My husband Phil and I worshipped with Friends from all across the Netherlands at the Amsterdam Friends Meeting. Beside Phil and I from Bloomington Friends Meeting in the US, a Friend also attended from England. We had sent a letter of introduction from the Bloomington Friends Meeting to Marianne Ijspeert earlier in the week.

After worship in Dutch, messages were translated into English. This was followed by introductions and tea, coffee, and cakes. Many conversations took place throughout the Meeting House. Soup was served for lunch. We enjoyed Dutch and English Friends and reconnecting with Wim Nusselder, who we had met several years prior. 

On World Quaker Day Bolton Quakers held a joint Meeting for Worship via Zoom with Quakers in Paderborn, Germany, which is twinned with Bolton. It was lovely to share the time together and begin to get to know each other. 

Quakers in France shared the message "May the new connections and relationships established on World Quaker Day grow and help us become the Quakers the world needs."

The BlackQuaker Project was happy to be able to offer a special programme to Geneva Meeting, Switzerland on World Quaker Day as Dr. Harold D. (Hal) Weaver was in Geneva as a guest of the Quaker United Nations Office director, Nozizwe Madlala Routledge.

Hereford Friends were delighted to share their Meeting for Worship on Zoom on World Quaker Day.  We had the lovely surprise of an Australian Friend who was married in Hereford Meeting House in 1996 and remembered some of our long-time members. We also had a Friend from Wales and from Telford Meeting. This was micro-sharing by comparison to many Meetings across the globe with large celebrations and visitors, but it still connected us to the ‘World Family of Friends’.

South Belfast Quaker Meeting welcomed Friends from around the world to worship with them online as one of the World Quaker Day host meetings.

Ireland Yearly Meeting also launched The Friendly Podcast featuring Quakers of all ages and backgrounds at home and abroad sharing their experiences and views as 21st century Friends/Quakers.

In the first episode Hugh O’Farrell-Walsh interviews:

• Tim Gee, General Secretary of Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC)

• Bridget Guest, Quaker Tapestry Museum, Kendal 

• Christopher Moriarty, Friends Historical Library, Dublin

A new episode will be released every Sunday at 9am during October and November 2022.

The podcast is available on a number of platforms, including Spotify, Google Podcasts, Pocket Casts and Apple Podcasts as well YouTube.

This World Quaker Day in Kyiv, Ukraine, Friends held their first in-person meeting since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, and welcomed a visitor who made it there from the US.

John Reuwer from the US visited Quakers Sergiy Kolesnyk, Slawek Gorokh, and guest Yurii Sheliazenko in Kyiv. The meeting included Friends virtually from Scotland and Lancaster, UK.  Many prayers for peace were offered during and after the meeting.  John presented them with a copy of David Hartsough's memoir Waging Peace, a book he recommends to anyone who ever wondered if it were possible to live not only a private life of nonviolence, but to give one's life to nonviolent activism in countless public forums. 

John shared: "We ate lunch and talked for hours about our very different and rather fascinating spiritual journeys toward the Religious Society of Friends, and our family and professional backgrounds.  Friends were open enough to share what is like to face war in one's own country, to not know whether you will live through the next week, and be separated from your family for long periods."

Lancaster Meeting was joined by the Quaker Meeting in Kyiv and individual Friends from Tbilisi Meeting, for our Meeting for worship on World Quaker Day.

Students at Ramallah Friends School celebrated World Quaker Day at Middle School library

Friends in Saffron Walden Meeting, Britain Yearly Meeting shared a video greeting with Quakers around the world.

Thanks to Zoom technology and intermittent links we maintain with Middletown Friends in Pennsylvania, USA, a 'daughter' meeting settled by Quakers from here in 1683, we shifted our timing of Meeting for Worship from 10.30 to 4pm so as to coincide with their timing. Members of both meetings worshipped together in their Meeting Houses and on Zoom. Ministry was varied and deep.

Middletown's Quarterly Meeting posted an account on their website.

All Age Worship for World Quaker Day

We were pleased to welcome four of our Young People to All Age Worship on World Quaker Day.  There was a ‘Wonderful World’ collage to fill with drawings and cut-outs illustrating life on land, air and sea.  Still on a world theme, Friends of all ages had each brought a treasured object from another country and explained what it meant to them.  We had items from six continents with stars stuck on the World map to show the locations.  One Friend sang a beautiful Spanish song, accompanying herself on her guitar.  It was a joyful Meeting for Worship, followed by a shared lunch with an international theme.

To celebrate World Quaker Day 2022 Winchmore Hill Quakers  explored their spirituality and creativity.

They used readings from Quaker Faith and Practice, techniques from the Experiment with Light programme and drawing on past Swarthmore Lectures “Art and Religious Experience” and “The Sense of Glory” along with related writings. It was an opportunity to see where spirituality can lead us into our own unique spontaneous creativity.