Presbyterian Moderator, Dr Harry Uprichard will this Thursday 1 December visit several centres in South Belfast under the management of the Presbyterian Board of Social Witness. The mission statement of the Board is "to show the love of Christ through service in the Church and in the Community." The Board runs a number of services for adults, families, elderly people, students and church congregations. Dr Uprichard will visit Adelaide House, Derryvolgie Hall, Queen's Chaplaincy Centre, Kinghan Mission and the South Belfast Friendship Group.
Adelaide House is a residential home for elderly people, which was the first to be established by the Presbyterian Residential Trust in the late 1940s. Since then the Home has been extensively extended and renovated. The aim of the Trust is to provide residential accommodation, which offers care and support to elderly people within a Christian environment. On Thursday Dr Uprichard will conduct a short worship service here at 10.30am.
At 12pm Dr Uprichard will then visit Derryvolgie Hall which provides modern accommodation for 90 young people who come to Belfast either to work or study. This is funded by the Presbyterian War Memorial Fund, which originally provided accommodation in downtown Belfast. At 1pm at the Queen's Chaplaincy Centre, Dr Uprichard will meet with staff and students. At the heart of the Presbyterian Chaplaincy Centre is worship, prayer and Bible study - offering students the opportunity to seek quiet refuge, refreshment and rethinking.
The Chaplaincy is also committed to acting on issues of peace, reconciliation, poverty, ecology, social and economic justice, fair trade, culture of life issues and the role of social transformation in our society. They encourage students to support projects like their after school clubs in Sandy Row and Mornington, fair trade stalls, and the International Friendship Association which is dedicated to helping international students feel part of the community. The Chaplaincy also hosts a bi-annual trip to Cape Town, South Africa where students help to build houses in townships alongside Habitat for Humanity.
At 2pm Dr Uprichard will visit the Kinghan Church in Botanic Avenue which functions as a worshipping community of deaf and hearing impaired persons and others. The Kinghan Mission was founded in 1857 by John Kinghan, a teacher in the Ulster Society for the Promotion of the Education of the Deaf, the Dumb and the Blind in Belfast. He realised that deaf people had no church where they could worship God and be taught the Gospel in their own language and so he began the mission.
Dr Uprichard will conclude the tour at 3.15pm when he will visit South Belfast Friendship House. This is a drop-in centre in Sandy Row offering assistance and help to those who need it, focusing primarily on women, children and the elderly.
Lindsay Conway OBE, director of Presbyterian Social Service said, "We are delighted that the Moderator will be visiting these centres where such valuable work is done. I hope that his visit will be encouraging to the staff, students, residents and members that he will meet and that likewise he will be encouraged by seeing the needs that are being met by the Presbyterian Board of Social Witness."
Issued by Sarah Harding, Presbyterian Information Services. Info@PresbyterianIreland.org
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