Mission news

Patient care improved in Gahini

Mission partners Catriona and Steve Bennett’s Improving Access to Safe Surgery project has been able to move forward by God’s grace throughout 2020, despite Catriona and Steve being on leave in the UK for six months.

While still in Rwanda in 2019, anaesthetist Catriona and general surgeon Steve began working to improve care for surgical patients through much-needed upgrades to Gahini Hospital’s surgery and orthopaedic wards.

A refurbished surgical ward at Gahini Hospital in use

Building work started at the end of 2019, and new equipment started to arrive in March 2020, but then Catriona and Steve returned to the UK for six months. In their absence, the hospital’s high dependency area was equipped and quickly received its first patients. Newly qualified doctors began to once again come to Gahini for surgical training. The hospital was also allocated intern doctors, bringing added teaching responsibilities to Catriona and Steve, who are both passionate about training.

Catriona and Steve are hoping to further improve access to surgery at the hospital through the addition of more specialist staff as well as training in critical care for current staff to enable them to make the best use of the facilities and maximise the benefit to patients.

Prizes for pioneers

Two students on CMS’s Pioneer Mission Leadership Training have won awards for initiatives launched during lockdown.

Rachel Summers

Rachel Summers, CMS MA student and graduate of the St Cedd Centre, was given a Lockdown London Tree Champion award for helping people notice trees. On her walks around Walthamstow, Rachel chalked the names and characteristics of local trees on the pavement. This grabbed the attention of social and traditional media, and of the London Tree and Woodland Awards. They highlighted: “The fun and simple method of identification was eye-catching for people exploring their local area, possibly for the first time… raising the profile of the urban forest, giving some fun facts and helping us to appreciate the nature around us.”

Meanwhile pioneer vicar Adam Gompertz, who developed the REVS initiative for classic car enthusiasts while studying at CMS, launched REVS Limiter – a Facebook live event in May, which grew to include further events REVS Restored and REVS Refuelled and Ready. These attracted thousands of classic car enthusiasts around themes of restoration and hope – with Adam, the Rev, sharing a prayer and blessing to close the events. REVS Limiter and the followup events won the Social Media Award for 2020 from the Classic and Sports Car Club and the Lockdown Initiative 2020 at the Historic Motoring Awards.

Adam Gompertz

Hope in Honduras

A young member of the mentoring scheme run by mission partner Steve Poulson in Honduras was baptised recently, and is taking steps towards his dream job.

Street Kids Direct, the charity Steve works with, have known Ever and sponsored him through school since he was 13 or 14. Ever and his brother are the first in their family to graduate not only from secondary school but from primary school.

Ever chose to be baptised ahead of starting police training in Honduras

Ever, now 21, wants to be a mechanic in the police and needs basic police training. He was accepted into the police academy during lockdown and Steve led him through discipleship ahead of his training. About a month before going to the academy, Ever decided to be baptised. The pastor, Dionilo, and Steve baptised him the day before he left for training.

After six weeks of training, Ever has been promoted to assistant to the head of the training programme and leads prayer and devotions for his friends most evenings. Steve comments, “It’s so encouraging to see a young person really growing and taking concrete steps, and naturally sharing [faith] with the people around him.”

Jenny Green: from Kisoro to Carlisle

Jenny Green has now retired after 26 years as a CMS mission partner. Having initially signed up for three years, Jenny ended up spending

Jenny Green

20 years in Kisoro, Uganda. There, she founded Potter’s Village, a child health centre to rescue babies and children who have no other chance of survival. Mission partner Nicci Maxwell has since picked up the baton, providing paediatric and neonatal medical care at Potter’s Village.

After her time in Uganda, Jenny returned to the UK with her two adopted children, Joe and Hannah. God led her back to Bradford, where she lived when he had originally called her to mission, and she served in Bankfoot as a community chaplain for six years. She has now relocated to Carlisle with her son.

In Jenny’s own words: “No mission partner has had more loyal, faithful, generous, caring supporting churches than I had. Your love and support continue to humble me and I pray God rewards your loving hearts.”

