Forty-five women from around the world begin their trek on 9 April to Mt. Everest Base Camp and summit of Kala Patthar Peak in Nepal.

The Freedom Climb team completes the first few days of the journey to Mt. Everest Base Came and Kala Patthar Peak. Please pray for them.

Every Friday, OM Hong Kong meets Pakistani women and children in neighbourhood parks, in an effort to demonstrate the love of God.

After hearing about God as a child, Ania reconnected with OM ten years later to learn more and share the truth with her family.

Denver Newsroom, May 8, 2020 / 05:29 pm (CNA).- Mother’s Day is going to look different for most families this year, due to the coronavirus pandemic.

For Catholics, some churches are in the process of slowly re-opening public Masses, but the dispensation from the Sunday obligation continues to stand, as the virus has not gone away and a cure or vaccine has yet to be found.

While most Catholics are eager to return to Mass, a small group of Catholics are relieved that they will not be sitting in a public pew this Mother’s Day.

“We actually heard from one woman who said, ‘I kind of feel badly about saying this, but I'm sort of glad that we won't be in the pews this year for Mother's Day,’” Ann Koshute, founder of Springs in the Desert Catholic ministry, told CNA.


“That's something that we hear and that everybody I think on the team has experienced at one point in this journey,” she said - the desire to avoid Mass on Mother’s Day. That’s because Koshute, along with other members of her ministry, have had painful experiences with infertility, and the customary Mother’s Day blessing given to mothers at many parishes that day can bring their grief and sense of loss poignantly to the fore.


“I think that so often people in our own families, our friends, and even our pastors don't really understand the full extent of the pain and the grief or even the full extent of the issue of infertility, of how many couples are really dealing with it,” she said.


The pain of infertility, and the lack of resources available to Catholics on the subject, was why Koshute and her friend, Kimberly Henkel, founded Springs in the Desert, a Catholic ministry to spiritually and emotionally support women and couples experiencing infertility and infant loss. Originally, Henkel and Koshute, who have both experienced infertility, thought they might write a book. But they decided to start with a ministry website and a blog that could bring people together and allow for other women and couples to share their experiences. The group is relatively new, and held its first retreat in Philadelphia in December. They were set to hold a second one this weekend - Mother’s Day weekend - in the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, when, well, the pandemic hit.

Now, they’ve moved the retreat online and opened it up to Catholics across the country - and they’ve been overwhelmed by the response.

“We thought that we would be really excited if maybe a couple dozen people found out about it and came. We are over 100 participants now. And it's free and it's going to be available all weekend,” Koshute said. The retreat is trying to address the emotional and spiritual experience of infertility and loss for a broad range of people, Henkel said - from mothers who have miscarried, to women who are past child-bearing years and still grieving the loss of infertility, to women “who feel like their biological clocks are ticking and just haven’t met the right guy.” But now that it's a virtual, pre-recorded, watch-at-your-leisure retreat, it also has the potential to reach a population that is often more reluctant to gather in groups and talk about their experiences of infertility: men. “It's mostly women who are emailing us (about the retreat), although we know that many of their husbands will watch with them. But we've also had a few men email us,” Koshute said.


“One in particular, it just really touched my heart. And he said that he was searching the web for help for his wife on Mother's Day. And I was just so filled with praise and thanksgiving to God for that, for a husband to see that hurt in his wife and to want to find a way to help her,” she added. Men and women typically experience the grief of infertility quite differently, Koshute noted. “For us women, it's so visceral because life is conceived within us and we carry that life. But for a man, it's so different,” she said.

“(Men are) kind of distant from that experience until the child is actually born. And so I think many times men, the grief and the burden that they carry is their wife's. They really carry her sadness and I think feel at a loss because they want to make everything right. They want to fix this, and they want to make her whole. And the mystery of infertility is that it's not that simple. And that's one of the things that makes it so difficult,” she said. Henkel said she experienced her own difficulties in trying to discuss infertility with her husband. Now that they’ve experienced the joy of growing their family through adoption, she said, he is much more open to inviting other men to share their experiences. Henkel said she is hoping that an additional benefit of this retreat being online is that it will facilitate discussions between couples watching the videos together. Both Henkel and Koshute said that while the experience of infertility and loss is painful, and they want to help couples acknowledge and accept that pain, they also want Springs in the Desert to be a positive and supportive experience for couples and women, where they can find hope and redemption even in their suffering. One of the topics they focus on is how all women are called to motherhood in their lives, whether it is spiritual or biological.

