WORLDWIDE PHOTOS LTD The Religious Media Agency

WEEKLY NEWS REVIEW

January 16, 2003

INDEX

AUSTRALIA: 1. AUSSIES NOMINATED IN ANNUAL DOVE AWARDS (Woodlands Media) 2. WESLEY DISABILITY SERVICE PROVIDES RESPITE (Wesley Mission) 3. PRAYER FOR AUSTRALIA’S ANGLICANS THIS WEEK (Anglcn Media Sydney) 4. SALVO’S AGED CARE CENTRE RECEIVES AWARD (Warcry) 5. TASMANIAN STUDENTS SET NEW TREND (New Life) 6. COLLEGE APPROVED FOR PERTH (Baptist Advocate)

OVERSEAS: 7. BIBLES OR BOMBS FOR IRAQ? (ASSIST Ministries) 8. TAIWAN CHRISTIANS OVERTURN DEATH PENALTY (Taiwan Church News) 9. WOMEN’S FIRST NATIONAL PRAYER BREAKFAST (American Baptist News) 10. WINTER CHILL STALLS CHILDREN’S ASSEMBLY (CWM News) 11. STREET IN PORTUGAL NAMED AFTER CLIFF (Sir Cliff Richard News) 12. KIBAKI TO LEAD ‘OUT OF THE WILDERNESS’ (Christian Herald) 13. IT’S “NOT CRICKET” IN ZIMBABWE (Methodist Recorder) 14. POLAR TRIUMPH (Christian Herald) 15. WHY ISN’T JESUS LIKE SUPERMAN? (Christian Herald)

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1. AUSSIES NOMINATED IN ANNUAL DOVE AWARDS (Woodlands Media) Australians Rebecca St James, Paul Colman Trio, Darlene Zschech, Rivertribe and the Newsboys have garnered a total of eight nominations for the prestigious annual Dove Awards recognising the accomplishments of Christian musicians. Rebecca and Darlene will go head to head in the Praise & Worship category. The Paul Colman Trio has been nominated for New Artist of the Year and Pop/Contemporary Artist of the Year, while Rivertribe has been nominated for the Instrumental Album of the Year and Newsboys have been nominated for Long Form Video of the Year. The Dove Awards will be held in Nashville, USA 10 April 2003.

2. WESLEY DISABILITY SERVICE PROVIDES RESPITE (Wesley Mission) The Superintendent of Wesley Mission Rev Hon Dr Gordon Moyes AC MLC and the local Member for Campbelltown Mr Graham West, MP will officially open Wesley Mission’s new Minto Heights Breakaway Respite Centre on Saturday January 18. Breakaway Minto Heights is an activity of Wesley Mission’s Disability Support Services and will provide pre-planned and emergency respite for children and adults from 12 years of age with a disability. Gemma McCarthy, Wesley Mission’s Manager of Accommodation and Respite Care Services (Disability) said: “People with Disabilities are assisted and encouraged to maintain the necessary social and life skills to enable each individual to have a valued role in the community.” Ms McCarthy said that Wesley Disability Support Services aimed to ensure that people with a disability were valued, accepted and enabled to grow as members of the community.

3. PRAYER FOR AUSTRALIA’S ANGLICANS THIS WEEK (Anglcn Media Sydney) The Anglican Church of Australia is featured this week in the online version of the Anglican Cycle of Prayer. On Sunday, January 12, Anglicans around the world, were encouraged to “Give thanks for the Anglican Church of Australia” and its 23 Dioceses; 3,903,324 Anglicans in 3,313 Parishes with 2036 Clergy. On Wednesday, Anglicans world wide were asked to “Pray for the people and clergy of the diocese of Armidale; Bathurst; Canberra and Goulburn; Grafton; Newcastle; Riverina and Sydney. (New South Wales, Australia).”

