Diocese of Winchester

This weekend sees the opening of the North Hampshire Child Contact Centre in Hook. It will be opening on the first and third Saturday’s of March to its first clients.

The North Hampshire Child Contact Centre has been initiated by, and the management committee is made up of, members from the North Hampshire Downs Mothers’ Union. They live in the villages just outside Basingstoke and the Child Contact Centre is being held at Hook near M3 J5 and the mainline train between Basingstoke and Fleet. Both Basingstoke and Fleet have child contact centres with waiting lists.

The volunteers to support the project have come from the village church congregations and from local school connections. This has enabled outreach by Mothers’ Union members to other supporters, and from the whole community (led by the Mothers’ Union) to the communities across the area.

The Child Contact Centre’s sole purpose is to enable parents, and sometimes grandparents, to rebuild relationships with children residing with estranged former partners. Contact is usually ordered by the courts. Those who have volunteered to help with sessions have been specially trained to facilitate resident parents who are reluctant about letting estranged partners have access to their children, and also care for children who may be very torn over which parent to please.

The North Hampshire Child Contact Centre would welcome your prayers for its volunteers and clients as it starts providing this vital and much needed service to the local community.

More information about how the project has been set up will be available on this website soon, and in the summer edition of our Diocesan Newsletter ‘Archway’.

It has been a while since we updated the prayer requests for HMP Winchester, its chaplaincy staff and been able to share the news of Jade, their Community Chaplain. This is purely down to the error and overloaded life of the webmistress – HMP Winchester still need our prayers!

In her prayer letter this month Jade shares news of talks she’s been able to give to Year11 pupils in a Winchester school:

I was very encouraged by the questions that the young people asked me, to do with the prison and also the rehabilitation of ex-offenders…The second time I took a set of prison clothes and all the things that the men get given on arrival. I found that having some real life prison property with me enabled the young people to interact a bit more.

Jade also talks about the 6-week trial of an ex-offenders drop in, currently being run from the Weston Healthcare Centre in Southampton. They may then try out another area in which they know ex-offenders are living, as they seek to discern which is the best venue.

Among all this, and her continued commitments to prisoners inside, Jade continues to be able to support men who have been released, some of whom are attending churches. Currently this sees her weekly in Portsmouth supporting a group there who need her time one-to-one to help them deal with personal issues as she seeks to help them avoid the temptations of returning to a life of crime.

This month Jade is particularly asking our prayers for:

• the next SORI programme (a week-long restorative justice course Supporting Offenders through Restoration Inside) will start on 21st March with the presentation afternoon on Thursday 25th March in front of invited guests;
• the whole chaplaincy team as the senior chaplain moves towards retirement in June;
• the drop-in centre at Weston and the volunteers who are making themselves available to be their for ex-offenders each week;
• men back in the community trying to live crime free lives;
• that God will continue to bless the ministry and all those men who have made a commitment to God in the past, or who will in the future.

If you are interested in knowing more about Jade’s ministry as a Community Prison Chaplain through the Church Army/Fresh Expression, please “Contact Us” through the link bottom right of this screen and we will pass your message on.

The Christian Calendar is now moving into Lent as we mark Ash Wednesday on 16th February 2010. Christian tradition encourages us to examine ourselves honestly, acknowledge our shortcomings, and seek reconciliation with God and with each other where we have compromised our relationships. Mothers’ Union has produced some material for Lent:

Lent-Easter-Meditations2010

As part of this years Mothers’ Union theme “Relationships not Rules” there is also the following prompt to our Lenten thoughts and helps us to turn them to actions: RnotR2010-LentColourChart

Many Mothers’ Union groups like to mark 25th March (known either as “Lady Day” or the “Annunciation of our Lord to the Blessed Virgin Mary”) with a special service.

