15 minute read
Thank you
Champions for Chad
Row, Kenneth, row!
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A huge shout out to fundraising
superstar Kenneth Hall! After hearing from BMS World Mission surgeons Andrea and Mark Hotchkin about the need for an X-ray facility at the hospital in Bardaï, Chad, Kenneth wanted to help. “When I told Andrea and Mark, they suggested I row the equivalent of the distance from Bardaï to the nearest X-ray facility in North Chad.” That came to a whopping 656km – but Kenneth wasn’t fazed! He completed over 6,500 pulls on his rowing machine over three days and ended up raising over £13,000! “For anyone thinking of fundraising for BMS, I say go for it!” he says. Thanks Kenneth!
All the children who took part in the Easter community trail got a free Easter egg – yum!
Giving life – for the cost of an Easter egg
The wonderful folks down at Prince’s Drive Baptist Church, Wales had a great idea for an Easter fundraiser – encouraging the congregation to donate what they might spend on an Easter
egg! These generous gifts, along with donations collected on their community Easter trail guiding people through the Easter story, led to them raising an amazing £2,517.15! That money will contribute to the cost of C-sections at Guinebor II hospital. “It is a blessing to play a small part in the work that is happening in Chad,” says Miriam Finch. Thank you so much to everyone who took part – you’ve made a real difference!
To Chad and back!
The best kinds of fundraisers are the ones which grow bigger than ever expected – which is what happened at Kidlington Baptist Church
(KBC). What started as a youth group endeavour to get more active during lockdown became a churchwide attempt to walk the distance to Guinebor II hospital in Chad and back, all to raise money for BMS’ Operation: Chad appeal. “It just blew up,” says youth worker Scott Cheeseman. “We even had people from outside the church sending us miles!” Tallied up, participants managed to walk around 7,962 miles and raised over £3,400 – well done to everyone at KBC!
For as long as it takes
Just as great power comes with great responsibility, great crises can come with great opportunity. We’re so thankful that, in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic, you have taken every opportunity to support your neighbours around the world.
T
hrough your prayer and financial support, BMS World Mission has been there from the start of the pandemic: providing practical help and spiritual support to over 40,000 people in 24 countries
across 2020. Your giving enabled us to build a satellite Covid-19 hospital in Chad, as well as supply hospitals across several countries with essential equipment and supplies. And through your generous gifts, people right now in the countries hardest hit by Covid-19 are receiving essential food parcels, hygiene supplies, face masks and medical support. Grants funded by you are helping people to get back on their feet. Right now, they’re rebuilding lives and livelihoods devastated by the crisis.
But, as faithful supporters of BMS, you give so much more than just money… “Because of your prayer and partnership with us while we were facing difficult situations… our social department is transforming the lives of thousands of people,” says Dipak Rai, who heads up BMS’ partner in Nepal. And, along with your prayers, you’ve also put your faith into action.
All in this together?
Thousands of you signed our Campaign for a Covid-free World petition which we posted to No.10 in April this year. The petition calls on the UK Government to ensure that everyone can live in a world safe from Covid-19 – not just those in wealthy nations.
‘We’re all in this together’ is a phrase we’ve heard a lot since our world changed in early 2020. Unfortunately, the rhetoric doesn’t stretch to us ‘all being in it together’ when it comes to distributing the solution. At the time of writing, while the UK marked over half of
the population having been fully vaccinated against the disease and over 75 per cent having had their first vaccination, Sri Lanka had just managed to offer first vaccinations across one of their nine provinces – amounting to just over 25 per cent of the country’s population.
It’s an ongoing battle, but there are positive signs that things are beginning to change. At a recent G7 gathering, Boris Johnson stated that he wanted to see the world vaccinated by the end of 2022. We will keep working and praying until we see this become a reality.
And, as we do, your prayers, your giving and your actions remain as important as ever.
The church at work
So while we continue campaigning for equitable access to Covid vaccines, we also need to respond in communities where Covid-19 is causing damage right now. That’s why we launched our Global Covid relief appeal. We want to raise money to provide more hygiene bundles, vaccines and emergency support to communities in Albania, Sri Lanka and anywhere where, sadly, Covid is still an all-too-present and devastating reality.
The good news is that, as ever, in the midst of the turmoil, the church is at work. Over 70 years old and already facing health issues, Vera turned to Tek Ura, a BMS-supported church and community centre in Albania, when she was struggling to breathe in April last year. The church worker, Ada, helped get Vera admitted to hospital where she was placed on oxygen. Alone and scared, church members were the only people Vera could lean on during her long hospitalisation. “She didn’t know whether she had Covid as no-one had told her,” explains BMS-supported physiotherapist, Rexhina, who works at the centre. “But she said that ‘all the nurses were wearing big white suits’. At Tek Ura we were really worried about her, but thankfully she recovered.”
