Dear readers of the HMH newsletter, we wish you a blessed and happy new year 2024. This year, I find it difficult to say this because we are facing so many problems worldwide: The war in Gaza with all its incalculable effects, climate change with natural disasters in many parts of the world, the decreasing willingness to engage in dialogue and compromise worldwide and here at home. How can it be a good year in view of the suffering of so many people? One of our core values is hope. Hope for a better life, for equal rights, for educational opportunities, for healthcare, for the kingdom of God. As HMH, we can only ever take small steps to allow hope to grow in our projects. This is more important than ever this year. Stay with us to make 2024 a year full of hope!

Niels Gärtner

The primary task of Herrnhuter Missionshilfe in Germany is to report on the mission of the Moravian Church, especially on the projects it funds. For this reason, external communication is primarily in German. However, as more and more people who do not speak German are interested in content and news, we want to fulfil this wish. Most parts of the website are now also available in English (as is the newsletter, which has also been published in English since August). We hope you enjoy discovering it!

During Advent and Christmas, there is a lot of talk about promises to Israel and places like Bethlehem and Nazareth play an important role. In 2023, these times are dominated by the horrific terrorist attack by Hamas on Israel and the unimaginable suffering of the people in Gaza. In many places, there is consternation and helplessness in the face of the ongoing violence. The Moravian Church is often asked how the people in the Star Mountain support centre near Ramallah in Palestine are faring. People ask which side the Moravian Church is on. The Provicial Board responds in a statement dated 13 December 2023 (Download here): on neither and on both. It emphasises that it stands by the side of those who are suffering and who are in particular need of intercession and compassion. It opposes terror, violence and marginalisation. However, it does not see it as its task to advocate political positions in the Middle East conflict.

On 1 January 2024, some volunteers from the Palestinian youth aid organisation Environmental Youth Volunteering spent another project day at the Qalandiya Refugee Camp between Ramallah and Jerusalem together with some employees from the Rehabilitation Center Star Mountain near Ramallah (Palestine/West Bank). Children are facing particular challenges in the current political situation. Lots of pictures here. There was singing and playing, storytelling and explanations: always with the aim of strengthening the children's self-confidence, courage and hope for the future. The project, during which the children also received a Christmas present, was supported by the MA'AN Development Center as well as from ActionAid.

In December 2023, the Danish missionary Mia Toldam Korsgård reported on the diverse work of the Moravian Church in Sikonge (Tanzania, Western Province). See in Danish here: As far as the hospital is concerned, she reported the following: "Sikonge Hospital's catchment area is as large as Jutland, but much more sparsely populated. I work as a counsellor at the hospital. In practice, I form the hospital management team with the head physician, the head secretary and the head nurse. We are a good team, we all want the same things for the hospital and we stick together when making decisions - even difficult ones. Our work recently focused on corrections: the administration optimised many processes with the help of an external consultant. For example, we gained an overview of our debts to the health insurance companies, we paid them off and we ensured that we have more qualified nursing staff and other personnel. The fruits of our labour: we were recently able to open a rehabilitation and physiotherapy clinic and exempt the most vulnerable from co-payments."

In the third part of her report on the trip of a group from the Moravian Congregation Rhein-Main to Tanzania (Southern Province) to the partner community of Ibungu in the summer of 2023, Katharina Rühe introduces three impressive people from the small town of Ibungu: Theology lecturer Sara, who teaches at the Moravian Theological College in Sumbawanga, seamstress Nema, who is part of the women's sewing project Pamoja Tunaweza (Together we can do it) in Rungwe, and farmer Frank, who runs a vanilla plantation with EU funding and follows eco/organic criteria. See here (pages 4 + 5). Sara teaches pastoral care, gender equality and literature at the Theological College in Sumbawanga. As a woman, she is allowed to teach at a college in the Rukwa Province, but she is not allowed to work as a pastor in this Unity Province. The products made in the Pamoja Tunaweza sewing project are also available in Europe (www.moravian-merchandise.org).

