Did you know once there were two Presbyterian churches in Goderich? Or that Knox Presbyterian Church in Goderich sponsored the first Wolf Cub Pack in Canada? Or that when Knox Church was rebuilt in Goderich after a devastating fire in 1950, it received the Governor General's Silver Award for most outstanding ecclesiastical building in Canada?

A 7.6 magnitude earthquake hit parts of the south Asian subcontinent on Oct. 8. The quake was centered in the mountains of Pakistani Kashmir, near the Indian border, about 95 kilometres northeast of Islamabad. As many as 79,000 people have died, with at least 65,000 injured. An estimated three million people are homeless, in what are now winter conditions. Presbyterian World Service & Development is supporting the work of Action by Churches Together, which is providing immediate relief to survivors.

Nine straight days of rains from Hurricane Stan saturated the porous volcanic soils within Guetamala in early October. The result was heavy flooding in the coastal areas where much of the commercial agriculture is concentrated. Rivers overflowed their banks, flooding the flat plains. In some places it created new pathways washing away homes, crops and livestock. The heavy rains were equally unmerciful in the highland areas where many native Mayan people live. The rains brought torrential amounts of mud and debris down mountainsides. Small streams and rivers overflowed and threatened entire communities in their path. Though many communities were evacuated, some did not receive any warning, particularly in Solola and San Marcos. These areas have now been declared mass graves.

Belle River's Derek Congram says he cries when he watches documentaries about mass graves and ethnic cleansing but he's all business when he's the one at the bottom of a freshly dug pit surrounded by skeletons and rotting corpses.

Canadian Presbyterians immediately responded to cries for help from the Gulf Coast in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, donating more than $77,000 as of September. The money will help Church World Service and Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, the relief wing of the Presbyterian Church (USA), clean up the devastated areas, meet the immediate needs of survivors and assist in the rebuilding process.

Purpose Driven Life, What on Earth Am I Here For? Rick Warren Zondervan Press, $18.50 Heart of Christianity, Rediscovering a Life of Faith Marcus Borg […]

Rev. Richard Fee was formally inducted into his new position as General Secretary of the Life and Mission Agency on Sept. 28. He succeeds Rev. Ian Morrison, who has retired. Fee was previously executive director of Presbyterian World Service & Development.

Losing a minister is never easy. Losing three is even worse. That's exactly what happened at St. Andrew's, Kitchener, Ont. Despite the setback, the congregation is regaining its footing and looking to the future. "The dust has settled, people got to speak their minds and got questions out of their hearts," said Rev. Aubrey Botha, interim moderator. "They're ready to move on; to start being new and doing new things. They're very excited."

Mysteries abound in a sad story concerning vandalism in a once-Presbyterian cemetery in southern Ontario. In mid-summer, vandals toppled 31 headstones in Primrose Presbyterian Cemetery and two other closed cemeteries. No one knows who the perpetrators are, but neither does anyone seem to know who even holds the deed to the property – and therefore, the repair bill.

Food aid agencies like the Canadian Foodgrains Bank can now use 50 percent of their federal funding to purchase grain from developing countries. Prior regulations allowed only 10 per cent of these funds to be used for foreign grain. The announcement was heralded by CFBG executive director Jim Cornelius.

Under the influence of Marxism, Cuba was an atheist state. Constitutional reforms in 1992 made it secular. This opening of the churches has created a sudden growth. Pastor Dora Valentin, middle, of Iglesia Presbiterina Reformada, Luyano, has seen her congregation grow 200 per cent over the past quarter century. According to her, there is a well-educated generation but it knows nothing about the church. Church is something to which they feel called, but of which they have no experience. Of the 600,000 church goers on the island, half are Protestant, though most were born Roman Catholics. Presbyterians are an active presence in this new Cuba.

Project Ploughshares, an ecumenical peace agency of the Canadian Council of Churches, is launching a campaign advocating the control of the sale of small arms and light weapons. The public awareness and education campaign is designed to inspire Canadians to call for greater governmental commitment to control small arms and deal with the underlying conditions of the weapons problem. "We're hoping that Canadians will see that these weapons need to be controlled and in places where they are already causing problems on the ground, that the government is making an effort to fix the problem," said Lynne Griffiths-Fulton, program associate at Project Ploughshares.

The World Council of Churches has urged nations to strive for a world without poverty as it called for an International Day of Prayer for Peace on September 21, the same day as the United Nations International Day of Peace.

The Ontario government has banned the use of sharia law and other religious tribunals, including Jewish and Christian. "There will be no religious arbitration in Ontario," Premier Dalton McGuinty told the Canadian Press. "There will be one law for all Ontarians." New legislation prohibiting religious arbitration could be introduced this fall. It is still unclear exactly what the ban will entail, and how it will be implemented and enforced.

Debate over the funding of faith based schools is growing in Ontario. Noam Goodman, a Toronto lawyer writing in the National Post, calls the exclusive funding of Catholic schools "explicit religious discrimination." He reports that seven per cent of 750,000 Ontario students who attend faith-based schools (which include Protestant, Muslim and Jewish) do so in schools that are not publicly funded. The other 93 per cent are in the Roman Catholic system.

Knox, Stratford, hosted a photo exhibit in August and September to raise awareness of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Towards a World without AIDS: The Beauty and the Tragedy showcased the work of Carl Hiebert, who travelled to Malawi on behalf of Presbyterian World Service & Development. His pictures chronicle the lives of people living with the disease.

The Presbyterian Church USA is responding to the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina, one of the United States' worst-ever disasters. Through its relief arm, Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, the church is coordinating volunteer efforts, donating money and supplies, reuniting displaced parishioners and pastors and helping congregations get back on their feet.

Twenty-five years is a long time for a minister to stay at one church, especially when he didn't actually receive the call to serve there. This was the case with Rev. Dr. Alan McPherson, who recently retired as minister of Central Presbyterian Church in Hamilton, Ontario. The courier service somehow lost the pertinent documents in transit to his home in Scotland. Alan likes to quip that he came anyway.