The fridge is not the only thing that is overflowing for CMS Associate General Secretary Malcolm Reid this evening.
For the first time in many years, the CMS Annual Dinner returned tonight, with a sold out and very special evening at St Anne’s, Ryde.
“The dinner is a great success even before it has been held!,” says Mr Reid the event organiser. “We were just hoping for around 100 people but have had to turn people away at 210.”
John Bales is speaking from his tremendous amount of mission experience, and will weave stories from his overseas pastoral trip on the theme ‘The Many Flavours of Mission’. Dinner guests will also hear from missionaries in Africa, Latin America and South Asia.
“In all of these areas the Christian Church is growing and we need to do our best to help resource this growth,” says Malcolm.
The evening will begin with some entertaining world mission trivia at 7.30pm, then dinner will be served and afterwards the missionaries in attendance will be interviewed. Over 15 missionaries have returned to Sydney this year to attend CMS Summer School in January and to visit churches and supporters.
“We have so much we can be thankful to God for in the last year”, Malcolm says. “The CMS Annual Dinner is a way for us to celebrate with our members and supporters.”
After dessert CMS interNATIONAL Partner Pato Oyarzún will give an entertaining presentation, as he and wife Dagmar prepare to return to Chile in 2007 to assist in pastoring the Anglican church in Viña del Mar.
The Oyarzúns have been CMS bursars since 2002, being trained in biblical understanding and pastoral ministry at Moore College. Now CMS is partnering with the Church in Chile to support the Oyarzúns as interNATIONAL ministry partners when they return to Chile in February.
And on to CMS Summer School
From next week Malcolm Reid will turn his full attention to preparations for CMS Summer School, as he assumes the role of Director for the first time.
“There is much that goes on behind the scenes for Summer School to happen,” observes Malcolm. “It is also a very important part of the Church Missionary Society’s tradition, and has a long history [the first CMS Summer School was held in the 1920’s]. This makes it a daunting thing to organise and it has been consuming much of my time recently.”
“The Youth and Children’s Team is again promising a phenomenal program. A lot of what will happen this year people will be familiar. There are some additions and small changes to increase the impact it can have in our lives as we open God’s word together and share in His mission. We will let registered attendees know about the new innovations in December.”
For the first time, CMS is closing pre-registrations before the event, to ensure the week of mission is organised to the highest standard, and every detail taken care of. Pre-registrations close Sunday 17 December, and can be booked online, at [url=http://www.cms.org.au/nsw]http://www.cms.org.au/nsw[/url]