At the annunciation, Mary made a free choice to be the bearer of a child who would bring freedom to the entire world. Traditionally, the church has characterised Mary as silent and passive, but in fact, she is a major spokesperson for those who are oppressed. In the Magnificat, Mary tells us that justice is at the heart of the Christian message. She rejoices because of the freedom God offers in lifting the humble high.

This theme was reflected in the Lady Day service written in 2007 which can still be used by groups as the theme reflects the work of Mothers’ Union members as they seek to bring forward justice for families through prayer, projects, and speak out where government policies affect marriage and family life. You can download it here: Lady_Day_Service_2007

Mothering Sunday 2010 is on Sunday 14th March, and once again Mothers’ Union are running their ethical gift campaign to enable people to remember the much loved Mothers and raise funds for much needed project work across the world. If you are reading this before Tuesday 9th March 2010, and haven’t yet taken part, you still have time to do so!

Mothers’ Union – like any charity – has seen income levels drop alarmingly as investments take a tumble. Yet working at the grassroots, actually serving communities where we live – in 78 countries of the world – means that we see at first hand when people need help. We know that if you could see what our members see – in some of the most already impoverished communities of the world – you would not be able to walk by on the other side.

Valentine’s Day this year falls on Sunday, the last day of National Marriage Week 2010. It gives churches the opportunity to celebrate God’s gift of love and marriage, and the commitment that both involve.

Mothers’ Union believes strongly that marriage provides couples, and children of the couple, with the best foundation for a happy, stable family life, and that it follows that stable families provide a positive bedrock for all of us in society.

In 2002 Mothers’ Union produced a service that could be used in churches who wish to celebrate National Marriage Week: Marriage Week Service You are welcome to download and use the material.

At least one such service is being run in the Diocese this Sunday 14th February, at St. Peter’s Yateley (10am) where Lou Scott-Joynt (Trustee of Relate and Mothers’ Union member) will be the guest speaker.

Alongside this Mothers’ Union recognises the difficulties that face marriages, and that relationships do break down, causing great distress to all those affected. It therefore seeks to recognise the issues involved, works to provide people with mechanisms to help relationships under stress, and heal the wounds that are left behind.

If you want to read more information about Mothers’ Union support for marriage and family life please look at our central website: Mothers’ Union Marriage Week 2010

Mothers’ Union members around the globe have started to pray for members and projects organised by Mothers’ Union in the Diocese of Winchester, and the family of diocese to whom it is linked in our annual cycle of prayer. Winchester, Kitgum and Muhabura (both in Uganda), Masasi (in Tanzania) and Kajo-Keji (in Sudan) will remain the focus of Mothers’ Union prayers until 25th January.

If you are reading this web-page because you are interested to learn more about these diocese, you are particularly welcome. Once you’ve read the links available, please click on the word ‘comment’ and tell us if you found them helpful, interesting, and also where you are from! We’d love to hear from you.

Information about project work (including our Family Holiday scheme), events and activities among Mothers’ Union members in the Diocese of Winchester can be viewed by clicking the other link pages and ‘tags’ on the top and left of your screen.

During the last few days we have posted information about three of the Diocese to whom Winchester is linked. Each can be found by scrolling down the postings on this ‘home-page’ or by clicking the ‘tag’ links. There is further background information on each via the ‘International’ heading at the top of your screen.

Muhabura, situated in Southern Uganda, is the last to be featured. In 2009 we became aware that, despite the drought conditions the region was experiencing, Mothers’ Union members were helping many refugees displaced from the Democratic Republic of Congo. This was supported by two donations from the Mothers’ Union Relief Fund, which operates to help members in the relief work they undertake in their local communities. Information from Mothers’ Union head office suggests that Muhabura members continue to care for refugees from D R Congo.

Whether you are a Mothers’ Union member, or just interested in who we are and what we do, may God bless you as you journey through life with him.

Last week, Mothers’ Union backed calls from Churches in Sudan for peace and a respect for human rights to be upheld as the country prepares for national elections in April 2010 and crucial referendum in January 2011 on unity or independence for Southern Sudan.

