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Barnes in Commonthe magazine of Churches Together in Barnes
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Signs of the timesby Jane SherwinThe first Friday in March saw, once again, celebrations of the Women's World Day of Prayer. The Day started in the USA in 1887 and reached England in 1932. Today more than 170 countries and islands take part in the Service and it is translated into 60 languages and 1,000 dialects. In Wales some services are in Welsh, some in English, some bi-lingual. This year's Service was written by the Christian women of South Africa. The Christian Aid speaker at St. Osmund's, in the morning, had most of us in tears when she spoke about a church-based HIV/AIDS project that she had just been working on out there. In the evening we were at All Saints in Sheen, where the speaker was a lay member of St. Mary’s (Barnes), Silke Cresswell. Her mother was taking part in the same service in Germany, her mother-in-law in South Africa itself and her sister-in-law in Canada. The Day of Prayer begins on the International Dateline. The first service is held at dawn in Queen Salote’s Girls' School in Tonga. Then, as the earth rotates, a great "Mexican Wave" of prayer rises through the Pacific and Asia; through countries such as Fiji, New Zealand, Japan, the Philippines, Korea and Bangladesh and on to Africa. Through the Middle East it goes to Lebanon, Egypt and Cyprus, to Europe, east and west, across the Atlantic to the Caribbean, South, Central and North America until the last service of the day is held on an island off the coast of Alaska. The one constant part of each service is the final hymn, written by an erstwhile Rector of St. Mary's, The day thou gavest Lord, is ended:
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