Church Information

It is with sadness that we mention here what many of our readers will already know, the death of Rev John MacDonald on 25 November 2000 and the death of Rev Alexander McPherson on December 7. Mr MacDonald was ordained in Staffin in 1969 and was afterwards minister of North Tolsta. He retired from there in 1991 because of ill health and spent his last years in Stornoway. His wife has also passed away, only a week after himself.

Mr McPherson spent seven years in earlier life on the Church's mission in what is now Zimbabwe. He was ordained in 1961 and was minister successively in Dornoch, Stratherrick, London and Perth. Only a few weeks before his death he was able to take the services as usual.

We note also the death of three godly ladies during approximately the same period: Miss Peggy Nicolson, Inverness, Mrs Annie MacIver, North Tolsta, and Miss Margaret Sutherland, Lairg. We may indeed mourn our loss when the Lord is taking away a number of His own children to be with Himself. It is their gain, but His Cause is the poorer. May He raise up others who would be true witnesses on His side in this generation and, especially, may He send out young men to act as ambassadors for Him in the place of those who, having served their generation by the will of God, have now entered on their reward. We send our sympathy to the relatives.

Rev Angus Smith returned to the UK in late November after spending four weeks in each of Chesley and Texas supplying these congregations. His duties in each place included a communion season. For the communion in Texas, he was joined by Rev Keith Watkins, the interim moderator of the congregation.

At the beginning of December, Mr Watkins, set off for Zimbabwe, where he expected to assist at two communions, those at Chiedza and Bulawayo, before moving on to spend six weeks at our mission station at Sengera, Kenya. Also at the beginning of December, Rev Roderick MacLeod, began a nine-week visit as deputy to the Australia and New Zealand Presbytery. As Mr van Dorp indicates in his article in this issue, Mr MacLeod will begin and end his visit in Singapore, while also visiting most, if not all, of our congregations in Australia and New Zealand. We wish these two ministers safe travelling in all their journeys and that the Lord's blessing will follow their labours.