Since coming home, Vera has been attending activities at Tek Ura as society has begun to cautiously open up. But she is, understandably, very nervous. “She agreed to come to the health promotion session on ‘Staying safe, living with Covid’, says Rexhina. “Vera did not know where to go [for her vaccine]… She had felt that the vaccine was not for ‘someone like her’. Much of our health work at Tek Ura is around enabling people to understand how to access the services they need, and this has also become part of this health promotion session on Covid.”
As a result of the session, and the support that she’s receiving though BMS supporters, Vera is confident about getting her vaccine, and being part of her community again. That’s thanks to the money you’ve raised through the Global Covid relief appeal.
And in Sri Lanka, you’re getting vaccines to people who desperately need them. “My mother is 85 years old, wheelchair bound and has advanced dementia,” shares Suven, an attendee at the vaccine clinic your donations are keeping open in Colombo. “She has a day and a night carer, and with me and my siblings visiting her often in our family home, she was exposed to the Coronavirus. We were anxious about how we could get her vaccinated.” Your generous gifts will allow more vulnerable people like Suven’s mother to be protected. “The doctor in charge was very helpful, and the nurses kind,” says Suven. “They came to the car to give my Mum the vaccine as she finds crowds intimidating. We are so grateful to everyone involved and really hope this service will be made available to others too. Thank you!”
You gave Vera the confidence to go and get her vaccine.
COULD YOU GIVE
to the Global Covid relief appeal to help others like Vera and Suven’s mother?
We’re raising funds to protect vulnerable people in Albania, to vaccinate people in Sri Lanka, and to help around the world wherever the need is greatest. Go to www.bit.ly/GlobalCovidRelief today to find out more, and please consider giving what you can.
Across the world, there are many others like Vera and Suven’s mother who are isolated, vulnerable, hungry and without support. Vera was lucky to be able to get a hospital bed and the oxygen she needed but, as confirmed Covid cases rise across many poorer countries, the risks of running out of hospital beds and ventilators is very real.
Chaha* works as a nursing supervisor at a BMS-supported hospital in Nepal. “Many patients want to be under the supervision of health workers at the hospital,” Chaha told us. “Since we are only admitting serious patients due to the lack of beds, I feel bad that we are not able to fulfil their desire.”
But it’s not just their immediate health that is at risk. Without a vaccine, many people are struggling to work and, with a huge proportion of people in these countries engaged in daily wage labour, no work means no money, no healthcare and no food for their families. “Many people have lost their jobs due to Covid. Therefore, they cannot afford even basic healthcare,” explains Chaha.
In it for the long haul
We were bowled over when, at the Baptist Assembly this year, over £200,000 was given in response to the message from Dipak Rai, Executive Director of Nepali partner Multipurpose Community Development Service. He described how many families in Nepal have a choice to make between working their daily-wage jobs and risking catching Covid-19, or staying at home and plunging their family into increased hunger and poverty. The money that you gave means that fewer families are faced with that choice. The needs for Covid equipment, supplies and training in Nepal have been met – with enough money left over to help partners in other countries. Patients like Ishya* have recovered after being given treatment that they otherwise couldn’t afford, and have been reunited with their families.
“I had never faced such sickness in my life. I did not think I would be able to meet my family again,” says Ishya, a mother-of-two brought to a BMS-supported hospital with severe breathing problems, a high fever, a cough and chest pain. But doctors visited her on the ward, making her laugh and smile, and encouraging her to listen to music and to move around to lift her spirits. “I was so happy to be able to finally meet my family again,” Ishya says, after she was released from hospital a week later. “I would not be able to fight this on my own.” “Thanks to everyone who gave so generously to help our partners in Nepal and South-East Asia,” says Ben Drabble, BMS’ Director of Communications and Funding. “When I asked people to give the equivalent of a cup of coffee, I wasn’t expecting 60,000 cups!”
But there’s still a way to go. For every country like Nepal benefitting from increased Covid supplies and training, there are other countries still desperate for help. Countries you can reach through our Global Covid relief appeal. So, behind all the bad news on our screens, we thank you on behalf of our partners, our mission workers and the people they serve, for truly showing that ‘we’re all in this together’ as we work to rebuild a fairer world. For as long as it takes. • *Name changed
Liz and Sergio moved to Mozambique in 2013, to work alongside the Mozambican Baptist Convention and build capacity in community preschools. Food kits co-ordinated by Carlos contained rice, sugar, beans, oil, salt and sugar – and they also came with two face masks and information on Covid awareness.
