04 December 2005

We give the assurance of our thoughts and prayers to all who are unwell, awaiting or undergoing treatment, or anxious or grieving for the loss of loved ones.

AIDS Display

Please take the opportunity after worship today to look at the material, uplift a leaflet about the District Project and take a red ribbon.

“Narnia” cinema trip

Tickets are available today for the cinema trip next Sunday to the showing of “Narnia” in Dundee Contemporary Arts, Nethergate, at 1.45 pm. Those who have indicated their wish to go are asked to see Lorna to collect (and pay for!) their tickets. Please also bring food (drinks provided) for a picnic lunch together in Marketgait before walking to DCA. If you wish to go and have not “signed up”, see Lorna.

Crèche Rota

There is still one vacancy which needs to be filled. If you feel you could do this, please contact Elaine as soon as possible before she does the rotas for 2006.

(NB : it is essential that there are 2 persons on crèche duty to comply with Safeguarding requirements)

Circuit Preaching Plans

Plans for December - February are now available, free, on the Vestibule table.

Gift tags

Thanks to Clare, these are available on the Vestibule table - please support the Church by purchasing them.

Meetings this week

Support other Organisations

“Caring Christmas Trees”

Heather draws our attention to this means of buying a fresh tree in aid of charity, organised by the Bethany Christian Trust in Edinburgh. Orders can be placed through the internet at www.caringchristmastrees.com, with collection from an Edinburgh location. Heather will be collecting her order from Broxburn Farm on Saturday (10th December) and might be able to uplift other orders then: see her!

Scottish Bible Society

• Your support through the Bible-a-Month Club is invited in December for work in Sudan. In the civil war which has raged for 22 years in the largest and most diverse country in Africa, over 2 million people have died and 6 million been displaced: an immense cost to human life. See library noticeboard for more details.
• In 2004, gifts from Bible-a-Month Club members and others totalled more than £200,000 - a very gratifying total, maintaining the level of the three previous years, despite external financial pressures.
• News from areas featuring on the calendar during the later part of 2005:
  • Bulgaria (July) : there is constant pressure to produce Bibles at a cost people can afford with their low standard of living - outside support means Scriptures can be subsidised or provided free.
  • Egypt (September) : support for audio-cassette production: more than 215,000 tapes were distributed in one 2-month period - tapes appeal to ordinary Egyptians as economical, interesting to listen to, and a helpful solution when reading skills are poor; also development of Bible World centre in Cairo.
  • China (October) : one Bible comes off the giant press at Nanjing every 2 seconds; 1.8 million Bibles were completed in the first 7 months of the year; scriptures were on display at the Beijing Book Fair for the first time ever & generated considerable interest; pocket-size editions are increasingly popular, signalling larger demand among younger people; there is an encouraging demand for the Chinese / English Bible, also a CD-ROM version launched in April.
  • Panama (November) : the government's effort to instil moral values is supported by material supplied to such places as a state-run nursery near Panama City, a remote village school with 37 pupils, and a secondary school in Panama City where 50% of the population is jobless, students are under-nourished and liable to be drunk, on drugs, or armed.

Forthcoming events

Prayer Points for this week

• Pray Without Ceasing focus: Cornwall District;
• The President of Conference in the Plymouth and Exeter District next weekend;
• Methodist Publishing House Board meeting, Friday;
• Perth Stewards' Meeting on Wednesday;
• Arbroath Rudolph Scamper on Friday;
• Human Rights Day next Saturday (Christian Aid);
• Protestant Council of Rwanda's radio programmes on reconciliation, tribal issues and HIV / AIDS (Feed The Minds - leaflet on library board)
• The Leprosy Mission's partnerships with other organizations;
• Bible Society work in Sudan;
• we pray with and for the peoples of Angola and Mozambique;
• we remember fellow Methodists in the Newark and Southwell Circuit, (Nottingham & Derby District), and in Portgordon (North of Scotland Mission Circuit).

• 27 November 2005
• 11 December 2005

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