Mothers’ Union has families of Diocese stretching across the world who pray for each other regularly, and who collectively form a ‘Wave of Prayer’. One of Winchester’s permanent links is with Kajo-Keji in Southern Sudan, and from tomorrow (January 21st) they and their partner diocese of Kitgum and Muhabura (in Uganda) and Masasi (in Tanzania) will be at the centre of all Mothers’ Union prayers around the world.

As one of the key agencies from the Church involved in bringing humanitarian and development assistance to the people of Sudan, Mothers’ Union has spoken out to lend support to Archbishop Daniel Deng Bul, from the Episcopal Church of the Sudan, calling for urgent international support for efforts to maintain the fragile Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA). The CPA was signed in 2005 ending a long and devastating civil war, but violence is now on the increase across the region.

[Full details of the situation and issues surrounding it can be found among recent Chatham House papers, and recent speeches by Archbishop Rowan Williams, and Archbishop Daniel Deng Bul can be downloaded from the Archbishops website.]

A Mothers' Union literacy group in Southern Sudan

Mothers’ Union has a membership of 15,000 women in Sudan, and runs an extensive Literacy & Development programme (MULDP) in the country, working closely with the Episcopal Church of the Sudan. The CPA has enabled Mothers’ Union Sudan’s Literacy Trainers to extend the programme to communities in Southern Sudan who were previously isolated through conflict. This progress is at risk should the fragile peace not be protected.

Naomi Herbert, Senior Programme Officer for Mothers’ Union said “Before the CPA our development programme couldn’t reach out of the controlled area of Juba and the areas in the North. Since the CPA our volunteers have brought the programme into isolated and previously inaccessible interior regions. Communities are now engaging in new businesses, roads enable markets to be accessible, more food is available, and people have better access to healthcare and natal facilities. All efforts need to be made by governments and agencies to facilitate open dialogue between north and south on key issues of wealth sharing, so that the people of the South are not plunged in to a conflict over resources at a time when peace is making such a difference to the lives of ordinary women, men and children across Sudan.”

However, there are other issues that specifically affect Kajo-Keji. The Diocese of Kajo-Keji has not yet been able to introduce and implement the MULDP. Funding provided by Mothers’ Union for the programme (which also operates in Burundi and Malawi ) used to be matched by funding from Comic Relief for the project, but that source is now exhausted. The challenge is therefore to find funding for the Mothers’ Union’s Literacy and Development Programme that will allow it to continue in the areas it has already reached, and specifically to expand into regions like Kajo-Keji where it would prove equally effective.

Greetings in the name of the Lord. It is long since I communicated to you. This should not discourage you, for out of sight does not mean out of mind. I do think a lot about … the entire Mothers Union in the Diocese of Winchester. How are you… and all the Mothers’ Union members?

The great silence has been because of the poor communication system. Our computer has been spoilt for over one year and every time I tried to use the public paid internet, it would be out of use and very unreliable… Praise be to God that our computer was repaired and the e-mail system is now working…

Most of our people have left the IDP [Internally Displaced People] camps and have resettled in their villages. However, the whole of Northern Uganda in which Kitgum is situated has had heat with a very bad drought and this has left people without food. We thank Mary Sumner House [head office of Mothers' Union international work] for supporting us during this time of need. They helped us with about eleven million Ugandan shillings towards this. We were able to help 150 households with food relief and also with seeds for planting when it starts raining. We have also created a seed bank where the people who harvest from the seeds supplied to them, will return a percentage to the the bank. This will be given to those who did not get [seeds initially]. This plan will greatly help our people next year, hoping that the weather will be favourable. Please pray for us that this may be so.

The clothes you sent helped a number of children who needed them. They and their parents were very grateful May God bless you so much. … May the Almighty God bless you so abundantly.