Pregnant women from the structurally weak landlocked country of Suriname have to travel to the state capital Paramaribo in the event of medical complications, as this is the only place where the necessary specialists are available. These are mostly very young indigenous women who require medical supervision for around twelve weeks. Many women are unable to pay for their own travel, accommodation and food. Fortunately, the Moravian Church's Zinzendorf hostel is there for them. Here the women, who have often never left their village and speak neither Dutch nor Sranan, find help and loving care. They can also bring a carer with them, usually a family member. In 2023, 15 pregnant women and 6 patients with other medical indications stayed at the Zinzendorf hostel for a few months. All the mothers survived the birth and 14 healthy babies were born. The Moravian Church supports this indispensable work of the Medical Mission in Suriname. Five-minute video of a home visit here. Dutch report here.

In many areas of the Costa Atlantica, the lack of clean water affects the lives of the indigenous Miskitos. In Honduras and Nicaragua, women and girls in particular spend many hours a day in some places fetching clean water for eating, drinking and washing. The quantity and quality of the harvests (grain, fruit, vegetables, roots, herbs) is reduced or deteriorating. Because many children suffer from malnutrition, the Moravian Church has set up a nutrition programme for infants and children in remote Krupunta, Honduras. Photo of the children waiting for food here. Children and adults who have contracted an infectious disease (nausea, diarrhoea, fever and stomach cramps) from drinking contaminated water receive appropriate advice, medical assistance and medication at the small polyclinic with an attached pharmacy in Tumtum Tara. Photo here.

An important anniversary was barely acknowledged in the Moravian Church in 2023: On 7 November 1873 - a good 150 years ago -Dr. Charles Douglas Martin was born on the small West Indian island of St. Kitts as a descendant of slaves of African descent. He studied theology at the Nisky College, St. Thomas, and in New York Theologie. In 1910, he married Ellen Patterson from Jamaica. He had already founded the Fourth Moravian Church in Harlem, New York, in 1908, whose meeting place he called Beth-Tphillah (Hebrew: House of Prayer). He worked in this congregation until his death in 1942. He was very active in the emancipation of black people in the USA. In July 1917, he organised the historic Negro Silent Protest Parade, the model for similar protests across the country. In 1912, he was the first black man to be ordained as a minister in the Moravian Church in the USA. He had an excellent education and owned a large library, which is still preserved today. It contains books on the heritage of people of African descent in the Caribbean and North America. More here. hier.

In Nain, Labrador, a former mission station of the Moravian Church, founded in 1771, more than 1,500 sheets of handwritten music were discovered, some of which date back to 1810. This was reported by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The Canadian musicologist Tom Gordon described the sheet music found as jewels: "Great choral pieces - parts for the choir and parts for the orchestra - all in Inuktitut," he marvelled. Because the music he found differs from older music found in Nain in terms of compositional style and arrangement, Tom Gordon assumes that it was written in the mission station Okak, which is located further north and no longer exists, especially as some of the works are signed by the Inuit organist Jeremias Sillit, who worked mainly in Okak. "If it turns out that the majority of the music comes from Okak, then this will add considerable value to the find," emphasised Tom Gordon.

At the turn of the year 2023/2024, the Moravian Church's Mbozi High School in Tanzania (Mbozi Province) advertised on Facebook for parents to enrol their children at the school in the Southern Highlands. See here: "Welcome to Mbozi High School for the academic year 2024/2025. Our school fees are very affordable; they are paid in four instalments. The atmosphere at our school and the learning environment are very good. Our school achieves very good results in performance comparisons: from district level to national level. Come and visit us and bring your child! Please note that there are several different programmes to choose from at the beginning of year five: CBG, CBA, PCB, HGK, HKL, HGL. To contact the school, please call us. You will find the numbers on our adverts." See here (please click one of the arrows).

