abbotsford.org.uk

Slavery, Fairtrade, and one more thing

Here's something I didn't know about. many of you will already be receiving emails from Oxfam on updates on campaigns.

One thing I didn't know you could do was buy the debts of a poor country and then sue them for the whole lot plus interest. Do you want me to say that again becuase I didn't believe it was true. Yes, companies can buy the debt of a poor country and then sue them for the amount plus a whole lot more. For example one company caled Donegal bought the debt ($3.3 million) of Zambia and then sued them for $55 million. Duh!

Good grief, no wonder they are called debt vultures.

Here's as much of the story from a markets website that I can find :

A so-called “vulture fund” won a partial victory against the impoverished African country of Zambia on Thursday. The British High Court ruled that Donegal International, based in the British Virgin Islands, had the right to receive some payments for Zambian sovereign debt that it bought at a heavy discount. The debt, originally owed by Zambia to Romania, was bought by Donegal in 1999 for less than $4m. It emerged that Donegal was seeking $55m in payment for the full value of the debt, higher than the $42m earlier thought, after a “settlement agreement” in 2003 between Donegal and Zambia. Zambia had claimed in court that the debt was invalid as there was evidence that Donegal’s local agent had bribed civil servants to pass the debt to Donegal rather than allowing Zambia to pay it off at a heavily discounted rate to Romania. Zambia ceased making payments under the settlement agreement in 2004. Issuing judgment, Mr Justice Andrew Smith rejected the contention of bribery. The judgment of how much should be paid to Donegal was postponed but Mr Justice Smith said that the full claim was unlikely to be justified.

Oxfam have info about it. The update of this campaign was on Newsnight last week. It is just stunningly shocking.

Books, books, books

The post arrived today (while I was away and no one was in) and delivered half the books for the Sunday School library. Unfortunately the delivery person left the amazon box at the back door which isn't dry, or sheltered from the wind so by the time I got back the box was sodden. However, thankfully the books, on the whole, were okay. Three I've had to return but the others will be fine.

They look great. A good mixture of older chidlrena nd adult with 5-8 early reader book and big picture books and then a good number of toddler books with big pictures and few words. I think we'll all learn a lot from these books and my daughter has already made her way through two of them, reading by herself a few of the pages. Perfect.

So watch out over the next few weeks as more books are added and by Easter they should all have arrived. It's fabulous.

Chocolate Teapots (March 4th)

This Sunday is communion and we have a fabulous story already, given the bread and wine, but then there is Lent too and that particular and peculiar journey. In addition to that there is our passage for the week which is Genesis 15:1-12,17-18 and a small slice of the story of Abraham and God building a covenant with the future through this patriarch. And of course we need stories of human trafficking and a focus on what we pick up for Lent rather than give up. So a heady mix of rich stories and symbols. Can they all be tied together?

First thoughts in my head revolves around this idea that God's gives land to Abrams descendants that is already populated by folk. What's going to happen to them? It's just such a recurring theme in the Old testament where the Hebrews descend upon Canaan as if it is their own because some ancient story says so, and they reck the joint and kill countless folk in doing so. But these atories aren't that ancient and were posssibly written after the whole taking-over-the-land episode had already happened in order to justify what they'd done and give it authority.

That links in many ways to Human Trafficking and the God-given authority of some to control and ruin the lives of others for their own aims and goals and power and wealth. How often does that happen!?

And again that moves us towards Jesus and his walk to Jerusalem in the face of those who laud the land, the power and the religion over people, and shouts one big, almighty, "No!" to all of that. This God you've abused and fitted up to suit your own aims actually uses crosses and sacrifice of himself, not others, to build the kingdom. Here, take bread and wine and I'll show you just how. In fact, take bread and wine, and you'll taste just what I do. Leave off the power freakery and abuse of others that this faith in truth gives no authority for, and live the process of bringing freedom, peace and life to the world. Living in God means living a way, and always pursuing when you can, the freedom of all people to live full lives. It's not sitting from the sidelines and cheering on those who do. That's the crowd round the cross. Sometimes we just have to taste it in bread and wine and carry it on our backs. There's no escaping. Welcome to the table.

Of course, these won't be your thoughts...

The Lent prayer we're evolving together (theoretically) is below. Please do help evolve it as the journey moves on.

Travelling God:
bless us as we gather in this wilderness,
hear us as we join this journey,
turn us as you face Jerusalem,
speak to us the stories of love,
hold before us the tree of life,
feed us with bread from your table,
quench our throats with the vine of the prophets,
fill us with passion for your truth,
promise us a way through the cross,
tell us about stones that roll and gardens at dawn ,
and fill us with the voice of Jesus,
calling us to follow on, follow on, follow on.

