Congregations wishing to sponsor a refugee should first contact Presbyterian World Service & Development. Expertise will be invaluable as you walk a path strewn with paperwork and pitfalls.

Project Ploughshares – Project Ploug-shares, an ecumenical agency of the Canadian Council of Churches, is calling for more transparency regarding Canada's military exports.

“Even if it fails horribly, its better that we try something,” says Rev. Kerry McIntyre, minister at St. Andrew's, Duncan, B.C., referring to two very different mission projects begun by the congregation. “We want to experiment and find out what works and what meets people's needs. Even if some things don't work out, somewhere along the lines we'll do something right.”

Université de Montreal – A new course at the Université de Montreal's faculty of theology is casting light one of Canada's most popular religions – hockey.

WARC – A Canadian United Church member, Kristine Greenaway, has been appointed executive secretary for communications by the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC). She began work at the organization's headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland in January.

Alain* has been on the run since childhood. When he was nine, his sister and father, a Hutu and minor government official, were slain by a Tutsi rival. Ethnic fighting ravaged his native Burundi; his mother was likely killed in the conflict a year later. His elder brother was forced to become a child soldier – a fate Alain narrowly escaped.

Christian Newswire – A low-budget movie made by 19-year-old writer and director John Moore of Kaufman, Texas, left the San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival in January with $101,000 cash, the largest cash prize ever to be awarded by a Christian film festival.

KAIROS – Missiles demolished a church-run health clinic near downtown Gaza City in January.

At the End of the Promenade, along the shore of the Sea of Galilee in Tiberias there is a metal structure some 25 feet high. It is a cut out of the Galilean Lake with gaps on the top and on the bottom to indicate the entry and exit of the waters of the Jordan river. In more normal times the structure is an elaborate fountain with cascading jets of water. But now the fountain is dry. It has been switched off. Israel is in the midst of the driest winter since measurements began over 80 years ago, with only 50 per cent of average seasonal rainfall to date.

The English TV newscast ran a story describing this drought as Israel's next war. The Jerusalem Post reports that pumping of water from the Sea of Galilee, Israel's primary fresh water reservoir, was officially halted late January.

This photograph may have been taken in May 2005, but a partnership between Hampton, N.S. and Piggs Peak, Swaziland is still going strong. Mark Bettle, an elder at St. Paul's, poses with Thandi Nhlengethwa, executive director of the AIDS Information and Support Centre in Piggs Peak. A three-year $15,000 grant from Presbyterian World Service & Development helped fund the partnership.

ENI – Christian leaders from around the world are pushing for a “theology of simplicity and caring” to bring hope to a “prodigal world” teetering under a burden of widespread economic crisis, and climate change.

“The Clergy Care Centre is becoming a sort of centre without walls, as we're expanding beyond our physical centre to work in the rest of Canada,” says Rev. Dr. Andrew Irvine, Director of the Centre for Clergy Care and Congregational Health housed at Knox College, Toronto.

Four potential moderators have been nominated for the 2009 General Assembly, to begin June 7 in Hamilton, Ont. Ballots were sent to presbyteries in December, and the committee to advise the moderator will tally the votes on April 1.

ENI – The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Thuringia and the Evangelical Church of the Church Province of Saxony, which are situated among many of the historic sites associated with the 16th-century reformer Martin Luther have merged to form the Evangelical Church in Central Germany.

ENI – Bishop Paul Verryn of South Africa, who came to prominence fighting apartheid, has called Zimbabwe's crisis a slow genocide. He spoke at a media briefing on an undercover mission in December to Zimbabwe by members of Civicus, an international alliance of non-governmental organizations.

This summer, I attended the International Aids Conference and Ecumenical Preconference in Mexico City as a youth delegate from the Presbyterian Church in Canada. As a student of International Studies at York University's Glendon College, I have a particular interest in international human rights law and policy. And as a person who has lived with Type 1 diabetes for 19 years, I am acutely aware of the difference in medical care between the developed and the developing world. For people who cannot access insulin, my condition often proves fatal within 12 months. But for those who receive adequate care, a long and relatively normal life is possible; the same is true for people infected with HIV.

ENI – “I implore an end to the violence which must be denounced in all its forms and a restoration of the truce on the Gaza Strip,” Pope Benedict XVI said in his weekly prayer in late December. “I call on the international community to do all it can to help the Israelis and Palestinians [to not] give in to the perverse logic of confrontation and violence but to favour the path of dialogue and negotiations.”

ENI – President-elect Barack Obama defended his selection of evangelical leader Rick Warren to deliver the prayer at his inauguration, a move criticized by some gay groups and supporters of abortion rights.

The latest census figures for Malawi were just released with the shocking news that Malawi's population has grown to over 13 million. It is a surprise because of the devastation HIV/AIDS has brought with up to 80,000 annual deaths of people in their reproductive years attributed to 'the thinning disease.' What this means is that the population splurge is coming from the next generation, from those in the 13-21 age bracket.
Visiting one of our Livelihoods programmes in a rural district called Phalombe, I was struck by the huge number of children under five roaming about. I saw what I thought were sisters carrying siblings on their backs: it turns out these were the mothers.

With recent market downturns on everyone's mind and a new year ahead, finances were a concern at the November meeting of Assembly Council.