Signe Kruse, Youth Secretary of Brødremenighedens Danske Mission BDM, recently reported about the BDM-Youth Work in 2023. See in Danish here "In spring, we sent four young volunteers to the orphanage Peter's House in Sumbawanga (TZ, Rukwa Province). Four young volunteers worked in Sikonge (Western Province) until summer 2023. They worked as teachers for several missionary children. In spring 2023, two new youth secretaries were hired. I, Signe Kruse (22), started in March and Celia Skjerning (22) started in June. Our main tasks are to manage the BDM Youth organisation, constantly maintain social media and provide information about and promote the work of BDM at youth events. In autumn 2023, we sent five new volunteers to Peter's House. We also sent four volunteers to Sikonge again. In Denmark, we organised a flea market (proceeds: DKK 3,200), a volunteer party and an extraordinary general meeting of the BDM Youth.

In their last newsletter in 2023, Michael and Cecilia Tesh greeted us with their daughter Bessing, who have been working for the Moravian Church in Kenya for a decade. Together with the Kenyan John, they are responsible for the Ray of Hope School near the country's capital Mombasa, among other things. They write: "The Lord has been faithful to us as a family. We were able to harvest seven 90kg bags of maize from our garden. We will use it to help other needy people. It will also save us a lot of money, as maize is one of the staple foods in Kenya. The price of maize has risen sharply. We are grateful for all the rain ... Things are going well at the Ray of Hope School. It now has four classes. We are praying that more and more children will attend the school and that we will be able to add a fifth class in 2024. A congregation in Turkana organised a Christian camp in Mombasa. The Ray of Hope children were able to attend the camp."

The mission organisation of the Moravian Church in Denmark recently published a Facebook post by Svend Løbner. It describes the ministry of theologian and missionary Mathias Kiligito from Tanzania in building up the Moravian Church in Burundi, which is still working as a mission province of the worldwide Moravian Church. Mathias Kiligito is receiving support from Denmark as well as from the church leadership of the Moravian Church in Tanzania and Burundi. In his first few weeks, he has already visited all the parish districts in the mission province of Burundi. He has been met with great respect and much sympathy from the locals for his work. In the interview, he talks about some of the facets of missionary service. His calling by God and being supported by the sending churches are particularly important to him. He regrets not being able to provide the necessary practical help. Article in German translation here.

On 27 January 2024, Obed Erelio Martinéz from Jagüey Grande will be consecrated as a Bishop of the Moravian Church in the Mission Province of Cuba. He will be the second bishop of the Moravian Church to come from Cuba. The ordinand was first ordained as a presbyter by Bishop Armando Rogélio Rusindo in Havana on 24 April 2022. Obed Erelio Martinéz studied theology at the Seminario Evangelico de Teologia in Matanzas, Cuba.He has been married to the pastor Alay González Rosado since 2004. The couple also hold important honorary positions in their home country: Alay Martinéz serves as secretary in the management of the CCI (Consejo Cubano de Iglesias) and Obed Martinéz as national coordinator of ASEL Cuba (Acción Social Ecuménica Latinoamericana). The statistics of the Moravian Church in Cuba for 2020 state: 132 members authorised to receive Holy Communion; 12 members not authorised to receive Holy Communion; 355 worshippers; 530 friends.

The Cuba Foundation of the Moravian Church in the USA points to a two-and-a-half-hour broadcast on Cuban Communist television on 26 December 2023. See here. The festive 90-minute Christmas concert, to which the World Council of Churches in Cuba and the Society of Friends in Cuba (Quakers) had invited to the Cuban National Theatre in Havana on Christmas Day 2023, was broadcast - with an approximately one-hour pre-programme. The theme of the event was "Jesus, the love that saves" (Jesús, el amor que salva). In the pre-programme, the two popular TV presenters Laura Miranda Camallea and Sayonara Tamayo Arjona not only interviewed participating artists, but also several leaders of member churches of the Cuban Council of Churches, including its chairman Antonio Santana Hernández, who had the opportunity to present their churches and proclaim God's word. Silent Night: Min. 2:02.35. The Moravian Church in Cuba is a member of the Cuban Council of Churches, which unites 28 churches and 14 ecumenical groups.

