Church Women United-Newtown To Sponsor World Day Of Prayer Celebration

The Newtown unit of Church Women United (CWU) invite everyone to join them for a celebration of World Day of Prayer 2008, an hour commemoration with special features in a program written by the women of Guyana, a nation on the South American continent that is culturally and historically a part of English-speaking Caribbean region.

“God’s Wisdom Provides New Understanding” is the theme of the celebration that will be illustrated through Scripture (Job 5: 8–9, Job 28: 20–28, and Luke 10:38–42), dance and song that all participants are encouraged to join. The World Day of Prayer, which is annually celebrated around the world, will be observed locally at Newtown United Methodist Church, 92 Church Hill Road in Sandy Hook. The service will be on Friday, March 7, beginning at 4 pm.

The service will be presented by members of CWU-Newtown unit, along with the NUMC Children’s Choir.

Guyana covers 83,000 square miles and is about the size of Great Britain. It is bordered by Venezuela on the west, Suriname on the east, and Brazil on the south-southwest, and the Atlantic Ocean on the north. The name “Guyana” means land of many waters in the native tongue, Amerindian, and that is also descriptive of the country’s natural features. It has a population of 763,000 and its climate is tropical, though moderated by northeast trade winds along the coast.

It was discovered by Europeans in 1498 and was populated by Arawak and Carib tribes of Amerindians. It was in 1616 that the Dutch established the first European settlement and trading post. The British took possession in 1803 and it became British Guyana. There was slave trade to work the sugar plantations up until the abolition of slavery in 1834. This created labor shortages, so between 1846 and 1917 nearly 250,000 laborers entered Guyana, mostly from India, Portugal, and China, creating a cosmopolitan population and independence from Britain in 1966. In 1970 the country became the Cooperative Republic of Guyana. It remains a member of the British Commonwealth.

Its religious mixture of Christian and Asian faiths persist, but some of the Carib-speaking Amerindian tribes have formed a new Guyanese religion, the Hallelujah, which is heavily based on Christianity but incorporates elements of the Amerindian religion, which was animistic worship of spirits in nature. 

The story of Job’s suffering and Mary and Martha’s different ways of serving Christ give meaning to one of the basic questions of most Christians: “Why do good people suffer?” It also helps to illustrate why different ways of worship and service are equally important.

For additional information contact CWU-Newtown unit president Darlene Jackson at 426-5792.