General News and Announcements

In August, the 40th General Council declared “children in care” as the theme for Children's Sunday 2009, which falls on November 22.

Right now in Canada, approximately 80,000 children are under the protection of Child and Family Services. Trauma, loss, and insecurity are hallmarks of these children’s lives. In many communities, foster children are an invisible population whose experiences and challenges are not widely understood.

Excellent materials on this theme have been prepared for your use by the Children and Youth in Crisis Taskforce of the Maritime Conference’s Church in Action Committee. You'll find worship materials—including a dramatic interlude—that hold up children’s families, foster families, social workers, and all community agencies that work to make a better world for these children.

Background information provides facts and statistics, and gives voice to children in care: “One day you live here, and now you live there. One day you are at this school with this group of friends, and now you are at that school with no friends.”

There are also practical suggestions for congregational engagement.

Children’s Sunday is celebrated on the Sunday closest to November 20.