The theme over-arching all Mothers’ Union work in 2010, across the 78 countries in which it operates, is Relationship Not Rules. We are moving into a new triennial in the development of our activities, and many members will be taking new leadership roles in their local Mothers’ Union groups and quite possibly in their church communities.

The theme Relationship not Rules embraces this turning point in roles, experience and gifts, and gives us an opportunity to celebrate the relationships we have, and are continuing, to build. By focusing on our diverse relationships rather than the rules with which our societies are governed and structured, we are making a clear statement about how we value relationships in the Mothers’ Union.

Mothers’ Union’s vision is to see a world where God’s love is shown through loving, respectful, and flourishing relationships. To do this, we have a set of beliefs based on the value of relationships, and the example Jesus set us in living out our faith through our relationships. More background information about the theme is available to Mothers’ Union members on the central website: Theme for 2010

There is a wealth of material available by following that link, but since this theme has significance for everyone and should have uses outside Mothers’ Union groups, some of the material is available here. Click on the links to download information and inspiration for prayer, small group work, bible study and other activities in your family and community. (We’ve used the file name RnotR2010 as shorthand for Relationships Not Rules in 2010.

RnotR2010-IntroductoryRationale An introduction to the theme RelationshipsNotRules and the material available for you to use.

RnotR2010-Blessings_Challenges_Chart A simple sheet for individuals to use to reflect on the relationships in their lives, the challenges and blessings they are bringing. A few questions will help you realise that you don’t have to face the challenges alone, and may identify where you can seek help and support. We were designed for relationship, not for acting alone.

RnotR2010-GroupMeditation_John15 A group meditation centred around a shared meal or refreshments and based on a study of Jesus’ command to love each other.

RnotR2010-BibleStudy_John8 A Bible study suitable for individuals or groups, based on Jesus’ words and actions when a group of Pharisees brought a woman to him who had been caught in adultery.

RnotR2010_Prayers A large selection of prayers and reflections relating to the theme that can be used in worship or private prayer.

RnotR2010- RulesandLawsinBible_and_Mothers’_ Union Material that makes a great resource for a local group of Mothers’ Union members to explore both the Bible and the way they approach their membership of Mothers’ Union.

RnotR2010_service – a full order of service with liturgy and readings designed to help people reflect on their relationships in the light of Biblical teaching.

A map of Uganda showing the location of Kitgum and Muhabura

Every family is formed by a network of relationships where some members have particularly close relationships, and the same is true of the Mothers’ Union family; each diocese which has Mothers’ Union members is linked closely with a small group of other Mothers’ Union diocese around the globe, so that they get to know each other particularly well. They can they pray for each other, and if appropriate support each other in more practical ways, and occasionally with visits. Each small group of diocese are also at the centre of the daily prayers of all members for a few days each year, forming what we call our ‘Wave of Prayer’.

Mothers’ Union members in the Diocese of Winchester are linked in this way with fellow members in Kitgum (Northern Uganda), Muhabura (South Western Uganda), Masasi (Southern Tanzania) and Kajo-Keji (Southern Sudan). Together we are at the centre of the ‘Wave of Prayer’ from 21st – 25th January each year.

During that week Mothers’ Union groups in churches across the Diocese of Winchester will be meeting to pray for members in their partner Diocese. An order of service that can be used for these prayers can be downloaded by clicking on this link: MUWinchester_WaveOfPrayerService2010

There are several things to remember if you are arranging such a service this year:

• We are just entering a new triennial of leadership in the Mothers’ Union, but being early in January much updated information is not yet available to us especially regarding the names of leaders and workers. The most up to date information we have on countries is available by following the links attached to the place names above, and by looking at a copies of ‘Families Worldwide’ which will have featured them over the last few months.
• Historically we also have a link with Algoma in Canada which is why they are mentioned in the service sheet, but recently there has been no information as to whether there are any Mothers’ Union members active there.