4. SALVO’S AGED CARE CENTRE RECEIVES AWARD (Warcry) The Salvation Army’s “Kardinia” aged care hostel in Geelong, west of Melbourne, has received the 2002 Australian Achiever Award for excellence in customer service in Melbourne’s retirement and care services category. The independent national awards, determined on a state-wide basis, are based primarily on service users’ evaluations. “Kardinia” received a rating of 99 per cent for customer service and relations. Pam Vince, “Kardinia’s” aged care manager, says the award recognises the desire embodied in “Kardinia’s” mission statement to “provide a safe and secure home for the aged, in which the unique worth and dignity of each resident is respected in a quality environment”.

5. TASMANIAN STUDENTS SET NEW TREND (New Life) Worldview Centre for Intercultural Studies (formerly the WEC Missionary Training College) in Tasmania, has become the first private institution to grant a university recognised degree in Tasmania. Six students fulfilled the requirements to become the first to receive the Bachelor Degree in Intercultural Studies at Worldview. Eight students were awarded diplomas following their two-year requirements. One feature of the degree program is a mandatory 14-week period living and working cross-culturally in a country of the student’s choice. The students chose Fiji, East Timor, Singapore and Europe.

6. COLLEGE APPROVED FOR PERTH (Baptist Advocate) The State Minister for Education, in Western Australia, Mr Alan Carpenter, has upheld an appeal granting permission to establish a College in Claremont, Perth. The process has taken four years ad four applications – the last going to the appeal stage. The successful appeal gives specific permission for a Kindergarten to Year 12 co-educational College to be established in the Claremont area. The Senior Pastor of Claremont Baptist Church and Board Chairman, John Harris, said “It brings to life the truth of the Parable of the Persistent Widow” (who kept on pleading for justice from a judge, who finally gave in because (she) kept bothering him [Luke 18: 1-8] ). Already the College has 280 students registered for places, even though the first intake has been set for February, 2004.

7. BIBLES OR BOMBS FOR IRAQ? (ASSIST Ministries) Bibles or bombs for Iraq? To the Bible Society in Lebanon and to many other Bible Society groups working in the Middle East, that is an easy question to answer. They just want Bibles to go in and they are making sure that they get there. Geoff Stamp, a photojournalist, said, “I am sure, like me, you feel that war between the West and Iraq is not the answer to the terrorist crisis. In the next week or so several shipments containing 124,000 Scripture calendars and thousands of New Testaments, Bibles and Children’s Scriptures will be leaving Amman, Jordan and Beirut, Lebanon for Baghdad, Iraq. These shipments will be sent by the Bible Societies in Jordan and Lebanon.” At the end of last year, the Bible Society in Lebanon participated in the first ever Children’s Festival held in Baghdad. The theme of the Festival was: “Children of Iraq – the Future of Our Country”.

8. TAIWAN CHRISTIANS OVERTURN DEATH PENALTY (Taiwan Church News) On January 13th Mr. Su Ching-ho and two others were released from prison in Taiwan, after 11 years, many of them spent on death row. Their sentences were overturned by Taiwan’s high court, which declared them innocent of charges of murder after an incident the Taipei suburb of Hsi-chi in March of 1991. They had been on death row since 1995. Elder Lin Yung-song, of Taipei’s Chi-nan Presbyterian Church, said, “The Church is commissioned to suffer with the suffering, as Jesus did. We joined the families of the three falsely convicted men in their suffering. In such situations where these kinds of convictions happen, it’s not easy to stand up to power and see something overturned. The Church must stand on the side of the suffering, speaking out for them.”

9. WOMEN’S FIRST NATIONAL PRAYER BREAKFAST (American Baptist News) Women religious leaders from across the U.S. will gather in Washington D.C. on January 29 for the first national prayer breakfast organised by women. The event, sponsored by the Global Peace Initiative of Women Religious and Spiritual Leaders, is planned as a call to prayer following the final report on weapons inspection in Iraq scheduled to be delivered to the United Nations on January 28. Women leaders from all the major faith traditions will lead a one-hour session of prayer and reflection for the nation and the world.

