JULY/AUGUST 2019
Enjoying
#pciga19
GENERAL ASSEMBLY REPORTS #pciga19
BECOMING SCAMWISE How to spot the signs
AN OPEN DOOR
Maud Kells tells her story
CONTENTS | JULY/AUGUST 2019
FEATURES 12 Passing on blessing
Hazelbank’s mission focus on Malawi
14 PCI’s response to Queen’s 15 General Assembly reports 36 Dissenting voices The history of dissent in PCI
38 Going deep and wide in global mission New resource for congregations
40 Everyone needs a fresh start PCI initiative to encourage volunteers in Hydebank
42 Becoming scamwise How to spot the signs
44 An open door
Passing on blessing p12
Maud Kells tells her story
REGULARS 4 6 9 10 11 27 35 46 47 48 52
Letters News As I see it In this month My story Mission Connect Talking points Reviews Betsy Cameron Life in PCI Crossword
Going deep and wide in global mission p38
CONTRIBUTORS
Cover photo: Jamie Trimble July/August 2019 No. 823 £1.50 (€1.80) Published by: The Presbyterian Church in Ireland, Assembly Buildings, Belfast BT1 6DW. T: +44 (0)28 9032 2284 E: herald@presbyterianireland.org W: www.presbyterianireland.org
Becoming scamwise p42
Editor: Sarah Harding Subscriptions and Advertising: Elaine Huddleston; Phil Alcorn; Suzanne Hamilton Design and Layout: Edward Connolly Printing: Nicholson and Bass Ltd.
Alan Meban attends Kilmakee Presbyterian Church and writes about culture and politics as Alan in Belfast on his own blog and Slugger O’Toole.
Neil Harrison is PCI’s Mission Development Officer and a member of Waringstown Presbyterian Church.
Rebecca McConnell manages Purple Rain, a public relations company (www.purple-rain.co.uk). She is also a member of First Rathfriland Presbyterian Church.
Rev Brian Anderson is a Methodist minister and is president of the Irish Council of Churches.
The views expressed in the features, news reports, letters and book reviews of this magazine are not necessarily those of the Editor. Editorial comment and signed articles do not necessarily contain the official views of the Church, which can be laid down only by the General Assembly. Acceptance of advertisements does not imply endorsement of the goods or services. The Editor reserves the right to decline any advertisement or letter without assigning any reason. Letters may be edited for publication. No correspondence can be entered into regarding non-publication of advertisements or letters.
The Presbyterian Church in Ireland is a Registered Charity in Northern Ireland (NIC104483); Registered Charity in Republic of Ireland (20015695).
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CONGREGATIONAL STORY
Passing on
blessing
Wavell Moore describes how Hazelbank Presbyterian Church in Coleraine, thankful for God’s provision in their own congregation, have chosen to pass on this blessing, helping the poor and vulnerable in the Zomba area of Malawi.
T
hroughout its short history since achieving congregational status, the congregation of Hazelbank Presbyterian Church in Coleraine has always been strong in its support for a wide range of missionary causes. Having faced the challenge of making provision for local witness with the development of its own suite of buildings on the west side of the River Bann and being thankful for God’s faithful blessing in this regard, in 2005 the kirk session began to look at how the congregation might look beyond its own boundaries to help others in greater need. Arising from the vision of Rev Dick Gordon and his wife Maureen from the nearby town of Kilrea, who had served as PCI missionaries in the Zomba district of Malawi, a local charity was formed in Coleraine in 2003, the Zomba Action Project (ZAP).This created a great local awareness of the needs in Malawi and subsequently the kirk session decided that for the medium to long term, it would commit the annual harvest offering to help address the basic needs of the poor and vulnerable people of Zomba. Ravaged by the AIDS epidemic sweeping through Africa, the needs of widows and orphans were paramount. However, the kirk session was keen to be able to demonstrate the outcomes of the support to the congregation
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through identifying specific projects and communities who would receive the help. Consequently, Rev Alan Johnston visited Zomba in 2005 and as a result of his feedback the congregation warmly adopted this link as a long-term opportunity to offer practical thanks for their blessings. In 2007, a group of elders and other church members visited Zomba to help identify potential future projects. Ken Ford, an elder who was on the trip, comments, “The visit gave us all a
Being thankful for God’s faithful blessing…the kirk session began to look at how the congregation might…help others in greater need.
