Week of Prayer for Christian Unity

You are witnesses of these things. (Luke 24:48)

This year’s theme was chosen in Scotland, in honour of the hundredth anniversary of the 1910 Edinburgh World Mission Conference. It is in answer to that conference’s theme "Witnessing to Christ today” that the above verse was chosen. Edinburgh 1910 really marked the start of the modern ecumenical movement.

The United Church of Zambia, like many of the other United and Uniting Churches worldwide, stems directly from this watershed conference. The London Missionary Society, the Church of Scotland Mission, the Union Church of the Copperbelt and the Copperbelt Free Churches came together in 1965 as the UCZ making their unity in Christ more visible.

In the Copperbelt, Christians from many different places went to work in the mining towns, and interdenominational worship began in both the African and European housing areas. The Church of Scotland, the Methodist Missionary Society, and the London Missionary Society were working together already in education and welfare, so they came together in African areas to form the Union Church of the Copperbelt. Shortly after this, the congregations of the European areas came together in the Copperbelt Free Church Council..

The London Missionary Society and the Church of Scotland Mission along with the Union Church of the Copperbelt, joined to form the Church of Central Africa in Rhodesia in 1958.

In 1965, this church united with the Methodist Church and the Church of Barotseland to form the United Church of Zambia. It is the largest Protestant church in Zambia today and continues to grow rapidly.

The UCZ, therefore has special links with the Methodist Church in Great Britain, the Church of Scotland, the United Church of Canada, the Presbyterian Church (USA), the United Church of Christ (USA), and CEVAA which is the successor to the Paris Evangelical Mission Society.

PEMS underwent a tremendous structural change in the 70s which led to the creation of a community of churches in mission, called Cevaa. This new body involved partner churches having shared power in decision-making, regardless of the resources put by each into the kitty.

In Cevaa, and later in other similar mission communities such as the Council for World Mission, similar structural changes emphasised transformative justice, and changed the balance of power and decision-making on the sharing of financial and human resources between churches of North and South.

This is an attempt to realise in some small way the dream from Edinburgh that we may become one body, brothers and sisters in Christ, responding to each other in love and building a community so that God’s will is done here on earth as it is in heaven.

Happy New Year

We have just been up in Lusaka for a couple of days. After bringing in the New Year at Livingstone we motored up with Catriona, Gregor and Mubita. On the first of January we also saw Ruairidh and Fiona off to Australia for Fiona’s maternity leave. The baby should arrive all being well at the end of February. Catriona had some dressage and jumping to do for her PE Course Work which she did on Saturday. We also did a bit of school shopping for them, mainly clothes and toiletries.

They left on the early Monday morning flight with a number of other ‘children’ they knew, who had been home for the Christmas holidays as well. We said goodbye with the usual tearful eyes and lump in the throat, and from the other family farewells taking place at the same time, you can see and hear it is an emotional time for all concerned. Mubita cried all the way back into town from the airport.

We had educational commitments to pay for other members of our extended Zambian family and did Aids Relief business for Ida and then visited UCZ Synod Headquarters. We have been in Zambia for 15 years so should now qualify to receive an entry permit and will no longer require a work permit. We were lodging the paperwork for that through Synod.

It is fair to say that in Zambia the concept of a civic citizenship is not allowed for in the present constitution. Citizenship is difficult to acquire and comes really only through descent. Dual citizenship is not permitted at present. The new constitution to be enacted this year partially addresses and partially modernises some of these issues. But some old-fashioned restrictions will remain - holders of dual citizenship cannot serve in the army or police for example.

The UCZ Educatiol Secretary had been in touch with the Western Province Education Authorities to try and arrange the round table talks concerning the Mwandi UCZ High School that the Ministry of Education suggested but the Province were being puzzlingly elusive. She was determined to try and nail them down. Yesterday out of the blue she heard in a phone-call from the Provincial Education Officer, that provincial opposition to the High School was being lifted and that a Grade 10 could commence this year after all.

This is wonderful news. Our thanks to you all for your prayers in this matter.

Prayer requests

The Government has started restructuring at District and Hospital level now and we are affected too. The authorities have sent a Hospital Administrator to take over that position here (the post that Ida is currently 'acting' in). As a result, the Memorandum of Understanding between the Government and CHAZ in which Hospital Administrators are Church-appointed positions, is being revisited. So please keep us in your prayers. We keep in touch with Synod and the Church of Scotland regularly to update them on our situation.

Prayer:

- We give thanks for the successful Church Retreat and the blessing it was for many people.

- We give thanks for the provision of three new doctors for the Hospital and the 15 new nurses and Clinical Officers promised to help increase staffing levels here.

- We pray for wisdom for ourselves and all the parties involved in the Health Restructuring, that righteousness and justice may prevail.