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Washington Church of Christ February - March News 2000-2001 | ||||||||||||
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Asylum
Seekers Starting in December we began working with people from many countries around the world who have come to Great Britain fleeing from persecution in some form from their country. Work with these people has continually expanded over the past couple of months. We are providing them with furniture that has been donated by people from the community. We store the furniture in the building and then transport it to the houses of the people that have a need. We have conducted several special activities for the asylum seekers such as days out, meals at the church building. Some have requested Bibles so we have acquired Bibles in their language as well as supplying them with the Bible in English. Most speak very little English. They are taking lessons at the local college and this is improving. To assist with this the church has been involved in helping with the purchase of dictionaries for several of the families. At present there are around 40 families living in Washington from such places as Columbia, Chechnya, Armenia, Iraq, Iran, Somalia, Malaysia, Romania, the Czech Republic, Poland, Turkey, Moldavia and more. This is a unique challenge and opportunity for the church here. Two families have regularly attended Sunday worship here in Washington over the past several months. The British government will ultimately decide if these people are allowed to stay in the U.K., our challenge is to help them adjust and deal with the persecution that they have already suffered. For some there has been additional upset with local people throwing bricks through their windows, kicking in their doors and shouting racial abuse. We have been involved in dealing with the aftermath of several such incidents. Click on Thumbnails to see larger photo.
Libscomb Students On the 10th of March we were privileged to have 10 people arrive from Nashville, Tennessee to conduct school assemblies in primary schools in Washington. There were 8 students, Dr. Michael Moss and his wife in the group. They conducted 30-minute assemblies in 7 different primary schools in Washington. At several schools they conducted 2 assemblies in order to be able to accommodate all of the students. During the week around 2000 children will have participated in these programs. They also went into one of the local nursing homes and provided the residents with entertainment by singing and talking with them.
Various Activities Rodney has continued to work on his PhD. at the University of Durham after getting approval for his Thesis. He now needs to start writing the actual chapters of the Thesis, which is due to be finished in just over 4 years. He has also continued with his training as a Magistrate and he will sit on the bench for his first cases starting on Tuesday the 17th of April. It should be a busy day after the Easter holiday weekend. Michele and Rodney have both been busy with their community work as chairpersons for the board of Trustees of the Wearside Women in Need and the Citizens Advice Bureau. We are looking forward to furlough in the United States very soon. Michele, Heather and Jared will arrive on the 1st of June. Jonathan and Joshua will arrive on the 3rd of July and Rodney will arrive on the 10th of July. We will be staying until late August. Please pray for us in the work that we are doing with the people living in our area. Please ask God to give us strength and to open the hearts of the many people we are working with here now. We are actually working with far more people than we have in the past. Thank you so much for all of your prayers and support. May God bless you all richly. The Thomas family | ||||||||||||
