Two into one does go!

Now the two blog postings from Asia coincide for a little while. I have been joined in China by Steve Pearce, Partnership Coordinator for Asia Pacific in the Connexional Team. He is on route from Myanmar to Nepal via China - dont try and work out the route!!

Today, and for the rest of the week I am engaged in teaching some theology at the headquarters of the Amity Foundation in Nanjing. Today I was working with some sernior ministers from some of the churches across China and we were thinking about the nature of mission and service - diakonia as they like to express it. The ministers told me that whilst they do engage with the society in acts of service they do not often integrate this work with their thinking about church things. They often see themselves as engaging in mission and ministry, works of diakonia, because they are the traditional things that churches do - without really having any understanding of how that tradition has come about. So, today we did some thinking about mission and discovered some theology which helps us to link the spiritual things that we do in church with the service and mission things that we do in the world.

The continued theological education of the ministers is something with which the Methodist Church in Britain can help with through our Scholarship and Leadership Training (SALT) programme. It is notjust about bringing people to Britain and Ireland to study - we can also support short training programmes in the home countries of our partner churches.

Tomorrow I continue to work with the ministers. We shall be thinking of some specifically Methodist expressions of theology and mission - they have especially asked to be told about the traditional Methodist expression of social holiness.

Adrian Burdon

Bibles and Biscuits

The Amity Foundation is the partner organisation of the Methodist Church in Britain and the means by which we are involved in the work in China. Many of us know of the work of the Amity Foundation as being the organisation which prints and distribute Bibles. We also know of them as the organisation to whom we send mission partners to work as teachers in China. We are perhaps a little less familiar with some of their other work. Today I visited the Amity Bakery, a social enterprise project which takes young people with learning difficulties and trains them in commercial bakery. The finished products are sold and any profit put back into the company. I can confirm that they make delicious biscuits – I hope I can bring some back with me! The project began in 2008 and is still quite fragile as it cannot produce large enough quantities of products to establish a good retail base. The bakery management team are considering the possibility of opening a café as a means of creating a retail outlet for their products.

Other work I saw today included a visit to a day-care centre for elderly people – a little like the MHA Live at Home projects that some of our churches in Britain are involved with. In this work, Amity is in partnership with the local government of the area of Nanjing in which it is situated. At the other end of the age-range, I also saw the work of the Amity- supported project which works with children with autism. The children, aged from 1 to 7 years, come to the project and are given support and preparation for entering mainstream education wherever possible. The newest project of the Amity Foundation is in partnership with the government and offers support to new NGO’s as they set up and establish themselves. At present, the government is very supportive of the work of Amity because they see so much of what they do as promoting “social harmony” and stability. Amity is happy to work with the partners in these projects because it helps generate the income to enable their mission in the poorer rural areas and amongst marginalised people.

We pray for China on day 21 of our Methodist Prayer Handbook. When you next remember them, pray also for the work of the Amity Foundation and all their partners. Pray for the great network of relationship that they build and the vast array of work that they enable and support. Pray for the bakery that its work will grow from strength to strength.

Adrian Burdon

5000 member church

Today, being Sunday, I was collected by my hosts and taken for worship at St Paul’s Church in Nanjing. As we were early for the service, I spent some time talking with the pastor. He told me a little about the history of the church which was founded in 1909 by American Anglican Missionaries. St Paul’s Church has over 5000 members and adds around 200 new members per year. To set this apparently large number of people in context, there are around 200 churches in Nanjing at which a total of around 120,000 Christians worship. There are, however, 80 Million people in Nanjing area! There are seven services in the church every Sunday, including the one in English which we attended. There are three pastors for the members of the church. The pastor told that one of the challenges for his church is how to effectively care for 5000 people with only three pastors. Members of the church do not feel that they know their pastor and can feel isolated in the midst of such a huge congregation. We spoke a little of the Methodist tradition of the Class System, and the more contemporary expression of Cell Groups, as a possible means of responding to the need for a the pastoral care system for the church.

Adrian Burdon

Beauty

I am on my way from Myanmar to China, feeling that I have left behind a very beautiful place.

Myanmar is certainly a place of contrasts – great wealth and unforgivable poverty;

Inspiring creativity and implacable obstructions; smiling joy and still-faced sadness.

But I travel on with that sense of beauty, not just these orchids and the smiles and hospitality that are so widespread but also a depth of spirituality in this country and a growing sense of hope.

As I spoke in Wesley Church, Mandalay yesterday, there was a really vibrant response to our people-to-people priorities, a real enthusiasm for exchanges of ideas and theologies with the outside world.

