LETTER FROM THE ECUMENICAL MODERATOR
christian aid
MURDOCH MACKENZIE
may 2001
Dear Friends,
A COLLECT FOR CHRISTIAN AID WEEK
When I was a teenager I did my first house to house collection. It was in Waterpark Road in Birkenhead, a very long road, and it was for the National Children's Homes. With collecting can in hand and a smile on my face I knocked on each door and said: ' I'm collecting for the National Children's Homes, would you like to buy a daisy?' Lots of people said: 'Well, if you put it like that how can I refuse?' By the end of the night my arm was sore because the can was so heavy.
In India I used to collect for the Leprosy work of Mother Teresa. There it was easy because you just needed to go along a bus queue which was so long that by the time you reached the end there was a new lot of people at the front and you could start all over again. One year I remember two leprosy sufferers following me along the queue with tin cans in their stumps and I really wondered if I should have been there at all rather than letting all the money go directly to them.
Over many years I have collected for Christian Aid. In central Birmingham hundreds of people a minute passed by, but not all on the other side ! Cans there were soon heavy and one year one of our church members collected £500 during the week ! Once I was in a Bible study home group in Runcorn when we had a speaker from the Brother Andrew movement telling us about Christians personally smuggling Bibles behind the Iron Curtain. Everyone said how wonderful it was and we prayed fervently about it. At the end of the evening we asked for volunteers to collect envelopes for Christian Aid in the streets around the church. One by one they said how difficult that would be and how people might be rude to you. Then someone said: 'This is ridiculous. We've just been saying how wonderful it is for Christians to risk their lives smuggling Bibles behind the Iron Curtain and we don't even have enough courage to go and collect envelopes in our own streets!' They all collected !
Personally I have collected hundreds of Christian Aid envelopes and whilst some people moan and groan about the poor in this country needing it more and about corruption overseas, most people are only too pleased to see you and some give generously. I remember one year in particular when I was giving the one minute talks for Christian Aid each morning at 7 am for Radio Merseyside. Each night that week I also collected and I knocked on the door of one of our church members who I had never seen in the church all the time I had been there. 'Oh, Mr MacKenzie' she said, 'it's wonderful to see you. I've been getting up early every morning to hear you on the radio.' I replied: 'You could hear me every Sunday if you wanted in the church around the corner, without getting up early. ' From that day onward she came to church and was one of the staunchest members.
When we think of the desperate situation of many people, men women and little children, around the world and compare it to the comparative luxury of much of Milton Keynes, surely we can take our envelopes and our courage in both hands, and do as much collecting as we possibly can in this year's Christian Aid Week. Just £6 here can buy a medical kit which could save the lives of all the children in an Indian village.
A Collect is a kind of prayer in which we re-collect God's goodness to us. Let us make the whole of Christian Aid Week (13-19 May) a prayer in which we re-collect the envelopes or the collecting cans from all the homes and streets in this city, remembering Jesus' words: ' In as much as you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to me. ' In this way we shall see God in the smiles of the poor. Perhaps we will also break all records for the amount we collect throughout the Borough of Milton Keynes and surrounding district.
Happy Christian Aid Week !
Murdoch MacKenzie
A COLLECT FOR CHRISTIAN AID WEEK
When I was a teenager I did my first house to house collection. It was in Waterpark Road in Birkenhead, a very long road, and it was for the National Children's Homes. With collecting can in hand and a smile on my face I knocked on each door and said: ' I'm collecting for the National Children's Homes, would you like to buy a daisy?' Lots of people said: 'Well, if you put it like that how can I refuse?' By the end of the night my arm was sore because the can was so heavy.
In India I used to collect for the Leprosy work of Mother Teresa. There it was easy because you just needed to go along a bus queue which was so long that by the time you reached the end there was a new lot of people at the front and you could start all over again. One year I remember two leprosy sufferers following me along the queue with tin cans in their stumps and I really wondered if I should have been there at all rather than letting all the money go directly to them.
Over many years I have collected for Christian Aid. In central Birmingham hundreds of people a minute passed by, but not all on the other side ! Cans there were soon heavy and one year one of our church members collected £500 during the week ! Once I was in a Bible study home group in Runcorn when we had a speaker from the Brother Andrew movement telling us about Christians personally smuggling Bibles behind the Iron Curtain. Everyone said how wonderful it was and we prayed fervently about it. At the end of the evening we asked for volunteers to collect envelopes for Christian Aid in the streets around the church. One by one they said how difficult that would be and how people might be rude to you. Then someone said: 'This is ridiculous. We've just been saying how wonderful it is for Christians to risk their lives smuggling Bibles behind the Iron Curtain and we don't even have enough courage to go and collect envelopes in our own streets!' They all collected !
Personally I have collected hundreds of Christian Aid envelopes and whilst some people moan and groan about the poor in this country needing it more and about corruption overseas, most people are only too pleased to see you and some give generously. I remember one year in particular when I was giving the one minute talks for Christian Aid each morning at 7 am for Radio Merseyside. Each night that week I also collected and I knocked on the door of one of our church members who I had never seen in the church all the time I had been there. 'Oh, Mr MacKenzie' she said, 'it's wonderful to see you. I've been getting up early every morning to hear you on the radio.' I replied: 'You could hear me every Sunday if you wanted in the church around the corner, without getting up early. ' From that day onward she came to church and was one of the staunchest members.
When we think of the desperate situation of many people, men women and little children, around the world and compare it to the comparative luxury of much of Milton Keynes, surely we can take our envelopes and our courage in both hands, and do as much collecting as we possibly can in this year's Christian Aid Week. Just £6 here can buy a medical kit which could save the lives of all the children in an Indian village.
A Collect is a kind of prayer in which we re-collect God's goodness to us. Let us make the whole of Christian Aid Week (13-19 May) a prayer in which we re-collect the envelopes or the collecting cans from all the homes and streets in this city, remembering Jesus' words: ' In as much as you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to me. ' In this way we shall see God in the smiles of the poor. Perhaps we will also break all records for the amount we collect throughout the Borough of Milton Keynes and surrounding district.
Happy Christian Aid Week !
Murdoch MacKenzie
