Our friends continue to be most grateful for donations sent from here for the benefit of the community in Brinnington and the homeless friends at Barnabus. Currently, because of continuing Coronavirus safety precautions, our donations to both destinations are somewhat restricted.
The Brinnington Parish Centre normally accepts donations for outreach purposes through their Drop-In sales and coffee mornings for the benefit of people in their community struggling with financial and other problems. For safety reasons the Parish Centre is closed for the foreseeable future and they have no storage space for donations. We have been unable to deliver your donations to them for over a year now. With permission of the Centre Manager, we continue to slowly re-distribute some of the items, particularly clean unmarked adult clothing, to other charities through the doorstep bag system until we can safely deliver to Brinnington once more. We have a large quantity of bric-a-brac including kitchen items stored safely to take to them as and when they can accept it.
We continue to be most grateful to Steve Best of Holmes Chapel Methodist Church for collecting donations for Barnabus from here, as and when it is safe to do so. We are advised that donations for Barnabus, including clothing and shoes, should be either new or as clean as possible, free of any marks or stains. If you wish to donate any clothing which can only be dry cleaned, please kindly have this done before donating it to us.
Thank you all for your generosity towards our friends in need.
As some of you may be aware, our church buildings and contents are insured through the Ecclesiastical Insurance Office. The organisation, which is celebrating its 130th birthday, has launched the Trust 130 Scheme through its charitable arm which is one of the largest corporate donors to charity in the UK.
Every time a new customer takes out a new home insurance policy with Ecclesiastical the sum of £130 is donated to a church of their choice, namely, St Luke’s Holmes Chapel. So far £430,000 has been paid to 2283 churches in the UK under this scheme and there is no limit to the number of donations which can be made to our church.
If your home insurance is due for renewal, and you are interested how Trust 130 can benefit our church, please contact Ecclesiastical Insurance by telephone on 0800-783-0130.
It’s good to have our magazine back in print again this month – hopefully uninterrupted for the foreseeable future.
There have been some comments made querying why the parish magazine was not printed for a few months in 2020 and earlier this year, particularly since other printed material has continued to come through our letter boxes. Our previous printers in Macclesfield decided to retire last March and David, at The Print Room agreed to take over. He has been extremely helpful and has actually been working through most of the pandemic. I took the decision to temporally halt printing primarily to protect our deliverers from the risk of infection, especially when we were all being urged to stay indoors! I hope you understand the reasoning. Stay Safe!
If the COVID-19 restrictions have been eased by May, we will hold our first working party of the year to tidy the area around the memorials at the Knutsford Road Cemetery. From mid-May, 30 people will be allowed to meet outdoors and so we plan to work at the Cemetery on Saturday 22nd May from 9.30am until 11am.
If you are able to help you would be very welcome, no gardening experience is necessary. We will maintain social distancing, if this is still in place, to keep everybody safe. Please bring hand shears, weeding tools and something to kneel on.
If you feel unable to make it until later in the year, we completely understand.
I am really looking forward to a morning of gardening and chat.
A team from Urban Village Medical Practice has been outside Barnabus’s Beacon Support Centre in their mobile vaccination unit to offer the COVID19 vaccine to people experiencing homelessness.
Here in the UK we may struggle to hold services because of coronavirus, but at least no one in the government is threatening to arrest and imprison us for just being Christians! And yet that is the harsh reality for hundreds of millions of Christians around the world today. This article will help remind you of the struggle of our brothers and sisters in Christ.
A Christian persecution watchdog has warned that more Christians around the world are suffering because of their faith, and the kind of persecution they’re experiencing has intensified.
Open Doors has found that more than 340 million Christians suffer high levels of persecution and discrimination for their faith, amounting to one in eight worldwide.
Now the charity has released its 2021 World Watch List (WWL) which highlights the top 50 countries that are most hostile toward Christians.
Here are the top ten.
1. North Korea
Being discovered as a Christian is a death sentence in North Korea. If you aren’t killed instantly, you will be taken to a labour camp as a political criminal.
2. Afghanistan
ISIS and the Taliban continue to have a strong, violent presence in Afghanistan, with the Taliban controlling large regions.
3. Somalia
Islam is considered a crucial part of Somali identity, and if any Somali is suspected of having converted to Christianity, they are in great danger. Members of their family, clan or community will harass, intimidate or even kill them. Women may be raped and forcibly married.
4. Libya
There is no freedom of speech, no freedom of religion and very limited possibility of public church life in Libya. Although there are around 34,500 Christians in the country, only a tiny number (approximately 150) are Libyan – the majority are expatriates and migrant workers.
5. Pakistan
Pakistan’s notorious blasphemy laws are used to target Christians, and Islamic extremist groups vehemently “defend” these laws, including attacking or killing those believed to have contravened them.
6. Eritrea
Government security forces monitor phone calls, scrutinise activity and conduct countless raids which target Christians, seize Christian materials and damage house churches. Christians can be arrested and imprisoned without trial.
7. Yemen
Christians in Yemen usually keep their faith secret, because if they are discovered then they could face the death penalty. Leaving Islam is forbidden, and all Yemenis are considered Muslims by the state.
8. Iran
The Iranian government sees the conversion of Muslims to Christianity as an attempt by Western countries to undermine the Islamic rule of Iran. Christians from a Muslim background are persecuted the most, primarily by the government, but also by their families and communities.
9. Nigeria
More Christians are murdered for their faith in Nigeria than in any other country. Violent attacks by Boko Haram, Hausa-Fulani Muslim militant herdsmen, ISWAP (an affiliate of ISIS) and other Islamic extremist groups are common in the north and middle belt of the country, and they are becoming more common further south.
10. India
Hindu extremists believe that all Indians should be Hindus, and that the country should be rid of Christianity and Islam. They use extensive violence to achieve this goal, particularly targeting Christians from a Hindu background.
