Dundee Methodist Church

03 July 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.

G8 Create Art competition

Our City Centre colleagues at The Steeple Church are holding the above competition, generously sponsored by the Overgate. There will be a public exhibition of selected entries in The Steeple and the Overgate, from tomorrow, Monday 4th July.

Meetings this week

Date & timeVenueDetails
Sunday 3rd July, 3 pm Dunblane Cathedral (map) Ecumenical Service, in connection with the G8 Summit at Gleneagles, speaker - Dr Daleep Mukarji, Director of Christian Aid. This Service has been arranged by ACTS, with the help of representatives from the Scottish Inter-Faith Council. Details from Tom Moyes – phone 01786 823588
Thursday 7th July, 1.45 pm Churches around Scotland Bell ringing at 13.45 to represent the fact that 13% of the world's population produces 45% of its greenhouse gas emissions. See BBC website

Support other Organisations

Scottish Bible Society

Our support is invited in July for work in Bulgaria where Orthodox tradition remained strong during its 50 years as a satellite of the Soviet Union. Current challenges arise from changes to a market economy including unemployment, poverty and inflation.

Our prayerful attention is drawn to

  • in France- projects with prisoners, translation into sign language for the deaf
  • in Austria –the immense response to country-wide schools’ competition; new Bible Centre in Vienna;
  • in Italy – revision of inter-church common language Old Testament and Protestant Bible

MakePovertyHistory

MPH is the largest ever coalition assembled in the UK to fight against global poverty. Over 400 development agencies, campaigns, faith groups, trade unions and organizations have joined together to make the most of unprecedented opportunities for change offered in 2005.

Wear the White Band as a sign of the demand for

  • Trade justice
  • Debt cancellation
  • More and better aid

The White Band is also the symbol of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty and is being worn by millions around the world calling for change.

“6oo million children live in absolute poverty. Every year more than 10 million children die of hunger and preventable diseases – ONE CHILD DIES EVERY THREE SECONDS.”

Trade Justice has the potential to lift millions of people out of poverty.

The United Nations has estimated that making trade work for poor countries could bring in an additional £365.5 billion - every year. Trade could help poor countries build their economies, start to stand on their own, and enable them to provide things like education and health care to their own people.

Ghana was forced to open up its agricultural markets as a condition for receiving cheap loans. This has allowed cheap rice to flood Ghana’s markets - 40% of imports come from the US - and thousands of farmers have gone out of business.

Rich countries are guilty of double standards - while forcing developing countries to open their economies to competition, they are protecting their own.

Debt has mounted to a level that poor countries can never hope to pay back.

Offers of loans in the 1970s were followed by soaring interest rates in the 1980s, and debts skyrocketed. Now the world’s most impoverished countries are forced to PAY OVER £30 MILLION EVERY DAY IN DEBT REPAHYMENTS.

Debt repayments divert money from spending on urgently needed healthcare and education.

Zambia spends three times as much paying interest on debt as on healthcare for its people.

Debt cancellation can make a real difference.

  • Mozambique has been able to introduce free immunizations for children;
  • Benin has invested in rural primary health care and HIV programmes;
  • Tanzania has abolished primary school fees, leading to a 66% increase in attendance;
  • Uganda’s debt relief led to 2.2 million people gaining access to clean water.

More and better aid is essential to the eradication of poverty.

As industrialized nations have grown richer, the proportion of the wealth spent on helping people in poorer countries has diminished.

In 1970 most promised to spend 0.7% of their national income on international aid – UK plans do not reach 0.7% until 2013.

As well as more aid, better aid is needed :

  • targeted at meeting poor peoples' basic needs – healthcare & education
  • no longer tied to requirements to buy goods or services from donor countries
  • not conditional on promise of such economic change jeopardizing essential services.

MPH calls on G8 to

  • set a binding deadline for spending 0.7% of national income on aid
  • ensure that aid supports poor communities’ own plans for fighting poverty
  • see that at least 70% of aid goes to the very poorest countries by 2010
  • commit to giving certain amount of aid over a set period
  • stop tying aid to purchase of donor’s goods and services.

Prayer Points for this week

  • Rev Tom Stuckey, President of Conference, and John Bell, Vice-President as they start their year in office;
  • presence and effects of G8 (Gleneagles is in our Circuit!)
  • implementation of decisions of Conference;
  • Methodist Ministers leaving and coming to Scotland;
  • ministry of welcome to visitors to our Circuit’s congregations;
  • partners and projects in Lesotho (Christian Aid);
  • work and staff of the Overseas Book Service, based in Bradford (Feed The Minds);
  • The Leprosy Mission’s supporters and volunteer workers;
  • we pray with and for the peoples of Kampuchea, Laos, and Vietnam;
  • we remember fellow Methodists in the Higham Ferrers and Raunds Circuit (Oxford & Leicester District), and in East Kilbride, including MH work at St Andrew’s Court (Glasgow Circuit).