Newsletter

Telephone: Telefax: Email: FROM:	NICOSIA 22671220 NICOSIA 22674553 georgia@spidernet.com.cy THE DIOCESAN OFFICE	2 Grigori Afxentiou P O Box 22075 NICOSIA 1517 Cyprus
_______________________________________________________________________________________ DIOCESAN NEWS September 2007 _______________________________________________________________________________________ FROM AROUND THE DIOCESE: CYPRUS RETREAT HOUSE The Katafiyio Retreat House, which opened on 13 September 2006, is quietly celebrating its first birthday! Katafiyio has hosted a variety of groups and individuals over the past year for retreats and, as it is becoming more known, we hope for more bookings this coming year. Over the summer we have had folk working in Jordan, Northern Cyprus and Syria staying at the house. The Cyprus Clergy/Readers Retreat will take place at Katafiyio on 23 October. Please do use Katafiyio and encourage those you know to use it too. Full details are on the Diocesan website. A Space For God quiet day is planned for 15 September at St George’s, Troodos. MAGGIE LE-ROY Retreats Facilitator NICOSIA The Reverend Sue Place has returned from a four month trip to the UK where she did a three month placement in the Diocese of Exeter and attended two courses at St John’s College, Nottingham. Welcome back, Sue. AYIA NAPA We welcomed The Right Revd Lindsay Irwin to Church on 9th September to Baptise the grandson of his former parishioner. On Harvest Festival day, October 7th, we plan to launch our 'Five Stages of Discipleship' Initiative. Details on our new website... www.angsecyp.org. We now worship in the Scandinavian Church as the Orthodox Bishop, Vasillios has closed the Monastery. He will turn it into a Museum. MICHAEL CRAWFORD Chaplain FAMAGUSTA The new Semester is about to commence and new students, again mostly from Nigeria, are starting to arrive and the task of melding in people from a variety of Christian traditions continues, as it does in so many of our chaplaincies. Shortly utilising the leadership potential of some of the more senior students whom we have identified as having a good level of Christian maturity, we hope to establish a number of small groups for students to attend. Should members from other chaplaincies and churches on the island - or indeed from the Gulf and further afield - ever be in this part of the world, perhaps chaplains would advise their members that in addition to the main service at 5.30pm which is lively and always features the ministry of our predominantly - though not exclusively- African choir, there is also a quiet traditional Anglican Holy Communion Service (Morning Worship on the 1st Sunday) at 11.00am each Sunday using the Provincial Liturgy of Holy Communion. A number of British people and a small number of students attend this service ROBIN BROOKES Chaplain KYRENIA The Reverend Michael Houston and his wife June have now arrived in Kyrenia. Michael will be Licensed at St Andrew’s Church, Kyrenia by Archdeacon Steve Collis on Sunday 23rd September. GULF YEMEN News here is summed up in a word, “Somalis”. In the last two months 548 Somali refugee families have been registered and half our annual drugs budget expended. We have some important and potentially quite tough meetings with UNHCR next week, with support for our queries Médecins Sans Frontières. Congregations continued very well in our absence and it’s good to be back. Full news update can be found here......... PETER AND NANCY CROOKS DUBAI AND SHARJAH WITH THE NORTHERN EMIRATES The Chaplaincy of Dubai & Sharjah with the Northern Emirates is opening up new initiatives in mission and pastoral care. With the generous support of the Ruler of Sharjah, His Highness Dr Sultan Bin Mohammed Al Qassemi, a new Christian cemetery is to be built which will require facilities for Christians to use not only for Christian ceremonies such as funerals and cremations, but also additional worship facilities for Christians in the Sharjah area. Following the good relationships established between the Chaplaincy and the Ruler, the doors of the Sharjah prison have been opened to the chaplaincy prison visiting scheme where members of the congregation, trained by Reachout Dubai Prison Ministry, have been most gratefully received by prisoners and authorities alike. In Ras al Khaiman the new ministry of Nelson Fernandez is challenged to build a new church on land granted by the Ruler, whilst some miles north of Ras al Khaimah and on the edge of the sea, we are considering a Retreat House as a prayer resource or a place of relaxation to combat the pressures of urban living within the fast growing Dubai and Sharjah. The Chaplaincy has made an important link with the Delhi Brotherhood, originally the Cambridge Mission. This religious Anglican