116 Years Of Service to the City Community
Londonderry City Mission 116th Annual Report It is always a pleasure to present this brief annual report. The past year has seen us conclude our 75th Hostel anniversary celebrations, grapple with frozen funding and continue to address the many and varied needs of the city community.
Our anniversary celebrations concluded with an RTE radio broadcast service on the last Sunday of October. We took as our worship theme 'Compassion' and the service included a testimony from a former resident whose life was transformed during his brief time with us. Such blessings are a great encouragement. Frozen funding is a symptom of the recession and has driven us to cap our wages levels at the Hostel for the first time ever. We have also had to make redundant a member of the Clooney Hall Centre staff and reduce the working hours of another. Both Hostel and Centre are in good shape though, with the management teams and staff all deserving high praise. It is offered with gratitude to God. We have a Global Gap Year student on placement with us! His name is Charles Otieno and he is from Kenya. Charles is a member of the Church Army's Xplore Team and is making a valued contribution to the work of the Mission and at Clooney Hall. Three members of our Mission Committee are stepping down this year: Ken Connor, who is now in training for our Methodist ministry; Joan Hunter who is moving away from the city and who has been extremely helpful in relation not only to the Hostel work but also to the oversight of the fantastic work of the Clooney Family Centre; and Jim Simpson. We are grateful to each of them and wish them well. The three proposed new members will also bring considerable gifts and abilities to the Committee. The Mission is always grateful for the extensive prayer support of the Connexion and for financial donations from individuals, circuits and societies in response to its annual appeal. There are many in church circles today who question the kind of involvements the Mission has in our city's social arenas. We see them all as doors of opportunity through which we walk in the confidence that we are doing what God has established this City Mission to do. And we move forward assured that he will continue to make our Mission a means of grace to the praise of his glory.