Despite the hiccup in the Parliament today over ‘protecting’ or ‘respecting’ the constitution in the oath to be taken by new members, there is a new atmosphere and I hope we in Britain are able to respond with real friendship and not just have eyes for a lucrative new investment and marketing opportunity.

The invitation to the Methodist Church in Britain has certainly now been made.

Steve

Happy together

Methodism and Buddhism are happy together!

As President of the Methodist Church, Revd Zaw has promoted inter-faith relations, and led joint work in many areas, including HIV, disaster relief and environmental concerns. Last Christmas he even arranged a joint Christmas lunch in Mandalay, no small feat given the religious significance here of eating together.

He is seen with Badan Tacsain Tida, founder and leader of the Buddhist community of Asia Ahlinn Yaung in Pyin Oo Lwin; we left the 40 degree temperatures of Mandalay to join him in the fresher climate at his community’s home in the hills. We coincidentally met a group of teachers from monastery primary and secondary schools who had left their classes for a 70-day course to help them bring their teaching in touch with the environment and with society, the course leader told me, ‘The monastery schools tend to focus on religion and not understand social engagement.’

In conversation we, Buddhist and Christian, homed in on the need for peace-building – hoping that a resource person (from Britain perhaps?) could lead an inter-faith exercise in this Buddhist centre to learn about the techniques of peace-building and make the most of this unique moment in the history of Myanmar.

Exciting times.

Steve

Spot the connection

The two women are connected to the pig via a fabulous micro-credit scheme run by the Methodist Church in Mandalay at Nanthamyen, a ‘leprosy village’ a ninety-minute drive out of Mandalay.

In 1892 Methodist missionaries in Mandalay began caring for leprosy sufferers and it developed into a substantial piece of work as the disease was widespread. In 1960 all overseas missionaries were obliged to leave but the families in that community remained together until 1990 when the military government decided it did not want the leprosy sufferers and their families in the city and they were taken to this empty land forty miles away and each of the 300 households was given a plot measuring 60’ by 40’ to build a house. They remain there to this day.

60 families have found their lives transformed by the micro-credit scheme developed and run by Revd Henry. The woman on the left works with 8 families who have taken out loans to develop handicraft projects, they mainly do tailoring and sell the clothes they make to make a living. The woman on the left works with 15 families who are using their loans to grow sugar, beans or groundnuts which they then take to market in Mandalay. The scheme is totally self-financing as the 3% interest pays these workers.

A brilliantly empowering helping hand. A hard life for the inhabitants but also an inspiring place to visit.

I didn’t want to leave.

Steve Pearce | Partnership Coordinator Asia and the Pacific | World Church Relationships

Christian Communication, Evangelism & Advocacy Cluster | The Connexional Team

020 7467 5161 (Direct line)

 

The Methodist Church

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Untitled

Greetings from China.  

 

I am here in order to help the Amity Foundation with a short education programme on mission and diakonia, service and mission. I am presently visiting some of the churches in Chongqing before going on to Nanjing for the work with Amity Foundation.

 

Today I spent some time at the Chongqing Bible School and gave a short lecture on the development of Christian diakonia, service and mission. It is a small school, established in 2008 with one part time Principal and two assistant teachers. There are twenty students, eighteen of whom are young women. This is a first level of theological education for those who wish to become ministers. After graduation the students will spend three years as lay ministers in their congregations before going to the regional seminary for additional training.

 

The challenge that the churches in Chongqing are seeking to address is how best to address the changes being brought about by increasing urbanization of their area. The city is growing rapidly and swallowing up vast groups of what used to be rural communities.  Those rural communities are largely undeveloped and the people there are generally marginalized. The Amity Foundation, who are supported by the Methodist Church in Britain, are working with the Chongqing Christian Council to enable the church to develop its mission of diakonia and service.

 

The point of my visit is to help the churches learn a little more of the theology of mission as an expression of social engagement in order that it might undergird their project work.

 

This project is supported by the our World Church Scholarship and Leadership Training (SALT) programme of which I am the Chair.

 

Adrian Burdon

 

 

Untitled

Greetings from China.

 

 

 

I am here in order to help the Amity Foundation with a short education programme on mission and diakonia, service and mission. I am presently visiting some of the churches in Chongqing before going on to Nanjing for the work with Amity Foundation.

 

 Today I spent some time at the Chongqing Bible School and gave a short lecture on the development of Christian diakonia, service and mission. It is a small school, established in 2008 with one part time Principal and two assistant teachers. There are twenty students, eighteen of whom are young women. This is a first level of theological education for those who wish to become ministers. After graduation the students will spend three years as lay ministers in their congregations before going to the regional seminary for additional training.