community, now in the Church of North India, does vital work amongst the poorest children of Delhi, and we sent 2 young adults from Sharjah to help run the Night Shelter, and the Childline offices. This will be an important link, in sharing mission, and prayer and direct social action with the poorest of Indian's capital city. So we need your prayers and continue to value the advice that the Diocese can give us. JOHN WEIR Senior Chaplain KUWAIT St Pauls Kuwait have relocated their Friday congregation from the Evangelical church of Kuwait compound to a private villa in Salwa (see http://www.stpaulskuwait.com/ ). We continue to celebrate the slow but steady growth of our Chinese congregation (as far as I know this is the only Chinese Anglican congregation in the region.) We are more than half way through training four Readers who have all contributed richly and regularly into the ministry of the church. They lead and preach in our various congregations and excel in what they do. Many of you know that the Chaplain, Rev'd Andrew Thompson enjoys the performing of magic tricks and illusions. He has recently launched a new website teaching how to use magic tricks as visual aids for preaching and teaching. (The website is http://www.gospelmagic.com/ )We send our warmest greetings to our sister churches in the Diocese. ANDY THOMPSON Chaplain OMAN A message from Fernando Dulari, PCO Secretary: As you know due to the recent Cyclone Gonu we lost almost everything at our Ghala church site including the bibles, hymnals and the blue communion books. As we have already placed an order through the Bible Society in Oman for the first two items, we would like to ask your assistance to place an order for 200 Communion books at your earliest convenience. We would make payments for whatever expenses you incur for purpose of purchase and postal/shipping etc. as we are in urgent need of communion books for our weekly worship services. Thank you in advance for any help you can give us. The blue communion books were, in the past, printed in Cyprus. As most of the chaplaincies are now using the Provincial Liturgy, we have stopped supplying the old blue books. If any of the chaplaincies have a few of the old books to spare, please let me know as soon as possible and I will see if there is any way they can be sent to Oman. STANDING AND FINANCE COMMITTEE Please keep the members of the Standing and Finance Committee in your prayers as they prepare to meet at the Sandy Beach Hotel, Larnaca on Tuesday 25th and Wednesday 26th September, 2007. One of the main items on the Agenda is Synod Planning 2008. More news about this later. BISHOP Bishop Michael Lewis will be visiting Cyprus for a few days at the end of September. His Enthronement will take place at St Paul’s Cathedral, Nicosia at 5 p.m. on Saturday 24th November. His Enthronement at St Christopher’s Cathedral, Bahrain will take place the following weekend. More news about these important dates in the life of our Diocese at a later date. OBITUARY The recent news of Leslie Thomas, who wrote so many letters to everyone in the Diocese, may not have reached you yet. Sadly Leslie, having been very together and alert for her 92 years, had a massive stroke early in August and was unresponsive in a coma for nearly 3 weeks. She was in St. Thomas's Hospital on Central London, so a number of All Hallows members were able to sit with her almost every day for a while. The chaplaincy at St. Thomas's was excellent as well. Leslie finally died peacefully late on Wednesday August 21st, 2007. Leslie's niece Brenda organised a family funeral at Leatherhead Crematorium in Surrey on Wednesday 5th September. Our Vicar from all Hallows, Bertrand Olivier took the funeral service. Leslie lived in Leatherhead before moving into London many years ago, and her 98 year old sister, Peggy, still lives there so was able to attend the funeral. A number of the All Hallows community and I were able to join the family at the funeral, together with Mary Banfield and her husband who also live nearby in Surrey and were able to represent the Friends of Cyprus and the Gulf. The family agreed that flowers are appropriate from the family only for the funeral but would like any donations made in Leslie’s memory to go to All Hallows by the Tower for the continuation of the work done by the Church in London and elsewhere in the world, which Leslie made her contribution to in many ways over the years. There will be a memorial service at All Hallows some time in October - more details to follow. I am able to forward any electronic messages and condolences onto Leslie's nephew and nieces if anyone wishes to send their memories. With many fond memories of Leslie over the 30 years I have known her. Di Robertshaw (Dirobertshaw@aol.com )