“My experience has shown me that my motherhood is really engaged in so many ways that I never considered before,” Koshute said.

“Not just with my godson or with other children in my family, but with women who are older than I who are friends and who might come to me with a difficulty or problem and I can help them,” or by helping family members in need or through charitable works, she added. “That's one of the messages that we try to get across to women and to couples as well, that those kinds of things, what we would maybe refer to as spiritual motherhood, is not illegitimate,” she said.

“It's not second-place. It's a real way of engaging and living out our motherhood. It's also not a replacement for a baby. So it's not as if you go out and volunteer in your community and now you won't have this longing for a child anymore. But we've really found through our own experience and through talking with other women that the more we kind of put ourselves out there and give ourselves to others, the more that we can begin to see that motherhood enacted in us.”

Henkel said she also likes to encourage couples to look at the ways God is calling them to be fruitful in their marriages outside of biological children.

“We really encourage these couples that they are not forgotten, they're not being punished. That God loves them so much and that he has something amazing for them. He's using this to draw them near to him and to allow them to cry out to him and ask for him to guide them, to lead them, to give them his love and show them what fruitfulness he has for them, what place in ministry and mission he has for them.” Henkel and her husband in particular like to share with couples their experience of foster care as one example of where God might be calling them to be fruitful. After a frustrating and expensive experience with some adoption agencies, Henkel and her husband decided to look into giving a home to children through foster care.

“Here is a situation where these children really need families,” she said. “It's hard because there's no guarantee you're going to get to keep this child, so there's a sense of this new greater level of having to learn how to trust God.” “I think that with a couple discerning that fruitfulness, it's also discerning - where is God really calling you? There's so much need in this world. And he wants to use us.”

Couples interested in the Springs in the Desert Mother’s Day weekend retreat can sign up for free online at the Springs in the Desert website. Content will be uploaded and available for anyone who registers, Henkel said, even if they register late. The retreat team will also be hosting a live talk on Sunday, May 10 at 2 p.m. Eastern on the ministry’s Facebook page.

“There's a place for you in Springs of the Desert,” Henkel added. “There's so many women who have reached out to us in Philly. We added several more women to our group, to our team, our official team, women who came to the retreat. One woman had come there and she said she had had a miscarriage, and neither one of us has experienced that. So we said, please join us. We want your voice.”

“We're trying to really bring the voices of many different women to our team so that people will feel there is somebody that is talking they can really relate to. Because there are all of these different situations, but they've got obviously a very similar undercurrent.”

An English teacher, who has lived in North Africa for many years, has the opportunity to share with students about Easter and what it means.

An OM worker visits an islamic university while trying to build a deeper relationship with a religious friend.

Forest Hill is a town in the Lockyer Valley infamous for being one of three towns in Queensland completely evacuated during last January's floods. About 300 people were airlifted by helicopters to higher ground leaving behind homes, all belongings and even pets. They had no idea what would come of those things left behind. OM Australia suggested the idea as a good way to utilise some funds donated to flood recovery. The Forest Hill Development Association Inc. in conjunction with the Laidley Baptist Church used this money to put on a community fair. It was an opportunity for the town to say thank you to those who had helped with the flood clean up and also to build the morale of the community. At the same time the involvement of the Church would raise the profile of Christ in the community.

Churches in Ukraine are busier than ever as Christians gain a vision for mission and reach out to others.

A volunteer from Hong Kong shares about her experience on a short-term trip, visiting orphans and elderly Jewish people.

Compiled by: Antigoni Markitani

Compiled by: Antigoni Markitani

Compiled by Antigoni Markitani

Compiled by: Antigoni Markitani

Quiet, crisp and clear winter days are perfect for exploring Scotland’s most spectacular coast and countryside scenery – especially with the promise of a wholesome, heart-warming meal and a cosy room after a day exploring. While Munro-bagging at this time of year might be a little too ambitious, Scotland has no shortage of shorter and more gentle winter walks, all within a stone’s throw of some of Scotland’s best foodie destinations. Here is a selection of Scotland’s top 10 winter walk

Disney, one of the most famous names in film, has launched a new TV service, called Disney Plus. Coming to a living room near you.

COMPLAINTS about holidays have overtaken job concerns as the number one issue for hundreds of Scots contacting two independent national advice services every day during the coronavirus crisis.

A look at how Poland celebrated the first UEFA Grassroots Day.

We check out the UEFA Grassroots Day activities that took place at the Malta Football Association national training centre in Ta'Qali.

We visit Lesser Hampden to see how Scotland celebrated UEFA Grassroots Day.

