International women blogs - for daily bread and greater campaigning solidarity

So here this is another post to encourage people to read and leave comments on other blogs.
Today three more blogs - this time with an international flavour.
This week the WCC is holding its UN advocacy week in New York alot of my colleagues from Geneva will be there. However to get a fuller picture of some of the international work involving campaigning by NGOs and others at the UN I've been reading the Ecumenical Women at the United Nations blog for quite a while. There are some fascinating posts there - you can find posts from Cambodia, Kenya and Middle East among other places: comparing the role of women disciples of Jesus and female followers of Martin Luther King; about female condoms, child brides, shopping and fashion justice, the rich poor divide and much more besides. A few months ago the blog adverstised for new writers and as a result posting is much more regular and more diverse than in the past. It's a useful window onto international campaigns but with personal insights from the authors.
One of the new writers there is Paola Salwan, Programme Assistant for Africa, the Middle East and Europe at the World YWCA and co-founder of the blog Café Thawra, The blog is in French and English and offers insights into Middle East issues - a special dossier on the Lebanese communist party, where the left is in Middle East politics, as well as promotion of social entrepreneurship.
The Women's desk at the Lutheran World Federation is preparing for next year's LWF assembly with a blog on Give us Today our Daily Bread. As the women in ministries network prepares to meet on the theme of food for the soul perhaps someone would like to write something for their blog. As the issue of food security moves up the world agenda how do women, who grow, harvest and prepare much of the food eaten in the world, think about food justice and spirituality. I'll admit that as a woman who has spent most of her life eating far too much the "stuffed and starved" agenda is one I find particularly challenging. What does the promise of the heavenly banquet mean to those of us who live in permanent food plenty? Lots of issues around food will develop on the blog as preparations for the assembly in July next year advance, so why not drop by from time to time and join the discussions?

And finally here's a challenge (is there anybody reading these posts?) try to use the comments section here to link to a favourite website, blog or book.
Written by Jane

Hospitality, food and learning

I really enjoy reading Deirdre Good's splendid blog On not being a sausage and one post last week just read mmmm... if you clicked on the link you went here. Here's a taster of what you find:

“With any decent form of teaching,” says Good, a professor of New Testament at the General Theological Seminary, “you’ve got to show a form of hospitality.”
Cooking dinner for your class (and holding class in your house) may sound extreme, but Good was simply putting two and two together: she enjoys cooking, and many of her evening students would be coming from out of town needing dinner.
In that first class, one student looked down at his plate and quietly said to Good, “this is the best first seminar I’ve ever had.”

This made me think about how hospitality and eating together, feeling at home with one another, sharing a table are important parts of building community. But I can see too how eating together helps the learning process. With all of the catechism classes I've been involved in the best ones always involve regularly having a meal together. Our current KT class has a picnic together but a different person each time brings a cake to share, it's great communion.
So I started wondering about how hospitable our churches are and the place of food in our congregations and work places. what is the place of food, hospitality and table fellowship in your ministry?