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These stories from around Methodism might give you ideas to take up locally. The contacts will provide more details.

We're now a stand-alone English-speaking congregation of the North Germany Conference of the United Methodist Church. We've started something called 'Fifth Sunday': we hold it every 3 months of course - so far an international Harvest, an Africa day, when 60 people gathered, including Zimbabweans (with lively unplanned Shona songs!) and Ghanaians, and an Asia day. You can get more information about this and other English-speaking groups in Germany at www.unitedmethodist.de.

We - 20 young people from Dibden Purlieu Methodist Church - created a giant 'Grain Sculpture' in the church car park as part of a week of events on Make Poverty History: it depicted the logo of the campaign. We also held a vigil attended by over 150 people, including reps from Fiji, Ghana, Argentina and Sri Lanka: they talked about the injustice faced by people in their home countries as a result of extreme poverty and unfair trade rules.

We've started offering evening meals and overnight accommodation to the many thousands of people who pass within 2 miles of our doors on their way to the West Country on the M5. This welcome is available to anyone, and people seem pleased to visit us. It also means we can meet Methodists who've never been able to visit or see the inside of a theological college, and the cost is - we think! - very reasonable.