Jiřina Kaletová from Nová Paka (CR), coordinator of the Unity Youth Desk, published another newsletter on 14 December 2023. See here. It states: The Unity Youth Committee UYC has continued its global youth leadership conferences via Zoom. In addition to discussing work issues, we heard a presentation by Sylvie Hauser, Bethlehem/PA, on the importance of communication and social media - a highlight. The UYC was represented at the Unity Synod in Cape Town in September 2023 by David William Daniels (South Africa) and myself. It was a great experience to be at the Synod. One item on the agenda was the election of the new UYC members who will serve the Unity Youth from 2024 to 2031. "We are looking into creating an online database that can be used to establish contacts, exchange information and initiate cooperation. The worldwide Unity is so big".

The Christian-David-Schule near Barkava in Latvia, founded in 1991, sent out a digital Christmas greeting on Christmas Eve 2023. The children sing a song under the Christmas tree. See here. The greeting ends as follows: "Priecīgus Ziemassvētkus! - Merry Christmas! - Merry Christmas! - God Jul! - Hyvää joulua! - Щасливого Різдва!" There is also a digital greeting from Eenok Haamer, the chief elder of the Moravian Church in Estonia, for Christmas 2023. See here. Christmas greetings from the missionary organisations of the Moravian Church in Denmark and the Netherlands here and here. A look at the 2023 Christmas Eve celebration of the Moravian Congregation Genadendal, South Africa here. To the candle distribution here. All set for the Christmas party of the preschool and school of the Moravian Church (International Kindergarten & Shristi Academy) in Kathmandu. Nepal, here.

In the wooden church of the Moravian Congregation Bethel on the Kuskokwim River in south-west Alaska, there were three services on Christmas Eve 2023. An English-language service (Morning worship) took place at 11 a.m. An English candle light worship was then organised for 6:30 pm, followed by Yup‘ik candle light worship at 8 pm. In the past, Bethel/AK and the surrounding area was almost exclusively Yup'ik. However, as a result of immigration from the USA and Canada, there are now also members of the congregation who only speak English. On Christmas Day, the Yup'ik met at 11 a.m. for an English-language musical service (Christmas cantata service). At 7 pm, the Yup'ik gathered for a Christmas procession through the festively lit town with a children's performance. The gatherings at the turn of the year, again with a singing service (with a choir performance) and again bilingual, were then held by several volunteers.

On Sunday 24 December 2023, the youth choir of the Moravian Church in Suriname, led by music teacher Mavis Noordwijk, gave a performance in the children's ward of the Lands Hospitaals aan de Tourtonnelaan in Paramaribo. The head nurse was given a copy of the children's book The Last Missionary Doctor as a Christmas present, which was published in October 2022 by the National Foundation for the Promotion of Early Childhood Reading under the auspices of the Moravian Church with donations from the Zeister Missionary Society. The richly illustrated children's book tells the story of the life and work of the Moravian missionary doctor Miep Dekker in the vast interior of Suriname. The book is intended to enable sick children to either read it themselves or have it read to them by the sisters so that they forget their suffering for a while. The children's wards of the Deaconess Hospital, St Vincentius Hospital and the Academic Hospital, all in Paramaribo, received further book gifts on the same day. The author of the book is Agnes Ritfeld, a long-time pedagogue of the Moravian Church. More here and here and here.

In its newsletter, den ZZg Nieuws (no. 4-2023; page 4), the mission organisation of the Moravian Church in the Netherlands (ZZg) presents two of its Christmas projects this year. It says: "58 children are being guided towards learning in the Moravian preschools in the Marowijne region of Suriname. The children love going there. The teachers are nice, they sing beautiful songs, they read aloud, they play together. All of this is done in Dutch. Although this is the national and official language, Dutch is not necessarily spoken by young children at home. Other languages are spoken there. So that children don't have to start learning a new language in primary school, the Moravian Church endeavours to stimulate Dutch in all activities in the pre-schools. However, this requires support." Another ZZg Christmas project is the financial support of a Christian youth party at the end of 2023 at the Moravian youth centre in Paramaribo.

