Christ Church engaging with God’s world

Christ Church has links with several mission partners…

• Bill and Wanda Lovett are based at Kisiizi Hospital in South-West Uganda. Read their blog.
• Dan Browne and his team are based in Afghanistan, offering general support, education and training.
• Philbert Khalisa heads up REACH in Rwanda. REACH stands for ‘Reconciliation, Evangelism and Christian Healing’. 
• And Charles and Lynn Barr-Johnston are missionaries based in Northern Argentina.

Christ Church supports our partners, and other projects, with prayer and financial giving. Each year we give away 10% of our income to World Mission.

The Diocese of Gloucester, of which we are a part, has links with the Diocese of Dornakal in South India. Christ Church paid for the construction of a new church building in a village called Kompelly. A team attended the dedication of the new building.

Nearer to home, each summer Christ Church mounts a fortnight of Prayer Visiting – calling from door to door to see if people have requests for prayer. Some of us are also involved in 'Tony's House' - working towards creating emergency accommodation for homeless people in Cheltenham.

 (Click on any of the logos to find out more)

From July / August 2008 Parish Magazine: Where the money goes…

Every year at Christ Church we tithe part of the amount received in collections and the proceeds of the Fête. In the past year we have supported a variety of Mission charities and organisations. Steve Osmond, on behalf of our World Mission Committee, has produced a very informative guide to the charities and groups we help. In total we gave £13,275 (some smaller donations are not included in this list).

Afghan Support Education & Training (ASET) £1,030
Teacher training progresses in the villages of northern Afghanistan with 260 teachers already trained. English classes with personal tuition continue in Kabul. Computer classes are to be taught in English and will start in very near future. 100 children and 8 local teachers are now in the kindergarten course programme. Building of $60,000 hospital is going well in village north of Mazar. HIV and TB prevention programme well under way in Sholgarra and health education to 30,000 people. In South/Central Ghazi province, a feeding programme for malnourished children and in neo-natal section of local hospital. In addition, training of hospital staff and at girl’s high school to speak English.

Cheltenham Community Projects (CCP) £300
CCP continues to serve the community and has recently set up a Cheltenham ‘1st Stop’ multi-agency centre in the Lower High Street. It provides an holistic range of Crisis and Preventative services to improve the lives of children, young people, families and vulnerable adults, specializing in engaging and working with people experiencing multiple complex problems relating to homelessness, family stability, physical and mental well being, deprivation and disadvantage, social responsibility and training, education and employment.

Cheltenham Youth for Christ (CYfC) £600
In January 2008 the team attended the annual YFC staff conference in North Wales – it was a time of quality teaching, encouragement and information. Paul led an away day for 20 youth and children’s leaders which looked at issues such as behaviour management, child protection and bringing the Bible to life. During April, Wes & Paul worked on a one to one basis, mentoring young people as they tackled challenges in their life. They ran a Respect group for Year 8 girls at Pittville School (which proved to be its most challenging so far!), a youth group session on self image and considered how God viewed them. Much improved levels of income will ensure keeping Wes in post for foreseeable future.

Christian Hope International (CHI) £150
With its partnership, Christian Hope India, it has installed 11 wells in small communities, shallow ones (less than 300 metres) are fitted with handpumps, if deeper then an electric pump is required. Knitting for the Stitches of Hope Project goes steadily on (with members aged from 55 to 96!) and hundreds of hand-made garments and blankets arrive at the depot, together with financial donations towards transport costs to send to Africa and Eastern Europe. One of the latest consignments went to an orphanage in Romania. CHI is currently trying to raise funds to send aid out to Southern Sudan.

Church Missionary Society (CMS) £3,500
Our CMS partners in Kisiizi, Adrian & Jane Shutt, have finally returned to the UK after 8 years’ service in Uganda. During that time, Adrian performed 4,926 operations and about 250 medical students visited his hospital. Their last letter included a ‘HUGE thank you’ for our financial and prayer support over the years. Adrian will be taking up a new post in the Isle of Man. Our new partners are Bill and Wanda Lovett whom we met in May, prior to their departure for Kisiizi, where Bill will be Head of Finance to the hospital and Wanda will be involved in the Nursing School and community health.

Church Pastoral Aid Society (CPAS) £1,500
There are six regional Ministry Advisers who continue CPAS’s evangelistic emphasis in helping local churches bring the gospel to every door. These advisers develop ways to help church leaders and members to think about new ways of ‘doing’ and ‘being’ church, which link to the creative work of the C/E’s Fresh Expressions initiative. They also run a summer season of life-changing Venture and Falcon camps for 8-18’s which 4,500 children & young people attended last year.

Diocese of Dornakal, South India £1,000
For the past six years, the Gloucester Diocese has had links with the Diocese of Dornakal in south India. Our vicar was invited to visit Dornakal and during his time there, laid the foundation to a new church at Kompelly, a small rural village. During the past two years, Christ Church has sent over £10,000 to Dornakal, including supporting Bishop Whitehead hospital and paying for the building of Kompelly church. Last year a party from Christ Church attended its official opening.

Hesters Way Family Space £200
Some members of Christ Church’s Mothers Union are actively involved with Family Space, where volunteers supervise contact time between separated families and their children. Family Space also aims to listen
to those parents who need someone to talk to; to build up their self-esteem and confidence; to enable parents to enjoy better relationships with their children and to give practical help and support, that can reduce stress levels for the whole family. Families who come to Stay and Play during term time look forward to plenty of summer holiday activities with weekly family swim sessions, sessions on the local primary school playing field and Family Days Out. The number of families is increasing, which means Family Space has to keep pace with that by increasing the level of support. If you would like to know more about helping with the contact centre and wish to visit it to see what goes on, please contact St Silas Centre, Hesters Way Road,Cheltenham, GL51 0SE Tel: 01242 580812

REACH (Reconciliation, Evangelism & Christian Healing) for Rwanda £1,030
Founder and Director, Philbert Kalisa, who has visited Christ Church, has had a busy few months recently travelling, receiving visitors and delivering seminars and training in different regions of Rwanda. Having refurbished the original house and relocated the staff office on the site, the foundation stone to the Centre for Peace and Unity was laid in July 2007 to provide a new venue for REACH events in the capital, Kigali, and hopefully will expand its work in due course to reaching out to neighbouring countries. Plans for the first phase of building are being finalized to include a large seminar hall and accommodation.

South American Mission Society (SAMS) £2,060
Our partners Lynn & Charles Barr-Johnston continue to faithfully work with the Anglican Church in Salta in Northern Argentina. Currently, there is more evangelistic outreach in the Juarez area than in Salta itself. Vicar Tuqui is preparing 8 new believers in Yema and Vicar Juan prepares another 8 in Quemado, an isolated village which was full of superstition when Lynn and Charles first started regular meetings in June 2001 and this will be the first baptism there. SAMS is considering merging with CMS. It aims to decide in principle towards the end of this year whether to merge or not.

World Vision
Several members of Christ Church sponsor children through World Vision, which reaches out to vulnerable children forced to live in unimaginable poverty. One of them, Lei Lie, lives in the hurricane-stricken part of Myanmar (Burma) and we anxiously await news of her, her family & their community. Although the government largely rejects outside help, World Vision has been working in this country for forty years and has already brought relief to 350,000 of those affected by the hurricane.