24 July 2011

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.

July Café Service request

Heather Dean will facilitate our worship next Sunday on the theme “Holidays”. She has intimated that it would be helpful if you would look out and bring a photo / postcard / small memento of a holiday or “day out” about which you could share your memories during conversation round the tables.

Retiring Offering

Opportunity is given to support the current Methodist Relief & Development Fund East Africa Drought Appeal today or next Sunday through the Retiring Offering plate. Please note that Gift Aid envelopes should be available next Sunday. David Easson, as Treasurer, will forward any subsequent donations - see below for more MRDF news.

East Africa Drought: MRDF response

“The crisis is currently most severe in east Africa, where communities are experiencing the worst drought for 60 years. More than 10 million people are thought to be affected across the region, with Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia hardest hit. Two successive failed rainy seasons have meant lost harvests and the decimation of livestock. Soaring food prices have exacerbated the situation, leaving many people hungry and unable to meet their basic needs.” (www.mrdf.org.uk)

MRDF is supporting

• provision of life-saving supplies of food and water to those in need across the region, working through the ACT Alliance, to target especially those most vulnerable - children, the elderly and nursing mothers;
• relief efforts in the Dadaab refugee camp on the Somalia-Kenya border;
• a project in western Kenya introducing drought-resistant crops and new farming techniques to a famine-prone area;
• projects which aim to provide longer-term security to vulnerable communities across sub-Saharan Africa food including a food crisis fund for Mali.

Prayer Handbook 2011

Orders will be placed soon for the new Handbook, “Run the Race” (likely price £3.20 to include p&p); please sign the sheet on the Vestibule table, indicating if a “large print” copy is required.

Ordering “Singing the Faith”

If you wish to place an order for the new hymnbook, launched at Conference, this can be included in the Order being sent for the Prayer Handbook (and other items).

“Singing the Faith” is being produced in the following formats:

• full music edition - £25 pre-publication offer
• words edition - £7.50 pre-publication offer
• words edition large print - £12.50 (pre-publication offer)

These will be available from September and the full prices charged after December. Please let Jenny have details if you wish her to place an order for you.

If there are other items which might be included in this order advise Jenny about these too.

“Hearing the Word”

A warm invitation is extended to all to this opportunity for learning and sharing ways of gaining deeper understanding of and insights into the Bible, in our Marketgait premises on Saturday 13th August.

The Day will begin with coffee at 10am and close at 4pm, with lunch at c.12.45pm (bring / go out for food, drinks provided) and will comprise 4 sessions from 10.30am.

“Hearing the Word” will be led by Rev Dr Alan Reid (Rutherford House, Edinburgh) and is open to all, whether experienced Bible students or those newly engaged in reading and exploring its meaning.

Please come yourself and ask others who may wish to join us; there is no charge - donations will be welcome. It would be helpful to have an idea of numbers so please indicate your wish to attend via

• methodistdundee@gmail.com or
• 01382 221319, leaving a message if necessary.

Link Club fund-raising feat

With others pictured in the “Courier”, Sue Marshall-Jennings has successfully walked across hot coals as part of a fundraising sponsored event for her workplace in Fife. Any donations to the Link Club in support of her latest “crazy act” may be made via Lorna or Jenny.

Broughty Ferry Churches Group News

• St Luke's & Queen Street friends give a warm invitation to Afternoon Teas on Tuesdays in July at 2 pm.
• St James, Barnhill St Margaret's, and the New Kirk are all running Holiday Clubs during the August school holidays.
• Looking ahead to September, the “Christian Aid Lunch rota” is being prepared; if any Methodist soup-makers wish to join the Marketgait Methodists & St Mary's Episcopal Team, please contact Kate or David / Jenny.

Meetings this week

Support other Organisations

Scottish Bible Society

Our support through the Bible-a-Month Club is invited in July for work in Russia.

Our prayerful attention is drawn this week to

• volunteers working with young people in Netherlands Antilles at Curacao's 'Bible World';
• progress on the new revision of the Hungarian Bible;
• response to the third Warsaw Bible Day in Poland;
• new staff members, especially the General Secretary, of the Bible Society in Slovenia;
• outreach by the Bibleworld Mobile to schools and communities, also preparation of the 2012 Bible-a-Month Calendar.

Prayer Points for this week

• The President of Conference visiting Ghana from Wednesday;
• Methodist ministers and families moving “stations”, especially those coming to Scotland;
• those exercising a “ministry of welcome”, especially as Door Stewards, in our Circuit's churches;
• residents and staff in the Manchester and Stockport District (Methodist Homes);
• The Leprosy Mission's work in China, Korea, and Laos;
• the people of Pakistan in their continuing recovery from flood and earthquake devastation (Christian Aid);
• 'Think and Do' literacy, health, and education projects in rural southern Egypt (BibleLands);
• Bible Society work in Russia;
• we pray with and for the peoples of The Caribbean (Antigua & Barbuda, The Bahamas, Barbados, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Saint Kitts & Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent & the Grenadines, Suriname, Trinidad & Tobago) (WCC Ecumenical Calendar);
• we remember fellow Methodists in the Thanet Circuit (South-East District) and in Tranent (Edinburgh & Forth Circuit).

• 17 July 2011
• 31 July 2011

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