perspective on not just the needs but the ways in which we could fund the practical help needed.” Since 2005, the congregation has contributed some £75,000, sometimes through ad hoc fundraising efforts, but mainly through an annual harvest appeal offering, which usually raises some £5,000. Over this period, Hazelbank has channelled the delivery of its projects mainly through Emmanuel International, a highlyrespected international Baptist charity which designs, manages and delivers projects in Malawi and through ZAP which uses local people on the ground in Zomba to guide and direct the aid to best effect. A wide range of life-changing projects in the Zomba area have been funded, usually for individual villages or clusters of villages. These projects have always been done with the blessing and support of the local authorities so that there is no overlap with any other funding. These projects have included: • Feeding programmes during times of crop failure and extreme hunger, many of which were targeted at helping widows and orphans; • Supply of mosquito nets to communities to avert the deadly risk of malaria; • Provision of shallow wells in villages to supply clean water;
• Provision of bicycle ambulances to improve transport of the sick in rural areas; • Refurbishment of a local orphanage; • Education scholarships to provide disadvantaged pupils with secondary school education for five years; • Supply of goats to villages to encourage small scale farming and food production; • Establishment of bee-keeping operations in villages to stimulate the opportunity for locals to earn their own income. The choice of an appropriate project for the year involves an informed assessment of current need. Questions are asked: Is there the prospect of a reasonable harvest? (If the harvest is failing, it may be necessary to resort to an urgent feeding programme, usually directed to orphans and widows.) What other current crises are there? (For example, if malaria is rampant in a certain area, the provision of mosquito nets could be a top priority.) What are the most basic needs at present? (Clean water through village wells is always a life-changing and sustainable intervention.) The people of Zomba have expressed continuing gratitude for the village projects: “Thank you to our friends at Hazelbank who have changed our lives by bringing us clean water for our children.” Some may ask, however, could as much or more not have been achieved simply through donating these funds each year to mainstream Christian charities which are active in Africa, such as Tearfund or Christian Aid? The answer, from those heavily involved, is that these mainstream charities are, of course, worthy of support and indeed the congregation also supports them regularly by way of
other initiatives. With the more direct engagement with the needs of the local communities in Zomba, the congregation can much more easily identify with the beneficiaries and see the difference which their harvest offering makes when the end-of-year project report is presented in church. This, in turn, has motivated them each year to rise to the new challenge. The ‘Hazelbank approach’ is also regarded as innovative and effective by our partners in Zomba as this quotation from an official of Emmanuel International aptly conveys: “We took some visiting pastors from Canada and the US to visit some of the Hazelbank projects, including Anandi
Since 2005, the congregation has contributed some £75,000… Athu orphan care (mosquito nets), Mbidi Primary School (school supplies), and Potani village/Nambande (shallow well). They were extremely impressed by the work that Hazelbank Presbyterian Church has done here, and I believe it was quite inspirational for them to see what the church can do to help the poor. I have to admit, it is by far the most exciting project for me to work on because it’s awesome to see the direct involvement of the church…The impact is real and significant whereas with large government funding there seems to be a lot of bureaucracy, overhead costs and
some redundancy for the amount of output. Thanks for the great work you’ve done.” Hazelbank is still working very closely with ZAP in its efforts (this small local charity has raised over £850,000 in its short lifetime) and the congregation has also been active in sending much-needed clothes, blankets and other supplies through the regular container service organised by ZAP from Northern Ireland to Malawi. Looking to the future, the challenges in Zomba are not going to go away anytime soon; indeed, recent floods have caused further hardship with over 30,000 families badly affected in the region. Based on this ongoing need, Hazelbank plans to continue its commitment to the poor and vulnerable people in Malawi who have so little of this world’s goods but do have hearts that are full of love and gratitude. Allocating the annual harvest offering regularly and directly to Zomba is an act of thankfulness to almighty God by the congregation for a bountiful local harvest and it is a privilege to assist those who frequently have no harvest themselves. Of course, it will not change the world, but it will certainly change some people’s world. Hazelbank recognises that there are many congregations already very active in similar social witness, but should any congregation want to hear more about the practicalities of making this direct approach work, we would be only too glad to talk to you so that God’s work by God’s people can continue to address the obligation of believers as set out in Matthew 25: “Insomuch as you have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me.”