10. WINTER CHILL STALLS CHILDREN’S ASSEMBLY (CWM News) Cold weather sweeping India has forced churches to postpone the first-ever ecumenical assembly of children from different Indian Protestant churches scheduled for this week, Anto Akkara writes for Council for World Mission News. “We had no option but to postpone the meeting due to the cold wave,” said Rev Enos Das Pradhan, secretary of the Child Care Ministry of the Church of North India, which was hosting the event scheduled for 15 to 19 January at Ranchi in eastern India. More than 400 people have died because of the cold wave sweeping northern and eastern India since the end of last year. Temperatures have been five to 10 degrees below normal during the last fortnight, forcing states in the region to close schools and colleges. More than 1,500 children were to attend the ecumenical children assembly, which has been “postponed – but not cancelled,” Pradhan added.

11. STREET IN PORTUGAL NAMED AFTER CLIFF (Sir Cliff Richard News) Albufeira, Portugal has decided to pay tribute to pop legend Sir Cliff Richard for his part in helping to promote Albufeira internationally since the 1960s and for his new role actively promoting the region through the production of wine on his farm in the freguesia of Guia. One of the oldest streets in the city, which runs parallel to the old cemetery, will now undergo a change of name from “Rua Da Caveira” to “Rua Sir Cliff Richard”. The inhabitants are said to be delighted as, since time immemorial, their address has translated as “Skull Street”. Sir Cliff fell in love with Albufeira a long time ago and has owned a house in the city for many years, although he now spends most of his time on his farm at Guia. He has always enjoyed excellent relations with Albufeira C ¢mara and is said to be delighted that they have named a street after him.

12. KIBAKI TO LEAD ‘OUT OF THE WILDERNESS’ (Christian Herald) Church leaders in Kenya have praised the holding of elections on 27 December and urged their new president, Mwai Kibaki, to keep his promises to the Kenyan people. The ruling Kenya African National Union, which had governed the country since independence in 1963, was trounced in the elections by Kibaki and his opposition National Rainbow Coalition. Church leaders attributed the emergence of the new leader to “the hand of the Lord.”

13. IT’S “NOT CRICKET” IN ZIMBABWE (Methodist Recorder) Members of a local Methodist church in England have challenged the leaders of the British Methodist Church to speak out against the “widespread violence, intimidation and suffering” inflicted by President Mugabe’s Government in Zimbabwe. The call came in the wake of the moral and political debate over whether England cricket players should travel to the Zimbabwean capital of Harare for a World Cup fixture on February 13. Members of Tickhill church, in the Doncaster circuit, believe that British Methodism should strongly voice its concerns about the current political regime in Zimbabwe. Senior steward Mr Derek Wilshaw said: “Why has the Methodist Church not been a strong voice over this issue? By remaining silent, or neutral, we are giving tacit support to the current despotic regime in that country.”

14. POLAR TRIUMPH (Christian Herald) When Andrew Cooney became the youngest person in history to walk from the Antarctic coast to the South Pole, one Nottinghamshire church was celebrating its own record – having three members of their congregation reach the Pole in three years. Andrew, 23, who arrived at the Pole at 8pm on 2 January, is a member of Holy Trinity Church in Southwell. The Vicar, the Rev Mark Tanner, said: “Fiona and Mike Thornewill also broke the record by becoming the first married couple to walk to the Pole in 1999.”

15. WHY ISN’T JESUS LIKE SUPERMAN? (Christian Herald) For some 12-year-olds in Britain, Jesus performed one miracle too few: they wondered why he did not ‘fly like Superman”. The finding emerged when Exeter University researchers asked more than 500 12-year-old youngsters about their religious knowledge. More than half (54%) did not know that Easter celebrates the resurrection of Jesus – and six per cent were not sure He existed at all. But the survey, sponsored by Jerusalem Trust, found that 44% of children could name a specific parable.

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