On September 9-12 I attended the European Methodist Council in Manchester, England. This is my second time to represent the Spanish Evangelical Church on this body. The Council (EMC) is made up of United Methodists, British Methodists, the autonomous Methodist Church of Portugal, the Spanish Evangelical Church and the Nazarenes. A European district of Korean UMs has applied for membership as well.
The EMC is planning a European Methodist Festival in Crakow, Poland for August 2012. Instead of going to London for the Olympics you can celebrate with European Methodists in Crakow! You can bring a youth group as the European Methodist Youth Council is participating in the planning, so there will be a multi-generational program.
As November approaches I remember that 20 years ago on Nov. 9 the Berlin Wall fell. So much has changed since then! At the EMC meeting in Manchester I saw between the Moscow Seminary director and the Polish Missions coordinator. My supervisor with the GBGM, who was in Manchester, is from Estonia in the Baltics. None of these people could have been in the European Methodist Council 20 years ago.
In this picture you see Sergei Nikolaev, the director of the UM seminary in Moscow sitting in the famous John Rylands Library in Manchester. This library houses a famous John Wesley collection, but it also is home to the oldest fragment of the New Testament that we have, the P52 papyri, a fragment of the Gospel of John dating to 125 AD. I also saw the first edition of Charles Darwin’s Origin of the Species.

Sergei Nikolaev, director of the UM Seminary in Moscow sitting in the John Rylands Library.