On 15 December 2023, the medical mission in Suriname announced that it had recently become involved in a project to combat the rise in HIV infections in the country. A few weeks ago, the police, health, education and judicial authorities had sounded the alarm: there was an increasing number of HIV infections, especially among young people. This situation should worry society. Employees of the medical mission in Suriname, in which the Moravian Church plays a key role, then decided to visit schools and provide information about HIV/Aids. The first visits were successful. During lectures, discussions and practical exercises, the pupils and trainees realised how enormously important it is for them to protect themselves against infection with HIV. School staff and staff from polyclinics helped with the visits. Some photos here.

In the still young congregation Trinity Moravian Church on Tortola, British Virgin Islands, it is customary for all congregation members to receive a Christmas gift from the church staff. On Christmas Day, the congregation posted on Facebook: "We had a wonderful time at our service today! The traditional presentation of Christmas gifts to our members took place." Some pictures here. On 7 January 2024, the message was: "Just think! We are still celebrating Christmas at Trinity Moravian Church!  Today we gave Christmas presents to those members who were away a fortnight ago and therefore not at the service." Some pictures here. On New Year's Day, the parishioners dressed up and dined together. Some pictures here. On 1 January 2024, a post on Facebook referred to Psalm 124,1: "If the LORD had not been on our side, where would we be?"

Once again, a student from the International Kindergarten & Shristi Academy of the Moravian Church in Kathmandu-Baneshwar, Nepal, has won a prize in a sports competition. The privat school, which is supported by the two Unity provinces in North America, posted the following on Facebook: "Congratulations, Arnab! You won the trophy at the table tennis championships organised by the Yuba Club Hakha in Lalitpur, the third largest city in Nepal, on 5/6 January. Many thanks also to your table tennis teachers and your personal coach." The school's mission statement says: "Our aim is to develop the whole child to become an expert learner. They should be able to interact socially and emotionally with their environment. Most importantly, the child learns to believe in himself or herself as an individual with God-given potential." The director of the school is Vani Pradhan, the school administrator is her husband, Shanti Kumar Pradhan.

Kuhrpa in Honduras lies on the upper reaches of the Rio Patuca. The great distance from the mouth of the Patuca makes this village on the water difficult to access, although a road has recently been built. This was built by colonists who took over the traditional Miskito land. The region is known for its cocoa cultivation. However, most people live from the cultivation of traditional Miskito rice and bean crops. In Kuhrpa, 200 families are eagerly waiting for water filters, which the Moravian Church is providing through the Blessings Flow project. The water in the Rio Patuca has been dirty and contaminated with germs ever since the colonists began clearing the rainforest. 40 per cent of the families interviewed in a study stated that someone in their household had had to miss school or work in the last two weeks due to symptoms of a waterborne disease. A photo from Kuhrpa here, from Warunta here.

Four recommendations for the beginning of the year from the magazine De Huisvriend (1936), found on the Facebook pages of the Mission Museum of the Moravian Church in Genadendal, South Africa, are hereby passed on: (1) Regarding anger: Get it out quickly! Run away from the people and shout loudly like a big monkey. And then: Pray to the Father! Before you say anything, take a drink of water. (2) Concerning dissatisfaction: Go to the houses of the poor and see how things are there: household goods, clothes, shoes and food. Ask what the poor earn and calculate whether you can make ends meet. (3) Concerning arrogance and greed for honour: Go to the cemetery and read what is written on the gravestones there! The stones will show you where all your heart's desires end. (4) Concerning greed: Visit the rich on their deathbeds and find out what use they make of all their money. Even the rich have to leave everything behind. It will be the same with you one day.