Religion/Tiverton News

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About 25 people gathered at Knox Presbyterian Church, Tiverton, for the annual World Day of Prayer service Friday afternoon.

This year's program was written by the women of Chile and centred on "How Many Loaves Have You?" The congregation was asked to write down on slips of paper what "loaves" or "talents" they had to offer as their gifts.

Carolyn Keyes of Knox Presbyterian Church, led the service which spoke of the various cultures in Chile, including the Spanish, Aymaras, Mapuches, and the Rapa Nui of Easter Island.

The program included several Scriptures, stories and prayers, with a focus on the importance of bread in the communities in Chile, and even more importantly, sharing that bread with others in the love of Jesus.

A video showed the Republic of Chile which stretches between the Pacific Ocean and the Andes Mountain Range in the extreme southwest of South America. It borders to the north with Peru, Bolivia and Argentina to the east, with Antarctica to the south and the Pacific Ocean to the west.

It has an area of 756,950 square kilometres, with its most western possession being Easter Island, 3,780 kilometres from the coast. Chile has jurisdiction in Antarctica for a stretch of 1,250 square kilometres and, for this reason, it is known as a tri-continental country - South America, Pacific Islands, and Antarctica.

The country includes desert areas in the north, mountains with perpetual snow the whole length of the country, prairie grasslands or steppes in the southern region, and polar landscapes in the extreme south.

Due to its diversity of climates, Chile offers a great variety of animals. Along the length of the Andes range there are guanaco, the only survivor of the Paleocamelides (ancient predecessors of the camel family), and its domesticated relatives, the llama, the alpaca, and the vicuna. In the Altiplano, high-quality wool is produced from their silky fleece which is used widely.

On Feb. 27, 2010, Chile was assaulted by an 8.8-magnitude earthquake in the Maule region. The effects of the quake, measuring almost two points higher than the one that devastated Haiti just six weeks before, were felt widely from the Valparaiso region in the north to the Araucania region in the south.

Since then, much effort has gone into rebuilding the affected areas:

• Rebuild Chile: A group of Chileans has formed a not-for-profit group called "Rebuild Chile." The goal is to rebuild homes, schools, and the Chilean marketplace, itself, through the help of skilled workers and volunteers.

• Femicide: Chile's incidence of violence against women is among the highest in Latin America. As of Feb. 10, 2010, six women were killed at the hands of their husbands or boyfriends for that year. In 2007, under pressure from activists, Chile's first woman president, Michelle Bachelet Jeria, submitted a women's rights bill to Congress, identifying femicide as a separate crime, distinct from homicide. The legislation has yet to become law.

The churches represented at the World Day of Prayer in Tiverton were Knox Presbyterian, St. Paul's Presbyterian in Glammis, Glammis Baptist, Westminster Presbyterian in Paisley, and Kincardine United Church.

During the lunch after the service, people enjoyed a Chilean dish, called "empanadas," along with fruit, punch, coffee and tea.

The World Day of Prayer was begun by women in Canada and the United States in 1922 and is observed in more than 170 countries today. By participating in this year's World Day of Prayer service, the Tiverton congregation joined in worship with Christians around the world and in more than 2,000 communities across Canada.

The World Day of Prayer is facilitated by the World Day of Prayer International Committee which meets once every four years to select the themes and countries for upcoming services. Next year's service will be written by the women of Malaysia on the theme, "Let Justice Prevail."

Financial support of the World Day of Prayer movement provides resources, such as worship booklets, leadership guides, posters and brochures, to co-ordinating committees at no cost, by the Women's Inter-Church Council of Canada.

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Saturday, March 05, 2011