 

The challenge that the churches in Chongqing are seeking to address is how best to address the changes being brought about by increasing urbanization of their area. The city is growing rapidly and swallowing up vast groups of what used to be rural communities.  Those rural communities are largely undeveloped and the people there are generally marginalized. The Amity Foundation, who are supported by the Methodist Church in Britain, are working with the Chongqing Christian Council to enable the church to develop its mission of diakonia and service.

 

 The point of my visit is to help the churches learn a little more of the theology of mission as an expression of social engagement in order that it might undergird their project work.

 

 

 

This project is supported by the our World Church Scholarship and Leadership Training (SALT) programme of which I am the Chair.

 

 

 

Adrian Burdon

 

Untitled

Greetings from China.

 

I am here in order to help the Amity Foundation with a short education programme on mission and diakonia, service and mission. I am presently visiting some of the churches in Chongqing before going on to Nanjing for the work with Amity Foundation.

 

Today I spent some time at the Chongqing Bible School and gave a short lecture on the development of Christian diakonia, service and mission. It is a small school, established in 2008 with one part time Principal and two assistant teachers. There are twenty students, eighteen of whom are young women. This is a first level of theological education for those who wish to become ministers. After graduation the students will spend three years as lay ministers in their congregations before going to the regional seminary for additional training.

 

The challenge that the churches in Chongqing are seeking to address is how best to address the changes being brought about by increasing urbanization of their area. The city is growing rapidly and swallowing up vast groups of what used to be rural communities.  Those rural communities are largely undeveloped and the people there are generally marginalized. The Amity Foundation, who are supported by the Methodist Church in Britain, are working with the Chongqing Christian Council to enable the church to develop its mission of diakonia and service.

 

The point of my visit is to help the churches learn a little more of the theology of mission as an expression of social engagement in order that it might undergird their project work.

 

This project is supported by the our World Church Scholarship and Leadership Training (SALT) programme of which I am the Chair.

 

Adrian Burdon

Thanks

The principal of Myanmar Theological College, Revd Ngurliana, expressed effusive thanks for the support of British Methodists here today.

Money donated to the World Mission Fund made possible a grant half of which was used to purchase a 12-acre rice field which assures a regular income for many years to come and the other half was used to purchase books for the library.

Not only that, but many Methodists donated their unwanted theological books to a collection that was shipped out to Myanmar, which brought it up to the size required for accreditation of the masters degree course now offered at the College.

Discussion, study and learning such as that taking place at this college are even more important in the current climate of change and expectation here.

Steve

Carving

An old carving on the royal monastery.

Spires

Spires and pagodas at every turn and they are a gathering place for many on this New Year’s Day, especially for the teenagers it would seem.

Religion is much in evidence, in Yangon I saw several mosques and Hindu temples as well as churches.

Mandalay is a city steeped in history. These pagodas are part of a huge set of thousands each containing a stone tablet of Buddhist scripture.

Nearby is a nineteenth century royal monastery full of amazing carving.  The adjacent huge, ‘incomparable’ monastery building is a recent rebuilding, since (the notice told me) the original had ‘mysteriously’ burnt down during the time the British were responsible for it, it was also pointed out that the enormous diamond being held by the statue of the Buddha has never been seen since.

Steve

Myanmar

New Year greetings from Yangon!
Buddhist new year celebrations are well underway as arrive in Myanmar to 40 degrees of heat
and happy people throwing water at each other, which is what you do to celebrate Thingyan -
it reminds you that we all need to be cleansed, refreshed and renewed for the New Year.
It merits a 15 day festival, but fortunately today is New Year's Eve, so its the last day for water throwing
- good, I got soaked twice today already!
The atmosphere is different in many other ways from my last visit. I've seen many people wearing
Aung San Suu Kyii t-shirts and other political slogans. Political conversations have become almost commonplace,
there are even talks about re-introducing political science and sociology into the universities.
There are now Christians in the national parliament, even as chairs of committees -
this presents an opportunity we have been talking about.
Great time with the Yangon church and an HIV group today, off to Mandalay at day break tomorrow!
Steve

Burma

About to leave Heathrow for Myanmar/Burma. The papers are full of Mr Cameron walking in the garden and calling for an end to sanctions. He may be right but I hope if and you will also be praying for the desperately poor in this rich land, for the brutal war in the north, for the refugees around the borders. Changes have begun, let's give thanks, support the Methodist Church of Upper Myanmar and keep working for change. Steve