Current News

Kiribati migration to New Zealand: experience, needs and aspirations

Global Mission has commissioned Impact Research  to explore what is happening for I-Kiribati people who come to live in New Zealand, for a variety of reasons.  The report (including recommendations)  explores the migration and settlement experiences and needs and aspirations of a selected group of Kiribati people in New Zealand and it is intended to encompass the experiences of other migrant communities in New Zealand. Due to cultural similarities of I-Kiribati and Pacifika immigrants it is expected that the findings will be widely relevant. This report aims to inform the Council for World Mission (CWM) and the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand, but it will be highly relevant for other groups as well in New Zealand and the Pacific.

The report is available for Download.

Visit to Mission Partnership in India

27 October-11 November 2011

Pamela Tankersley representing Global Mission Coordinator and Ryhan Prasad representing Friends of Jagadhri visited Jagaadhri, India to join in the centenary celebrations of Christian Hospital Jagadhri, which had been established by NZ Presbyterian medical missionaries, Dr William and Mrs Edith Porteous in 1911.
While we were there we took time to re-establish partnership between the Presbyterian Church in ANZ and Church of North India and  experience at first hand the realities of our mission partnership, both as Global Mission and the Friends of Jagadhri Trust so that we could together review the effectiveness of the Presbyterian Church’s support for the mission in Jagadhri and plan with  the Church of North India and the Jagadhri Mission the next phase of the partnership

We arrived in Delhi on December 2and  we were met in Delhi by Drs Cecil and Nayana Harrison and taken to the CNI Synod offices and guest house. And the next day met with CNI officials at Synod and Diocese level. 
On Thursday 3 December we travelled to Jagadhri, where we met up with the 11 members of Dr William and Mrs Edith Porteous’ family and Sharon de Landes, the daughter of Dr George and Mrs Nerolei Chisholm.
The rest of he weekend was celebration, blessing of new facilities, worship and wonderful food!.  We also visited the Leprosy Colony in Jagadhri.
On Monday we engaged at a deeper level with the staff at the hospital, and really appreciated their openness.  On Tuesday we attended at St Thomas School, meeting with staff and students, and then were grateful for the Harrison family’s accompanying us to Agra to see the Taj Mahal!

We left for NZ on December 10.

Church of North India

• Mission Partnership

The Church in North India is a union of 7 churches, including the Presbyterian/Congregational union that was the original partner in the mission in Jagdhri and through this CNI is also a member church of the Council for World Mission. The union included the Church of England as it was that time, and the current church’s ecclesiology is Episcopal with strong links to the Anglican Communion. 

• India is more than Jagadhri

We met with the new General Secretary in Delhi, Mr Alwan Masih, and the Director of Programmes, the Rev Sudipta Singh and were given a verbal and written report on the recent General Synod – an impressive set of documents outlining mission priorities and directions. We agreed that we should reframe our understanding of our mission partnership in India as being primarily with the Church of North India and the mission relationship with Jagadhri as an expression of that partnership. 

Diocese of Delhi  - Bishop Sunil Singh

The mission in Jagadhri (in the State of Haryana) is in the Diocese of Delhi.
We enjoyed dinner with Bishop Sunil Singh, his secretary, the Deputy Chairman of the Diocesan Education Board, Dr Lyall and their wives and families.  The Principal and the Manager of St Thomas School, Jagadhri are under the direction of this Board. We expressed a wish for a continuation of the prayerful relationship and support to be encouraged, directly with the Principal and staff. 

We talked with the Bishop concerning the primary future of Christian Hospital as in its Nursing School. He hopes a gynaecologist and a paediatrician can be appointed to the Hospital staff in order to make it more financially sound.

St Thomas School, Jagadhri

We were taken on a tour of the school, with the other New Zealand visitors and participated in the blessing of the 3 new computer labs and the “Modern” library.  One morning Ryhan and I spent time with the children and staff in classes.

There are now 2885 students from preschool to year 12.  We were delighted with the knowledge of the school’s history and our role in it – and of their esteem for Doreen Riddell as the founding Principal. The policy is to strive for excellence and the students were immaculately presented and extremely polite.

In Indian terms, this is a well endowed school and they are to be congratulated for their excellent standards and the great improvements in the financial status in the past year.  There are plans for St Thomas to establish satellite schools in villages where there is much poverty and little education provided.  We indicated that we are open to negotiate support of such projects.  In some ways , this phase of our support of the school may be complete and we should be celebrating that. 

