So what did you find under the Christmas tree? Or in that stocking at the foot of the bed?
Great gifts to share.
A couple of weeks ago we had a big long parcel under the
Christmas tree. It was the longest box
of Jaffa cakes
you have ever seen – and it claimed to be a survival pack for Christmas.
How do you survive Christmas is a question asked in a lot of
houses at Christmas!
Actually, surviving Christmas has taken on a bit of a
different meaning for us here at Highbury this year.
Back in September our focus for Harvest was on the support
of Christians in the Middle East facing
persecution.
It was good to receive Christmas greetings from Middle EastConcern …
Dear Friends and Partners
of MEC
Thank you for your
invaluable partnership during 2013. Together
we were able to support Christians in the Middle East and North
Africa who are persecuted on account of their faith. With your support we have monitored, verified
and / or assisted in over 380 cases reported to us this year.
Peace and Blessings for
Christmas and for the year ahead.
From the Board and
Staff of Middle East Concern.
The persecution of Christians is very much in the news this
Christmas. In a moving, short radio broadcast last week William Dalrymple, the travel writer and historian
who ever since writing From the Holy Mountain, 15 years ago, has chronicled the
plight of Christian communities around the Middle East suggested that “The Arab
spring is rapidly turning into a Christian winter.”
Douglas Alexander, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, was quoted
in the paper on Christmas Eve as saying, “Across the world, there will be Christians
this week for whom attending a church service this Christmas is not an act of
faithful witness, but an act of life-risking bravery.”
It’s not just that the word ‘survival’ takes on a very much
more pointed meaning for me this Christmas.
It is also a word I have seen used in a very specific and powerful way
in the context of the Syrian Crisis.
Just before Christmas we received a letter from someone who has
visited our Ministers conference and was to have joined us for our
International Congregational Fellowship Conference last summer … sadly, visa
problems meant he could not travel to join us.
It’s one thing seeing news reports of the awful things that have
happened there.
Quite another to see pictures taken by someone you know of a
church that’s part of our International Congregational Fellowship.
It is gut-wrenching to see those pictures.
You suddenly realise that for many in Syria and in
many other places this question of survival is very, very real.
How important to support people in Syria .
So we are supporting Embrace the Middle East’s Syria appeal – an age old mission organisation
that supports health, disability, educational initiatives in Palestine ,
Israel , Egypt , Lebanon ,
Jordan and elsewhere in the Middle East .
Through their partners organisations in Lebanon they are working at putting food parcels
together for Refugees in Syria .
This is survival in the raw.
More
than 5 million Syrians have fled their homes. At least 700,000 have fled to Lebanon
Access
to emergency aid is severely limited - people are living in areas too dangerous
for the large aid agencies to enter.
But we can reach the unreachable. Working
through our Lebanese partners, we are empowering a network of Syrian churches
to provide emergency food parcels to the most vulnerable families.
£37.50
will provide a basic food parcel lasting
a family one month.
£9.37
will feed a family for one week – less than the cost of a takeaway.
To
gift aid your Christmas / Communion collection please fill in a gift aid
envelope and LABEL IT CLEARLY CHRISTMAS COLLECTION
NEWS
FLASH: The UN has warned that Syrian refugees are at risk as the worst winter
storm in decades sweeps across the Middle East .
Blizzards and freezing rain have hit the region, meaning that the 125,000
refugees living in tents will be enduring extremely harsh conditions. (Updated
13 December 2013.)
It is good to give. But true giving is a two way thing.
My eye fell on words in the letter we had received from our
friend in Syria .
The source of strength is not in ourselves: it
is God himself. We do not survive under this tremendous pressure by focusing on
surviving; and neither do we survive under this pressure by focusing on our own
perceived strength. No, we survive under
this pressure by keeping focused on God: "...who comforts us in all our
troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we
ourselves have received from God." - 2 Corinthians 1:4
They are powerful words that take us right back to where we
started.
It is no exaggeration to say that Christmas can become
something to survive.
It can be overwhelmed by sadness or sickness, by anxiety and
fears for the future, by troubles closer to home. Sad news, concerning news that someone shares
that for some strange, but inescapable reason feels all the worse simply
because it’s Christmas.
Let’s come back to these words and take them very much to
heart, not least because they are spoken from the heart in the most awful of
situations.
Surviving
Christmas
The source of strength is not in
ourselves:
It is God Himself.
We do not survive
under this tremendous pressure
by focusing on surviving;
And neither do we survive
under this pressure
by focusing on our own perceived
strength;
We
survive under this pressure
by
keeping focused on God
“Who comforts us in all our troubles,
so that we can comfort those in any trouble
with the comfort
we ourselves have
received from God.”
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