A fond (semi) farewell

This month we bid a semi farewell to Church Mission Society international mission director Paul Thaxter, who moved on from his role but who will always remain a beloved part of the CMS family.

Paul worked as a CMS mission partner in Pakistan in the 1990s, with the Ibtida Drug Rehabilitation Project in the Diocese of Karachi. He then served as international mission director for 19 years and played a key role in helping establish CMS-Africa and Asia-CMS.

Paul Thaxter

“It has been an absolute privilege to work with such a dedicated mission community who particularly take risks for the Kingdom of God,” Paul said, adding that he rejoiced in the growth of CMS’s local partner programme over the years.

CMS’s CEO Alastair Bateman shared, “While I have only worked with Paul for 18 months of his 25 years with CMS, I count it such a privilege to know him and to serve with him. He has enormous breadth and depth of mission experience and he embodies the love of Jesus. As we’ve worked together to discern the way forward for CMS’s future, I have been so thankful for Paul’s knowledge, insight and wisdom. I know he will be praying for us, as we will for him.”

In autumn the search commenced for a new international director and the process is ongoing.

Ugandan children learn to use their voices

In 2020, 40 children from 10 communities in Uganda were equipped to stand up for their human rights, through a creative programme mission partner Helen Kisakye helped lead called the Hope Project.

In November, this culminated in a Hope Academy camp, where children learned about their rights through music, dance and media – and had a lot of fun too. Helen, who uses her dance instruction skills in mission, said, “From this experience the children will be more [able to face] the obstacles that come in life that try to rob them of their rights. They will also be able to share their knowledge with their peers.”

Children in Uganda learned about their rights at Hope Academy

Children who attended the Hope Academy camp said they’d learned to be more confident and how to make sure their voices were heard. Helen said she has enjoyed being part of this concerted effort to make sure children in Uganda understand they have a right to protection, participation, development and survival: “Children need more awareness to keep safe from harm.” In recent years, Christian leaders in Uganda have increasingly recognised the need to help children raise their voices more in church and society.

NEWS IN BRIEF

Bishop Patrick Harris...

former bishop of Northern Argentina and of Southwell and Nottingham, secretary of Partnership for World Mission for the Church of England and president of SAMS, died on 26 December. Pat was well known to the CMS family, having served as a SAMS missionary 1963–1980 and been heavily involved in promoting world mission. A tribute from mission partner Nick Drayson, current bishop of Northern Argentina, is at churchmissionsociety. org/patharris

Mission partner Andy Roberts...

founder with his wife Rose of ReVive International, has been awarded an MBE in the New Year’s Honours for services to vulnerable children in north east Brazil. ReVive runs safe houses for vulnerable children and is working with churches and government to promote fostering and adoption.

Walk the Way:

Former mission partner and bishop of Northern Argentina Maurice Sinclair has developed a resource called Walk the Way: Intentional Discipleship. This course helps participants to deepen their relationship with Christ by entering into the experience of the first disciples. It is available at www.cofe.io/ IntentionalDiscipleship

FINANCE UPDATE

Charlie Walker, director of finance and corporate services at Church Mission Society, looks back over a remarkable year.

What a year! Looking back over everything that has gone on this past year, no one could have forecast it, no one would have wanted it, and yet we continue to rejoice and be thankful.

We have rejoiced with AsiaCMS and CMS-Africa as they have re-engineered their work to serve the emergency needs in their regions. We rejoiced to see our partners in Beirut helping in the aftermath of the blast, and as we’ve seen some of our local partners opening up a school for Syrian refugees (see page 20). We’ve rejoiced as we’ve seen boxers in Romford getting baptised through a pioneer ministry. We’ve rejoiced as the Hope Up Close carol resource, Lament for Lent, a special edition of the Anvil journal about race, colonialism and mission, and so many of our other resources have been used widely by individuals, churches and communities.

And we are thankful too, hugely thankful. Our supporters and their response to our appeals have blown us away, none more so than 94-year-old Canon John Harwood, who managed to raise £15,000 for his sponsored walk (see page 22). I LOVE these stories, and there are many of them. We are constantly humbled by the desire and will of our CMS family and community to support God’s mission.