UEFA recognises the most notible contributions to grassroots football in 2011.

On 16 May 2012 the third UEFA Grassroots Day will take place in Munich.

We round up a busy fortnight of UEFA Grassroots Day activities in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

Choose a fragrant gift for your gardening mum, whether it's plants, flowers or botanicals. Hannah Stephenson sniffs out 10 ideas.

AROUND five people a day are being seen at Covid hubs across Scotland as demand for the service declines.

I’ve been longing to eat Korean food ever since seeing Bong Joon-Ho’s phenomenal Oscar-winning film, Parasite, his interrogation of class and wealth on the plate. The wealthy mother tells her housekeeper to prepare jjapaguri, essentially an everyday dish, commonly made with two sorts of instant noodles. What makes this one exclusive and upper class is its topping of steak, from indigenous, highly prized Hanwoo cattle, which is way more expensive than Waygu beef would be here. Only the Korean

Over 120 children from the Minsk area enjoyed football-based activities on the day of the Belarus Super Cup match, highlighting the link between grassroots and elite football.

If you can't see elderly parents, or friends with medical conditions, what can you do to keep in touch? You can send a letter, of course, or make a landline phone call, but video calls allow you to speak and see each other.

IT was a sombre appraisal, but the sense of relief was self-evident. “The war in Europe has ended at the last more suddenly than we sometimes dared to hope”, began the Glasgow Herald’s leading article on the morning of Tuesday, May 8, 1945.

It was 3pm on May 8 1945 when Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill addressed the nation from the Cabinet Room announcing that “we may allow ourselves a brief period of rejoicing,” but that message instead led to three days of partying in Glasgow’s George Square, children were given time off school and families were looking forward to being reunited again.

There will be no street parties on the 75th anniversary of VE Day on Friday, and it’s uncertain how many will participate in the virtual versions being touted on social media.

IT was on board a supply ship which had docked in the port of Marseille that Barney Roberts learned the news that the war was over.

It dates back to1885 and started out as a fund to help military families at home while the Second Expeditionary Force set sail for Egypt. Major James Gildea wrote a letter appealing for money and a fund was set up to provide allowances.

It was 25 years ago this month that the sporting world witnessed a miracle when the former pariah state of South Africa hosted what many people still consider to be the best ever Rugby World Cup finals.

By Kristy Dorsey

For a limited time, the 7-inch Fire 7 Kids Edition is $40 off while the 8- and 10-inch models are both $50 off. These tablets make a great gift for 3-to-12-year olds.

The popular Roomba 675 is just $199 today, the 8-inch Amazon Fire HD 8 is only $50, and the 2TB Crucial MX500 2.5-inch SSD is back on sale for $200.

It was 50 years ago this week that one of the greatest golfers ever to grace the greens set out on his quest to win his first US Masters championship.

The Rolling Stones have released their first new song in eight years. Unlike everything else they've done in the last three decades, it's bang up to date. It even references the coronavirus crisis.

A FEW weeks ago, Wendy James was trending on Twitter. It’s been happening quite often over the last few months, a result of BBC Four’s repeats of Top of the Pops reaching 1988 and 1989, the years in which a pink-lipsticked, bra-flaunting James launched herself on the public consciousness as the brash, blonde frontwoman of Transvision Vamp.

The European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill got the Royal Assent this week. It was then solemnly signed, sealed and ratified by Ursula von der Leyen, the new President of the European Commission. We’re finally out.

Mardi Gras in New Orleans has always had a gothic element. The voodoo culture dates from the African American diaspora, though it’s now mostly for tourists. But this year there was an authentically macabre dimension to Fat Tuesday.

The Government has defended missing its key 100,000 target for coronavirus tests for the sixth day in a row, highlighting “daily fluctuations” in availability.

EVERY crime fiction fan will be familiar with the good cop-bad cop routine. One officer is friendly with a suspect to secure their cooperation, the other plays hard ball; one cop is a stickler for the rules, the other is a maverick.

HOW does an opposition oppose without appearing to oppose for opposition’s sake? That is the tricky situation in which Labour now finds itself as the death toll from coronavirus reaches a horrific new high.

Framed prints of Steven Camley's cartoons are available by calling 0141 302 6210.”

Framed prints of Steven Camley's cartoons are available by calling 0141 302 6210

Framed prints of Steven Camley's cartoons are available by calling 0141 302 6210.”

Framed prints of Steven Camley's cartoons are available by calling 0141 302 6210

Framed prints of Steven Camley's cartoons are available by calling 0141 302 6210