On Monday 11th January, Archbishop Deng from the Episcopal Church of Sudan and Archbishop Rowan Williams will be meeting with PM Gordon Brown to discuss the ongoing necessity for a Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in Sudan. Kajo-Keji is in Southern Sudan and directly affected the peace agreement and the forthcoming elections this April and a crucial referendum in January 2011. There will be a statement later that day which will try and feature on this website and the situation and information should help inform our prayers for the Diocese of Kajo-Keji.

In the next couple of weeks we will also seek updated information about situations in our other link Diocese and feature them on this website, so please visit us regularly to keep up to date.

Mothers’ Union has been privileged to be included in the Church of England’s online Advent calendar. The initiative, called Why are we waiting?  Has a filmed message for each day in Advent from dioceses and Christian development charities. Mothers’ Union will be the featured charity on 23^rd December.

The calendar can be found by following this link.

http://www.whywearewaiting.com/

This is likely to be the last posting on this website before Christmas when we celebrate the birth of Jesus into a family which faced several strains – not least the pressures on teenage parenthood for Mary and life as refugees. Where-ever you are reading this message, and whatever your circumstances, may your Christmas be blessed by God with peace and joy.

A selection of prayers from the Mothers’ Union, suitable for use on Christmas Day, are available to download here: MU_ChristmasDay_Prayers and the Mothers’ Union Christmas Message is available here: MU_Christmas_Reflection_2009

Sunday 6th December, four Mothers’ Union members (including one new gentleman) attended service in the West Hill Chapel of HMP Winchester, as they normally do on the first Sunday of each month. It was a lovely service for a few men who really are committed to the faith they have found with God – time out to be in this chapel makes them stand out from others. Your web-editor was the preacher this month, so to give you a slightly bigger picture of what went on and some sketches of the men’s situations, there’s more here on her own blog: Preparing the way – positives and negatives in prison

Jade, the Church Army Community Chaplain at HMP Winchester has also given us her prayer letter for December (having missed writting one in November because of the dreaded swine-flu).

Jade has recently spoken at Holy Trinity, Brompton speaking about the real help that men and women leaving prison get – which is not very much. She is sad that many return to prison through circumstances that include lack of funds and housing difficulties. With her was ex-offender Dan T, now living in a shared flat with his brother (a home of his own for the first time) made possible by funding through people’s voluntary care for ex-offenders.

The restorative justice scheme that Jade co-ordinates recently completed another SORI course, where 10 men spoke from their hearts at the presentation day before being given their certificates by the Mayor of Winchester, who is a great supporter of the scheme and of the Church Army funding that enables Jade to be in the chaplaincy to run it. Those visiting for the presentation were also enthusiastic about sharing what they had seen and heard with others ‘outside’ who are more negative about prisoners.

You are invited to pray in the coming weeks for

• the 9th SORI course due to take place in January and for the men who want to take part;
• the Governor and the decisions he has to take every day;
• the Transformed meetings for ex-offenders on the last Saturday in each month in Southampton;
• for all those in prison, inmates, warders and chaplaincy staff, this Christmas.

Prayer is a priority for Mothers’ Union members, and following this link will enable you to engage with Advent and Christmas Themes as well as the work of Mothers’ Union this month. MU_Midday_Prayers_Dec_2009

But we all know that a bit of Christmas Shopping is also required this month so how about this tip to raise money for Mothers’ Union at the same time. If you make your purchases online it might be worth trying this link:

A large number of major retailers including Mothercare, M&S, Thorntons, Waterstones and HMV will donate between 5% and 12% to Mothers’ Union when you make a purchase online. Start shopping at: www.buy.at/mothersunion

This weekend the church moves into a new year, as Christians start to anticipate both the coming of Jesus (which we celebrate at Christmas) and the second coming of our Lord, when God’s Kingdom will be complete and his church will be in glory with him.

During the next few weeks, you may like to make use of the reflections and prayers attached here: MU_Advent_Reflections_Prayers09 in either your personal quiet times with God, in small groups or corporate worship.