November 7, 2005
Dear Friends,
We had a new members’ orientation session at the manse
tonight that was an exciting exchange of life experience, as these
affairs tend to be. People are feeling very good about this church
these days. Our treasurer, giving me a ride home from a recent
meeting of the elders, told me he felt there was a certain “buzz”
about the place. Attendance is up, the singing is strong, and
giving is well over budget, and we are adding to our numbers virtually
every week. It is rarely the case that we have to seek out someone
who has been attending in recent months to ask them if they would
consider membership. Almost everyone of this current lot has come
forward to ask me how to become a member of the church, one of
them immediately after the first service she and her children
attended. This is an amazing experience in a country where the
church overall is experiencing freefall decline. So I am in a
good mood tonight.
Not all the news is good. One young man who has been worshipping
with us for several months, an
African asylum seeker whose application has failed, has been taken
to Harmondsworth Detention Centre near Heathrow Airport. Though
almost all his relatives have been killed and he faces clear danger
on return, it is very, very difficult for single young men to
be granted asylum here. So a big priority this coming week is
to see if we can make contact and give him support.
Our Asylum Justice Programme, a team of volunteer lawyers giving
pro-bono advice for asylum seekers, backed up by a large pool
of lay volunteers, makes a point of not judging the merits of
anyone’s case. We are trying to ensure that everyone gets
a fair hearing in a complicated system in which many applications
fail simply because of lack of counsel, misunderstanding, or missed
deadlines. The program is the only one like it in the United Kingdom.
Other groups of lawyers have set up similar work, but they depend
on legal aid that is not always available. Ours is the only one
that is all-volunteer, and thus free to respond to all cases.
One of our lawyers told me that we have actually become the largest
“law firm” in Wales, given the number of lawyers working
for us, the number of support staff, and the number of clients
we see.
The program has recently been granted status as an independent
charity, so we have been able to set up a bank account and begin
fundraising. In addition to what we provide as a church—office
space, an old computer, photocopying, faxing, office supplies
like envelopes, etc.—each client is costing us something
like £15 (largely telephone costs, travel, postage and occasional
fees for translation). All this comes out of the pockets of our
volunteers, and the last time I counted, about a month ago, we
had since July seen over 250 asylum seekers, so if we don’t
get kicking on some serious fundraising, we are sunk.
Our first fundraising event took place a couple weeks ago here
at the manse with a curry supper that packed this large house
to standing room overflow, and I just had a call yesterday from
a group up in Brecon (about an hour north of Cardiff) that wants
to do fundraising for us. Several who receive this letter have
asked me what they can do to help.
Contributions from individuals may be sent to Presbyterian Church
(U.S.A.) Individual Remittance Processing, PO Box 643700, Pittsburgh,
PA 15264-3700. Contributions from churches should be sent to:
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Church Remittance Processing, PO
Box 643678, Pittsburgh, PA 15264-3678. Write the title (Asylum
Justice Fund - Wales) and the ECO number on the subject line (E864450)
of the check and put it on your cover letter, too. Send a copy
of the cover letter to Area Office for Europe and the Middle East
at 100 Witherspoon St. Louisville, KY 40202-1396. Or click the
"give" button below.
It is never boring here. They’ve got me serving as president
of the South Wales District Council now, in which office my major
project is to continue to move forward on the program I designed
for revitalizing our district churches. All the churches across
the district have recently completed the self-study profiles they
have been working on since early in the year. Many of them have
already started working on goals that emerged from this self-study
project. We’re forming ways to support them and encourage
others to follow their lead. I am also trying to develop programs
for building up more and better skilled lay leadership, as we
are faced with having to cut ministerial deployment by about 25
percent. Another project is to form local clusters of churches
to make those networks of lay leadership more effective—City
Church is taking the lead by initiating a Cardiff Central group
pulling five churches together, with our first meeting in December.
In mid-September the national conference on city centre churches
I and a few friends from the university had been planning for
the last two years finally took place. We had almost twice as
many people as we had originally planned. It was the first conference
on city centre churches ever in Britain. I thought when it was
done I could relax and get on to other things, but now there is
this network of people from Scotland to London who want some kind
of continuing support.
All this—and on top of it an amazing string of baptisms.
For the last year virtually every month one young couple after
another has been giving birth, and those currently pregnant will
be keeping the supply going well into 2006. James and Kelly have
just given us our third grandson, too. So beginnings are popping
up all over the place. All the best from us, and if I don’t
write again before the end of the year, please consider this your
Christmas greetings!
Peace be with you,
Tom and Marieke Arthur
The 2005 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p.
174 |