The school has added our recent funds to the general funds for the developments they are working on:  the library, computer suite, internal CCTV monitoring and security and there are plans for more buildings.  The Bishop of Delhi blessed some of this new work, while he was in attendance at the Hospital celebrations. They are continuing to offer free and reduced fee places to Christian children and those who are needy, but were not forth coming about how many or at what level.

It was a joy to gather with staff that had been at the school in Doreen Riddell's time and hear their affection and respect for her.  They have asked that a photo portrait of her be provided to hang in the school.

Christian Hospital

We really enjoyed the elaborate centenary celebrations, and it was great to be joined by 6 of the grandchildren (and partners) of the founders Doctor Bill Porteous and his wife Edith.  We were also joined by Sharon, daughter of Dr George and Mrs Nerolei Chisholm, mission doctor and family in the 1960s.  The singing, dancing and the wonderful feast were very special.

During the celebrations Bishop Sunil Singh and I blessed the refurbishment of some of the hospital rooms as a private wing and the new flats for staff. The Friends of Jagadhri funded these.  (The new Haematology Analyser, also funded by Friends of Jagadhri, had sadly not arrived in time for us all to inspect, but has arrived now). Many of the old buildings are now derelict and unsafe and beyond the means of the hospital to refurbish.

We were very impressed by the staff:  Drs Cecil and Nayana Harrison, and the Principal Nurse Asha and Deputy Principal Nurse Rachne and other senior staff – medical technicians, radiographer, pharmacist, junior doctors and office staff.  They are committed to the hospital, not only by providing excellent health care but also in being a mission outreach that proclaims the healing power and love of Christ. In a land where Christians are a tiny minority and where conversion is forbidden, this compassion is a great witness to the gospel. The atmosphere at Christian Hospital among the staff is of a big family.  This is very precious and to be guarded…  The Chapel is well attended and remains the centre of the Hospital and Nursing School.

However we were aware that the numbers of patients has fallen drastically in the past 10 years, for a variety of reasons, – mostly to do with local competition to provide health care, the minority status of Christianity and the inability of the Hospital to pay the very high cost of specialists - a Gynaecologist and a Paediatrician.    Dr Harrison believes that the hospital should become a much smaller unit and that the Nursing School should be strengthened to become a College of Nursing.

Selection of the 60 girls each year (from 200 or 300 applications) for admission to the School of Nursing is on merit and many come from poor homes, from the Leprosy mission or from orphanages. There are no scholarships at this point in time and we wondered if Friends of Jagadhri might like to consider this.  We took some good text books over from UCOL in Palmerston North and the senior staff are enthusiastic about bringing a member of staff to UCOL to work with Judy Secombe (Nursing tutor at UCOL) for a couple of months, hosted by St Andrews Palmerston.

Global Mission Tuvalu Water Crisis Appeal: a partner church needs out help

The following information Water Crisis 1, Water Crisis 2, Water Crisis 2a has been received from our partner church the Ekalesia Kelisiano Tuvalu (Tuvalu Christian Church)

Contributions to the Appeal can be sent to Global Mission, please download form here.

Opportunities to serve in mission - partnership with the Uniting Church in Australia

This month we have negotiated an exciting extension to a long-standing partnership with the Uniting Church in Australia (UCA). Global Mission will partner with Uniting World, the international mission department of the UCA (Uniting World’s current national director is the Rev Kerry Enright, our former Assembly Executive Secretary).

Uniting World has 35 international partnerships throughout the Pacific and in Asia, mostly with churches our Church is in partnership with.

We have agreed to open our opportunities for service and experience to each other’s members and church communities and in the next year we will explore ways of grounding the agreement in practical ways.

Uniting World has four programs:

• Church Solidarity – working with partner churches in areas such as advocacy, ministry, evangelism, theological education and welfare
• Experience - enabling people and groups to serve with partner churches
• Relief and development - accredited with AusAid, so it is well funded by the Australian Government
• Young Ambassadors for Peace – opportunities for young people to engage in peace making in conflicted communities in Asia and the Pacific

We will begin this valuable cooperation by working with their Experience Program.

- At any one time they have about 100 positions for supported volunteers, and in June we will publicise a new list and receive applications. Find information here. For more information contact them directly or Global Mission at pamela@presbyterian.org.nz. Applications for New Zealanders will be made through Global Mission.