We are family
BMS World Mission workers Liz and Sergio Vilela have been living out the Bible’s teaching that revolutionises what it means to be family in every circumstance. Read on to find out how.
Words: Hannah Watson Images: Jacob Barrell and the BMS Mozambique team
Each family has its struggles: it’s a cliché, but that’s because it’s true.
But in Mozambique, being family can bring its own unique challenges. If in the UK, the pandemic taught us that the word ‘family’ could mean love and loneliness, support and stress, ‘I miss you!’ and ‘We’ve spent way too much time together!’ all in the space of one day – well, in Mozambique, families have lived through two further cyclones since the devastation caused by Cyclone Idai in 2019, on top of a pandemic. Ordinary families often live extraordinarily tough lives.
BMS play therapist Liz tells the story of a friend whose husband had passed away with debts. In the course of his life, he’d fathered another family, as is common in Mozambique, and married a second wife. And while his pension was split evenly between the families, the responsibility for taking care of his ill health had not been shared – nor had the debt. But where family had become a source of sadness to this newly widowed lady, her church family comforted and prayed with her.
It’s just one story, but Liz and Sergio’s ministry in Mozambique truly does radiate love for families in whatever situation they’re in. Whether it’s the parents supported after the cyclones, the church families encouraged in their outreach, or the couples celebrating the blessings of Biblical marriage, families of all kinds have been helped to thrive in the most difficult of circumstances.
Helping families… when tropical storms come in threes
“Because of Idai, people were a bit more prepared. Families put sandbags on top of their houses, because last time a lot of them lost their roofs.” Liz and Sergio are reflecting on how people coped with the onslaught of Cyclone Eloise less than two years after storms Kenneth and Idai caused catastrophic damage in Mozambique. People may have been able to better shore up their homes, but another major concern was food. No quantity of sandbags can protect fields of crops from torrential rain. When
Food kits co-ordinated by Carlos contained rice, sugar, beans, oil, salt and sugar – and they also came with two face masks and information on Covid awareness. Cyclone Eloise displaced hundreds of thousands of people and caused millions of pounds worth of damage.
floodwaters washed away their allotments, families lost a whole year’s worth of food reserves – and Covid-19 restrictions that limited when people could work made the task of restoring what was lost even harder. As one tuk-tuk driver told Sergio: “I would prefer to die from any illness than to die from hunger.”
Seeing the scale of devastation, the Church family rallied round. The need was everywhere, so with Sergio’s support, a group of churches identified those who had lost their jobs, who were widowed or who were living with a disability as being amongst those they could help first. Using BMS Coronavirus relief funds that you helped raise, food parcels were purchased and distributed to 425 families, or roughly 1,616 people. And seeing the Church had followed through on its word to bring aid where so many others had spoken empty promises, a senior lady in one of the villages was prompted to exclaim of the Christians she encountered: “You are not a people who lie”. As Carlos Tique Jone, a BMS mission worker and Sergio’s colleague wrote in his prayer letter: “God has done many things in people’s lives through my work in this country. With your generosity and support, our BMS team was able to deliver food parcels for many families and bring to them the hope of having something to feed their families.”
Carlos’ letter says it all: the work would not be possible without God’s goodness and your gifts. Thank you for supporting Liz and Sergio to live alongside families in Mozambique, making a difference in the most difficult of circumstances. •
Helping families… after the worst has happened
“A child I worked with had to hide under a bed when the roof to his home came off,” says Liz. “It was raining, he was all wet and he stayed there all night.” For lots of the adults that Liz works with the response to crises is that when the worst is over, it’s done with – it’s been and gone. Little children don’t have those reserves to draw on, or the knowledge that the raging winds of a cyclone might soon pass. Liz has been working in orphanages, churches, preschools, and even with vulnerable families living in the shell of the deserted Grande Hotel in Beira, helping parents to understand how children respond to traumatic events. Knowing that you can help children through the unthinkable by giving them boundaries, affection and lots of love gives families hope to face the next crisis, together.
Helping families… and marriages to thrive
Sergio tells a story about taking his daughter to a local bread shop. A concerned lady stopped him, asking whether the girl’s mother had died. That’s how countercultural it can be for a father to be seen to be looking after his children in some Mozambican families. “If a man helps at home, others might say he’s not a real man,” says Sergio. “Or that his wife has put a spell on him through the witch doctor.” So, at Liz and Sergio’s church, a friend has run a Bible study, gently challenging couples in the congregation to live distinctively from a Biblical point of view. The fact that it’s a Mozambican man leading the study cuts through the idea that Christian models of marriage are for foreigners. “And they really liked it,” said Liz. “The women felt inspired.” “And the men heard that they should look after their wives” adds Sergio, “as Christ loved the Church.”
