Kenilworth Youth For Christ

Our aim - to inform, to inspire, to enthuse.

Our Mission - to take the Good News relevantly to every young person in Kenilworth, wherever they are - in the street, in School, in Church, in Clubs or in the Home.

"Effective youth ministry starts with us realising our own value and worth to God. It continues with us passing on that sense of significance and self-worth to the young people we know and work with. The biggest buzz then comes when THEY start passing it on to others". - Paul Wilcox, YFC Director.

K.Y.F.C is a charity in its own right, funded entirely by the faith-giving of people in Kenilworth. We operate under the auspices of the National Y.F.C organisation who offer advice, resources, management skills and prayer. Our full time Youth Leaders are Chris and Tina Adams who live on Rounds Hill with their children Pippa and Michael. Our activities are overseen by an Executive Committee which meets monthly and consists of members of the various Kenilworth churches. They are also the Trustees of KYFC.

St John's representatives are currently Diana Barnard, Ian Jones and Clive Sutton; Knights Meadow is represented by Graham HYDE.

See also the national Youth for Christ web site: www.yfc.co.uk

South American Missionary Society

This society is a partner with the Anglican Church in South America. The countries covered are :

It’s mission is: “Give thanks to the Lord call on his name; make known among the nations what he has done.”( Ps 105:1) and the work includes the following:

• Theological training, church schools and teacher training
• Marginalised groups, street children, orphans, AIDS victims, new town projects.
• Bible translation into native tongues
• New church plants
• Link latin partners
• Youth Work
• Church work and outreach
• Cross cultural mission

Publications:
Magazine called SHARE - three times yearly
Prayer diary - whose doing what were and when
Prayer letter - news and items for prayer from Bishop
Maurice Sinclair
Photo gallery - showing all mission partners and accepted candidates

Noteworthy comment in a thesis on grassroots church growth in Latin America stated “ The spread of the Gospel amongst the masses constitutes one of the most significant shifts in Latin American History”.

Mike Dayus, (tel. 01676 533039). St. John’s Link Person

Web site - www.samsgb.org -

Kenilworth-Uyogo Friendship Link

Started in 1979, when Kenilworth raised over £2400 for its International Year of the Child project to enable a Mother and Child clinic to be built and equipped in the village of Uyogo in the Tabora Region of Tanzania, using local materials and labour.

The clinic was completed three years later. Since then Kenilworth has maintained a friendship link by correspondence and raising funds to equip the clinic and supply medicines.

Our support has grown over the years and we have supplied funds for building wells, the need for clean water being a major requirement to improve the health of the villagers. In addition we have supplied funds to refurbish the village school and the teachers’ accommodation.

The need for education is paramount and to this end we are now funding the secondary education for 5 students for 4 years. We are also so investigating the possibility of funding further educational training for older students at the Development Training College.

This is of course in addition to continuing to assist with the funding of various refurbishment projects and the current priority is the complete refurbishment and equipping of the Mother and Child Clinic.

In September 2004 members of the committee visited Uyogo and experienced first hand the way of life in the village. Peter and Ann Fisher visited from St. John’s and were overwhelmed by the welcome they received. They did confirm that all the projects that we had funded had been completed and identified ways that we shall continue to help and support the people of the village.

Since returning they have given number of presentations to various organizations in the town, but the most important break through has been creating a link with Kenilworth School. The school has adopted Uyogo as one of their main charities, rising in excess of £2500 and we are now working with the school to arrange an exchange visit for some of the older students.

Members of the village send their sincere thanks to you for your support. Please continue to pray for them and support the events that the committee organizes to raise funds to improve the quality of the health, education and living standards of this third world community.

The committee members from St. John’s are Hazel Jackson, Peter Fisher, Ann Sheard and John Radford (854475) who will be pleased to tell you more about the link.

The Church Mission Society

The Church Mission Society is a voluntary association of people united in obedience to the call of God to proclaim the Gospel in all lands and to gather the people of all races into the fellowship of Christ’s church. This means that all members of CMS try to participate actively in Christian mission wherever they are, in their home country or abroad.

During its 200 years CMS has sent out more than 9000 men and women to share the Gospel - teaching, setting up schools, and hospitals and engaging in direct evangelism. Today CMS works in Africa, the Middle East, Europe and Asia. It works as a partner with national churches and agencies in over 30 countries.
Our mission partner is Gail Phillip. She joined the staff at Christ Church language centre in Bangkok, Thailand in April 2000. She is now principal of the Kindergarten at Christ Church and is currently overseeing the opening of a new child care centre in Banchang.

She can be contacted at:
Christ Church,
11 Convent Road,
Bangkok 10500
THAILAND
email: gailphillip@hotmail.com
Sue Proctor is the St. John’s Link, 856212.

Tools With A Mission

Tools With A Mission is a Christian Charity that sends gifts of good quality tools into many countries. It enables those who receive them to earn a living and change their world.

In 1981, John Bennett decided to support missionary work by collecting, refurbishing and sending tools overseas. At first the tools were collected and repaired as part of a school educational project. But looking back it seems that God was in this venture because over the years, from small beginnings TWAM has grown. In 1995 TWAM moved from its small premises into a large barn near Ipswich. Perry Barn houses an office, workshop and storage area and here a happy band of volunteers sort, repair, refurbish, and store all the tools that come into the barn from all over the country, mostly from Christian churches and organisations.

When requests come from the mission field abroad the tools are collected from the store, catalogued for customs clearance, all paperwork is prepared and the tools are crated or containerised for shipment. Then the shipment is taken by lorry to Felixstowe docks and sent on its way with a prayer that many lives will be touched by this expression of the love of Jesus.

Tools means almost anything ranging from saws to sewing machines, pumps and mallets to axes and spectacles. In many developing countries many localities are without electricity or families can't afford a connection. Therefore manual sewing machines, hand tools, and non-electrical duplicators are very much in demand.

What are we doing locally? Well, we have a large container in Binley where we can receive tools, sort them and pack them ready for delivery to Ipswich. Our aim is to refurbish the tools we collect before they are sent to Ipswich but for that we need the help of craftsmen who can spend a few hours each week sharpening or cleaning tools. We need drivers who are willing to drive to various parts of England to collect the tools. We need people to sort the tools from the rubbish. We need people to get involved in the haberdashery project. So if anyone is interested please contact either David Wheeler (857155) or Peter Fisher (853706).