- Uniting World Experience has produced some excellent on-line training resources for those wishing to participate in mission, for use by individuals and groups. They have graciously given us access to these resources. Contact pamela@presbyterian.org.nz to participate and enrol in a course.

Uniting World aims “to connect communities for life”. Like us, they aim to engage in God’s mission and establish transformative relationships between local church communities and overseas churches, working with justice, compassion and in faith. It will be great to join together.

 

Newsletter

A newsletter from Paula and Roger (below), who are settling in at Talua Bible College in Vanuatu.

A report from the Principal at Tahan Theological College in Myanmar about the Clean Water-supply Project.

A letter from the Presbyterian Church of the Republic of Korea concerning peace.

Below are some updates on our three key mission partner countries.

Vanuatu

The Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand has affirmed the Presbyterian Church of Vanuatu as our primary mission relationship. Special focuses are:

Talua Ministry Training Centre

Located on Espiritu Santo Island, Talua Ministry Training Centre is a Bible college and theologi­cal training centre. It has more than 100 minis­try students. With help from CWM, we support staff at Talua. Paula and Roger Levy and family are serving at Talua from January 2010 to December 2011, teaching English and serving as part of the community.

Onesua Presbyterian College

The college has 30 academic staff and 24 auxil­iary staff. They have a student population of just under 400, from Year 7 to Year 13. Our Presbyteri­an schools in New Zealand have regular exchanges with Onesua.

Myanmar

Our brothers and sisters in Myanmar have so much to teach us about courage, faith, generos­ity and hospitality. In return, we have much to share with them. Our mission partnership with the Presbyterian Church of Myanmar is coordi­nated by St Columba@Botany, Auckland.

Make connections

Annual trips to Myanmar enable us to experi­ence firsthand the value of being in relationship with one another. It is through the building of friendships that our monetary gifts for proj­ects can be put to good use. The next trip to Myanmar is planned for January/ February 2011. To express an inter­est in being a part of a team, and to sign up to the Mingalaba email newsletter, please contact Angela on 021357-708 or myanmar@stcolumba.org.nz

India

Jagadhri was the centre chosen by the Presby­terian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand almost 100 years ago to reach out in love and com­passion to the people of North West India. We continue to provide an annual salary grant for the superintendant of Christian Hospital and the Principal of St Thomas School, which is a co-educational independent Christian school teaching in English that came into being in 1996; the culmination of over 84 years of hard work in Christian education in Jagadhri.

Friends of Jagadhri

Friends of Jagadhri was formed in 1986 to help support the Christian outreach of Jagadhri. This includes the work of the Christian Hospi­tal, the School of Nursing, St Thomas School and the Church of North India congregations. Friends support the work with their prayers, their giving and their interest and encourage­ment. The Friends of Jagadhri newsletter is published twice annually: contact Doreen Rid­dell for a subscription on doreenr@pcconnect.co.nz

Partner international organisations

Council for World Mission

CWM is a worldwide community of 31 Reformed denominations working as equals with a common commitment to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Established in 1977, it grew out of the London Mission Society, the Commonwealth (Colonial) Missionary Society and the (English) Presbyterian Board of Missions.

CWM supports Presbyterian Church mission both in New Zealand and overseas.

Christian World Service

CWS is our official emergency aid, justice and development agency

Christian World Service acts to end poverty and injustice throughout the world by:

• Funding groups that tackle poverty and help people build decent livelihoods in their own communities.
• Responding to humanitarian emergencies.
• Raising awareness of development issues within Aotearoa New Zealand.
• Campaigning against the causes of global poverty and injustice.

International ecumenical councils

The Presbyterian Church is also a member of the:

• World Council of Churches
• Pacific Council of Churches
• Christian Conference of Asia
• World Communion of Reformed Churches

How to get involved

We want to affirm every congregation’s involvement in mission, locally and globally, and we recognise that many congregations work with organisations beyond the Presbyterian networks. We want to know about those partnerships too, and to share your stories in Spanz, which now features four extra pages each issue on global mission. Keep an eye on this part of the website for updates about how to get involved in Global Mission.

Please support Global Mission

The Very Rev Pamela Tankersley is our Global Mission Coordinator. Contact her on pamela@presbyterian.org.nz or (04) 381-8294 to talk about our mission partners and ways you can get involved, or to share your stories of mission. Donations for our overseas projects and partners can be sent to Global Mission at Assembly Office, PO Box 9049, Wellington 6141.