Rwanda – hymnsandbooks

Holocaust Memorial Day – When words are spent – a new hymn

When words are spent and grief destroys compassion, 
or fear of war throws shadows like a cross, 
God melt our hearts and fire imagination, 
that we might sense the pain within each loss.
 
This loss can blind our eyes and freeze our feeling, 
can numb for us the pain of holocaust, 
for memory fades, to leave just words revealing
a horror far beyond all human cost.
 
God open in our present generation, 
a depth of human empathy to feel 
humanity that bridges every nation, 
that only love and hope and grace can seal.

Andrew Pratt 10/1/2023
Words © 2023 Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England copyright@stainer.co.uk . Please include any reproduction for local church use on your CCL Licence returns. All wider and any commercial use requires prior application to Stainer & Bell Ltd.
Metre: 11.10.11.10
Tune: INTERCESSOR
https://www.methodist.org.uk/our-faith/worship/singing-the-faith-plus/posts/holocaust-memorial-day-2023/

Auschwitz – Birkenau – the end of the line

Rwanda and Asylum and the Methodist Church

If you should wonder at the response of the Methodist Church to the deportation of people to Rwanda please read this letter from our President and Vice-President in April – https://www.methodist.org.uk/about-us/news/latest-news/all-news/response-to-the-government-s-plans-to-offshore-asylum-seekers-in-rwanda/?fbclid=IwAR0UM-UYjX4zHqMX9o8eZzykTS2aCyKzK6xeA_AmUFbkiH2caEkzG-X9Zjc

Rev Dr Inderjit Bhogal, former President of the Methodist Conference – Easter message

From Rev Dr Inderjit Bhogal, former President of the Methodist Conference, and shared with his permission and encouragement:

“The gospel does not go from crucifixion to crucifixion. It goes from crucifixion to resurrection. Anything that goes from suffering to suffering contradicts the gospel. The Nationality and Borders Bill currently before Parliament is a case in point. It treats already suffering people with more suffering and humiliation. It treats people as deserving and undeserving refugees. The criteria to determine refugee status is not fleeing suffering but the means of travel and routes taken. Sending people seeking sanctuary to Rwanda is inhumane, cruel, morally bankrupt and theologically nonsense. It demonises harmless people, dehumanises human beings, sanctions hatred and hostility. It takes people from crucifixion to crucifixion. We need safe routes for all refugees, from anywhere in the world. Government has a duty by UN Refugee Convention to provide safe care and hospitality for all refugees. Justice, mercy and humility, not injustice, cruelty and humiliation for all the crucified people of the world. This is the challenge of redemption, resurrection, restoration.”