Page 14 - Preservation for the Documentation of Chinese Christianity

.2. Women's World Day of Prayer Committee (Cont’d)

The World Day of Prayer for 1962 took place on Friday, March 9th
with two bilingual services, one in the Kowloon Chinese Methodist Church
and the other in St. John’s Cathedral. In both, Chinese and En glish
programmes were used, aking equal use of each language. Mrs. Frank
m
Ashton and Mrs. Lee Ching Ming presided jointly at the Cathedral obser-
vance and Miss Chan Tsoi Yan and Miss Jean Windsor at the Kowloon.one.
The speakers for the Kowloon service were Mrs. John Ma and Dr. Ellen.
Clow and those for the Cathedral were Mrs. F.S. Drake and Miss Wong Yuk
Mini. “There were some eight hundred women at the Kowloon Service and
about four hundred in Hongkong. The offering taken that day amounted
to HK$944.95 will go to the work of the Hongkong Bible Society.

Services were held at several other places in the Colony, and it-
is expected that the observance will be even more wide-spread next year.

3 . Christian Cemetery Committee
Friends of the Hongkong Christian Council will remenber that the
Council was founded in the year 1954 because of the common need for a
Christian Cemetery! Yet the wonderful guidance of God should be praised,
for He has again brought life out of death! During these eight years
the Churches have been drawn together in many ways — but we still lack
our cemetery!

After prolonged negotiations with the govemmsit, the offer of a
Coffin Section and an Urn Section at the Wo Hop Shek Cemetery, together
with the use of the land and of the Farewell Pavilion from the Urban
Services Department was discussed. The general feeling was that there
was very little point in the Council participating in the running of the
Wo Hop Shek Cemetery. The provisions and arrangemmts are such that all
we should achieve would be the addition of;further procedures and possibly
charges without compensating justification. We, therefore, did not proceed
further with this scheme, but renewed our negotiations with Government
for another site.

Recently, the Urban Services Department informed us about a proposed
crematorium at the new cemetery at Cape Collinsorj. There will be three
places of worship attached to the crematorium: one Christian, one Chinese,
one Hindu and other religions. The Christian one. will be for the use
of all denominations.

The Committee is now in- the process of negotiating with the Govern-
ment for this proposed Christian Crematorium on the following basis;

1) It shall not be a substitute for a Christian Cemetery.
2) The Chapel ought to be consecrated, and shall be run
by the Council.
3) The ground on which the ashes are scattered need not
be consecrated.
4) The names of those cremated at the cemetery shall be
recorded in a book which shall be kept in that
Christian Chapel for members of all Christian
denominations.

It is hoped that approval of the Government may be granted in the
near future.