Now that the war has been over for nearly four months there are signs that the security situation is being eased in various places around the country. The checkpoints around Kandy are barely staffed at all. Travellers to the East now only have one checkpoint to deal with – in fact, they might not even be stopped at all - and it is no longer necessary to get a vehicle pass to leave the East. Our Tamil friends who visit the East say that people are more relaxed than they were. Travel to and from Jaffna in the North is also being eased. Now people can travel by bus instead of flying or travelling by sea. However, checking makes the Colombo / Jaffna bus trip take 24 hours. Private vehicles are still not allowed to make the journey and it is still hard for foreigners to gain entry to Jaffna.

Meanwhile many thousands are still in hospitals up and down the country being treated for their serious injuries, and many more are living in the camps, most of them around the northern town of Vavuniya. There seems to be very little official news about the rate of release / resettlement, e.g. the number of families per week. Presumably this is because the figures will not impress. The army is trying to clear mines in some areas in the north, and we have seen some western mine clearance NGO staff and vehicles who are helping albeit in relatively small numbers. The army is also thought to be recruiting more soldiers (yes, more) in order to prevent the LTTE rising again in the north. So the mines must be cleared and the security infrastructure must be in place before the people are re-settled. That seems to be the official line. Tidying up after 25 years of an on / off civil war will take a long time, and will be an imperfect process with imperfect results. There are huge numbers of people to interview and the Army has been led to vast quantities of LTTE paperwork that needs to be examined. Besides being a body blow to the LTTE supporters abroad, the capture of the their de facto leader overseas, "KP", and his return to Sri Lanka has been a big intelligence coup, probably enabled by those captured documents.

The war and its aftermath have created a shortage of blood. The college recently hosted a blood doning session for TCL and locals at which 40 people gave blood, many for the first time. Rosemary also gave, for the nth time!

There is little evidence of the government tackling the underlying issues of injustice felt by Tamils. There is a problem of leadership amongst the Tamils in those areas largely because the LTTE had eliminated all its rivals. It is only in the last week that seven MPs of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Party, considered by many as being closely linked to the LTTE, managed to sit round a table with the President to complain about the slow resettlement of the people in the camps. Perhaps, the best one can say is that it is early days and relationships need to be built, while there is much crucial work to be done with few resources.

In previous newsletters we have asked for prayers for the journalist, Tissanayagam, imprisoned without trial for many months. Now he has been jailed for 20 years under the emergency powers of the Prevention of Terrorism Act. An appeal is pending but, whatever the truth of the matter might be, the severity of the sentence is unlikely to do anything for communal relations at just the time when magnanimity is needed. Freedom of speech isn’t just a matter for journalists. We were at a meeting recently when a speaker preferred to say nothing to a question because he wasn’t sure who was in the room. We’ve also found ourselves sharing a meal in a hotel with two foreigners and a Sri Lankan and seeing how uncomfortable the Sri Lankan felt as the visitors discussed the country situation in rather loud voices.

College life continues. Rosemary’s teaching load is very heavy this semester but manageable as the subjects are either ones she has done before or are at least in her comfort zone. She also has many administrative tasks. The annual College Day took place as usual near the beginning of the new academic year. Instead of using the centrally located and very pretty Library Hall, the ceremony took place in the newly constructed and as yet unfinished auditorium. However, thanks to much work by contractors and students alike, the day was a success.

At a Board of Governors meeting shortly afterwards James presented the "Issues and Aspirations" report that he had researched and written on behalf of the College’s Development Group. It was well-received and the churches should now be preparing their responses. The report has certainly prompted much discussion about the college and its task of theological education. A small group of Faculty members has responded, and a visiting Indian academic, Reverend Dr. Sathi Clarke who is now teaching in USA, also provided some interesting insights. We very much enjoyed the enlivening company of Dr. Sathi who stayed at the college for three weeks, teaching the students and giving lectures here and there on religious fundamentalism and other subjects. We were very pleased to show him a little of the local area.

Another academic we were privileged to meet was Fr. Aloysius Pieris SJ, Sri Lanka’s most well-known and well- published theologian. Although now 75, he seemed to fizz with intellectual activity. He must have been described as inspirational many times. We visited him at his home "Tulana", a small research centre comprising a "shifting community of people committed to inter-faith dialogue and social change." This is how another academic, our friend Dr. Elizabeth Harris, described it, she being one of the shifting community who had returned from England for a few weeks to finish off a book. We went with her to visit the Kelaniya Temple, the second busiest Buddhist Temple in Sri Lanka. It was so much more interesting to visit with an expert.

Elizabeth joined us a few days later for the Kandy Perahera. It was our third viewing of this massive elephant procession, during which the Tooth Relic of the Buddha is paraded on the back of one of the highly decorated pachyderms. What impressed us most was the peace and calm amongst the many thousands who were there - more than 100,000, maybe – many more than previous years. This was probably a combination of the religious nature of the event, the joy at the end of the war and the ban on alcohol sales in the area for three weeks. The security presence was much lighter than in previous years.

The six days of the Methodist Conference in Colombo loomed large in August (19^th to 24^th). Fortunately the weather was the coolest we have known in the capital. We met lots of former students who are now getting to grips with life in Circuit. We also met a German minister, Rev. Dr. Elga Zachau, who was representing the Dortmund Methodist Church which has a long-standing link with the Methodist Church of Sri Lanka. To our surprise, in her message of greeting, she quoted Rosemary who, when speaking with Elga earlier, had said that she had forgotten that Elga was German. Elga spoke movingly of this as an example of what reconciliation can eventually achieve. The Conference also heard how the Church continues to send large quantities of clothing, food, toiletries and medicines to the displaced people in the camps, where the local clergy and church members are doing excellent work.

Some news from the Conference is that our TCL Principal, Rev. Dr. Jebanesan (Jebi) was appointed to the five year executive post of President beginning in 2010. We wish him well. There will be many changes at TCL in 2010.

Life at Kandy Methodist Church continues. One member, Mr. Lappen, who is in his 90^th year, has been of particular concern for nearly a year. A penniless bachelor, his eyesight is gone now and he can no longer catch the bus to church to make the 25 kilometre journey from his brother’s house. We tried to gain him admission to an old people’s home run by the St. Paul’s Anglican Church in Kandy but his family were unable (or unwilling) to find the money to send him there. (such homes are quite a new thing here - most old people are cared for by their families.) Eventually, after much correspondence, his nephew quite unexpectedly decided to hire a man to look after Mr. Lappen and his younger brother in the brother’s house. So long as the two can get on, this simple, cheaper solution should work. For us, the lesson seems to be that (a) local solutions are invariably the best and (b) we aren’t always the help we think ourselves to be. (But we wonder what would have happened if we hadn’t made a fuss.)

The two week mid-Semester break in August was divided between the Methodist Conference and time with our close friends Jennie, Lottie and Robert who made the trip from England (8^th to 19^th August). It was wonderful to share something of our lives and the beauty of the island with them, and to catch up on all their news. The new semester system certainly worked in our favour this year, as we have not had a break from College in August before.

We ask for prayers/thoughts for all the issues and people mentioned in this newsletter.

Newsletter back copies are on our website together with a large number of pictures of our life in Sri Lanka: see www.rosemaryandjames.methodistchurch.co.uk. Our postal address is: The Theological College of Lanka, Nandana Uyana, Pilimatalawa 20450, Sri Lanka.