Global Vision Seminars
Seminars – you may attend 2 seminars. Write your name and first 4 choices for each person on the booking form. It is a first come first served basis.
1. What Tonga Taught a Mission Partner
Ruth Watt says that no matter how many times she has gone to other countries to offer her skills and experience she has always ended up learning more than she ever shared. Ruth tells what she was doing in Tonga and some of the things that God had to send her half way around the world to learn. Ruth served in Tonga as a teacher and educator for six years. She now works as a Pastoral Assistant in the Dungannon Circuit while candidating for the Methodist Ministry.
2. Will my mobile work over there? The changing face of mission training.
This seminar explores what it means to be formed for global mission in the 21 st century. The material relates both to those travelling from ‘here to there' and from ‘there to here.' What do those on the receiving end really want and do they get it? What do those travelling think they're offering, and is it really needed? And might those be the wrong mission categories and questions anyway, within the mutuality of the Body of Christ…? Val Ogden is this year's GV09 keynote speaker.
3. Everybody Matters
In God's economy, everybody matters and everyone can find a place but how will this Good News connect with the lives of the least in our communities? In a time when the lowest are literally pleading for the crumbs from our tables, how will we, the church, give away the hope of Christ? Mark Houston, the organisations Director for the Methodist East Belfast Mission, has over 25yrs experience ministering in Inner South and East Belfast . Mark will reflect on EBM's work in one of Northern Ireland 's poorest communities.
4. God's Broadcasting Corporation
Feba changes lives through radio ministry in Africa, Asia and the Middle East in places like Iraq, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan and Nepal . Hear what God is doing through radio which can penetrate where people can't always go. Listeners' stories of changed lives, programmes that reach people who have never heard the gospel and the ‘studio in a suitcase' that makes radio ministry possible in remote or dangerous locations. Mike Ewan is Feba's part-time representative in N Ireland and has visited parts of Africa and India .
5. Wenchi Methodist Hospital , Ghana
Their husbands reject them. Their friends avoid them. Their community ostracises them. The church excludes them. Children throw stones at them and call them names. They hide away and live in a very lonely self-imposed prison. This is the secret story of 2 million women in sub-Saharan Africa . Dr Alan Miller, Consultant Surgeon, has been visiting Wenchi each year, since the Go For Ghana visit in 1990. He reports how a simple operation and a little love can transform their secret shame to heavenly joy.
6. A Journey in Uganda
James Nelson took five months out from working as a doctor in Northern Ireland to study childcare and theology at a Christian Children's Centre in rural Uganda in what was once the country's "killing fields". The centre is run by Ugandans and Westerners and has grown from a staff of a few to a hundred, working as parents, teachers, nurses, vocational skills trainers, pastors, counselors, friends and providers to bring the fatherhood of God to the fatherless. This is James' account of what he received and how he lived in the bush.
7. Latvia: rediscovering Methodism
Is there a place for the Methodist church in a country re-emerging from 50 years of Communist rule? Can Wesley's teaching usher in a spiritual re-awakening centered on grace? Rev. Gita Mednis, District Superintendent in Latvia, escaped her homeland before it was engulfed by the Soviet Union. She spent her early childhood in a Displaced Persons Camps in postwar Germany and then emigrated to the US, returning to her homeland in 2000. Gita bridges the gap between the west and post-Soviet Latvian thinking and has a unique perspective on the Church world-wide.
8. Sticky issues
Mission partners often find themselves morally thrown. That's because thinking and acting ethically in a cultural setting other than that born in can be like walking on egg shells while simultaneously sliding around on a banana skin. The seminar will present difficult situations faced by mission partners for discussion and ask the question “What would you do?”. A panel of ex-mission partners will take part.
9. Funky Fishing
Any fisherman knows that patience is needed for success! For two years the team at the Funky Fish Cafe in Bandon, Co Cork quietly provided a safe space for young people. Relationships were built and they waited in faith. Then a young man attempted a robbery of a team member and, thrown by an unexpectedly quiet response, he began to ask questions of faith. Soon he and several others had heard the call of Jesus to “Follow me”. Keith Kingston, the project co-ordinator has worked with YMCA and managed a Community Project in Chad. Patrick Dobbin, a Bandon boy, joined as a front line worker in 2007. The café is the Home Mission ‘half' of this year's JMA project.
10. From Mohammed to Jesus Christ
Once a fanatical Shia who was willing to hurt people for the sake of Islam, Paul outlines his spiritual journey which took 40 years of reading and searching. He will share his own personal story as well as presenting a comparative study of Christ and Mohammed and also of the Bible and the Koran. How can Muslims be told about Christ? Currently a Consultant Paediatrician in the UK, Paul is originally from the Middle East .
11. Fighting the good fight in Papua New Guinea
New Guinea is the second largest island in the world and PNG comprises more than 600 islands. The UN describes the country as poor. Christian evangelism, education, health (including HIV education programmes) and agriculture are energetically promoted by the churches. MMS supports this work. Rev Ken Todd served in Sierra Leone and was Treasurer of MMS(I) and in recent years has visited the country twice, travelling extensively to facilitate Pastors' Conferences.
12. Afghanistan : a nation in conflict
What does the Gospel have to say about such circumstances? What is happening behind the news headlines? How can we be proactive in our support of Afghanis, and others who seek good for their country? What is the role of the British military and their Chaplains? Rev Richard D Rowe served the Methodist Church in Ireland for ten years before joining the Royal Navy as a Chaplain in 2000. He has recently returned from deployment to Afghanistan.
13. Embracing Diversity; engaging with ‘the other'
EMBRACE NI seeks to ‘welcome the stranger' in Christ's name and to guide the Church as it responds to the gifts and the needs of minority ethnic communities – people who have migrated as well as those seeking asylum. Dr Scott Boldt works in the Reconciliation Office in Edgehill College and is chairperson of EMBRACE. The interactive seminar will provide practical information, insights from people from minority ethnic backgrounds and suggestions, challenges and resources on how to engage with new residents.
14. Special Needs in Mauritius
The Experience Exchange Programme is a self -funding volunteer programme run jointly by USPG (Anglicans in World Mission) and the Methodist Church. Kiran Griffin, from Dundrum Methodist Church (R of Ireland), spent six months in Mauritius teaching children and young people with both physical and mental disabilities. “Some were able to speak, others not. All were in wheelchairs. There was a lovely, friendly atmosphere.”
