“If you want to make peace, you don’t talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.” - Moshe Dayan

A doubt and a promise
Sunday 18 May, Matthew 28:16-20
 “When they saw him, they worshiped him, but some doubted.” Passages like this assure me there’s a place for me and the people I serve. Unlike John’s story of Thomas, Matthew didn’t single out one disciple as the doubter. He says that "some doubted." While Thomas was clear about his doubt ("unless I see the print of the nails …") Matthew didn’t say why they doubted—or what they doubted. Perhaps they weren’t sure it was Jesus, or they doubted he had actually died. Maybe they had simply been through enough and weren’t about to be fooled or hurt again.
http://www.christiancentury.org/article.lasso?id=247

Come on retreat with the Anabaptist Association - Half Day Silent Retreats for 2008
Retreats for Everyday Life:
Saturday 31^st May - Seasons of Life
Saturday 6^th September -Transforming our Struggles into Life
Saturday 18^th October - Trees of Life
Led by: Mary Hurst and Sally Longley / Time: 1-5 pm / Place: 71 Narrabeen Park Parade, Warriewood (on Warriewood Headland)
Cost $30.00 (includes refreshments) / Booking essential: limited places
Mary Hurst 9997 4632 - Email AAANZ [at] iprimus [dot] com [dot] au / Sally Longley 9913 7871
“Draw near to God, and God will draw near to you” - James 4:8

The Sound of Social Justice in Australia: ‘From Little Things Big Things Grow’
"If you thought socially conscious music in the mainstream was a thing of the past, turn your ears to what Australia is listening to. A song about justice and reconciliation in Australia was the highest new entry in the charts two weeks ago - starting out at #2 on the Australian charts and #2 after Madonna on the digital track charts - and remains in the top 50. As The New York Times reported:  A song about racial reconciliation with the Aboriginal minority has become the fourth-biggest-selling recording in Australia, even though it is available only as a download from the Web."
http://blog.beliefnet.com/godspolitics/2008/05/the-sound-of-social-justice-in.html

Burma - Cyclone Nargis
TEAR Australia, in partnership with World Concern Burma and Hope International Development Agency, is providing immediate relief, as well as planning medium-term recovery and follow-up reconstruction work in Burma. Please consider supporting them through prayer and giving. Donate here.
http://www.tear.org.au/

ABC Radio Interview: Israel’s 60th anniversary - a Palestinian view
Wednesday marked the 60th anniversary of Israel declaring itself an independent state — three years after the end of World War II, and the death of six million Jews in the Holocaust. But Palestinians know the foundation day as al-Nakba, or ‘the Catastrophe’… I’m delighted to be joined now by Jonathan Kuttab. He’s a human rights activist based in Jerusalem…
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/saturdayextra/stories/2008/2240464.htm

Anabaptist Story: Faithful unto death
For Anabaptists, baptism and communion were … primarily symbolic: baptism was an outward sign of an inward reality, and communion was above all considered a commemorative meal, often deemed “the Lord’s Memorial.”  Conrad Grebel . . stressed that the supper provides “simply bread, yet if faith and brotherly love precede it, it is to be received with joy, since when it is used in the church it is to show that we are truly one bread and one body… ”
http://canadianmennonite.org/  (April 28, 2008)

Goshen College mourns with Chinese friends after Sichuan Province earthquake
GOSHEN, Indiana. — Goshen College is mourning the loss of life and devastation from China’s worst earthquake in three decades. The college has sent students to a university in Chengdu, China, for 25 years as part of its Study-Service Term program and was the first U.S. College to arrange an undergraduate exchange with the People’s Republic of China in 1980.
Since a magnitude-7.9 earthquake hit the Sichuan Province, of which Chengdu is the capital city, on May 12, Goshen College Director of International Education Tom Meyers has been reaching out to friends the college has made in the area.
Meyers received notice from Yang Tianqing, the assistant director of the foreign affairs office at Sichuan Normal University, that all teachers and students are safe at the university, where Goshen sent students. Tianqing wrote, "The building where you stayed shook wildly. We all rushed out of the building. Yesterday evening many faculty and students stayed outside."
When the earthquake occurred, Goshen College Director Emeritus of International Education Wilbur Birky was in Chengdu to give lectures, though he is safe.
There have been 158 Chinese scholars from the Sichuan Province who have studied at Goshen College as part of an educational exchange with Sichuan Provincial Education Commission. Meyers has not heard the status of all of them yet.
Meyers is also assessing what impact the earthquake disaster may have on the college’s Study-Service Term (SST) program in China, as a group of students is scheduled to go in late August. The students are planning to be located in Nanchong at China West Normal University, which is located in eastern Sichuan Province. "We have heard that all is well there," Meyers said.
Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), which sends people, food and material goods to communities recovering from war and natural disasters, plans to provide relief services to ease the suffering in China. An aid fund also is expected to be established this week.
Eight MCC workers are serving as English teachers at universities in the affected areas of Sichuan province and Chongquing municipality.
All have been accounted for, and none were harmed in the earthquake, according to Kathleen Suderman, an MCC representative in Beijing. MCC is monitoring the humanitarian needs created by the earthquake in anticipation of a possible relief response, Suderman said.
Donations may be made online at www.mcc.org/donate.

Fair Trade: The Temptations of Ahab
It’s hard to be objective about, let alone sympathetic to, King Ahab. He was an evil man, rotten to the core. The record of his succession to the throne prepares us for the details of his life by saying “He did more to arouse the anger of the Lord, the God of Israel, than all of the kings of Israel before him” (I Kings 16). With that warning we know that every time Ahab makes an appearance he is the villain. After repeated readings of the story of Naboth’s vineyard, however, I came to the sorry conclusion that I had more in common with Ahab than with either of the other two main characters. The temptations of Ahab bear an uncomfortable resemblance to the temptations faced by modern consumers.
http://canadianmennonite.org/  (May 12, 2008)

Churches preach but unconverted
Australia’s largest churches are "greening" as they begin to take environmental concerns seriously. Some are even preaching from the pulpit that greenness is next to godliness. But they have been at least 20years behind broader society in genuinely responding to the ecological crisis, and their success in matching their deeds to their words ranges from saintly to patchy to sometimes downright slothful.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/churches-preach-but-unconverted/2008/05/13/1210444428922.html

Mary and Mark Hurst Blog
Mary and Mark have entered the blogging world.  If you are interested in what we are doing and where we’ve been, check it out.
http://greetingsfromozontheroad.blogspot.com/

Matthew 28: 16-20
The eleven remaining disciples headed north to Galilee and made their way to the mountain where Jesus had arranged to meet them. When they found him there, they fell to their knees worshipping him, even though some of them were still in two minds about whether they could completely trust this experience of him. Jesus came to them and said, “God has given me the job of bringing everything in heaven and earth into line. Your job then is to go to all people everywhere, recruiting and training them to follow me. Baptise them, identifying them as people of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Train them to live the life I have instructed you in. And hold on to the knowledge that I am with you every moment, from now to the completion of the age.”
©2002 Nathan Nettleton LaughingBird.net