This Morning

Well I thought the GAP did excellently this morning. The thing you probably all don't know is how they have all got something out of this project on Human Trafficking. We've had quite a number of discussions, role plays, talking about feelings and emotions and a whole lot of other things. So it was good to see. I've pasted the statement of faith here for all to see based on their reactions to Human Trafficking. There will be other bits and pieces come up over the next few weeks too.

Voice 1:
We hear Moses say:
God has heard the cry of the people; (Ex 3:7)
God knows all about their sufferings; (Ex 3:7)
I have come to rescue them from their slave-drivers. (Ex 3:8)

All:
We believe God gives life.
We believe Jesus said everyone is valuable to the world.
We believe the Spirit shouts with us: Stop the Traffik!
(people hold up an inked hand with a chalk key drawn on it when they shout ‘Stop the Traffik!’)

Voice 1:
We hear the prophets say:
bring good news to the oppressed; (Is 61:1)
proclaim liberty to the captive; (Is 61:1)
release to the prisoners. (Is 61:1)

All:
We believe God gives life…

Voice 3:
We hear Jesus say:
liberation for the bound up; (Lk 4:18)
freedom for the imprisoned; (Lk 4:18)
I have come that all may have life to the full. (Jn 10:10)

All:
We believe God gives life…

Voice 4:
We hear God say:
Comfort my people, comfort; (Is 40:1)
You have suffered long enough; (Is 40:1)
I will not be silent until you are saved. (Is 62:1)

All:
We believe God gives life…

All four voices together:
We hear ourselves say:
human traffiking is wrong;
human traffiking is all about greed for power;
human traffiking is frightening;
no one should be enslaved;
all are equal;
everyone is valuable to the world. (The GAP)

All:
We believe God gives life…

The start of a prayer

Here's a six week project for those who think they can't pray and those who think they can.

Here's a prayer we'll use tomorrow at the beginning of the service and will start us off each service during lent, but as the weeks move hopefully this prayer will subtly change as we approach Jerusalem by folk adding to it, editing it, changing it over the weeks.

It's nothing at the moment. Please add to it with your comments and ideas and particularly your words so that it becomes something for the whole community and focuses our journey each Sunday. It'll appear each week in Chocolate Teapots and at other times. Please add to it or even send me an email if you'd like to remain anonymous. But please do let it grow.

Travelling God:
bless us as we gather in this wilderness,
hear us as we join this journey,
turn us as you face Jerusalem,
speak to us the stories of love,
hold before us the tree of life,
feed us with bread from your table,
quench our throats with the vine of the prophets,
fill us with passion for your truth,
promise us a way through the cross,
tell us about stones that roll and gardens at dawn ,
and fill us with the voice of Jesus,
calling us to follow on, follow on, follow on.

Bookends

Thee new book for the book club is The Interpretation of Murder and you can go to the Bookends list on the Left Hand Side to find oout more about the book or buy it from Amazon. Happy reading. At least I hope it will be a happy book. Hopefully this time the bookclub will give it a star rating so help everyone esle decide whether or not it will make good Easter reading though judging from the title it seems very eastery to me.

Shadows of Lent

Adding some fabulous Lent images to our sequence for the season. Please do slide some images this way that you take during the season and help us journey. They can be anything you like that helps you reflect on the journey through the wilderness time towards Jerusalem.

And also suggest titloes for them too, or a sentence about how any of them made you feel. that will help us all journey remembering the stories of each other. It's a community thing and strongly spiritual.

Tower Lighting IV

Here's an image of roughly what the tower will look like.

The lighting engineers will do quite a bit of onsite experimenting and trials because light changes things and you never know exactly whats going to happen with it. Such a theological thing.

If you wish to see what these guys have already done, go look at the Mitchell Library at night and see who they don't floodlight but make things glow. And they like turbines to off-set the power. Brilliant.

Tower Lighting III

Had a good meeting tonight with the folk who are going to do the lighting for the tower. Lots of opportunnities and not a little laughter. We talked about shine and glow and kilowat hours and halogen and sodium and blue light.

Did you know that the blue light you now get in public toilet is so you can't see your viens when you try and inject yourself. It's amazing what you learn. I always wondered about that.

One of the great things that came through the conversation was the energy used in the lighting and how there is a possibility of putting in a turbine that will off-set the light power. It would cost is maybe £1500 wich we'd get a grant to part fund but it is something we can certainly look at and look forward to it.

So twas a good meeting abd very positive in lots of ways.

Tower Lighting II

Just a wee note to say the time for tonight's meeting about lighting the tower is 7 o'clock and not 7.30 and I said last night. Hope that news gets around. Do tell others you know are coming.