Minister's Update

Everyone’s been asking how I enjoyed Peru. It was amazing. I thoroughly enjoyed my visit. Two weeks stay was definitely too short!

The reason for my visit was to deliver four lectures as part of the 70th Anniversary celebrations of Lima Evangelical Seminary (SEL), where my good friend, Donnie Smith, is the Rector. I duly delivered these, via an interpreter - one of the students, Julio Nicanor Herrera Diaz - who made a valiant effort to translate my idiosyncratic prose and Scottish accent! The lectures were on the subject Preaching in the Post-modern World with the sub-title, Jesus and Paul as Preachers and Evangelists. They are to be published in Spanish along with those of my fellow visiting lecturer, Dr Paul Sywulka, the Rector of SETECA (the Theological Seminary of Central America) Guatemala. Hopefully mine will read better in Spanish! Some of them will also appear as articles in The Monthly Record (I believe in recycling!)

The congregation will have an opportunity to hear my impressions of Peru and of Lima and the Seminary in particular on Wednesday the 26th of this month. However, I would just like to take this opportunity to emphasise what a crucial role seminaries like SEL and SETECA have in the developing work in Latin America. One of the greatest services churches in Europe and America can perform for the developing church in Central and South America is to support sound theological education. The Church is growing rapidly in many Latin American countries, but there is a great shortage of well trained pastors who can provide biblical leadership, teaching and guidance to their people.

We have the privilege of being involved in supporting this work in Peru through SEL, both through the Free Church providing and supporting Donnie Smith and through the recent projects of rewiring and kitchen renovation in the Seminary. It is my hope that I can encourage that support, particularly for more practical projects to encourage the students especially, whose attendance at the Seminary involves real sacrifice. Perhaps we in Buccleuch could consider some ideas for fundraising?

Alex MacDonald

News

Baptism
The baptism of Alex & Evelyn’s first grandchild, Julia, is due to take place on Sunday 23rd November at the morning service. Julia is the first child of Katharine and her husband Kieran Duffy. The family live in Glasgow.

Congregational Directory – Final Notice
The new congregational directory is in its final stage of production. If you are not currently in the directory and would like to be included, or if you are included in the directory and would like to be omitted, please let Bob know. If your address/phone number has changed or if you would like your e-mail address or mobile phone number listed in our new directory, please contact Bob Akroyd by phone or by e-mail: bobandheather@talk21.com

Coffee Morning
Thank you to everyone who worked so hard to make the recent coffee morning a success. So far in excess of £600 has been raised to help in refurbishing the hall.

Cards For Sale
There are a few packs of cards for sale (from the coffee morning) at a discount price of £3:00 for four cards. See Moira if you would like to buy any.

Sunday School Superintendent
The Kirk Session have recently appointed Willie Lytle as Sunday School Superintendent. Please remember in prayer the young folk in the Crèche, Sunday School and Bible Class, and encourage all the teachers and helpers in the crèche who give of their time and energy.

Fresh Start

All at Buccleuch will be aware of the work done by the congregation for the Homeless - through Bethany House Outreach, the Winter Night Shelter etc.

There is now a further opportunity to help the homeless. This is through Fresh Start, which is the Edinburgh Churches’ Charity, helping people who have been homeless to create a new home, resettle in the community and build new lives for themselves.

Fresh Start helps the homeless in a number of ways via:

Hit Squads who assist people to paint and decorate their new homes
Befrienders who help new tenants to manage their personal resources and achieve independent living
Odd Job Service who carry out simple DIY tasks

And

Starter Packs Scheme, which is where we are asked to help. The scheme provides new tenants with packs of basic household necessities - crockery and cutlery, pots and pans, bedding and linen, cleaning materials etc. In the year ended 31 March 2003 throughout the city nearly 2000 households on low incomes benefited from the scheme.

It is proposed to collect Starter Pack contents weekly and these will be uplifted regularly and delivered to Fresh Start. In addition to the above, small electrical goods such as kettles, toasters, lamps etc are welcomed and these items are tested before being recycled. If in doubt as to whether an item would be useful or not, please contact Ian Urquhart (334 1988 or jdmu@tinyonline.co.uk) who for some years has been a volunteer through his Rotary Club and who is now also the Free Church’s representative on the Council of Management of Fresh Start.

Please place items in the bin marked “Fresh Start” in the Hall.

Visitor Cards

Last year the session introduced a system whereby efforts were made to ensure that visitors were made to feel welcome by attempting to correspond with as many as could be identified. This was achieved, to a degree, by initially issuing small slips for each visitor to fill in but in February of this year a more professional approach was made by having visitors cards printed and on display in the hall.

Two hundred were ordered in the first instance and these have now been exhausted, which gives an indication of the number of people who have visited. Some have stayed, others were just passing through. However, this is only a percentage, I would guess, seventy to eighty percent, because I know we’ve not reached everyone who visited.

While it may be considered to be an obligation of the elders and also for those on door duty to welcome visitors it is also a responsibility that the whole congregation shares. I am aware that there are quite a few people in the congregation who are very good at approaching visitors but this could be much improved if we were all aware and alert to the situation.

If you see or if you speak to a visitor please hand them a visitor’s card (and a pen) and ask them to fill it in. Tactfully make sure they do it at the time and do not put it in their pocket to fill in later as from experience the card in never completed, it gets overlooked or forgotten about. Some may think this is a bit pushy but better to be that than give the impression of being unfriendly. If a person doesn’t want to complete a card they will usually say so and that should be respected.