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Becoming
scamwise Simon Walls, from District Policing Command, offers some valuable advice on avoiding the growing threat of scams.
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I
recently joined a Facebook group of former recruits of the police training centre I attended in Ashford in Kent. It’s a real trip down memory lane. There are photographs of former colleagues and reminiscences of some of the funnier moments of police training. The training I received in 1997 would probably be described as old fashioned now. It was all about breaking up fights in pubs, dealing with soccer hooligans, locking up burglars and attending the scene of what we called then ‘road traffic accidents’. It was all about crime that took place in the public space. What I don’t recall was any mention of computers, the internet, fraud or the use of IT as a means of committing crime. In my day, the sawn-off shotgun was still the preferred weapon of choice of the criminal who wanted to take as much money from you as possible. Police recruits these days will have a very different experience of training. They still learn the same basics of the law as I did. But they will also learn about crime that takes place in the private sphere: online grooming, child sexual exploitation, human trafficking and scams. All of these crimes that take place behind closed doors present a real and growing risk to society, typically because the victims are vulnerable. Not least among them is scams, due to the sheer volume of those attempted every day and the amounts of money people lose. And this is money, in all likelihood, a victim will never get back.
The facts There is no precise definition of a scam. In legal terms, it’s a fraud, a way of taking money from a person by some sort of deception. Although there is no precise definition, there are some cold hard facts about scams you should know about. Scams do not just affect the old or the naïve. There is a scam out there with your name on it, whether you are a student or a septuagenarian. Scammers target various age and interest groups, not least holidaymakers, eBay shoppers, online
Scams do not just affect the old or the naïve. Scammers target various age and interest groups… bargain hunters, investors, and those looking for love. Scams don’t just happen online. There are lots of ways you can be scammed: through your phone line, the post, or on your doorstep. Some of the most effective scams come through the phone line and the scam that gathers the most money for the criminal is the call they make pretending to be from your phone or broadband company. Scammers are not lovable rogues just trying to make a few pounds. Most scamming these days is organised crime. There are call centres set up solely for the purposes of crime and they make calls on an industrial scale. It’s the same with mail fraud. Criminals send many thousands of scam mail items through our postal system. You won’t always get your money back if you have been a victim of a scam. Banks and other financial instructions will decide on a case by case basis if a victim is to receive a refund. In my experience, many victims are left out of pocket to the tune of many thousands. It’s not uncommon for a victim’s bank account to be cleared completely. Scams are increasingly sophisticated. Unfortunately, the ingenuity of the scammers is sometimes breathtaking, as they try to stay one step ahead of victims and law enforcement.
steps you can take to protect yourself. First, become scamwise. Like and follow the ScamwiseNI Facebook page or go to our site on NI Direct where there is information about current scams and how to avoid these. If you are not online, speak to your minister who will know someone that can advise you how to stay safe. Second, apply the Scam Test to any email, letter or phone call that you receive and you are not 100% sure is genuine: S – Seems too good to be true C – Comes out of the blue A – Asks for personal details M – Money is requested. Third, don’t be rushed. Scammers will try and create a crisis or rush you into making a decision. When people are rushed, they often make poor judgments. Fourth, take advice. Speak to a trusted friend if you are concerned about a letter, email or phone call and think it might be a scam. Or go to your local post office whose staff are trained to identify scams. And the last thing is – be a good friend. If you know someone in your congregation who might be vulnerable or doesn’t have ready access to information about scams, speak to them about scams and what to look out for. If you can spot a scam you can stop a scam! Simon Walls is the T/Chief Superintendent of District Policing Command
Protect yourself Despite the persistence of the scammers and their sophistication, there are some
There are call centres set up solely for the purposes of crime and they make calls on an industrial scale. Herald July/August 2019
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