If there is someone visiting in the congregation who is known to any of you, and you have not been able to make contact, just fill in a card on their behalf if you have the required information to hand. This has been done quite successfully already.

Even more important, if you bring a friend with you, fill in a card for him or her.

The Session feels this is a worthwhile exercise and the letters of appreciation received in response the welcome letters are an indication of this.

John MacRae

Noticeboard

AIM to be there
There is to be an Africa Focus Evening in Buccleuch on Tuesday 18th November at 7:30 pm. This is run by Africa Inland Mission International, whose Scottish Secretary is Rev John A M Mackay. The evening will include serving missionaries, volunteer programme, summer teams and a video presentation.

Peru focus
Alex will speak on his recent visit to Peru at a midweek meeting on Wednesday 26th November at 7:30 pm.

Deacons’ Court
The next meeting of the Deacons’ Court is on this Monday (17th November) at 8 pm in the Tower Room at the Church.

Kirk Session
The next meeting of the Kirk Session is to take place on Monday 1st December at 7:30 pm at the Manse.

Christmas Coffee House
There is to be a Christmas Coffee House on Monday 22nd December. More details to follow later.

Guest Service – Encounters with Jesus in Luke’s Gospel
The next in our series of guest services will be on Sunday December 14 at 6.30pm when Alex will preach on, “The Shepherd Preachers,” Luke 2: 8 –20. Take this opportunity to invite your friends to church to hear the Good News about Jesus Christ and pray that God would use this occasion to challenge and convert those who attend.

Home Bible Study
The next home Bible study will be on Wednesday, December 10. We will continue our study on the Holy Sprit looking at “The Work of the Holy Spirit - Regeneration.” Please look out for the study sheet listing the subject and venues nearer to the time.

Retiring Collection
There will be a retiring collection after both services on Sunday 23rd November for the Free Church Support fund to aid congregations which are struggling financially.

Christianity Explored
On Thursday nights from 6.30 – 8.30 we are meeting in the hall for the course of Christianity Explored. Everyone is very warmly invited to attend this meeting which begins with a meal and is followed by a talk and a discussion. So if you haven’t come along yet, it’s not too late! The final instalments of our study are:

November 20 - Week 7 - What Is A Christian?
November 27 - Week 8 - Continuing as a Christian
December 04 - Week 9 - Choices - King Herod
December 11 - Week 10 - Choices - James, John and Bartimaeus

Church Clean Up
On Saturday morning December 13th we are having a church clean up. Anyone who is able to help, please come to church for 10.30 or come for breakfast at 9am! We will be focussing our efforts on interior of the church (hall, vestry, kitchen, sanctuary), so please clear any personal items from the hall. Anything left unclaimed will be thrown out or given to charity.

Wonderfully Made: The Short-tailed Shearwater or Mutton Bird

“Far on the eastern horizon a black patch could be discerned. It grew in size, until finally it could be distinguished as a flight of fast-moving birds. Outdistancing the rest, a dozen reached the cliff at exactly 8 o’clock. There - wheeling, swooping, circling and diving - they uttered strange unmusical cries, as though rejoicing to be home again. The return of the Mutton birds had begun. For some time they came in singly - here a bird and there a bird. Gradually their numbers increased until the sky was covered with them. Swiftly they hurtled in from the sea, by tens, by twenties, by hundreds, by thousands; but not to land at once. There seemed a spirit of unrest about the birds, as if, having reached their objective after long wandering, they were too overjoyed to be still, but must be darting and poising, rushing and gliding, wheeling and circling, all the time screaming discordantly till the semi-darkness was filled with their cries. Now distant against the sky, now lost in the darkness of the land, the birds might be thought to have no aim in their manoeuvres, but closer watching showed that each was most nearly touching the earth at one particular breeding burrow... By half-past 8 it seemed that fully 100 acres of the cape was a mass of excited birds.”

This extract from The Melbourne Argus describes the return of the Mutton Birds to Cape Woolamai on Phillip Island off the South-East coast of Australia in the month of November.

The birds, adults and young, have left Australia in late April or early May migrating to the North Pacific. By July and August there are large concentrations of Short-tailed Shearwaters in the Arctic seas beyond the North-West Pacific. There they feed on small fish, squid and krill in preparation for the 7000 - 8000 mile flight back to Australia. The newspaper account describes the arrival of these millions of birds in November.

There they make their nests in a chamber at the end of a 2-metre burrow. One white egg is laid and incubated by both male and female birds for over 50 days, with each doing turns of 12 - 14 days while the other feeds. The chicks hatch from mid- January onwards. When the chick is 3 days old, it is left on its own during the day, but is fed at night. After the first week, visits by the adults become less frequent, but the chick grows at a prodigious rate, sometimes being twice as heavy as its parents, until it loses its down and its feathers begin to grow. Altogether the chicks remain in the nest for about 94 days, receiving their last feed 14 days before they leave the nest. They then swim out to sea on their own in late April as fledglings before taking off on the long flight to the Arctic Ocean. (The young are sometimes culled as squabs or fledglings. It is said that they taste like lamb, hence the name ‘Mutton birds’.)

A bird about 16 inches long has a navigation system that guides it northwards for some 8000 miles under its own power and brings it back to the point from which it started. With perhaps one hundred million migrating birds, one hundred million miracles!

William Mackay